Race Anyone?
I'm starting of this blog with a discussion that took place on my friend Millie's blog in which I was a participant. Millies is a 2nd year Graduate Student at USC's Annenberg School of Communications and engaged me and one of her professors (who she chose not to identify). We went back and forth through Millie and came to some interesting conclusions.
This discussion serves as a pretty good introduction into the discourse that I'm hoping will end up here.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Between my professor and my friend
This is a very interesting exchange between my Mass Media and Law Prof. and my friend Jimar. It stems from an article by Ann Coulter.
My Professor wrote:Please indulge me this political article because (1) I'm married to a brilliant conservative black woman, so this hits home and (2) Ann Coulter is always a hoot.
The New And Improved Racism, Ann CoulterDecember 9, 2004
Still furious about the election, liberals are lashing out at blacks. First it was Condoleezza Rice. But calling a Ph.D. who advised a sitting president during war "Aunt Jemima" apparently hasn't satiated the Democrats' rage. Even the racist cartoons didn't help.
So this week, they've turned with a vengeance to Clarence Thomas. Only the Democrats would try to distract from their racist attacks on one black Republican by leveling racist attacks against a different black Republican. If Democrats don't nip this in the bud, soon former Klanner and Democratic Sen. Bob Byrd will be their spokesman.
In the past few weeks, there have been nasty insinuations all around about Condoleezza Rice's competence for the job.Democratic consultant Bob Beckel - who demonstrated his own competence running Walter Mondale's campaign - said of Rice, "I don't think she's up to the job."
Joseph Cirincione, with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (so you know they don't have an agenda or anything), said Rice "doesn't bring much experience or knowledge of the world to this position." This was reassuring, inasmuch as that was also liberals' assessment of the current president before he took office and he, to put it mildly, has been doing rather well.
The Kansas City Star editorialized that Rice "has not demonstrated great competence in the last four years," which is to say, Dr. Rice failed to be sufficiently clairvoyant to predict the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Columnist Bob Herbert sneered of Rice's nomination in the New York Times: "Competence has never been highly regarded by the fantasists of the George W. Bush administration." For example, these are the bumbling nitwits who conquered Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires," and toppled Baghdad in less time than your average Jennifer Lopez marriage lasts. (Wait, I can't remember: Was it the Bush administration that hired Jayson Blair?)
So far, Dr. Rice has demonstrated her abundant competence only in academia, geopolitics, history, government, college administration, classical music and athletics. I eagerly await the Bob Herbert column in which he lists the subjects and pursuits he's mastered. If only Rice talked about her accessorizing like Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, she might impress the sort of fellow who writes for the New York Times.
Liberals at least give white Republicans credit for being evil. Rumsfeld is a dangerous warmonger, Paul Wolfowitz is part of an international Jewish conspiracy, Dick Cheney is "Dr. No." But Dr. Rice? She's a dummy.
In fact, after spending the last four years telling us that President Bush was an empty suit, a vessel for neoconservative fantasies of perpetual war, liberals have now found someone who is Bush's puppet: the black chick.
It's all so eerily familiar. The late Mary McGrory, a white liberal, called Scalia "a brilliant and compelling extremist" - as opposed to McGrory herself, a garden-variety extremist of average intelligence. But Thomas she dismissed as "Scalia's puppet," quoting another white liberal, Alvin J. Bronstein of the American Civil Liberties Union, to make the point. This is the kind of rhetoric liberals are reduced to when they just can't bring themselves to use the n-word.Most recently - at least as we go to press - last Sunday Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, had this to say about Justice Clarence Thomas: "I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written." You'd think Thomas' opinions were written in ebonics.
In the same interview, Reid called Justice Antonin Scalia "one smart guy." He said that although he disagreed with Scalia, his reasoning is "very hard to dispute." Scalia is "one smart guy"; Thomas is the janitor. If Democrats are all going to read from the same talking points, they might want to get someone other than David Duke to write them.
On the Sean Hannity radio show, Democratic pundit Pat Halpin defended Sen. Reid's laughable attack on Thomas by citing Bob Woodward's book "The Brethren ," which - according to Halpin - vividly portrays Thomas as a nincompoop.
I return to my standing point that liberals don't read. Harry Reid clearly hasn't read any of the decisions Justice Thomas has written, and Pat Halpin clearly hasn't read "The Brethren.""The Brethren" came out a decade before Thomas was even nominated to the Supreme Court. The only black Supreme Court justice discussed in "The Brethren" is Thurgood Marshall. That's one we haven't heard in a while: I just can't tell you guys apart.
How many black justices have there been on the Supreme Court again? Oh yes: two. It's one thing to confuse Potter Stewart with Lewis Powell. After all, there have been a lot of white guys on the court. But there have been only two black justices - and Democrats can't keep them straight. Two! That's like getting your mother and father confused. I can name every black guy on a current National Hockey League roster: Is it asking Democrats too much to remember the names of the only two black Supreme Court justices?
In "America (The Book)," by Jon Stewart and the writers of Comedy Central's "Daily Show," the section on the judiciary describes how to make a sock puppet of Clarence Thomas and then says, "Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia!" On grounds of originality alone, Mr. Stewart, I want my money back.
But reviewing the book in the New York Times, Caryn James called the sock puppet joke one of the book's "gems of pointed political humor." Funny how the liberal punditocracy all parrot this same "sock puppet" line about Thomas year after year, almost as if they were sock pu-- oh, never mind.
Curiously, of all the liberals launching racist attacks on black conservatives I've quoted above, only two are themselves black: the two who write for the New York Times. So I guess there are still a couple of blacks taking orders from the Democrats. Isn't there an expression for that? I think it begins with "Uncle" and ends with "Tom."
Ann Coulter is host of AnnCoulter.org, a Townhall.com member group.
Jimar Responded:
Very interesting article. As an African American who is critical not only of the Bush Administration, the neo-Conservative agenda, both major political parties and African American political commentators from both the left and right, it is easy for me to recognize the obvious contradictions and hypocrisies within the white liberal base. While many African Americans are disappointed with Rice and Thomas, we do not question their competence as it relates to their education, experience, and critical thinking abilities in ways that white people continue to do. Indeed, the critical discussions that whites have about them are strikingly different than ours. Blacks will question their [lack of] commitment to the community, their political views, and decisions they make. White people, on the other hand, question their competence and depict them as incapable of doing the job only when they cease to cooperate with their agenda. They lauded their educational and professional backgrounds early on, but such accolades only come along with being that "good n----". Race is the obvious answer when you read between the lines.
To be fair, whites can be just as critical towards other whites, but it's usually based on partisanship and seldom goes into ethnicity--even when pitting white Jews, Protestants and Catholics against one another. The reality is, however, that white criticism of African Americans in power seldom stops at partisanship. Race enters the discussion ultimately, whether covertly or overtly. At that point is where the criticism usually gets dumbed down and without much merit. It ceases to be a partisan critique or even an intellectual critique and subsequently becomes a referendum on black competency.
Case in point, I am disappointed in Colin, Condi and Clarence (and former Education Sec'y Rod Paige) because they are not, in my opinion, doing enough to advocate on behalf of low income communities of color--particularly African American communities. I'm am disappointed that these individuals have not wielded their respective influences from academia and professional networks to aid African American progress through increased opportunities for the masses. I'm disappointed that they've achieved so much, attended the nations best universities, earned so much influence, and yet aren't making a difference with respect to the urgent urban crises taking place in our communities. With all this disappointment, do I question the hard work that they've put to get to where they are? Do I devalue their educational backgrounds and professional experience? Do I discount them as being idiots any more than I feel that the people who put them in office (G. Bush and G.W. Bush) are idiots? I do not. Call me guilty for condemning Colin, Condi, Clarence and Rod for not being credits to their race during the critical junctures in their careers as Cabinet members.
What Coulter's article points out, however, is that white liberals are unable to develop arguments about African Americans with whom they disagree based on anything substantive. They acknowledged the pedigrees and resumes of all of these individuals and lauded them as the best and brightest minds--not just among Blacks, but among all Americans. But time and time again we eventually see our Nation's true colors shine.
My professor again:
Thank you for forwarding his commentary. One thing that disturbs me is that, apparently, all blacks are obligated to help "their race" when they succeed, yet you never hear blacks (or anyone else) complaining about whites who did not go back and help "their race" or "give back." That, in itself, is a racist viewpoint.
My wife is half black and half white. What is her obligation? Does she have to "aid African American progress" 6 months out of the year? Or is it just 12 hours each day? How does that work? My children are only a quarter black, so I guess they only have to "make a difference with respect to the urgent urban crises taking place in our communities" for one season out of the year? Gets confusing when your working out what "race" you have to give back to. And what exactly are Condi, Colin, Clarence et. al. supposed to do to "aid African American progress through increased opportunities for the masses" and to "make a difference with respect to the urgent urban crises taking place in our communities"? What does that mean? I submit that they do all of that simply by succeeding and showing it can be done.
It seems to me that when black public figures do not buy into the various causes espoused by the Democrats and the left, then they are condemned for not supposedly "giving back." It seems to me that Bush selects people that he likes, trusts, admires, and feels can best do the job (within, of course, his philosophy of how those jobs are best served - we don't elect presidents so they will pick people to work with them who disagree with their political philosophies!). If those people happen to be black (or hispanic, or Jewish, or female, etc.), more power to them, but it really does not seem to matter to him (as it shouldn't) nor would it matter at all to me.
My point is this: there is so much talk about the "evils" of racism, which I think misses the point. The by-product of racism may often be evil acts, but the cause of racism is stupidity! The utter lack of an ability to engage in rational thought - that is racism. To assume you know one darn thing about a person because you know the color of their skin is simply stupid, irrational thinking. If I told you that a person was coming over for dinner and that person was "black" - what would you know about that person? It could be Condi Rice, or Clarence Thomas, or Thomas Sowell, or Shelby Steele --- or it could be Maxine Waters, or Jessie Jackson, or Al Sharpton or Charlie Rangel.
What bothers me about a lot of Democrats is their underlying philosophy that blacks (and other minorities) cannot do it themselves and need some altruistic Democrat to come along and save their bacon. Baloney (and racist!). It is one of the many reasons I am a Republican - our focus is on individuals, not "groups." In other words, I don't deal in hyphens. No African-Americans, no Italian-Americans, no Mexican-Americans for me. Just Americans.
Jimar again:
Millie,
Before I get into my commentary, I will point out that the title of Ms. Coulter's article is "The New and Improved Racism" and that I agree 100% with her arguments that liberals have shown their true colors by artfully attacking Black Republicans by doing everything but calling them the "N" word. I think it's appalling and very problematic. These liberals should be exposed for their hypocrisies on a larger scale for all to see.
Having said that, I couldn't help but feel that your professor may have misunderstood my overarching arguments and instead found a few statements that were most emotive for him, particularly relating to his family. While I don't mean to discount his anecdotes about the complexities of his wife and kids who identify themselves as mixed-race, I do feel that the bigger issues somehow were lost in his response.
It is indeed quite possible, however misguided, to discuss race in 2004 without taking into account the historical context through which we analyze it. It is striking how so many Americans--Black, white, Latino, Asian, etc.--continue to live inside of a fantasy world where racism is not and has never been a structural barrier to the advancement of non-whites in America. It's as if slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, disenfranchisement and discrimination have not played a significant role in how our democratic society operates today, how we as Americans of different backgrounds and experiences relate to one another and, most importantly, what we teach our young people. That was my initial reaction [to] the reply from your professor. Perhaps I was unclear at the onset about my overarching frame of reference in giving my comments to Coulter's article.
The framework through which I made my case earlier stems from two major premises: (1.) The great majority of Black Americans, in spite of the many individual and collective achievements and contributions to our society, continue to suffer daily from structural racism and white institutional discrimination. On the whole, Blacks lag behind on all positive statistic ladders and are at the forefront of most negative ladders (more on this later). (2.) White institutional racism is just as much an issue in 2004 as it was in 1964.
If one disagrees with those basic premises, then your understanding of the permanence of structural racism and discrimination in America has just been quantified.
To me, this is not a discussion about whether or not African Americans can achieve at the highest level, or about giving those that do it today a pat on the back. High-ranking African Americans, low-ranking African Americans, no-ranking African Americans have been achieving and succeeding and showing it can be done before the first slave ship carrying Black Africans arrived in Jamestown. We can celebrate those achievements in another forum. But in this forum, I choose to focus on premise number one. In spite of the many African American achievements, the great majority of us continue [to] suffer in urban, suburban and rural America. We are still the last hired and first fired, are incomes continue to lag behind whites even when controlling for education and experience (and let's not open up the subject of wealth inequality), we are taught in the most inadequate K-12 educational facilities, underrepresented at predominately white institutions of higher learning, live in the most horrible housing units, and subjected to inadequate health care facilities. We are grossly overrepresented in our nations correctional facilities, on welfare rolls, on AIDS and HIV rolls, and in the unemployment lines.(Those with college degrees can pretend like they never saw the statistics when they were undergraduates, but the numbers do not lie.)
These are not acute problems. These are pervasive problems that did not come out of thin air. Too many African Americans are still lagging behind. For every Black person presented with and who makes the most of an opportunity to succeed, there are dozens, if not hundreds, who do not get such an opportunity. Because of this (and here is where we usually lose our well-intentioned white brothers [and sisters]), African Americans as a group still have the unenviable burden of having to open up doors for those behind them; of having to create more opportunities for other African Americans; of having to get to the decision-making table and suggest policies that create opportunities and eliminate barriers to them; and of having to work within the system to fight injustice and mitigate bigotry in efforts to make government more responsive to the needs of the less fortunate (akin to the argument of many Black Republicans that in order to make the party more responsive to you, you have to join it!).
Furthermore, this is not a discussion about defining what it means to be Black. If you unsure about where you stand in the struggle, or wondering if the struggle is even yours because of your mixed-ethnicity, then we can certainly discuss that in another forum.
And what is more, this in not a discussion about democrats and republicans. Your professor presented me with a false dichotomy when he attempted to box me into one party or the other, suggesting that there is not a third party view or even a more sensible (read: less irrational) hybrid view. It felt like he classified me as liberal Democrat, even though I wouldn't identify myself as such. I feel there is truth and genuine goodwill contained in both parties, but neither has a monopoly on either (although both tend to feel as though they do). I think if J.C. Watts and Maxine Waters were ever locked in room and sat down at the table to talk about socially responsible policies (perhaps with a mediator), it wouldn't be long before they met the mark. But again, this forum isn't about our grossly inadequate and archaic two-party system.
We're talking about racism, responsibility, and accountability.
Who's racist? It's rather hilarious (and disturbing) that not until the late 1990's did whites gather the audacity to refer to a non-white as racist. I'm still trying to figure out what Blacks did last decade to earn such a title. As a minority group, did we somehow internalize decades of racism and discrimination at the hands of whites and start persecuting white people? Please.
Who's responsible? Are whites supposed to help their race and "give back" to whites? Aside from maybe poor whites in rural Appalachia, haven't whites been helping one another since their arrival in America? Are blacks supposed to help their race and give back? We've been doing it since before our arrival to America, not because it felt good, but because WE HAD TO. I submit that in 2004 we still have to. Those who have the opportunities, resources, access and ability to level the playing field so that race is no longer an impediment to upward mobility must continue to give back. In the same vain, we all have personal responsibility to take care of ourselves and our families.
Who is accountable? When it comes to attacking the root causes of racism, which your professor argues is stupidity, all of us--Black, white, red, yellow, candy-striped, etc--bare the burden of eliminating that stupidity, that bigotry, that backwards thinking, that irrational thinking that is still manifested in our society. It's not about finger-pointing or branding someone who has a different political position than you as an inherently bad person.It is in this vain that we all have an opportunity to give back.
Jimar Wilson
# posted by Millie J. @ 1:08 PM
This discussion serves as a pretty good introduction into the discourse that I'm hoping will end up here.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Between my professor and my friend
This is a very interesting exchange between my Mass Media and Law Prof. and my friend Jimar. It stems from an article by Ann Coulter.
My Professor wrote:Please indulge me this political article because (1) I'm married to a brilliant conservative black woman, so this hits home and (2) Ann Coulter is always a hoot.
The New And Improved Racism, Ann CoulterDecember 9, 2004
Still furious about the election, liberals are lashing out at blacks. First it was Condoleezza Rice. But calling a Ph.D. who advised a sitting president during war "Aunt Jemima" apparently hasn't satiated the Democrats' rage. Even the racist cartoons didn't help.
So this week, they've turned with a vengeance to Clarence Thomas. Only the Democrats would try to distract from their racist attacks on one black Republican by leveling racist attacks against a different black Republican. If Democrats don't nip this in the bud, soon former Klanner and Democratic Sen. Bob Byrd will be their spokesman.
In the past few weeks, there have been nasty insinuations all around about Condoleezza Rice's competence for the job.Democratic consultant Bob Beckel - who demonstrated his own competence running Walter Mondale's campaign - said of Rice, "I don't think she's up to the job."
Joseph Cirincione, with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (so you know they don't have an agenda or anything), said Rice "doesn't bring much experience or knowledge of the world to this position." This was reassuring, inasmuch as that was also liberals' assessment of the current president before he took office and he, to put it mildly, has been doing rather well.
The Kansas City Star editorialized that Rice "has not demonstrated great competence in the last four years," which is to say, Dr. Rice failed to be sufficiently clairvoyant to predict the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Columnist Bob Herbert sneered of Rice's nomination in the New York Times: "Competence has never been highly regarded by the fantasists of the George W. Bush administration." For example, these are the bumbling nitwits who conquered Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires," and toppled Baghdad in less time than your average Jennifer Lopez marriage lasts. (Wait, I can't remember: Was it the Bush administration that hired Jayson Blair?)
So far, Dr. Rice has demonstrated her abundant competence only in academia, geopolitics, history, government, college administration, classical music and athletics. I eagerly await the Bob Herbert column in which he lists the subjects and pursuits he's mastered. If only Rice talked about her accessorizing like Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, she might impress the sort of fellow who writes for the New York Times.
Liberals at least give white Republicans credit for being evil. Rumsfeld is a dangerous warmonger, Paul Wolfowitz is part of an international Jewish conspiracy, Dick Cheney is "Dr. No." But Dr. Rice? She's a dummy.
In fact, after spending the last four years telling us that President Bush was an empty suit, a vessel for neoconservative fantasies of perpetual war, liberals have now found someone who is Bush's puppet: the black chick.
It's all so eerily familiar. The late Mary McGrory, a white liberal, called Scalia "a brilliant and compelling extremist" - as opposed to McGrory herself, a garden-variety extremist of average intelligence. But Thomas she dismissed as "Scalia's puppet," quoting another white liberal, Alvin J. Bronstein of the American Civil Liberties Union, to make the point. This is the kind of rhetoric liberals are reduced to when they just can't bring themselves to use the n-word.Most recently - at least as we go to press - last Sunday Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, had this to say about Justice Clarence Thomas: "I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written." You'd think Thomas' opinions were written in ebonics.
In the same interview, Reid called Justice Antonin Scalia "one smart guy." He said that although he disagreed with Scalia, his reasoning is "very hard to dispute." Scalia is "one smart guy"; Thomas is the janitor. If Democrats are all going to read from the same talking points, they might want to get someone other than David Duke to write them.
On the Sean Hannity radio show, Democratic pundit Pat Halpin defended Sen. Reid's laughable attack on Thomas by citing Bob Woodward's book "The Brethren ," which - according to Halpin - vividly portrays Thomas as a nincompoop.
I return to my standing point that liberals don't read. Harry Reid clearly hasn't read any of the decisions Justice Thomas has written, and Pat Halpin clearly hasn't read "The Brethren.""The Brethren" came out a decade before Thomas was even nominated to the Supreme Court. The only black Supreme Court justice discussed in "The Brethren" is Thurgood Marshall. That's one we haven't heard in a while: I just can't tell you guys apart.
How many black justices have there been on the Supreme Court again? Oh yes: two. It's one thing to confuse Potter Stewart with Lewis Powell. After all, there have been a lot of white guys on the court. But there have been only two black justices - and Democrats can't keep them straight. Two! That's like getting your mother and father confused. I can name every black guy on a current National Hockey League roster: Is it asking Democrats too much to remember the names of the only two black Supreme Court justices?
In "America (The Book)," by Jon Stewart and the writers of Comedy Central's "Daily Show," the section on the judiciary describes how to make a sock puppet of Clarence Thomas and then says, "Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia!" On grounds of originality alone, Mr. Stewart, I want my money back.
But reviewing the book in the New York Times, Caryn James called the sock puppet joke one of the book's "gems of pointed political humor." Funny how the liberal punditocracy all parrot this same "sock puppet" line about Thomas year after year, almost as if they were sock pu-- oh, never mind.
Curiously, of all the liberals launching racist attacks on black conservatives I've quoted above, only two are themselves black: the two who write for the New York Times. So I guess there are still a couple of blacks taking orders from the Democrats. Isn't there an expression for that? I think it begins with "Uncle" and ends with "Tom."
Ann Coulter is host of AnnCoulter.org, a Townhall.com member group.
Jimar Responded:
Very interesting article. As an African American who is critical not only of the Bush Administration, the neo-Conservative agenda, both major political parties and African American political commentators from both the left and right, it is easy for me to recognize the obvious contradictions and hypocrisies within the white liberal base. While many African Americans are disappointed with Rice and Thomas, we do not question their competence as it relates to their education, experience, and critical thinking abilities in ways that white people continue to do. Indeed, the critical discussions that whites have about them are strikingly different than ours. Blacks will question their [lack of] commitment to the community, their political views, and decisions they make. White people, on the other hand, question their competence and depict them as incapable of doing the job only when they cease to cooperate with their agenda. They lauded their educational and professional backgrounds early on, but such accolades only come along with being that "good n----". Race is the obvious answer when you read between the lines.
To be fair, whites can be just as critical towards other whites, but it's usually based on partisanship and seldom goes into ethnicity--even when pitting white Jews, Protestants and Catholics against one another. The reality is, however, that white criticism of African Americans in power seldom stops at partisanship. Race enters the discussion ultimately, whether covertly or overtly. At that point is where the criticism usually gets dumbed down and without much merit. It ceases to be a partisan critique or even an intellectual critique and subsequently becomes a referendum on black competency.
Case in point, I am disappointed in Colin, Condi and Clarence (and former Education Sec'y Rod Paige) because they are not, in my opinion, doing enough to advocate on behalf of low income communities of color--particularly African American communities. I'm am disappointed that these individuals have not wielded their respective influences from academia and professional networks to aid African American progress through increased opportunities for the masses. I'm disappointed that they've achieved so much, attended the nations best universities, earned so much influence, and yet aren't making a difference with respect to the urgent urban crises taking place in our communities. With all this disappointment, do I question the hard work that they've put to get to where they are? Do I devalue their educational backgrounds and professional experience? Do I discount them as being idiots any more than I feel that the people who put them in office (G. Bush and G.W. Bush) are idiots? I do not. Call me guilty for condemning Colin, Condi, Clarence and Rod for not being credits to their race during the critical junctures in their careers as Cabinet members.
What Coulter's article points out, however, is that white liberals are unable to develop arguments about African Americans with whom they disagree based on anything substantive. They acknowledged the pedigrees and resumes of all of these individuals and lauded them as the best and brightest minds--not just among Blacks, but among all Americans. But time and time again we eventually see our Nation's true colors shine.
My professor again:
Thank you for forwarding his commentary. One thing that disturbs me is that, apparently, all blacks are obligated to help "their race" when they succeed, yet you never hear blacks (or anyone else) complaining about whites who did not go back and help "their race" or "give back." That, in itself, is a racist viewpoint.
My wife is half black and half white. What is her obligation? Does she have to "aid African American progress" 6 months out of the year? Or is it just 12 hours each day? How does that work? My children are only a quarter black, so I guess they only have to "make a difference with respect to the urgent urban crises taking place in our communities" for one season out of the year? Gets confusing when your working out what "race" you have to give back to. And what exactly are Condi, Colin, Clarence et. al. supposed to do to "aid African American progress through increased opportunities for the masses" and to "make a difference with respect to the urgent urban crises taking place in our communities"? What does that mean? I submit that they do all of that simply by succeeding and showing it can be done.
It seems to me that when black public figures do not buy into the various causes espoused by the Democrats and the left, then they are condemned for not supposedly "giving back." It seems to me that Bush selects people that he likes, trusts, admires, and feels can best do the job (within, of course, his philosophy of how those jobs are best served - we don't elect presidents so they will pick people to work with them who disagree with their political philosophies!). If those people happen to be black (or hispanic, or Jewish, or female, etc.), more power to them, but it really does not seem to matter to him (as it shouldn't) nor would it matter at all to me.
My point is this: there is so much talk about the "evils" of racism, which I think misses the point. The by-product of racism may often be evil acts, but the cause of racism is stupidity! The utter lack of an ability to engage in rational thought - that is racism. To assume you know one darn thing about a person because you know the color of their skin is simply stupid, irrational thinking. If I told you that a person was coming over for dinner and that person was "black" - what would you know about that person? It could be Condi Rice, or Clarence Thomas, or Thomas Sowell, or Shelby Steele --- or it could be Maxine Waters, or Jessie Jackson, or Al Sharpton or Charlie Rangel.
What bothers me about a lot of Democrats is their underlying philosophy that blacks (and other minorities) cannot do it themselves and need some altruistic Democrat to come along and save their bacon. Baloney (and racist!). It is one of the many reasons I am a Republican - our focus is on individuals, not "groups." In other words, I don't deal in hyphens. No African-Americans, no Italian-Americans, no Mexican-Americans for me. Just Americans.
Jimar again:
Millie,
Before I get into my commentary, I will point out that the title of Ms. Coulter's article is "The New and Improved Racism" and that I agree 100% with her arguments that liberals have shown their true colors by artfully attacking Black Republicans by doing everything but calling them the "N" word. I think it's appalling and very problematic. These liberals should be exposed for their hypocrisies on a larger scale for all to see.
Having said that, I couldn't help but feel that your professor may have misunderstood my overarching arguments and instead found a few statements that were most emotive for him, particularly relating to his family. While I don't mean to discount his anecdotes about the complexities of his wife and kids who identify themselves as mixed-race, I do feel that the bigger issues somehow were lost in his response.
It is indeed quite possible, however misguided, to discuss race in 2004 without taking into account the historical context through which we analyze it. It is striking how so many Americans--Black, white, Latino, Asian, etc.--continue to live inside of a fantasy world where racism is not and has never been a structural barrier to the advancement of non-whites in America. It's as if slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, disenfranchisement and discrimination have not played a significant role in how our democratic society operates today, how we as Americans of different backgrounds and experiences relate to one another and, most importantly, what we teach our young people. That was my initial reaction [to] the reply from your professor. Perhaps I was unclear at the onset about my overarching frame of reference in giving my comments to Coulter's article.
The framework through which I made my case earlier stems from two major premises: (1.) The great majority of Black Americans, in spite of the many individual and collective achievements and contributions to our society, continue to suffer daily from structural racism and white institutional discrimination. On the whole, Blacks lag behind on all positive statistic ladders and are at the forefront of most negative ladders (more on this later). (2.) White institutional racism is just as much an issue in 2004 as it was in 1964.
If one disagrees with those basic premises, then your understanding of the permanence of structural racism and discrimination in America has just been quantified.
To me, this is not a discussion about whether or not African Americans can achieve at the highest level, or about giving those that do it today a pat on the back. High-ranking African Americans, low-ranking African Americans, no-ranking African Americans have been achieving and succeeding and showing it can be done before the first slave ship carrying Black Africans arrived in Jamestown. We can celebrate those achievements in another forum. But in this forum, I choose to focus on premise number one. In spite of the many African American achievements, the great majority of us continue [to] suffer in urban, suburban and rural America. We are still the last hired and first fired, are incomes continue to lag behind whites even when controlling for education and experience (and let's not open up the subject of wealth inequality), we are taught in the most inadequate K-12 educational facilities, underrepresented at predominately white institutions of higher learning, live in the most horrible housing units, and subjected to inadequate health care facilities. We are grossly overrepresented in our nations correctional facilities, on welfare rolls, on AIDS and HIV rolls, and in the unemployment lines.(Those with college degrees can pretend like they never saw the statistics when they were undergraduates, but the numbers do not lie.)
These are not acute problems. These are pervasive problems that did not come out of thin air. Too many African Americans are still lagging behind. For every Black person presented with and who makes the most of an opportunity to succeed, there are dozens, if not hundreds, who do not get such an opportunity. Because of this (and here is where we usually lose our well-intentioned white brothers [and sisters]), African Americans as a group still have the unenviable burden of having to open up doors for those behind them; of having to create more opportunities for other African Americans; of having to get to the decision-making table and suggest policies that create opportunities and eliminate barriers to them; and of having to work within the system to fight injustice and mitigate bigotry in efforts to make government more responsive to the needs of the less fortunate (akin to the argument of many Black Republicans that in order to make the party more responsive to you, you have to join it!).
Furthermore, this is not a discussion about defining what it means to be Black. If you unsure about where you stand in the struggle, or wondering if the struggle is even yours because of your mixed-ethnicity, then we can certainly discuss that in another forum.
And what is more, this in not a discussion about democrats and republicans. Your professor presented me with a false dichotomy when he attempted to box me into one party or the other, suggesting that there is not a third party view or even a more sensible (read: less irrational) hybrid view. It felt like he classified me as liberal Democrat, even though I wouldn't identify myself as such. I feel there is truth and genuine goodwill contained in both parties, but neither has a monopoly on either (although both tend to feel as though they do). I think if J.C. Watts and Maxine Waters were ever locked in room and sat down at the table to talk about socially responsible policies (perhaps with a mediator), it wouldn't be long before they met the mark. But again, this forum isn't about our grossly inadequate and archaic two-party system.
We're talking about racism, responsibility, and accountability.
Who's racist? It's rather hilarious (and disturbing) that not until the late 1990's did whites gather the audacity to refer to a non-white as racist. I'm still trying to figure out what Blacks did last decade to earn such a title. As a minority group, did we somehow internalize decades of racism and discrimination at the hands of whites and start persecuting white people? Please.
Who's responsible? Are whites supposed to help their race and "give back" to whites? Aside from maybe poor whites in rural Appalachia, haven't whites been helping one another since their arrival in America? Are blacks supposed to help their race and give back? We've been doing it since before our arrival to America, not because it felt good, but because WE HAD TO. I submit that in 2004 we still have to. Those who have the opportunities, resources, access and ability to level the playing field so that race is no longer an impediment to upward mobility must continue to give back. In the same vain, we all have personal responsibility to take care of ourselves and our families.
Who is accountable? When it comes to attacking the root causes of racism, which your professor argues is stupidity, all of us--Black, white, red, yellow, candy-striped, etc--bare the burden of eliminating that stupidity, that bigotry, that backwards thinking, that irrational thinking that is still manifested in our society. It's not about finger-pointing or branding someone who has a different political position than you as an inherently bad person.It is in this vain that we all have an opportunity to give back.
Jimar Wilson
# posted by Millie J. @ 1:08 PM
posted by Jimar at 11:00 AM
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