"A 51-year-old Florida man charged with attempted first-degree murder, among other offenses, refused the help of a public defender on seemingly racial grounds during his first court appearance, WKMG-TV reported on Thursday."
“I said not guilty,” Thomas Thorpe told a judge in Orange County Court. “I pleaded not guilty and I don’t want this negro (sic) standing next to me. I don’t want a negro (sic) standing next to me.”--Arturo Garcia
Hmm, I've gained new insight as to the persistence of the racial divide in this country. Apparently there are people who have difficulty determining when racism is in play. Note how this story is careful to state that the defendant refused assistance from the public defender on "seemingly" racial grounds. Watch the clip from the news; the newscasters also are not sure if Mr. Thorpe was being a racist by announcing that he didn't want a Negro standing next to him.
Perhaps any effort to move to a post racial society should begin with basic instruction in how to recognize racism. Please don't be hurt by this, but the majority of black people will be exempt from these classes as we find it to be an instant indicator of racism when someone announces that he doesn't want a Negro to stand next to him. Especially when that Negro may be all that stands between him and spending the rest of his life in prison. Let's face it; we have superior recognizing racism radar.
By the way, the judge is concerned about Mr. Thorpe's mental fitness and has ordered that he be evaluated as to whether he is mentally fit to stand trial. Thorpe is an idiot, as racists typically are, but it's a stretch to think that spouting racism is an indicator that one is mentally ill and incapable of participating in one's own defense. If expressing racism is a sign of mental illness, we really need to get busy building a lot of new mental health facilities to house the number of unfortunate racists in these United States.
However, the larger issue regarding the ability to recognize racism is a major breakthrough in advancing to Utopia--a post racial society. This uncertainty as to when racism is present explains so much!
I have often heard many white people accuse black people of playing the race card. It's because they didn't see that there was any racism involved in an incident such as the murder of some unarmed black youth by an armed white adult male who claims that he was in fear of his life, until black people pointed it out! Of course they think we made it up because they were unable to see it for themselves!
The problem isn't racism; it's blindness.
Think that I'm wrong? Some white people are quick to assert that they don't see race! That's why they are not racists; they just have Race Blindness Syndrome (RBS). Let's hope that it's curable.
I wonder if anyone has told Mr. Thorpe that he may have to live in a prison cell with a Negro?
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2014
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Donald Sterling and the Low-life Ignorant Racist Club
But Donald, there are some things that bother me.
You haven't unequivocally denied the veracity of the audio tape. Instead, a statement has been issued on behalf of you and the Clippers organization declaring that after listening to the tape on TMZ, "We don't know if it is legitimate or if it has been altered..." If you don't know what you said, Donald, who does? The updated, extended version of the audio tape is even more horrifying than the initially released clip. It just seems to me that if you didn't say those things you would be shouting your denials via every available media outlet. Instead, you allege that you're unsure as to the authenticity of the tape while proclaiming that you are not a racist. Someone should tell you this--those things that you aren't certain if you said are racist Donald and if you said them, you are a racist. Email me if you need further clarification.
In addition, you've been accused of some pretty racist behaviors in the past. There have been lawsuits against you, Donald. There are multiple witnesses who have attested to you spouting your racist ideology and engaging in racist practices and policies in your business ventures. You haven't been subtle, Donald.
Perhaps you're mentally deranged and have poor eyesight. Haven't you ever noticed that there are a lot of Black people who help you make money in every game in which they play? What about the Black and Hispanic people who pay good money to attend LA Clippers games?
Your behavior has been disgraceful, Donald, and you need to own up to it and then start making amends. Find something to do with your massive wealth to improve race relations in this country. You have a lot of company in the "low-life ignorant racists club" based on the comments on the stories about your recorded racist meltdown. Become a part of the solution. It's the least that you can do.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Just Some Random Thoughts on Race
I've been reading a lot of material about race and racism in America here lately. A friend suggests that addressing white racism needs a more humane approach to guide white people into confronting their racism and dealing with it. I'm not feeling so generous.
I'm tired of waiting for white people to understand the obvious. I'm tired of reading nasty racists comments on a story about fashion. Almost any topic on the Internet can be used by those who want to spread racist hate to do so. I'm tired of having to coddle white racists and I'm at the point where I don't really give a damn if they go screaming into an insane asylum. I agree with an old friend, a white southerner, who says that white people need to talk to other white people about racism.
How long does it take for white people to recognize that they have participated in and benefited from a monstrous system? When I was a child growing up in a society of "no colored allowed" signs, I thought that we were going to move beyond that. I thought that Dr. King's dream was going to become a reality. But while legalized racism has been dismantled, societal norms and social conventions haven't caught up. Since Obama's elections, racism has become more public. A 17 year old unarmed black male is deemed suspicious by a neighborhood vigilante who follows him, shoots him and then successfully argues that it was self-defense. I can accept that the jury viewed the evidence as insufficient to convict. What pisses me off is all of the white people who assert that Zimmerman's stalking of Martin had nothing to do with race. Are they really so ignorant that they don't know that "looks suspicious" is code for walking while black in Zimmerman's world? There was no reasonable cause for Zimmerman to follow Martin, exactly what is suspicious about a kid walking through a neighborhood?
I just read a comment by a white male in NC who talked about how well his integrated neighborhood gets along. He extolled the image of all the neighbors being friends. I'd love to talk to the black people in his neighborhood and find out how many of them agree with him.
My experience has been that it is always up to the black people to conform to white society in order to be accepted by the more enlightened liberal whites. There is nothing that we can do to be accepted by the sheet wearing crew. Wearing the mask, that is cloaking our connections to black cultural norms, is psychologically harmful and emotionally draining. We've been doing it since the first Africans were carted to these shores in the belly of a ship. There was and is immense pressure from the white culture for black people to assimilate culturally if we wish to be reasonable successful in the larger society. I don't want a colorblind society. I want to be appreciated as a black southern woman. Race is a social construct but my black cultural identity is an essential part of who I am.
President Obama's recent words about the Zimmerman verdict were beautiful and heart felt but they've also been said over and over again and haven't really made much difference. White people are not only still clinging to racist generalizations but when all else fails, they accuse black people of "reverse racism" and with sincere indignation declare that it is black people, led by that irascible duo of Sharpton and Jackson who keep racism alive.
I have no more patience with the persistence of racism and I certainly don't have the emotional energy to help white people learn how not to be racist.
White people are not the victims but the perpetrators of a system of racial exclusion that has persisted long past the end of chattel slavery and imposed social and economic consequences on black people that have impeded our ability to successfully and fully compete in the economic infrastructure in this country leaving us disproportionately represented in the underclass and in the nation's prison system. I find this to be unacceptable and I think that it's long overdue for white people who know better to talk to those who don't, about racism in America.
I'm tired of waiting for white people to understand the obvious. I'm tired of reading nasty racists comments on a story about fashion. Almost any topic on the Internet can be used by those who want to spread racist hate to do so. I'm tired of having to coddle white racists and I'm at the point where I don't really give a damn if they go screaming into an insane asylum. I agree with an old friend, a white southerner, who says that white people need to talk to other white people about racism.
How long does it take for white people to recognize that they have participated in and benefited from a monstrous system? When I was a child growing up in a society of "no colored allowed" signs, I thought that we were going to move beyond that. I thought that Dr. King's dream was going to become a reality. But while legalized racism has been dismantled, societal norms and social conventions haven't caught up. Since Obama's elections, racism has become more public. A 17 year old unarmed black male is deemed suspicious by a neighborhood vigilante who follows him, shoots him and then successfully argues that it was self-defense. I can accept that the jury viewed the evidence as insufficient to convict. What pisses me off is all of the white people who assert that Zimmerman's stalking of Martin had nothing to do with race. Are they really so ignorant that they don't know that "looks suspicious" is code for walking while black in Zimmerman's world? There was no reasonable cause for Zimmerman to follow Martin, exactly what is suspicious about a kid walking through a neighborhood?
I just read a comment by a white male in NC who talked about how well his integrated neighborhood gets along. He extolled the image of all the neighbors being friends. I'd love to talk to the black people in his neighborhood and find out how many of them agree with him.
My experience has been that it is always up to the black people to conform to white society in order to be accepted by the more enlightened liberal whites. There is nothing that we can do to be accepted by the sheet wearing crew. Wearing the mask, that is cloaking our connections to black cultural norms, is psychologically harmful and emotionally draining. We've been doing it since the first Africans were carted to these shores in the belly of a ship. There was and is immense pressure from the white culture for black people to assimilate culturally if we wish to be reasonable successful in the larger society. I don't want a colorblind society. I want to be appreciated as a black southern woman. Race is a social construct but my black cultural identity is an essential part of who I am.
President Obama's recent words about the Zimmerman verdict were beautiful and heart felt but they've also been said over and over again and haven't really made much difference. White people are not only still clinging to racist generalizations but when all else fails, they accuse black people of "reverse racism" and with sincere indignation declare that it is black people, led by that irascible duo of Sharpton and Jackson who keep racism alive.
I have no more patience with the persistence of racism and I certainly don't have the emotional energy to help white people learn how not to be racist.
White people are not the victims but the perpetrators of a system of racial exclusion that has persisted long past the end of chattel slavery and imposed social and economic consequences on black people that have impeded our ability to successfully and fully compete in the economic infrastructure in this country leaving us disproportionately represented in the underclass and in the nation's prison system. I find this to be unacceptable and I think that it's long overdue for white people who know better to talk to those who don't, about racism in America.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The Hypocrisy of Herman Cain
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| Illustration by Mark Olmsted |
However after much thought, I think that evil is the most accurate term to describe GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. He's also a lying, shameless hypocrite.
Cain is older than I am and he grew up in the Jim Crow south. Born in 1945 in Tennessee, his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he grew up. I don't have to question whether or not Cain's life was impacted by segregation and racism. His mother worked as a cleaning woman, and his dad held three jobs as a barber, janitor, and a chauffeur at the same time in order to make ends meet. Cain grew up poor and black in the deep south; he couldn't avoid experiencing racism.
Atlanta's Antioch Baptist Church North, of which Cain is a member, is a liberal black church with a congregation of 14,000 and an annual operating budget of more than $5 million. Antioch is known for hosting a "who's who" of civil rights activists as guest speakers. (The CNN Belief Blog, Eric Marrapodi & John Blake, The Liberal Church of Herman Cain, 10/18/11.) A recent article in the CNN Belief Blog includes interviews with some members and former members of the church who know Cain. It seems that many do not agree with his politics and avoid conflict by not discussing their differences. (Id.)
I don't buy for a moment that Cain really believes that the GOP has the best interests of low income people on their radar, and he fully knows that a disproportionate number of poor people are African-American and Hispanic.
Rev. Frederick Robinson, former associate pastor at Antioch Church, and a friend of Cain, is quoted as stating, “He knows there’s racism in the tea party, but he’ll never say that because they are his supporters. That bothers a lot of people, but he plays to that base not because he’s a sellout but because he’s a politician.” (The CNN Belief Blog.)
I say it's because he is a sellout, a hypocrite, and evil. Cain knows firsthand what racial apartheid means and yet he offers electric fences with sufficient voltage to kill those attempting to cross the border as a solution to unwanted immigration. He then tries to dismiss it as a joke. Let's suppose that Rick Perry made a joke about lynching black folks, anyone laughing yet?
A lot of Cain's popularity comes from his skin color. There is nothing that annoys some white people more than having attention called to any racist behavior exhibited by any white person. The immediate response is typically, "I'm not a racist." Witness the response to thoughtful analyses by writers, white and black, about the role race plays in the level of vitriol directed at Obama since his first day in office. Many appear incapable of hearing the messages, which generally are not accusing whites of intentional racism but are instead questioning perceptions and expectations that may be grounded in harmful racial stereotypes.
Cain is a black man who says what Tea Party types want to hear. He blames poverty on the laziness of those who are poor. He proclaims that Obama is a socialist out to destroy the country. He advocates killing illegal immigrants rather than letting them cross our borders. He thinks that all social welfare programs just make people lazy and greedy and would eliminate them under his watch. What's not to love if you're a Tea Partier?
Magically, whites who are uncomfortable with any discussion of race and who consciously or subconsciously promote racist attitudes can say with proud defiance, "I am not a racist, after all I support Herman Cain."
Prostituting the heritage of black people's oppression in this country for his political gain is shameful and yes, that makes Cain evil and dangerous. His repeated affirmations that issues of race are figments of the imagination of people of color undermine the progress that has been made in honestly and openly addressing the legacy of racism in this country. He insults the memory of all those who fought and died in the struggle to defeat Jim Crow and promote equality. His head should be bowed in shame over his minstrel show act performed for the gleeful Tea Party crowds that hang on his every word.
Why label Herman Cain as evil? Because he is indifferent to the needs of others, indifferent to the suffering endured by those who came before him and fought for the liberties that allow him to run for office. He takes no responsibility for his words, using them to further incite those who oppose the very concept of social justice. In the words of Elie Wiesel, "Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil." It is indifference, the refusal to act to prevent injustice, that provides evil with the fertilizer that it needs to grow.
Friday, September 23, 2011
That Four Letter Word Again
Two days ago I read an article that I found of interest, "Black President, Double Standard: Why Liberals Are Abandoning Obama." (Melissa Harris-Perry, The Nation, October 10, 2011). Desiring to share the piece with others, I posted it to my Facebook Wall a day ago. Forty comments and a few attacks later, I've decided to further share my thoughts via blogging.
Some of those who read the article took offense at their perception that the author was labeling all white liberals who don't support Obama as racists. Regrettably, they were unable to get beyond protesting loudly, "I am not a racist." Hush, no one said that you were.
The thesis of the piece is not that white liberals who question Obama's policies are racists. It fascinates me that when the term racism appears in any piece of writing, particularly by a black person, that the immediate reaction of so many whites is to become indignant at being called a racist. Makes it sort of difficult to get to the heart of the matter being discussed.
Harris-Perry's essential point can be summed up in these lines:
She then tackles the issue of the criticism of Obama, who has actually accomplished a great deal, and how the liberal base appears to hold Obama to a far higher standard than the most recent Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Essentially, Perry's discussion is informed by the noble savage archetype that has characterized much of the European interaction with indigenous peoples or with those of African ancestry for generations. (See for example: Noble Savage, Magical Negro, or On Being a Noble Savage) Essential to this archetype is elevating the non-white to a favored status as noble and honest, an admirable race in spite of its oppressed status. This archetypal pattern is particularly seen in American culture, indeed it is promoted in much of early American literature in works such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "The Last of the Mohicans." These unrealistic portraits lead to expectations that are based on a glorified and mythological image rather than the realities of the people of color.
Perry questions whether those archetypal patterns are informing the differing expectations that generate what she labels electoral racism in which some liberals held such unrealistic expectations of Obama that they were bound to be disappointed with the reality of his presidency. In simplistic terms, take Bill Maher's comment, repeated with approval by Michael Moore in which Maher asserts that he voted for the black guy but got the white guy. (See clip from The View) In other commentary, Maher laments that Obama is too professorial and not a real black president, "the kind that lifts up his shirt so that you can see the gun in his pants." (Frances Martel, Bill Maher Disappointed that Obama Isn't a Real Black President, 5/29/2010)
I don't suggest that Maher is a card carrying racist but there is inherent unrealized racism in his observation. What is Maher's definition of blackness? What is there about Obama that's not black enough for him? What is there in Obama's demeanor that makes Maher define him as acting white? Who is Bill Maher to define what it means to be black? A similar observation with regards to unrealized racism is asserting that, "All Asians are good at math." It doesn't have to be a negative observation, but simply a sweeping generalization that presumes to define an entire group based on a perceived characteristic.
The animosity against Obama is couched in very personal terms. Some accuse him of intentionally betraying liberal or progressive causes, of being a sellout who has turned to the dark side and abandoned all progressive goals. That goes far beyond being disappointed and desiring a change in his policies. It's the worst type of character assassination. Perry raises the question as to why so much vitriol is directed towards Obama on this very personal level when in comparison with Bill Clinton, he has accomplished as much and in many cases more than Clinton. I recall when Clinton signed DADT into law; he didn't get nearly the attacks from the left for signing the bigoted law as Obama has received for not fighting for an anti-discrimination provision in the bill repealing the law.
Race informs all aspects of life in this country. To pretend that it doesn't is naive and unrealistic. Interestingly, I've seen this same article shared by many of my black Facebook friends. Those who have shared it have found it credible. This doesn't mean that black people are always right; however, it does reflect a difference in perspectives along racial lines. The question to ask yourself is do you use these differences to engage in honest dialogue or do you shut down into a defensive posture in which you deny that there is anything to be discussed? I truly appreciate those of you who have elected the first option. I have found your perspectives affirming and comforting. It is through such honest exchange that we all learn and grow.
Some of those who read the article took offense at their perception that the author was labeling all white liberals who don't support Obama as racists. Regrettably, they were unable to get beyond protesting loudly, "I am not a racist." Hush, no one said that you were.
The thesis of the piece is not that white liberals who question Obama's policies are racists. It fascinates me that when the term racism appears in any piece of writing, particularly by a black person, that the immediate reaction of so many whites is to become indignant at being called a racist. Makes it sort of difficult to get to the heart of the matter being discussed.
Harris-Perry's essential point can be summed up in these lines:
The 2012 election may be a test of another form of electoral racism: the tendency of white liberals to hold African-American leaders to a higher standard than their white counterparts. If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote for a black candidate, then liberal electoral racism is the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors. (The Nation)Harris-Perry only arrives at this point after carefully explaining the concept of electoral racism: Electoral racism in its most naked, egregious and aggressive form is the unwillingness of white Americans to vote for a black candidate regardless of the candidate’s qualifications, ideology or party. Harris-Perry is also careful to affirm that positive movement has been made beyond such electoral racism in its most blatant form.
She then tackles the issue of the criticism of Obama, who has actually accomplished a great deal, and how the liberal base appears to hold Obama to a far higher standard than the most recent Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Essentially, Perry's discussion is informed by the noble savage archetype that has characterized much of the European interaction with indigenous peoples or with those of African ancestry for generations. (See for example: Noble Savage, Magical Negro, or On Being a Noble Savage) Essential to this archetype is elevating the non-white to a favored status as noble and honest, an admirable race in spite of its oppressed status. This archetypal pattern is particularly seen in American culture, indeed it is promoted in much of early American literature in works such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "The Last of the Mohicans." These unrealistic portraits lead to expectations that are based on a glorified and mythological image rather than the realities of the people of color.
Perry questions whether those archetypal patterns are informing the differing expectations that generate what she labels electoral racism in which some liberals held such unrealistic expectations of Obama that they were bound to be disappointed with the reality of his presidency. In simplistic terms, take Bill Maher's comment, repeated with approval by Michael Moore in which Maher asserts that he voted for the black guy but got the white guy. (See clip from The View) In other commentary, Maher laments that Obama is too professorial and not a real black president, "the kind that lifts up his shirt so that you can see the gun in his pants." (Frances Martel, Bill Maher Disappointed that Obama Isn't a Real Black President, 5/29/2010)
I don't suggest that Maher is a card carrying racist but there is inherent unrealized racism in his observation. What is Maher's definition of blackness? What is there about Obama that's not black enough for him? What is there in Obama's demeanor that makes Maher define him as acting white? Who is Bill Maher to define what it means to be black? A similar observation with regards to unrealized racism is asserting that, "All Asians are good at math." It doesn't have to be a negative observation, but simply a sweeping generalization that presumes to define an entire group based on a perceived characteristic.
The animosity against Obama is couched in very personal terms. Some accuse him of intentionally betraying liberal or progressive causes, of being a sellout who has turned to the dark side and abandoned all progressive goals. That goes far beyond being disappointed and desiring a change in his policies. It's the worst type of character assassination. Perry raises the question as to why so much vitriol is directed towards Obama on this very personal level when in comparison with Bill Clinton, he has accomplished as much and in many cases more than Clinton. I recall when Clinton signed DADT into law; he didn't get nearly the attacks from the left for signing the bigoted law as Obama has received for not fighting for an anti-discrimination provision in the bill repealing the law.
Race informs all aspects of life in this country. To pretend that it doesn't is naive and unrealistic. Interestingly, I've seen this same article shared by many of my black Facebook friends. Those who have shared it have found it credible. This doesn't mean that black people are always right; however, it does reflect a difference in perspectives along racial lines. The question to ask yourself is do you use these differences to engage in honest dialogue or do you shut down into a defensive posture in which you deny that there is anything to be discussed? I truly appreciate those of you who have elected the first option. I have found your perspectives affirming and comforting. It is through such honest exchange that we all learn and grow.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Grits Are For Eating, Not Thinking
Is it just me, or has stupidity become fashionable among a lot of Americans? Have so many of us always been incapable of thinking our way out of a paper bag or is this something new? The persistence of people choosing to believe in misinformation and out right lies regarding the proposed health care reforms is bewildering enough, but WTF is it with the folks who have gone into hyper drive complaining about President Obama's plan to address schoolchildren about the importance of education?
The speech and some follow up classroom activities are scheduled for today (Tuesday) at noon. The President will make his speech at Wakefield High School in Northern Virginia. The speech will be broadcast to other schools via C-SPAN and the Internet, should they choose to participate. Some schools have elected not to participate and others have informed parents that they may have their children opt out of hearing the President's speech.
I don't know why I'm surprised, but the outcry against the president's proposed presentation to America's students left me momentarily speechless. Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush (GWB's dad) addressed the nation's school children without having to get prior parental clearance for the content of their speeches. However, it seems that the same grits-for-brains people, aka grits-brain, went into conniption fits because: "I don't think that government should be meddling in our children's lives;" "I don't think that socialism has any place in our schools;" and "Obama is trying to shove his socialist propaganda down our throats through our children;" (all comments read on the Internet). That last one gives me all sorts of interesting visual images.
The ever reliable YouTube has collected news broadcasts from around the nation in which parents express their concern that President Obama is attempting to brainwash their children. My favorite is a brief video in which one woman becomes tearful at the thought of her babies being exposed to the evil power of Obama. The video is at the end of this post.
The White House released the transcript of the speech yesterday (Monday). Let's see, the president plans to tell the students, there is "no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."
He also mentions the importance of regular attendance, doing your homework, working hard, and washing your hands to avoid the flu. Radical stuff that may lead to more children staying in school and getting an education. Of course, a well educated populace might decrease the ranks of the grits-brain contingency, which explains their opposition to their children hearing the president's speech.
What I keep hearing from these folks goes something like this, "I have a right to my opinion. This is a free country. Mumble, mumble...First Amendment...Second Amendment...right to bare arms... (they tend to use the wrong term, substituting "bare" for "bear"). I concede that anyone is entitled to hold an opinion, no matter how stupid that opinion is. However, the rest of us are also entitled to express our opinion that your opinion is stupid.
All of these expressions of stupidity have led me to one conclusion, there are people in this country who have serious issues with having a black president. I've gone through all other possible explanations, and even serious grits-brain stupidity doesn't explain the utter idiocy that falls out of the mouths of these people. This actually gives me some comfort. President Obama won the election with solid support from a cross section of Americans, so I'm counting on that the "I am not a racist" grits-brain folks are a numerical minority who just happen to be very loud.
I suspect that these folks are motivated by fear. For generations they've believed that they were superior based on their status as white people. Then along comes this man that they label black, even though in reality he is just as much white as black. However, as they've pigeonholed him as black, then their superiority is a given. Except, this is one very intelligent man and that really throws a monkey wrench into everything that they've always believed about themselves. Unable to deal with this challenge to their reality, they have descended into a state of cognitive dissonance that has turned their brains to mush and voila, grits-brain.
The woman in this video is a perfect specimen of the grits-brain group.
The speech and some follow up classroom activities are scheduled for today (Tuesday) at noon. The President will make his speech at Wakefield High School in Northern Virginia. The speech will be broadcast to other schools via C-SPAN and the Internet, should they choose to participate. Some schools have elected not to participate and others have informed parents that they may have their children opt out of hearing the President's speech.
I don't know why I'm surprised, but the outcry against the president's proposed presentation to America's students left me momentarily speechless. Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush (GWB's dad) addressed the nation's school children without having to get prior parental clearance for the content of their speeches. However, it seems that the same grits-for-brains people, aka grits-brain, went into conniption fits because: "I don't think that government should be meddling in our children's lives;" "I don't think that socialism has any place in our schools;" and "Obama is trying to shove his socialist propaganda down our throats through our children;" (all comments read on the Internet). That last one gives me all sorts of interesting visual images.
The ever reliable YouTube has collected news broadcasts from around the nation in which parents express their concern that President Obama is attempting to brainwash their children. My favorite is a brief video in which one woman becomes tearful at the thought of her babies being exposed to the evil power of Obama. The video is at the end of this post.
The White House released the transcript of the speech yesterday (Monday). Let's see, the president plans to tell the students, there is "no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."
He also mentions the importance of regular attendance, doing your homework, working hard, and washing your hands to avoid the flu. Radical stuff that may lead to more children staying in school and getting an education. Of course, a well educated populace might decrease the ranks of the grits-brain contingency, which explains their opposition to their children hearing the president's speech.
What I keep hearing from these folks goes something like this, "I have a right to my opinion. This is a free country. Mumble, mumble...First Amendment...Second Amendment...right to bare arms... (they tend to use the wrong term, substituting "bare" for "bear"). I concede that anyone is entitled to hold an opinion, no matter how stupid that opinion is. However, the rest of us are also entitled to express our opinion that your opinion is stupid.
All of these expressions of stupidity have led me to one conclusion, there are people in this country who have serious issues with having a black president. I've gone through all other possible explanations, and even serious grits-brain stupidity doesn't explain the utter idiocy that falls out of the mouths of these people. This actually gives me some comfort. President Obama won the election with solid support from a cross section of Americans, so I'm counting on that the "I am not a racist" grits-brain folks are a numerical minority who just happen to be very loud.
I suspect that these folks are motivated by fear. For generations they've believed that they were superior based on their status as white people. Then along comes this man that they label black, even though in reality he is just as much white as black. However, as they've pigeonholed him as black, then their superiority is a given. Except, this is one very intelligent man and that really throws a monkey wrench into everything that they've always believed about themselves. Unable to deal with this challenge to their reality, they have descended into a state of cognitive dissonance that has turned their brains to mush and voila, grits-brain.
The woman in this video is a perfect specimen of the grits-brain group.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Glenn Beck Has A Problem: He's An Idiot
I had a dream last night based on one of my favorite horror movies, The Fly. Not the sexy remake with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, but the original 1950s film. In the dream, I am sitting in the garden sipping a mint julep when I hear a tinny little voice crying, "Help me! Help me!"
I whip out my magnifying glass and search for the source. There on the rose bush I spot an unusual fly with the head of Glenn Beck. Compassionate soul that I am, I whip out my eyebrow tweezers, carefully place them around Beck's little head, squeeze them shut, and pinch his tiny head off. Then I wake up. The best dreams always end too soon.
Glenn Beck's most recent anti-Obama comments are in character with his ongoing Obama-is-the-Antichrist rants. I don't watch his "news" show often, a small dose of Beck gives me the vapors. However, his recent pronouncements regarding President Obama weren't made on his own show but while he was a guest on the Fox and Friends morning show.
Beck and the rest of the Fox friends were discussing Professor Henry Gates, Jr.'s recent encounter with the Cambridge police and the president's comments about the incident. According to Beck, President Obama has exposed himself as a person with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
Beck's assertion was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation's first black president are white. However, Beck was ready with a quick response. "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people," Beck said. "He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."
I know that Beck is just one guy, but he's one guy with a national television show that masquerades as a news show, grounded in objective, factual information. He has quite a following; the message boards are filled with comments from the amen chorus praising Beck for exposing the truth.
Beck's comments really pissed me off and I've thought about why, as a person with a lifelong commitment to resolution through discourse and an absolute opposition to the use of violence as a solution to anything, I'd really like to kick his ass.
I've concluded that I am bone-weary of the proliferation of voices in white America who continue to scream about reverse racism or black racism. It is such an insult to the real racism endured by black Americans.
When young black men gather on a summer's night, kidnap a young white man, tie him to a truck, and drag him down the highway until he is nothing but a bloodied mass of bone and flesh, speak to me of black racism. When grown black men plant a bomb in a church and murder young white children in their Sunday best, speak to me of black racism. When a crowd of black mothers gather in Boston to hurl obscenities, racial epithets, and bricks at school buses filled with little white children, speak to me of black racism.
When white bodies dangle from tree limbs and black families, children included, mill about below, smiling as if they have just witnessed some form of pleasant entertainment, speak to me of black racism. When black entrepreneurs, realizing that there is money to be made, make and sell postcards memorializing these lynchings, speak to me of black racism.
When grown black men kidnap, torture, and murder a 14-year-old white boy because he allegedly showed too much familiarity towards a black woman, speak to me of black racism. When black men--business leaders, legislators, governors, law enforcement, and state militias--gather together and march into white communities, burning, looting, and murdering to intimidate white people from trying to exercise their rights newly granted under the federal Constitution, successfully taking away the most fundamental right of a free people, the right to vote, speak to me of black racism.
When white soldiers who return from defending their country find themselves being told that they must sit at the back of the bus, speak to me of black racism. When white people have to enter business establishments through the back door, or are barred from entry by signs reading, "No Whites Allowed," speak to me of black racism. But until these things come to pass, don't insult me or my people by calling us racists. (BTW, all of the examples that I reference are real and occurred long after the official end of slavery)
On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the pinnacle of racism, we're not even a one. It's rather surprising that we haven't become obsessed with revenge. Instead all that we have ever demanded is equality. Why does that frighten so many people so much?
I whip out my magnifying glass and search for the source. There on the rose bush I spot an unusual fly with the head of Glenn Beck. Compassionate soul that I am, I whip out my eyebrow tweezers, carefully place them around Beck's little head, squeeze them shut, and pinch his tiny head off. Then I wake up. The best dreams always end too soon.
Glenn Beck's most recent anti-Obama comments are in character with his ongoing Obama-is-the-Antichrist rants. I don't watch his "news" show often, a small dose of Beck gives me the vapors. However, his recent pronouncements regarding President Obama weren't made on his own show but while he was a guest on the Fox and Friends morning show.
Beck and the rest of the Fox friends were discussing Professor Henry Gates, Jr.'s recent encounter with the Cambridge police and the president's comments about the incident. According to Beck, President Obama has exposed himself as a person with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
Beck's assertion was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation's first black president are white. However, Beck was ready with a quick response. "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people," Beck said. "He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."
I know that Beck is just one guy, but he's one guy with a national television show that masquerades as a news show, grounded in objective, factual information. He has quite a following; the message boards are filled with comments from the amen chorus praising Beck for exposing the truth.
Beck's comments really pissed me off and I've thought about why, as a person with a lifelong commitment to resolution through discourse and an absolute opposition to the use of violence as a solution to anything, I'd really like to kick his ass.
I've concluded that I am bone-weary of the proliferation of voices in white America who continue to scream about reverse racism or black racism. It is such an insult to the real racism endured by black Americans.
When young black men gather on a summer's night, kidnap a young white man, tie him to a truck, and drag him down the highway until he is nothing but a bloodied mass of bone and flesh, speak to me of black racism. When grown black men plant a bomb in a church and murder young white children in their Sunday best, speak to me of black racism. When a crowd of black mothers gather in Boston to hurl obscenities, racial epithets, and bricks at school buses filled with little white children, speak to me of black racism.
When white bodies dangle from tree limbs and black families, children included, mill about below, smiling as if they have just witnessed some form of pleasant entertainment, speak to me of black racism. When black entrepreneurs, realizing that there is money to be made, make and sell postcards memorializing these lynchings, speak to me of black racism.
When grown black men kidnap, torture, and murder a 14-year-old white boy because he allegedly showed too much familiarity towards a black woman, speak to me of black racism. When black men--business leaders, legislators, governors, law enforcement, and state militias--gather together and march into white communities, burning, looting, and murdering to intimidate white people from trying to exercise their rights newly granted under the federal Constitution, successfully taking away the most fundamental right of a free people, the right to vote, speak to me of black racism.
When white soldiers who return from defending their country find themselves being told that they must sit at the back of the bus, speak to me of black racism. When white people have to enter business establishments through the back door, or are barred from entry by signs reading, "No Whites Allowed," speak to me of black racism. But until these things come to pass, don't insult me or my people by calling us racists. (BTW, all of the examples that I reference are real and occurred long after the official end of slavery)
On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the pinnacle of racism, we're not even a one. It's rather surprising that we haven't become obsessed with revenge. Instead all that we have ever demanded is equality. Why does that frighten so many people so much?
Friday, July 17, 2009
Icons, Race, and Listening
I'm feeling a bit guilty because I didn't intervene more directly back in 2007 when Bill O'Reilly was suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. I did suggest in a blog entry that he should refrain from trying to help black people by making inane observations marveling at our ability to drink ice tea and eat in a restaurant without break dancing and spouting profanity; however, I didn't send Mr. O'Reilly a personal note cautioning him to never again discuss the affairs of black folks. My bad.
Last week, O'Reilly took issue with Rev. Al Sharpton's declaration that Michael Jackson was an African-American icon. Sharpton asserted that Jackson's use of his status as an entertainer to knock down doors in the music industry such as breaking the color barrier on MTV, and landing on the cover of Rolling Stone was another step in the same journey towards racial equality as evidenced by Rosa Parks decision to sit down on that bus. Sharpton also noted Jackson's considerable charitable contributions to organizations and individuals, including his bringing together the star power to produce We Are the World long before there was a Live-Aid. I agree with Sharpton's assessment; however, I don't know that all African-Americans do, but I feel confident in saying that a significant majority view MJ as an African-American icon. However, I digress; this really is not about MJ.
Let me try and explain. A few years back I was attending a birthday party for a friend who is a white male. Another guest, also a white male, whom I had never met, attempted to engage me in a conversation about what he perceived to be the problems of black folks. I attempted to dissuade him from taking this path. I was the only black guest at the party (it was very small, maybe a dozen people) and I was in no mood for a serious discussion about race. He persisted and made the fatal error of proceeding to speak of, "You people...." I really don't recall what he said after that; it's difficult to think clearly when your head is revolving and you're trying to control your impulse to do a windmill on somebody's head. My friend, the birthday boy, observed that, "White people should have more sense than to ever attempt to tell black people how to be black." I love this man. This is why we are friends.
So, Bill O'Reilly, this is an open letter to you. If you would like to be friends with black people, you must understand that neither you nor any white person gets to tell us who our icons are. You do not get to measure our blackness. You do not get to sling accusations that any of us want to be white. You don't know or understand any of us that well. If we tell you how we feel, then you need to listen and try to understand our feelings, not tell us that our feelings are invalid.
Once and for all, understand that there is no such thing as reverse racism. You made that up to soothe your conscience. Racism is unfounded hatred for a group that you perceive as being inferior to your group. Any anger that we have towards white people is not unfounded; it's based on more than 400 years of discrimination in this country, much of it legalized. We don't hate you; we just want you to acknowledge that our shared history is based on an unconscionable system of discrimination and to recognize that our anger is righteous. We don't believe that you are inferior; we never have. We have tried to blend your cultural norms and values with ours. We ask that you respect ours and recognize that they too have shaped this culture. When we express distrust of institutions that have traditionally been exclusively white and that have intentionally excluded us by starting our own institutions, that's not reverse racism; it's called survival. Understand that just because you have begun to allow everyone to play in the sandbox, it's still going to take some time before we fully believe that you really mean it. Perhaps when we get to build more of the sandboxes, we'll feel more comfortable entering them.
Please stop interjecting, "I never owned slaves!" into every discussion of race. We know that. However, do acknowledge that as a member of the majority group, you benefited from white privilege, the biggest element of which is that you didn't have to notice race. Slavery was certainly an evil, but the real horror in this country is the generations of Jim Crow, of legalized discrimination that lasted well into the 20th century. The civil rights movement wasn't about slavery; it was about the system of legalized discrimination put into place after slavery was legally outlawed to ensure that black people continued to be placed in a position of servitude and exclusion in the United States of America. This isn't ancient history; it's my life.
I know that you are tired of talking about race; so am I. Perhaps the day will come when such discussions are no longer necessary. I dream of a day when I will not turn on my television to hear a little black child trying to hold back his tears as he recounts the racial hatred that he heard from white adults who feared that the Black and Hispanic children in his summer camp group would contaminate their swimming pool. When that day comes, I'll be the first person to stop talking about race. In the meantime, Mr. O'Reilly, please feel free to speak with us, but don't presume that you can tell us who we are, or how we should feel.
Last week, O'Reilly took issue with Rev. Al Sharpton's declaration that Michael Jackson was an African-American icon. Sharpton asserted that Jackson's use of his status as an entertainer to knock down doors in the music industry such as breaking the color barrier on MTV, and landing on the cover of Rolling Stone was another step in the same journey towards racial equality as evidenced by Rosa Parks decision to sit down on that bus. Sharpton also noted Jackson's considerable charitable contributions to organizations and individuals, including his bringing together the star power to produce We Are the World long before there was a Live-Aid. I agree with Sharpton's assessment; however, I don't know that all African-Americans do, but I feel confident in saying that a significant majority view MJ as an African-American icon. However, I digress; this really is not about MJ.
Let me try and explain. A few years back I was attending a birthday party for a friend who is a white male. Another guest, also a white male, whom I had never met, attempted to engage me in a conversation about what he perceived to be the problems of black folks. I attempted to dissuade him from taking this path. I was the only black guest at the party (it was very small, maybe a dozen people) and I was in no mood for a serious discussion about race. He persisted and made the fatal error of proceeding to speak of, "You people...." I really don't recall what he said after that; it's difficult to think clearly when your head is revolving and you're trying to control your impulse to do a windmill on somebody's head. My friend, the birthday boy, observed that, "White people should have more sense than to ever attempt to tell black people how to be black." I love this man. This is why we are friends.
So, Bill O'Reilly, this is an open letter to you. If you would like to be friends with black people, you must understand that neither you nor any white person gets to tell us who our icons are. You do not get to measure our blackness. You do not get to sling accusations that any of us want to be white. You don't know or understand any of us that well. If we tell you how we feel, then you need to listen and try to understand our feelings, not tell us that our feelings are invalid.
Once and for all, understand that there is no such thing as reverse racism. You made that up to soothe your conscience. Racism is unfounded hatred for a group that you perceive as being inferior to your group. Any anger that we have towards white people is not unfounded; it's based on more than 400 years of discrimination in this country, much of it legalized. We don't hate you; we just want you to acknowledge that our shared history is based on an unconscionable system of discrimination and to recognize that our anger is righteous. We don't believe that you are inferior; we never have. We have tried to blend your cultural norms and values with ours. We ask that you respect ours and recognize that they too have shaped this culture. When we express distrust of institutions that have traditionally been exclusively white and that have intentionally excluded us by starting our own institutions, that's not reverse racism; it's called survival. Understand that just because you have begun to allow everyone to play in the sandbox, it's still going to take some time before we fully believe that you really mean it. Perhaps when we get to build more of the sandboxes, we'll feel more comfortable entering them.
Please stop interjecting, "I never owned slaves!" into every discussion of race. We know that. However, do acknowledge that as a member of the majority group, you benefited from white privilege, the biggest element of which is that you didn't have to notice race. Slavery was certainly an evil, but the real horror in this country is the generations of Jim Crow, of legalized discrimination that lasted well into the 20th century. The civil rights movement wasn't about slavery; it was about the system of legalized discrimination put into place after slavery was legally outlawed to ensure that black people continued to be placed in a position of servitude and exclusion in the United States of America. This isn't ancient history; it's my life.
I know that you are tired of talking about race; so am I. Perhaps the day will come when such discussions are no longer necessary. I dream of a day when I will not turn on my television to hear a little black child trying to hold back his tears as he recounts the racial hatred that he heard from white adults who feared that the Black and Hispanic children in his summer camp group would contaminate their swimming pool. When that day comes, I'll be the first person to stop talking about race. In the meantime, Mr. O'Reilly, please feel free to speak with us, but don't presume that you can tell us who we are, or how we should feel.
Friday, June 19, 2009
In the Absence of Profundity...WTF
After such a long absence from these pages, I feel an obligation to say something profound. Hmm...well...um...sorry, nothing comes to mind. I've been working a lot of 10 to 12 hour days and that kind of work schedule sort of saps your profundity gene.
There have been so many things that have caught my attention during this month of blog-silence, things that have made me mutter WTF as if it were some ritual chant. Regrettably, most of them have faded from my memory, although there are a few standouts.
There is the young woman who went to school without her underwear on the day that pictures for the yearbook were being taken. Sitting on the front row of the bleachers for a shot with her fellow members of some club, she became upset when the yearbook was published, feeling that she had inadvertently flashed the camera. The young woman and her mother made much ado about the photograph, demanding that the school recall all of the yearbooks. The school declined to do so, insisting that the picture didn't reveal anything and much ado was being made about what was no more than an innocent shadow on the image. The mother and the daughter were all over the news, making certain that those of us who didn't have access to the yearbook knew all about the daughter's faulty memory. Why else would you put on a short skirt and neglect to add underwear, except you forgot?
Then there is the husband who decided to fulfill his sexual fantasy of watching his wife with another man, but neglected to include his wife in the planning of the event. Instead, he hired some guy to pretend to break into his home and pretend to rape his wife. Oh wait, if she wasn't in on the plan, maybe pretend isn't the right word. The wife called the police and her husband was placed in a non-pretend jail cell. I hope that the next stop will be divorce court.
These stories are just small potatoes in the WTF competition compared to the ongoing attack on Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Among the nonsense spouted by conservative pundits has been comparing her membership in the National Council of La Raza to membership in the KKK. La Raza is a private, non-profit, and non-partisan organization focused on reducing poverty and discrimination, and improving opportunities, for Hispanic Americans. It's difficult to believe that any rational, thinking individual could equate an organization like La Raza with the KKK. Until La Raza starts burning crosses in the yards of non-Hispanic people, not allowing them to live in their neighborhoods, bombing their churches, and advocating for a complete denial of rights based on skin color, then it equals the Klan about as much as night equals day. Don't waste my time or yours sputtering about why do Hispanic people or other ethnic and/or racial minorities in this country need special organizations. It's really very simple. No, I'm not going to explain it to you. I've written about racial discrimination way too many times in this blog. If you don't get it by now, you're hopeless. Besides, I've reached a place in my beliefs where I no longer consider it my responsibility or the responsibility of any person of color to explain to the majority about racism, discrimination or prejudice. Work it out amongst yourselves. I'm in a tough love phase.
There are countless advocacy groups in this country that La Raza parallels: the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, AARP, The ARC of the United States, etc. I don't believe that the spouters of this garbage about Judge Sotomayor or La Raza believe it. They speak out of fear. This country is actually moving forward on matters of race, beginning to recognize that the bigotry of the past has no place in the 21st century. My message to Limbaugh and his dittoheads: get over it and find some real issues to focus on, like homelessness, poverty, genocide, famine, war....
There have been so many things that have caught my attention during this month of blog-silence, things that have made me mutter WTF as if it were some ritual chant. Regrettably, most of them have faded from my memory, although there are a few standouts.
There is the young woman who went to school without her underwear on the day that pictures for the yearbook were being taken. Sitting on the front row of the bleachers for a shot with her fellow members of some club, she became upset when the yearbook was published, feeling that she had inadvertently flashed the camera. The young woman and her mother made much ado about the photograph, demanding that the school recall all of the yearbooks. The school declined to do so, insisting that the picture didn't reveal anything and much ado was being made about what was no more than an innocent shadow on the image. The mother and the daughter were all over the news, making certain that those of us who didn't have access to the yearbook knew all about the daughter's faulty memory. Why else would you put on a short skirt and neglect to add underwear, except you forgot?
Then there is the husband who decided to fulfill his sexual fantasy of watching his wife with another man, but neglected to include his wife in the planning of the event. Instead, he hired some guy to pretend to break into his home and pretend to rape his wife. Oh wait, if she wasn't in on the plan, maybe pretend isn't the right word. The wife called the police and her husband was placed in a non-pretend jail cell. I hope that the next stop will be divorce court.
These stories are just small potatoes in the WTF competition compared to the ongoing attack on Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Among the nonsense spouted by conservative pundits has been comparing her membership in the National Council of La Raza to membership in the KKK. La Raza is a private, non-profit, and non-partisan organization focused on reducing poverty and discrimination, and improving opportunities, for Hispanic Americans. It's difficult to believe that any rational, thinking individual could equate an organization like La Raza with the KKK. Until La Raza starts burning crosses in the yards of non-Hispanic people, not allowing them to live in their neighborhoods, bombing their churches, and advocating for a complete denial of rights based on skin color, then it equals the Klan about as much as night equals day. Don't waste my time or yours sputtering about why do Hispanic people or other ethnic and/or racial minorities in this country need special organizations. It's really very simple. No, I'm not going to explain it to you. I've written about racial discrimination way too many times in this blog. If you don't get it by now, you're hopeless. Besides, I've reached a place in my beliefs where I no longer consider it my responsibility or the responsibility of any person of color to explain to the majority about racism, discrimination or prejudice. Work it out amongst yourselves. I'm in a tough love phase.
There are countless advocacy groups in this country that La Raza parallels: the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, AARP, The ARC of the United States, etc. I don't believe that the spouters of this garbage about Judge Sotomayor or La Raza believe it. They speak out of fear. This country is actually moving forward on matters of race, beginning to recognize that the bigotry of the past has no place in the 21st century. My message to Limbaugh and his dittoheads: get over it and find some real issues to focus on, like homelessness, poverty, genocide, famine, war....
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Nothing and Everything On My Mind
It has rained all weekend and the latest weather forecast predicts that the rain will become snow before the night ends. You would think that with all this dreary weather that I would have managed to catch up with reading the blogs that I follow and perhaps post an entry of my own. I've been fixin' to do that all weekend, but it has taken me until Sunday night to gather enough mental energy to do anything other than watch movies on the Sci-Fi channel. (Note: Fixin' is southern for getting ready to do something. Ex: I'm fixin' to go to the store.)
There are many things to write about, but that's the problem. There's that dumb NY Post cartoon with the dead chimpanzee and the reference to the stimulus package. In the cartoon, a cop is holding a smoking gun and, with another officer, looking at a bullet-riddled body of a chimpanzee. The caption reads: They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.
I really didn't plan to write a word about this nonsense, nor the fool Greenwich Village baker who made the offensive "Drunken Negro Face" cookies to honor President Obama (that's what he said), but I read one too many comments on these stories in which some white people asserted that black people were overly sensitive and that they were tired of us being so touchy. I thought about it and realized that perhaps, they had a point. So, for future reference, if you are one of those people who don't get why we would be upset with these racist stereotypes, here is something that you should know: most black people do not appreciate having stereotypical images of ourselves reinforced in the media or by elected officials. I would suggest that newspapers hire more reporters of color and run things by them before publishing anything that might be questionable. As for politicians, find yourself a person of color whom you can count on to be truthful and before you send out an email with potentially offensive material in it, ask that person if it's a good idea.
I enjoy my work at the state legislature, but session is in full swing and my hours are long and busy. I spend my days reading and analyzing proposed legislation, and then writing a digest of each bill that I've reviewed for daily publication. When I get home, I don't have enough brain cells remaining to do anything that requires any thought.
I really appreciate the honest and thoughtful responses y'all have left regarding my last entry. I shared my personal journey publicly because I hope that maybe my story will help someone else who is in emotional pain, feeling suffocated by societal expectations and norms about appearance. I'm no expert on moving beyond the pain, but I've made some pretty big strides. I'm not done yet, I think that it's an ongoing journey.
There are many things to write about, but that's the problem. There's that dumb NY Post cartoon with the dead chimpanzee and the reference to the stimulus package. In the cartoon, a cop is holding a smoking gun and, with another officer, looking at a bullet-riddled body of a chimpanzee. The caption reads: They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill. My initial response was that the cartoon was racist. However, then I stepped back and I realized that the person who created the cartoon may not have been familiar with the history of race in this country. (For a good historical overview, click here.) May not have known that black people were commonly referred to as monkeys, apes, gorillas, and other members of the simian family as a form of insult in newspapers and magazines across the U.S., not just in southern publications. I've concluded that the cartoonist and the editorial staff of the Post that authorized the publication of the offensive cartoon were just insensitive, stupid, and ignorant of history, but not racist. Besides, President Obama didn't write the stimulus policy. I do wonder what the real-life shooting of the rabid monkey had to do with the stimulus package.
Then there was the Los Alamitos mayor that forwarded an email 
picturing the White House lawn covered with watermelons with the caption, No Easter egg hunt this year. I like watermelons. If President Obama and the First Lady invited me to the White House and served watermelon, I'd be pleased. However, I find it a bit disingenuous for the mayor to claim not to be aware that this image wasn't really about a love of watermelons but a commentary reinforcing a not very flattering stereotype of the happy Negro with his watermelon patch.
picturing the White House lawn covered with watermelons with the caption, No Easter egg hunt this year. I like watermelons. If President Obama and the First Lady invited me to the White House and served watermelon, I'd be pleased. However, I find it a bit disingenuous for the mayor to claim not to be aware that this image wasn't really about a love of watermelons but a commentary reinforcing a not very flattering stereotype of the happy Negro with his watermelon patch. 
I really didn't plan to write a word about this nonsense, nor the fool Greenwich Village baker who made the offensive "Drunken Negro Face" cookies to honor President Obama (that's what he said), but I read one too many comments on these stories in which some white people asserted that black people were overly sensitive and that they were tired of us being so touchy. I thought about it and realized that perhaps, they had a point. So, for future reference, if you are one of those people who don't get why we would be upset with these racist stereotypes, here is something that you should know: most black people do not appreciate having stereotypical images of ourselves reinforced in the media or by elected officials. I would suggest that newspapers hire more reporters of color and run things by them before publishing anything that might be questionable. As for politicians, find yourself a person of color whom you can count on to be truthful and before you send out an email with potentially offensive material in it, ask that person if it's a good idea. Well, I can't settle my mind on any one topic, so I'm fixin' to watch some more television.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Embracing Hope
The world of my youth was a world of separation. The railroad tracks separated our town into black and white. There were two libraries, the Wilson County Public Library and the Wilson County Negro Library. Everyone ate barbecue from Parker's but my mother had to go to the back door to pick up our order; only white people were allowed to enter the front door and sit in the dining room and eat. The train station had two waiting rooms, one for whites and one for coloreds. The one for whites was bigger, brighter, and cleaner. In facilities where there was no separate area for us, the signs read, "no colored allowed," or "white only." There were even two hospitals. I don't recall the name for the white hospital but the colored hospital was called Mercy. These are my memories of growing up as a colored child in Wilson, North Carolina.
The Civil Rights Memorial that stands in front of the Southern Law Poverty Center includes the names of many of the people who risked and lost their lives in the pursuit of justice. I visited the memorial in August 1993. I recall my visit very clearly, because it was on that trip that I decided to go to law school. The memorial is black granite. It bears the names of the martyrs on a large disc in front of a curved wall that bears a favorite line of Dr. King's, "Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." A steady stream of water bubbles out of the disc and washes over its surface, and water cascades down the curved wall. When I visited the memorial back in 1993, I sat and stared at it for a long time and I cried, not so much for the dead, but for the living because I had no hope that we were going forward and I feared that their deaths had been in vain. I am allowing myself to believe that I was wrong. I am engaging in the audacity of hope, and it feels really good. Below is a poem that I wrote after viewing the civil rights memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.
Memorial in Montgomery
casting long shadows in the afternoon sun
the wall is smooth, black
warm to the touch
the water falls down like healing rain
slides, swirls
drains away
washes clean…
cross over the river Jordan
fall down, fall down
like the walls of Jericho
like the walls of Jericho
dark mirror of tears take me home
wash my heart in justice
bathe my soul in peace
fall down, fall down
like healing rain
I was born in 1955; I turned eighteen in March 1973. The public school system in Wilson ignored the court ordered integration that came from the Brown decision in 1954, and it was 1971 before the school system fully integrated. I was in tenth grade. My dad, who had been one of four black men who integrated the Wilson police force in the 1960s, worked a detail at the only high school in the city of Wilson, Fike Senior High. The KKK had set up camp across the street from the Fike to make their opposition to the presence of Negro students at the school perfectly clear. The police were there to maintain order. My dad says that when he first joined the police force, the black officers weren't allowed to drive patrol cars. He was on the force when Dr. King and then Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. I remember him wearing his riot gear as he went to work. I was thirteen.
Darden, which had been the black high school before integration in 1971, became a school for tenth grade only. All sophomores, Negro and white, attended Darden; all juniors and seniors attended Fike. Darden lost its status as a high school for participation in sports, choral competitions, drama competitions, and all other extracurricular activities. When I began my junior year at Fike, I signed up for chorus. The chorus teacher commented that she had noticed that the Negro students all had a lot of vibrato in their voices and asked us why we sang that way. At Darden, we had sung spirituals, jazz, and R&B as well as some classical pieces. At Fike, the spirituals, jazz, and R&B were not regarded as appropriate music for choral presentations. I dropped chorus and took art instead.
A new employee at my office is also from Wilson. She is my sister's age, two years younger than I am. She is white. She doesn't remember any of this. She says that her year at Darden was a lot of fun. She has asked me if my class ever has a reunion. I didn't have the energy to explain to her why there is no class to have a reunion. There are the black students who attended Darden when it was a high school and the white students who attended Fike. When we integrated, all it really meant was that we attended school in the same buildings.
We never became a class. When we got to Fike for our junior and senior, we were still separate, just in the same buildings. Fike was on the white side of town and the KKK felt that it was on its home turf. It was difficult to build bridges among the students when grown men in white robes and hoods were standing across the street shouting epithets at us every day. It was also common knowledge that some of the armed police officers who were supposed to protect us had white robes and hoods in their closets at home.
I had thought that I was done writing about race. Friends whose opinions I value, have cautioned me that I only upset myself when I write of these things. I had decided to move on to other matters and let it be. However, I've come to realize that although they are well meaning, they don't get it at all. Writing about my experiences, what I know to be true, doesn't upset me. What upsets me is that so many people want to pretend that these things never happened, that they are some distant echo of reality, that what I know to be true is insignificant. That's upsetting and something that I refuse to accept.
Why am I thinking of these things now, at this time? Because I am witnessing an amazing revolution, a revolution of heart and mind that I never believed that I would see in my lifetime. I am filled with a deep joy as I contemplate the very real possibility that a man, who has brown skin like mine, may well be the next president of this country, my country that for so long has rejected me and my people. I had long ago accepted that there were wounds to my soul that could not be fully healed, wounds made by bigotry and hate, by an unrelenting message that because of the color of my skin, of the skin of my people, we were inferior. Don't misunderstand, I never believed that we were inferior but it was far too daunting a task to have to constantly fight against the belief by the larger culture that we were, a belief bolstered by pseudo-scientific claptrap like The Bell Curve.
I've been working over time to refrain from admitting to anyone, least of all to myself that at least part of the reason that I support Barack Obama is because he looks like me. I'm done with that. I admire Hillary's strong female base who have not shied away from admitting that they rallied around her in part because she is a woman, and they identified with her accomplishments as a woman in a male dominated world.
What Barack Obama has done is astounding, in a culture that is in its infancy of letting go of the racial apartheid of a less than 50 years ago, the culture of my youth, a culture that I know not through history but because I lived it. I get misty eyed and I have a lump in my throat just thinking about it. Every time I hear Barack Obama speak, I feel a sense of pride and joy that is intoxicating, and I shed all of those scars born of bigotry and I feel newly born into a world of promise. Finally, I can say with no irony, no sense of fabrication, to a little black baby, "Someday, you may be president."
I make no apologies for my unabashed support of Barack Obama. I have no more tolerance for those who profess that he scares them, that they worry that he's going to sell out this country. That's total nonsense and you're too ignorant for words to even believe it. If I hear or read one more person assert that he's a Muslim and that he's going to help the terrorists destroy the United States, I'm going to scream. And so help me, if I read or hear one more white person say that he is a reverse racist, I'm going to forget that I believe in nonviolence and slap somebody up side the head. By the way, my head was wagging when I wrote that last line.
Barack Obama is a man of principle. He is a man of intelligence. He is the man to lead this country forward on this journey of healing and I'm proud to claim him as my candidate of choice.
As a seventeen year old, I dragged around my guitar in a battered case with peace signs all over it, and sang songs about peace and love, but I was filled with the despair of youth, that the world in which I lived would never "give peace a chance," nor ever find those "answers blowin' in the wind." I thought that the racial division that filled my world would outlast my lifetime. My heart cried for the ongoing list of martyrs--Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Jonathan M. Daniels, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, King, JFK, Bobby....
The Civil Rights Memorial that stands in front of the Southern Law Poverty Center includes the names of many of the people who risked and lost their lives in the pursuit of justice. I visited the memorial in August 1993. I recall my visit very clearly, because it was on that trip that I decided to go to law school. The memorial is black granite. It bears the names of the martyrs on a large disc in front of a curved wall that bears a favorite line of Dr. King's, "Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." A steady stream of water bubbles out of the disc and washes over its surface, and water cascades down the curved wall. When I visited the memorial back in 1993, I sat and stared at it for a long time and I cried, not so much for the dead, but for the living because I had no hope that we were going forward and I feared that their deaths had been in vain. I am allowing myself to believe that I was wrong. I am engaging in the audacity of hope, and it feels really good. Below is a poem that I wrote after viewing the civil rights memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.Memorial in Montgomery
casting long shadows in the afternoon sun
the wall is smooth, black
warm to the touch
the water falls down like healing rain
slides, swirls
drains away
washes clean…
close by, rising from the earth
stands the remembrance of struggle
a litany of the martyred
finite circle of sorrow and joy
stands the remembrance of struggle
a litany of the martyred
finite circle of sorrow and joy
cross over the river Jordan
fall down, fall down
like the walls of Jericho
like the walls of Jericho
dark mirror of tears take me home
wash my heart in justice
bathe my soul in peace
fall down, fall down
like healing rain
Monday, March 24, 2008
In Order To Form A More Perfect Union
The elephant that has not only been in the room, but sitting on top of us, has finally been revealed and we are stronger for it. Senator Barack Obama, in his speech in response to the littering of the Internet with videos of his ex-pastor's sermons on race in America, talked openly about the progeny of a nation conceived in liberty and yet mired in the most heinous of institutions--slavery. Sen. Obama identified that progeny--racism, Jim Crow laws, discrimination, black anger, and white anger, and the world did not come to an end.
Finally, someone has just flat out said, "Let's talk about race." If we listen, and I mean really listen to what Sen. Obama has to say, we can move towards an understanding of America's race problem that is an essential step in healing the racial divide that weakens and undermines our nation.
I became a lawyer because I believed in the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. When I re-read those documents, which I frequently do, I am still moved at the ideology expressed therein.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I am not naive, and I do not believe that we, as a nation, have always lived up to these ideals, but what gives me sustenance is the ideals themselves, something worth striving for, worth working to achieve. In the words of Robert Browning, "Ah, if a man's reach does not exceed his grasp,then what's a heaven for?"
Obama's speech today joins my list of inspirational documents. I hope that it is the catalyst to begin conversations at the dinner table, around the water cooler, and in our places of worship about the the ways in which we relate to one another. I hope that we engage in dialogues in which we acknowledge our biases but also recognize our commonalities; I hope that we work together to discover a healing place, grounded in respect and love for all of humankind.
To read the full text of Sen. Obama's speech, please click here. If you would like to watch and listen to him deliver the speech, please see the video below.
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