rewrite u.s. "history" so that white people look better than ever

This is a guest post by Chauncey DeVega, who blogs at We Are Respectable Negroes, where this post also appears.

What Would U.S. History Look Like 

If It Were Written By Texas and Arizona?

History is one part truth. History is also one part fable. It is a site of political contestation and struggle. As the state of Arizona (with its rules banning “Ethnic Studies”) and the state of Texas (reimaging its U.S. history curriculum to conform with the Tea Party and Christian Nationalist perspective) have both embraced a more “conservative” view of history, it only seems fair and reasonable to take their efforts at face value. Theirs is not an assault on academic freedom. No, it is an effort to diversify and make more inclusive and “American” the curriculum taught to our children.

Many, on both sides of the political divide, have treated these new guidelines with much derision and complaint. I suggest that the best way to understand the teaching of history as imagined by this brave new world is to work through the reality it offers. To that end, I present U.S. history as outlined in the politically correct guidelines offered by Arizona and Texas. Sometimes the old is indeed the new . . . welcome my friends to Tea Party U.S.A.

The Essential Dates and Events of U.S. History 
as Approved by the States of Arizona and Texas

1607– Jamestown founded. Capitalism, which can trace its roots to the Bible, is now firmly rooted in the New World.

1660-1800–Triangular Atlantic trade continues to bring wealth and prosperity to America while giving opportunities to new immigrants.

1776–War for Independence against the tyrannical, evil British empire. Colonists suffer oppression that is unprecedented in human history. Minutemen singlehandedly defeat the evil British Empire in 1783.

1788–The United States Constitution is signed as a document to stand for all time, inspired by God, and never to be changed.

1803-1848–America continues to expand westward into empty territories. American settlers make the land bloom with the help of friendly Indian tribes.

1823–America guarantees the freedom of all countries and people in the Western Hemisphere with the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine.

1848–Mexico, in an act of friendship following their humiliation at the Alamo by the great Republic of Texas, gives their territories to the United States.

1860s-1900s–The Gilded Age of prosperity. American capitalism provides opportunities for all people to grow wealthy, secure, and happy. Liberals and Progressives begin working against American freedom and capitalism by forming unions, demanding unfair compensation from their employers, limiting the rights of children to work in factories, and imposing restrictive regulations for the “safety” of employees. Many brave men die fighting Communist-influenced unions as they riot in America’s cities.

1861-1865–Civil War fought because of an overreaching, tyrannical federal government and its desire to limit the freedoms of all Americans. 620,000 people die including many brave and noble black Americans who fought on the side of the Confederacy. Northerners and Southerners eventually find common ground through Redemption and move forward as brothers and sisters in the USA.

1865-1870s–Democratic terrorists called the Ku Klux Klan begin a reign of terror in the South until brave Republicans defeat them.

1906–Using the Antiquities Act, Theodore Roosevelt establishes the National Park System. In one bold stroke Roosevelt establishes Socialist policies that steal land from the American people.

1913–More Socialism and class warfare ushered into the U.S. with the federal income tax system.

1917–America enters and wins World War 1 singlehandedly because the French are cowards.

1929–Great Depression begins. Tens of millions unemployed because of FDR’s failed economic policies. His New Deal introduces the nanny state, prolongs America’s economic collapse, and weakens the economy until Ronald Reagan renews America.

1941–Patriotic Japanese Americans volunteer to place themselves in gated communities so that America will be safe from Imperial Japan.

1941-1945–America enters and wins World War 2 singlehandedly because the French are cowards. Out of necessity, the United States drops atomic bombs on Japan.

1945-1965–A high point in U.S. history, as freedom and prosperity reign over all Americans.

1950–Senator Joseph McCarthy fearlessly highlights how America is infiltrated by communists from Russia and China. Big Hollywood and the liberal establishment are brought to their knees by his brave efforts.

1954–Brown v. Board of Education removes the parental right to send children to the schools of their choice and with the company they desire. A dangerous and unconstitutional era of activist Supreme Court decisions begins.

1955-1968–George Wallace and Martin Luther King Jr. lead a Civil Rights Movement to ensure that all Americans are judged by “the content of their character and not the color of their skin.”

1964-Barry Goldwater ignites a revolution in Conservative thought and values that resonates to the 21st century.

1968–The cinematic classic The Green Berets starring John Wayne, America’s greatest actor, debuts.

1971–America largely withdraws from Vietnam on the cusp of victory because it was weakened by The Gays, The Women’s Movement, and “The Counter-culture.” The French are cowards whose failure forced the U.S. to intervene in Indochina.

1973–Roe vs. Wade, the worst legal decision in the history of the Supreme Court, is decided.

1974-Phyllis Schlafly, pioneer for the rights of women, takes a stand against evil Leftist feminists who want to ban motherhood, force mothers to work at jobs outside the home, join the military, become lesbians, and receive advanced educations which they do not need.

1974–Nixon forced to resign by liberal conspiracy.

1980–Ronald Reagan, America’s greatest president, restores American providence by ushering in a new era of economic prosperity, cutting the federal budget, and correcting the unfair federal tax code in order that the hard work of the richest Americans is justly rewarded.

1989–The Berlin Wall falls. Ronald Reagan wins the Cold War singlehandedly.

1992-2000–Democrat president Bill Clinton in office. His reckless personal behavior and irresponsible foreign policy choices weaken America internationally. The U.S. economy is almost destroyed by his tax policies. His wife Hillary Clinton furthers the march towards Socialism by advocating for free public health care and to destroy the insurance companies that drive us economic growth.

2000–George Bush elected in a landslide.

2001–Terrorists attack America on September 11th. Because of Bill Clinton’s policies, a weakened border, a lax immigration policy, rampant multiculturalism, and the Democrats’ weakening of the military, America is left open to attack.

2003–Dr. King’s vision is finally made real. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court strikes down the reverse discrimination policies of the University of Michigan. Freedom rings across the land.

2003–The country of Iraq, a rogue state, part of the Axis of Evil, and led by the dictator Saddam Hussein -- a co-conspirator in the 9-11 attacks -- is liberated by President George Bush.

2008-Arizona war hero John McCain introduces Sarah Palin to the world.

2008–Barack Obama is elected. America is in a Constitutional crisis as Obama is unable to prove that he is a U.S. citizen.

2008-the present. Brave Americans begin joining Tea Parties and 9-12 freedom groups. Millions of their members march on Washington DC.. Freedom fighter, James David Manning, places Obama on trial in absentia for treason and sedition.

2008–Sarah Palin, mother, governor, author, actress, comedienne and role-model, begins here meteoric rise to political stardom. She ushers in an era of robust, common sense approaches to political problems tempered by real American values.

2010–Barack Obama remains President although his rule is illegitimate. Brave patriots such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh continue to lead the people’s resistance against his tyrannical rule.

2010-Patriotic legislatures in Texas and Arizona lead the battle against racial quotas and ethnocentrism as they draft legislation to defend all of America from an unending and unfettered stream of foreign invaders.

embody the fairest of them all

Here's a shot of Friday goodness, an infauxmercial sent in by James Yamanoha (who's half of the HabuNami Media collective). James also said that this short had its world premiere last night at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival; I hear the audience fell into helpless heaps of horrified laughter.

Tagline/Teaser:

Politicians, police officers, and right-wing pundits all agree: White On™ is the best solution to the race problem since Jim Crow! Never sit through another one of those boring “racial sensitivity trainings” ever again! Give them the gift of White On™ and watch your fears boil away!

[Trigger warning for some violent imagery]

White On™ Infomercial from HabuNami Media.

Here's HabuNami Media's blog, Okinawa Notes, and here's more on the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival.

condemn illegal workers instead of illegal employers

As a televisual satirist, Stephen Colbert dances along a fine line; by provoking laughter over serious subject matter, he runs the risk of trivializing his chosen topics, as well as other people's pain.

In the following episode of his regular segment, "The Word," Colbert takes on Arizona's new, draconian, and blatantly racist anti-immigrant law. I appreciate the points that Colbert gets across here to his mainstream audience, but there's one factor in this decades-long immigration "debate" that I wish he'd also covered -- the persistent focus on workers, rather than on those who illegally employ them.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - No Problemo
www.colbertnation.com

Amidst the laughter he provokes, Colbert makes several excellent points. He also provides a phrase that I think deserves the meme-like status of his earlier linguistic creation (the word "truthiness"). By which I mean: with a great national debate on immigration coming up soon (or maybe not so soon?), I hope the term "Juan Crow" catches on to describe not only Arizona's new law, but also the misguided, vitriolic and commonly white sentiments behind it. Unless, that is, the term perpetuates the stereotype that most Mexican men are named Juan?

However, one important point Colbert leaves out is that discussion of immigration is almost always focused on the workers, instead of on the (mostly white) employers. After all, by hiring these border-crossing workers, aren't they also doing something illegal? If so, why is there so much focus on the workers, and so little on the employers?

As Joe Feagin points out at Racism Review,

One critical part of the “immigration debates” is just how powerful the conservative framing of these issues is. Conservatives frame it as “illegal immigrants” or “illegal aliens,” while even liberals are focusing on “undocumented immigrants” and “immigration problems.” This is yet another example of how we get trapped in deep unreflective frames.

How about reframing the entire debate as about “lawless employers,” “illegal employers,” and “illegal employment”? Mostly white employers are certainly at the center of this national “problem.”

Yes, that's an answer right there, isn't it -- conservatives manage to frame most national debates, thanks in no small part to the ubiquity of corporate media outlets, which naturally promote and enact business-friendly conservative policies. And so, in turn, most Americans, conservative and liberal/progressive alike, tend to play along.

Thank goodness for the Internet, eh? Or maybe . . . not? Are the grassroots possibilities of the online revolution managing to shift the corporate media's framing of such debates? Can anything be done, for instance, to get most people thinking about illegal employers, instead of workers?

At the very least, we can find out online about forms of action we can take that the corporate media fail to mention. Here, for instance, is an online petition you can sign -- "Shame on Arizona" allows you to sign the following pledge to boycott the state: "As long as racial profiling is legal in Arizona, I will do what I can to not visit the state and to avoid spending dollars there."

I've never actually been to Arizona, which I gather is beautiful; needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, supporting the state's (soon-to-be ironically flagging) economy by "paying" a visit no longer interests me.


h/t for the video: Irene's Daughters

claim that the new tax on tanning salons is racist

Here's a clip from a radio show hosted by someone I usually ignore, Glenn Beck. The speaker is a fill-in host, Doc Thompson. Listen (or read the transcript below) and see if you can catch any common white tendencies:




Transcript:

DOC THOMPSON: I now know the pain of racism, and I'm curious if you do too, if you are now feeling the pain of racism. For years I've suggested that racism was in decline and yeah, there are some, you know, incidents that still happen with regards to racism, but most of the claims, [as] I've said for years, well, they're not really real.

But I realize now that I was wrong. For I now too feel the pain of racism. Racism has been dropped at my front door and the front door of all lighter-skinned Americans. The health care bill the president just singed into law includes a 10 percent tax on all indoor tanning sessions starting July 1st, and I say, who uses tanning? Is it dark-skinned people? I don't think so. I would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans. Why would the President of the United States of America -- a man who says he understands racism, a man who has been confronted with racism -- why would he sign such a racist law? Why would he agree to do that? Well now I feel the pain of racism.

Is Thompson being satirical here? Whether he is or not, a problem with that approach in this context is that a lot of people -- millions, perhaps -- take Glenn Beck's show seriously. They take it, that is, literally.

On his own station's web site (WRVA), Thompson's bio includes this bit:

Laughing and making people laugh are important. His medium of choice is of course radio. He dabbles in many styles with sarcasm and satire always present. Although he is candid and forthright he loves good spirited practical jokes which prompted a former co-worker to say “If only Doc would use his powers for good instead of evil.”

Thompson apparently updates that page himself, and he wrote the following there about his comment on Beck's show (the ellipses are his, not mine):

The media world and internet was abuzz with my comments on Glenn Beck and it illustrates Liberal hypocrisy beautifully! -- There are two main reasons my commentary on the tanning tax was so effective at stirring up the Liberals...

First the way I positioned it... “I know the pain of racism!” Liberals like to segregate for political gain and have promoted the idea that minorities have an exclusive on being the victim of discrimination.

It was also affective [sic] because...there is an element of truth to it. There is a double standard and I pointed it out with the very law they, at least partially, claimed was about leveling the racial playing field.

During all this they, of course, missed the bigger point. The satire on CLAIMS of racism...

So Thompson is claiming that his comment was satire, and that its object was "liberals" who, what was it? Oh yeah, liberals who "like to segregate for political gain and have promoted the idea that minorities have an exclusive on being the victim of discrimination."

I don't actually self-identify as a "liberal," but still, there's so much wrong there. For one thing, what "liberal" ever said that minorities are the only victims of discrimination? What liberal would disagree, for instance, that working class whites are victimized by classist discrimination?

But that's a bit off the topic of Thompson's comment, isn't it? He's making a point about racial discrimination against whites in general, and part of what he's saying is that although his cries of reverse discrimination in the "tanning tax" remarks were satiric, the "truth" is that whites really do suffer from racial discrimination.

Whether or not any of Glenn Beck's (no-doubt very white) listening audience understood Thompson's satire, he was fanning the flames of white racial resentment. Which is, of course, a longstanding common white tendency, at least among right-wing pundits and politicians. Aside from diverting attention from the real dangers of tanning salons, Thompson threw some red meat to misguided white people, the kind of white people who think that dark people are more of a problem for them than rich people.


H/T: Andy Kroll @ Mother Jones

feel disappointed because Obama apparently isn't a magic negro

In the following "Daily Show" clip, Jon Stewart and "Senior Black Correspondent" Larry Wilmore assess the first year of Obama's presidency. Or rather, they assess common reactions to Obama's first year. Stewart first satirizes the common and reductive cable-news tendency to offer analyses that consist of even less than one word -- that is, a letter, as in a grade.

I'm more interested in Larry Wilmore's segment (at 02:25), in which he satirizes common white expectations of a heroically positioned black man -- expectations, that is, that Obama would be another iteration of an old Hollywood standby, the Magic Negro.

I do agree that with Wilmore's satiric point: that a lot of white liberals had their hopes for Obama primed by the cultural pervasiveness of this racial stereotype, and that part of their current disappointment in Obama is a realization that he hasn't proven to be another Magic Negro.

So I'm interested, as Wilmore seems to be, in common white reactions to Obama as a black man. But I'm also interested in common white reactions to Larry Wilmore, as a black man analyzing those common white reactions to Obama as a black man. More about that below the clip . . .

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
The First 364 Days 23 Hours
www.thedailyshow.com

I first saw this clip at Gawker, which has long struck me as a place that assumes its readership is comprised primarily of media-savvy, relatively hip, mostly white people (and maybe even people who, although they openly hate "hipsters," often actually fit the hipster profile). In Gawker's post about this clip, the main point of which is that the "The Daily Show" writers "still haven't gotten a good bead on" Obama, Wilmore's segment is briefly described -- and not analyzed:

Larry Wilmore followed and did his thing, which is basically: Talking to white people like they are all racist. This was pretty funny too!

I don't know about you, but given the general tone at Gawker, that description reads to me like sarcasm. Sarcasm that really means, "Wilmore did his same old shtick, which really wasn't all that funny, because it's actually offensive. It's reverse racism, because come now, not all white people are racist! Who does this black man think he is, implying things like that about white people?" And so on.

I think that as before, Jon Stewart does play "typical white guy" here to Larry Wilmore's "racially wise black guy." Stewart again acts rather cowed and frightened by Wilmore, as well as disappointed. He becomes disappointed because although he's feeling sort of racially vulnerable, he still is listening respectfully to what Wilmore has to say. As a result, his typical and naive white liberal hopes -- in this case, in Obama -- are being exposed as such, and then dashed yet again.

In other words, I think that Wilmore's satiric insights -- in this case, about a common white-liberal tendency to let Obama's non-threatening blackness evoke the hoary Magic Negro stereotype -- are brilliant. And Stewart and his writers seem to agree; I think they're basically providing a platform of sorts that makes the insights offered by Wilmore available to those white people willing to grapple with them.

As for Stewart's ongoing role in the brief, staged dialogues that he sometimes has with Wilmore, I think he may be enacting how he and/or his writers think the show's largely white liberal audience should receive Wilmore's insights into their thought and behavior. That is, humbly, and respectfully. Even if, for a lot of white people in such a dialogue, that can be uncomfortable, and even scary.

I wonder, though, how many white viewers actually do grasp Wilmore's deeper and (for them) newer insights. Is the brief Gawker assessment above of Wilmore -- which takes up only a tiny part of their assessment of this two-part segment -- typically dismissive of black insights like those offered by Wilmore? If so, that wouldn't surprise me. After all, white people, even well-intentioned liberals, aren't used to listening respectfully to black people talking about race. Especially if instead of talking about themselves, they're talking about white people.

The Gawker assessment of this segment was written by Adrian Chen, whose name suggests that he's not white. Nevertheless, I think his assessment of this "Daily Show" segment, in its basic dismissal of what Wilmore actually had to say, reflects a common white reaction to black insights into common white ways.

Also interesting in these terms is the reaction to Wilmore of the show's studio audience (also largely white, I assume, which is not to say that people of color don't also enjoy "The Daily Show"). An especially good line of Wilmore's, for instance, seems to fall on deaf ears ("[Obama's] just suffering from the hard bigotry of high expectations!"). Listening carefully to the laughter and other audience reactions again makes me wonder just how willing, let alone ready, white people in general are to listen to black observations about whiteness. And of course, recent conversations in the comment threads on this blog have made me wonder the same thing. Wilmore is basically functioning as a comedian here, but like many black comics before him (and like Paul Mooney, for example [nsfw], today), he has serious revelations to offer white people about themselves.

Gawker is a popular site; at this writing, a day after that piece on the "Daily Show" was posted, it's already been viewed over 8,000 times. So far, it only has 18 comments, two of which address Wilmore's segment -- how do you read them? Do they seem to be taking Wilmore's serious comedy seriously?

Yeah, it seems lots of people were disappointed that Obama was not the "Magic Negro" that they were hoping for.

Next time, Dems, you need to run Morgan Freeman - he's GOD.

---

Oh - folks got the sads now 'cause he doesn't have a magic wand to fix everything right away?

Please. His presidency has managed to restore a certain amount of confidence in the US around the world. Eventually, this should be more effective than any Homeland Security regulation imagineable.

---

I cannot tell a lie. I really thought he was magic.

Damn you, privileged, white upbringing!


Oh wait, there is a fourth comment there, one that I agree with (the part about Wilmore, that is; I don't consider Colbert's satiric persona an annoying one-trick pony):

This Larry Wilmore needs his own show. Sorry, but Colbert is a one trick pony who's act is grating and one dimensional. I want a Wilmore show instead.

But then, if Wilmore did have a show, and he continued to talk to white Americans like this, I don't think it would last very long. That's because white Americans in general aren't ready to listen to a black man's insights into their common ways of being.


[And by the way, again, I'm not saying that people of color don't watch and enjoy "The Daily Show" -- I'm sure many do. I'm interested in common white reactions to it, and especially to Larry Wilmore. I'm also not addressing here Obama's declining popularity more generally, so no comments, please, about what that has to do with his politics, unless your comment clearly has something to do with stuff white people do.]

express their racist opinions with t-shirts

This white American, who was recently caught on camera in Washington, D.C., probably doesn't realize that the opinion he's expressing with this t-shirt is racist. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that he's the sort of ordinary white American who swears up and down that he's not only not a racist himself, but also that the real racists are black people, because they keep "playing the race card." And also, if he himself does happen to be a tiny bit racist, well, that's only because they make him that way, by "constantly crying 'racism!'"

I snagged this photo from Wonkette, where it's accompanied by their usual, extra-hot Snark Sauce:

Wonkette operative “Rob J.” sends us this pic of a Real American he saw at L’Enfant Plaza today, making some point about the Blacks and their long history of enslaving others. What a horrible misspelling of that one country’s name! There are two g’s, idiot.

Wonkette's writer of this post set it up as a "caption contest," and if you're into clever snark, I recommend the comments (which is not to say that I recommend all of the comments). I can't resist reprinting the proposed caption that I'd pick as the winner -- commenter Patty Dumpling wrote, "The back says: 'Mustache Rides: 25 Cents (NO COLOREDS).'” (Sorry if that offends anyone; there's no accounting for what makes different people laugh.)

So here's the main reason I reproduced this sad, infuriating, and ultimately delusional t-shirt -- it's another iteration of a concept covered most ably by Abagond (in an swpd guest post, and at his own blog), "The Arab Trader Argument." Among his blog's many other ponderings, Abagond regularly explicates common white tendencies. In addition to explaining so clearly what these tendencies are and how they work, Abagond also provides convenient labels for them, labels that I think should be used again and again, so that they acquire common currency.

As for that man in DC and his racist t-shirt, it's hard to take seriously a public message from someone who can't even be bothered to spell correctly the names of the countries he's splayed across his chest (or maybe, there just wasn't quite enough room for all the letters in "Mauritania"?). Still, this t-shirt is worth noting, because its message, or argument, is such a common white mode of derailment, and oblivion. It's basically saying, "They did it too, so stop blaming us for doing it!" It's basically, that is, childish.

It's an example of The Arab Trader Argument, which, as Abagond explained,

goes like this: if white Americans do something evil and terrible it is all right -- or at least not all that bad -- so long as they can find at least one example from world history of someone else doing the same thing. Thus the Atlantic slave trade was not so bad because Arabs traders sold slaves too!

This argument isn't just childish and silly. It's also insidious, because white people so often use it, and variations of it, to justify their people's own past and present abuses of other people. It's also a way of shrugging off collective racial responsibility for such abuses, including one's own complicity in them.

The Arab Trader argument appears in many guises. Here, for instance, is another example that I heard recently --

Well, it may be true that white people continue to benefit from white privilege. And yes, institutional racism exists too. BUT, if the tables were turned, black people wouldn't do anything about it either.

And so, the logic goes, "Since they would enjoy the perks of racial privilege and ignore oppression that they've caused, why should white people do anything about all that? Get off our case, why don'tcha? We're really no one worse than anyone else would be in our position. They'd do it too!" (And something else -- it always seems to be "the blacks," doesn't it?)

So yes, I think "The Arab Trader Argument" is a mighty useful phrase, in part because it covers so many common white modes of racial deflection. In fact, these deflections are so common that they're even showing up on t-shirts.

Have you heard other forms or examples of The Arab Trader Argument?

Also, do you know of other race-cognizant terms or phrases that have gained common currency in this here Age of the Internetz? Actually, I'd like to see "common white tendencies" get some traction (not that I think I necessarily created it, nor that I want credit for it -- I just think that white people should realize that they have common tendencies -- that they're not all the free-floating individuals they tend to think they are).

Nezua has an extensive "Glossario" of such items -- I've read other people's usages of, for instance, "The Drowning Maestro" (though the common white tendency described by that term seems to be described more often as "the tone argument").

Other examples of recent Internet race-jargon that you've seen widely used? Or, are there others, like The Arab Trader Argument, that you think deserve wider use?

go on ghetto tours

[Update (1/17/10) The idea for a "ghetto tour" described below ($65, lunch included) is up and running this weekend, as noted in this New York Times feature story.]



So someone in Los Angeles is now offering "Ghetto Tours"?

Really?

Yes, really -- turns out that "Doonesbury" (circa 1972) was waaaay ahead of its time:

According to the Los Angeles Times,

A group of civic activists, united by faith and a belief that the poor economy in the interior of Los Angeles is a social injustice, is preparing to offer bus tours of some of the grittiest pockets of the city, including decayed public housing, sites of deadly shootouts and streets ravaged by racial unrest.

After a VIP preview last weekend, L.A. Gang Tours expects to open to the public in January, giving tourists a look at the cradle of the nation's gang culture -- the birthplace of many of the city's gangs, including Crips and Bloods, Florencia 13 and 18th Street.

Before going on to explain why I think this is a problem, I think that description of "L.A. Gang Tours" merits one more "Doonsebury":






Seriously now, what kind of white people will go on these ghetto tours? What or whom will they be looking for, and how close do they really want to get to that? Why do they want to get so close (but not, you know, too close)?

I can't imagine that any more than a very small percentage of people will go on these tours with anything other than a prurient, voyeuristic desire to see and photograph what amounts, for them, to animals strewn across the Serengeti.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so quick to doubt this effort. According to the Times, some apparent community leaders are involved, and the profits are marked for explicit community improvements:

"This is ground zero for a lot of the bad in this city. It could be ground zero for a lot of the good too," said Alfred Lomas, a former Florencia member who has become a leading gang intervention worker in South Los Angeles and is spearheading the tours. "This is true community empowerment."

The nonprofit group plans to offer two-hour tours at an initial cost of $65 per adult, with profits funneled back into the community through jobs, "franchised" tours in new areas and micro-loans to inner-city entrepreneurs. Early routes will focus largely on South L.A., with forays through Watts and Florence-Firestone. . . .

The L.A. tour comes after months of planning, and is offered in a spirit of education and public service. Lomas, who will lead tours at first, plans to talk about important chapters in the development of the city's core, such as how racist housing restrictions shaped ethnic enclaves and the formation of gangs.

Well, I suppose it could be an education, for some. But still, how could the organizers ward off gawking, pseudo-ethnographic thrill-seekers? Maybe they think including such people will be okay, since their money will go to good causes? Maybe.

Nevertheless, some aspects of this story suggest that a lot of ghetto tourists are going to have their stereotypes about inner-cities, and about their non-white residents, confirmed rather than challenged:

Other aspects may raise eyebrows. Selling shirts painted on the spot by a graffiti "tagger" is one thing. But one backer said he also hopes to stage dance-offs between locals; tourists would pick a winner and fork over a cash prize. It wasn't long ago that organizers decided against a plan to have kids shoot tourists with water pistols, followed by the sale of T-shirts that read: "I Got Shot in South-Central."

Yes, those aspects did raise my eyebrows. And my anti-racism hackles, too. Others in the areas to be toured seem to agree. Francisco Ortega, a field staffer with the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, told the Times that the tours "could come across like a zoo or something. . . . You're being carted about: 'Look at that cholo over there!' It could be perceived as demeaning for the people who are living in these conditions. I don't know how they're going to manage those perceptions."

City Councilwoman Jan Perry seems to have even stronger reservations. "It's not right to put people on display," she said.

Apparently this is an expensive operation, with several big-time investors involved. In fact, money is a suspiciously big concern here. According to the Times, one of the investors, Terry Jensen,

believes the tours could generate $1 million in profit in the first year, and that it would compete for customers with operators of celebrity-home tours in Hollywood.

"I think this will be a destination tour," Jensen said. "I think people will come to Los Angeles to take this tour."

Amidst Jensen's rosy promises that some of the profits will be used to send a local "tagger" to art school, he acknowledges the risks of hauling busloads of tourists through gang territory:

"We all know that the day somebody gets hurt, it's over," he said. "We're counting on the fact that the gangs aren't going to mess in their own beds."

Yes, we all know what bed-messers those Crips and Bloods and such can be.

"Driver, stop the bus! No wait, step on it -- my Harold just got a cap busted in his ass!"

I shouldn't joke about this effort to . . . rejuvenate areas devastated by racism? Make some money from jungle-crawling adventurers? Well, maybe it's both, but the whole effort does seem ripe for satiric derision.

As I said, a potential problem here, which seems like a big one, is that a lot of people who don't live in a neglected urban setting will probably emerge from such a tour with their misconceptions and stereotypes firmly in place, rather than displaced, or even challenged. They'll be lighter in the wallet, but they'll have had a brush with "danger," too, in a place they already associate with "the jungle," and with people who resemble in their imaginations the inhuman and frightening residents of a jungle. These are the kinds of atavistic stereotypes that long ago drove white people away from cities; they also continue to account in large part for levels of residential segregation that in many places are higher than they were during the Jim Crow era.

Another problem, from what I can tell, is that residents of the touring areas were not consulted in any significant way about being put on display like this for gawking tourists. It seems that the people approached from the area were primarily those associated with gangs, and the main motivation there was to ensure that bullets aren't flying when the buses are cruising through. (At one point in the Times story, a negotiator for the project tells a local leader with gang connections, "I'm not saying you have to stop shooting each other. . . . Just allow me a certain time in the day. . . . Just let the bus go through.")

So hey, folks, adventure tourism just got better, for those Americans who can afford it. And, it's become less time consuming! Who needs to go to Africa for a Safari, when you can get up within snapshot distance of wild things right here in the U.S. of A.?

Oops, there goes my satiric reflex again. This idea of "ghetto tours" makes it really hard to resist.



[My thanks to swpd reader JJC for a tip about this story. For another, smaller-scale ghetto tour in Chicago, see this 2007 USA Today story. Also, via Racialicious, a post at Gothamist on tourists in NYC flocking to the site of Amadou Diallo's death.]

generously provide examples of problematic white behavior

This is a guest post by RVCBard, a Black woman and HBCU graduate too close to thirtysomething for her own comfort. Playwright, web marketing strategist, and sometime film and theater reviewer, RVCBard identifies as a lot of things: queer, Black, Jewish, woman, and more. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, she now lives in Brooklyn.


A lot of times, when discussions of racism come up, it can seem as if the mission of People of Color is to make White people aware of how evil they are, so the White people can feel appropriately guilty. You know, so we POC can then go about our lives, blaming White people for everything.

But that's simply not true!

People of color are fully aware that there are Nice White People out there who earnestly want to help us out. From time to time, a White person might say "Excuse me" if they need to step by me. Every now and then, a White person will see me carrying something heavy or cumbersome and hold a door open for me. Many White people also say "Please," "May I?" and "Thank you" to me on a regular basis.

But some White people go even further, above and beyond the call of duty. They see that although the world has a lot of Nice White People these days, racism is still a problem. And so, to help increase everyone's awareness, these White people really go all out to show us how bad it is, by directly demonstrating racism themselves.

Take some of the interactions in the comment sections on this blog, for instance.

Sometimes, when a POC makes a point that seems a bit out there, maybe even a bit paranoid, some kindly White people will jump in and demonstrate for everyone exactly what that person was talking about. As a matter of fact, it happens all the time!

Look, for instance, at that post about White people refusing to see racism when non-White people point it out. What do a lot of White people do when they read that? Do they just sit back and say, "Hm. Never thought about it like that. I wonder why it took Tim Wise to say it before I believed it"? Do they go, "Holy shit! I see that all the time! I don't know how POCs deal with that without going completely fucking crazy"?

Hell no! That's too goddamn easy! These paragons of White racial awareness go the extra mile and demonstrate racism for you.

For A+ examples, veer on over to the post about questioning non-White knowledge and authority. Check out how some benevolent White people took the time and energy to illustrate the very behavior critiqued in the post:

1. Is this really a racial thing? Maybe they're just incurable know-it-alls, and wouldn't take advice regardless of who gives it. Or have you seen a pattern that they are more accepting of input from other white people?

2. Not that I doubt that this is something white people do to POC's, but these two anecdotes also sound a lot like stuff men do to women. I would be more convinced of racial as opposed to gender bias if both parties were male.

3. I'm certain that it happens, but I've seen plenty of POC do that to one another. I've seen it so often in many races that I never linked it to race. I've linked it to men.

4. the motivation of the actors (the white men) can be questioned as to whether they are reacting to the author's race or gender. Thus the qualifier, I am not suggesting that this never happens, but just that in these two specific instances cited by the author, its is not immediately apparent to me that racial animus is the primary factor.

5. You do harm to your cause by referring to us as "White Folks" instead of "White People."

6. Honestly I'm not sure this particular incident isn't more of a sexist thing. I am a white woman and a software engineer. I can't count the number of times when I've been around men (who did happen to be white... so there may be some correlation there) who were having computer problems and completely ignored anything I said. Needless to say these men were not software engineers or anything remotely related to that field. It is VERY frustrating that they refuse to listen to anything a woman has to say ... especially if it is about something they consider to be a male domain (like technology). Not sure if men of other races are similar or not, however, due to my limited experience.

7. This has to be one of the most racist and sexist posts on here. But, no, it can't be! It was written by a feminist POC. . . no way could they ever be racist or sexist!!!!


And it's not just there. Pour over the comments section on 10 random posts and you'll see great examples of White people listening poorly during discussions of racism, questioning non-White knowledge and authority, pointing out they've never owned slaves, taking racism more seriously when White people discuss it, and much, much more.

How about making a game of it! See how many White commenters on this blog illustrate ideas that the blog posts are about in a single post. Then create, say, a Bingo card, from comments about "Stuff White People Do."

See how generous White people can be? They're often -- all too often -- perfectly willing to demonstrate for everyone exactly what these blog posts are talking about!

Whoever said White people couldn't help raise awareness of racism?

punk anti-immigrant protesters

Here's a young, white anti-racism activist with some serious satiric brilliance, and the guts to carry it out.

On Saturday, several dozen anti-immigrant activists gathered on the steps of the Minnesota state capital for a Tea Bag rally. A smaller group of counter-protesters also appeared; one of them infiltrated the teabaggers and got up to deliver an apparently sincere anti-immigrant speech.

Identifying himself as "Robert Erickson," he began with the expected spiel about "a huge immigration problem where I'm from, Minneapolis." It wasn't long before he indicated the immigration menace he was protesting: "European immigrants." His coup de grâce -- getting the crowd to chant along with him near the end of his three-minute speech -- is comic gold.




Here's a transcript of the speech by (a person I'm guessing is not really named) "Robert Erickson":

Hi, my name is Robert Erickson and I’m really excited to be here. It's people like all of you and events like this that make our country great! Give yourselves a round of applause!

I just want to talk about a couple themes this afternoon because I love this country, and I want to see America be the best place it can be.

Mr. Gutierrez is getting ready to propose an immigration bill in just a few short days, and we have to make sure he knows that we want a bill that’s tough on immigration. Now is the time for us to stand up and make our voices heard!

In Minneapolis, where I’m from, we have a huge immigrant population that’s been causing a number of problems. With the economy in recession, and so many people getting laid off, and unable to find work, immigrants should not be competing for the few jobs that are out there. It's just not fair to the folks who have a claim to this land and the right to be here. All across America, they are contributing to the flooding of our job markets making it hard for American’s to find jobs. Well I’m fed up, and its time to let our politicians know that enough is enough, and we’re not gonna take it any more!

We need to secure our borders to protect this country. We need to restore order and put an end to the anarchy that’s sweeping the nation. We need tougher immigration laws to make sure that we send these people back where they came from. We need to protect the sovereignty of the real Americans. We need to hold our politicians accountable.

Its no secret that with an invasion of immigrants, comes waves of crime. We see them involved in massive theft, in murder, and bringing diseases like smallpox, which is responsible for the death of millions of Americans. These aren’t new problems though; they've been going on for hundreds of years, and continue to this day.

I say its time for us to say "enough is enough!" Are you with me? Are you with me?

Let's send these European immigrants back where they came from!

I don’t care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinus crimes in the history of the world. We're talking about genocide and slavery! I want more workplace raids, starting with the big bankerss downtown. There are thousands of illegals working in those buildings, hiding in their offices, and taking Dakota jobs. Let's round them up and ship them out. Then we need to hit them at home where they sleep, I don’t care if we separate families, because they came here illegally!

So, if we aren't able to stand up to these European immigrants, who can we stand up to? We need to send every one of them back home, right now.

Thank you very much, and we’ll see you in the streets!

Columbus go home! Columbus go home! Columbus go home!

[crowd picks up the chant]


Okay, I'll be honest: apparently, the anti-immigrant protesters didn't chant along with "Erickson"; the counter-protesters did. As Sally Jo Sorenson writes at Bluestem Prairie in her eyewitness account,

Most of the MINN-SIR supporters were slow to catch the satire, and so the cheering from that side of the crowd took a while to subside. As they realized they'd been punked, they stood in a cold, stunned silence, while the 30 or so counter-protesters urged Columbus to go home.

Sorenson goes on to describe their subsequent, violent reaction:

Unfortunately, some of the pro-MINN-SIR audience made up for what they lacked in humor through the use of violence. Both Danielson and I saw middle-aged men attack young protesters, knocking one off a bike before he started throwing punches at the young man.

Just as shocking was the reaction of the state police working the rally, who pushed back those being attacked, rather than those attacking the counter protesters.

With the Obama Administration promising to take on immigration reform soon, this Minnesota scuffle looks like a portent of things to come. As David Neiwert writes at Crooks and Liars, "If you thought the town-hall teabaggers went nuts over health-care reform, just wait."

assume that black women like michelle obama must be covering

When white people meet a person of color who doesn't match the stereotypes in their heads and hearts about that kind of person of color, they often assume that the person is "covering." Or "acting white." Or otherwise putting on an act, or a mask, and keeping their "real" self buttoned up until they get back home.

In a recent HBO appearance, comic genius Wanda Sykes briefly satirized this common white suspicion about "the real Michelle Obama."





I think Wanda Sykes is making a great point here: it's ridiculous for white people to assume that Michelle Obama's persona as the nation's First Lady is just that -- a contrived persona. And more to the point, that it's ridiculous and racist to assume that when Michelle Obama is relaxing behind closed doors, she acts like the loud black woman stereotype, complete with stock phrases and wild, aggressive body language.

As a white American, I don't think it's any of my business to speculate in terms of race about what Michelle Obama, or her husband, or any other non-white person, acts like in private.

Anyway, we all act differently in public to some degree, don't we? If we don't "cover" and "code-switch" in terms of race, then most of us do it in other ways. As Abagond pointed out awhile back in a post on the topic (the bold print is Abagond's),

Covering is where you cover your true self to fit in with mainstream America, downplaying the ways that make you different. Gays call it acting straight, blacks call it acting white. But most Americans do it to some degree because few are perfectly mainstream.

Covering comes out most clearly with gays, blacks and women, particularly at work. Women, for example, will downplay their duties as mothers, gays do not bring up their love lives, blacks speak Standard English, etc.

Again, knowing that some people of color do cover doesn't make it right to assume that any particular person is actually doing so, let alone to assume that he or she acts in specific, stereotypical ways when they're not out in public.

Of course, covering is nothing new for people of color. More than a century ago, the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote about it as a necessity:

              We Wear the Mask

    WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
    This debt we pay to human guile;
    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
    And mouth with myriad subtleties.

   Why should the world be over-wise,
    In counting all our tears and sighs?
    Nay, let them only see us, while
            We wear the mask.

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
    To thee from tortured souls arise.
    We sing, but oh the clay is vile
    Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
    But let the world dream otherwise,
            We wear the mask!

White Americans usually like to assure themselves that "race relations" have come a long way in America, and that the particular anguish articulated in Dunbar's poem no longer exists.

But then, thanks to ongoing white hegemony, a set of whitened expectations and standards does still exist, and when non-white people don't meet them, consequences must still be paid. And on top of that, when non-white people do manage to meet those standards, no matter how precisely, they still encounter white suspicions that they're not quite being "real," which actually means "stereotypical" (all of which is why, I think, this kind of Obamination gets so much traction again and again).

In a way, white suspicions about racial or ethnic covering are sadly ironic. As with the common white demand -- an arrogant, condescending demand -- that Latinos "Speak English!", there's little recognition and admiration for other people's mastery of multiple social registers. Monolingual white Americans who don't have to do much covering when they move throughout the different settings of their daily lives lack something -- a finely honed set of skills that they should admire, and even envy.

apologize instead of compensate

Dear Black People of America,

Can you tell the descendants of America's first nations what they have to look forward to?

The U.S. Senate just approved a resolution that apologizes for past injustices committed against "American Indians," just like the House of Representatives recently did for you.

I mean, surely your lives are much better now, ever since July, 2008, when the House apologized to you? You know, in that "nonbinding resolution" they passed, apologizing for the injustices of slavery and the Jim Crow era?

Oh, okay, wait a minute. To say that a "resolution" of this sort is "nonbinding" means, basically, that the legislative body that resolves to do something isn't bound by that resolution to actually do much of anything -- beyond the initial act of apology, that is.

So it's been over a year since the House of Reps apologized to you, the black people of America. Has the House, or any other government branch or office, followed up on this apology with anything that really matters? Anything that actually changed your life somehow?

Because if that did happen, I imagine Native Americans would like to hear about it, so they can have some idea of what to look forward to.

Here's the entire story on the latest racist -- oops, I mean, race-related -- federal "resolution" of this sort. As posted on The New York Times site, by way of the Associated Press, the article contains one, single paragraph:

The Senate has approved a resolution apologizing to American Indians for years of “ill-conceived policies” and acts of violence by United States citizens. Lawmakers said the resolution, included in a military spending bill, was a symbolic gesture meant to promote a renewed commitment to tribal communities. It was introduced by Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, and Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. The Senate approved a similar resolution in 2008, but the House did not act on it. Lawmakers are also developing legislation to improve health care and public safety on reservations.

"Included in a military spending bill"? That's not like, an afterthought, is it? And a bitterly ironic one at that, given the kind of bill it was tucked into?

As I guess you can tell, I'm pretty cynical about these "symbolic gestures." At least with this one, some future efforts at actual, material follow-up seem to be in the works. Surely the results of those efforts will turn out to be every bit as significant, and compensatory, and revitalizing for indigenous communities as the generous outpouring of money and other resources that have been pumped into black communities in the past year or so.

Won't they?

lead unethical lives

Wallace Shawn is a playwright, actor, and essayist, as well as the son of William Shawn, a long-time editor of The New Yorker magazine. In a radio interview with Doug Henwood prompted by his latest book, Shawn said the following:

Henwood: You have an essay on morality in this collection. . . . You grew up with a sense that you’re supposed to be moral, but then you’re thrown into this world that is very immoral, and you’re supposed to somehow separate your morality from the immorality of the world that you’re living in. How do you do it? I mean, is there a way to lead a moral life in a world that is so corrupt and violent?

Shawn: Well, very strictly speaking, I mean if you’re gonna put it so bluntly, not really. Because simply by living a bourgeois life, you’re consuming more than your fair share of the world’s resources, and you’re benefiting from a status quo that oppresses people all over the world. And that’s not even getting into the fact that it’s very hard to make a bourgeois living in a corrupt society without being mired in corruption. That’s very hard to do. People, you know, most people are doing things that are reinforcing the ugly realities of the world.

I think there’s a lot of hypocrisy involved in, for instance, people like myself denouncing, let’s say, the crimes of people like Dick Cheney and the crimes of the Bush administration. Yes, we’re right to denounce them, but when they say, “Hey, we’re doing it for your benefit! Don’t you want the oil that makes your home, you know, warm in the winter and cool in the summer? You do want the oil. Well, we're getting it for you, so shut up!”

And they’re right in that demand that you should admit that you like it, and admit that they’re doing it for you. You know, this is where there’s hypocrisy involved in the life of somebody like myself. So the true answer, if we’re being bluntly honest, is that it’s not very likely that you can live a bourgeois life, and consider yourself someone who follows ethical principles. . .


In a recent blog post entitled "God Shed His Grace Ennui," Dennis Perrin posted the following images and captions:

To demonstrate his determination to win the Afghan war,
President Obama began eating his hand --

Delighting his liberal supporters.

Despite suffering massive burns from a US air strike on her Afghan village,
nine-year-old Nadia Sahar urged American liberals
to not protest President Obama's war,
as it might hurt his re-election chances.

Heeding Nadia's plea, liberals immediately showed their solidarity.

Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as the author of several inspiring books. In Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity, Jensen writes of his encounters with two students several months after the events of 9/11:

One young woman came to my office the day after we had watched a documentary in class about the 1991 Gulf War and its devastatingly brutal effects -- immediate and lingering -- on the people of Iraq. The student is also active in the movement to support the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, and the day she came to see me was during a period in which Israeli attacks on Palestinians were intensifying.

We talked for some time about a number of political topics, but the conversation kept coming back to one main point: She hurt. As she was learning more about the suffering of others around the world, she felt pain. What does one do about such a feeling, knowing that one’s own government is either responsible for, or complicit in, so much of it? How does one stop feeling that pain, she asked.

I asked her whether she really wanted to wipe that feeling out of her life. Surely you know people, perhaps fellow students, who don’t seem to feel that pain, who ignore all that suffering, I told her. Do you want to become like them? No matter how much it hurts, would you rather not feel at all? Would you rather be willfully ignorant about what is happening?

I could see tears welling in her eyes and feel them in my own; it was an emotional moment for both of us. She left my office, not feeling better in any simplistic sense. But I hope that she left at least with a sense that she was not alone and did not have to feel like a freak for feeling so much, so deeply.

A couple of hours later another student came by. After dealing with the classroom issue she wanted to discuss, we talked more generally about her interests in scientific research and the politics of funding research. I made the obvious point that profit-potential had a lot to do with what kind of research gets done.

Certainly the comparative levels of research-and-development money that went, for example, to Viagra compared with money for drugs to combat new strains of TB tells us something about the values of our society, I suggested. The student agreed, but raised another issue. Given the overpopulation problem, she said, would it really be a good thing to spend lots of resources on developing those drugs?

About halfway through her sentence I knew where she was heading, though I didn’t want to believe it. This very bright student wanted to discuss whether it made sense to put resources into life-saving drugs for poor people in the Third World, given that there are arguably too many people on the planet already, or at least too many poor people in the Third World.

I contained my anger somewhat, and told the student that when she was ready to sacrifice members of her own family to help solve the global population problem, then I would listen to her argument. In fact, given the outrageous levels of consumption of the middle and upper classes in the United States, I said, one could argue that large-scale death in the American suburbs would be far more beneficial in solving the population problem; a single U.S. family is more of a burden ecologically on the planet than a hundred Indian peasants.

“If you would be willing to let an epidemic sweep though your hometown and kill large numbers of people without trying to stop it, for the good of the planet, then I’ll listen to that argument,” I said.

The student left shortly after that. Based on her reaction, I suspect I made her feel bad. I am glad for that. I wanted her to see that the assumption behind her comment -- that the lives of people who look like her are more valuable than the lives of the poor and vulnerable in other parts of the world -- was ethnocentric, racist, and barbaric. That assumption is the product of an arrogant and inhumane society.

I wanted her to think about why she lived in a world in which the pain of others is so routinely ignored. I wanted her to feel what, for most of her life, she has been able to turn away from. I wanted her to begin to empathize with people who aren’t white like her and not comfortable like her, people whose suffering is far away from her.

I do not want to overestimate the power of empathy to change the world. But without empathy, without the ability to move outside our own experience, there is no hope of changing the world.

Andrea Dworkin, one of the most important feminist thinkers of our time, has written, “The victims of any systematized brutality are discounted because others cannot bear to see, identify, or articulate the pain.”

It is long past the time for all of us to start to see, to identify, to articulate the pain of systematized brutality. It is time to recognize that much of the pain is the result of a system designed to ensure our pleasures.

object to having their children "brainwashed" by a black president

Despite a lack of solid empirical evidence to back me up, I would bet cash money that the vast majority of the people who objected to President Obama's speech to children in school today were white (98%? 99?).

But that doesn't have anything to do with fear of a black president. Nothing whatsoever at all.

After all, whenever white people congregate these days, high concentrations of racial homogeneity are just pure coincidence.

Right?




At this point, the feared effects of Obama's speech don't seem to have kicked in yet. As the Field Negro noticed,

so far there have been no 911 calls from middle A-merry-ca that little Johnny is trying to work on his basketball moves. And that little Heather, all of a sudden, has a crush on Bow Wow. Kids weren't walking around the school yards like Zombies chanting "yes we can."

Do you know anyone who kept their children home to protect them from our irresistibly hypnotizing leader?

[h/t: David Neiwert @ Crooks and Liars]

think that black people are paranoid

The person who posted this video on YouTube also wrote this about it: "Since the Harvard professor Gates says all black people are vulnerable in America, let's have some fun with that!"

The video is an attempt at humor, but I think it's humor with a point -- that is, satire. But then, I'm not quite sure what the point is.

What do you think?




For those who can't watch it, the video begins with a shot of Professor Gates explaining that his arrest made him realize how "vulnerable" all black and poor people are to "capricious forces like rogue policemen." Words are then superimposed on a freeze-frame of Gates that say, "Speak for yourself, Sissy . . . "

The rest of the video portrays a black man getting wired up for sound in front of a green screen by a white man. The black man gets nervous because he fears that the microphone wire will "shoot white people's instructions up my spine and take over my brain." He runs away and into a corporate setting full of white people, all of whom frighten him more and more. Especially when they turn into zombies, who say they want his "sense of rhythm," his "natural athletic ability," and so on. At the end of the video, the black man is found crouching and crying in a basement by another black man, who asks him what's wrong. He raises his head to choke out an explanation: "I see white people!"

Again, I don't think this video is just an attempt to "have some fun" with Professor Gates' point that black people (what happened to the "poor" people in his comment?) are "vulnerable." It's an effort to satirize that point, and to say that those who make it are paranoid "sissies." They must be sissies, you see, because white people (what happened to the "rogue policemen" in Gates' comment?) don't have anything against black people. I mean, come on, we're not like, freakin' flesh-eating zombies or something! Only a sissie would play the race card by claiming that in this post-racial society, things are any different for black people than they are for white people. Get real, bro!

By the way, this "humor" was produced by people working for an outfit with an explicitly political agenda -- Pajamas Media Television. This is the same crew that recently published an article by Roger L. Simon entitled "Gates and Obama’s nostalgia for racism." Simon's point is very similar to the one made by Pajamas Media Televsion.

Simon claims that all countries were racist in the past, including the U.S. However, because of its legacy of slavery, the U.S. has tried especially hard to eradicate racism, and it has succeeded. Nevertheless, some have found it difficult to accept this new reality:

. . . when the rules change, when values change, not everyone can adjust with it — not only the racist, but also those who depended on being victims of racism. For all his brilliance, Henry Lewis Gates is evidently such a man. Otherwise, why cry out about being victimized as a “black man in America” before there is any evidence that that is the case?

This is nostalgia for racism and our president probably suffers from it as well, although perhaps to a lesser degree, considering he clearly plunged into the fray without thinking [by saying that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly"]. The problem is that this nostalgia not only blames people unfairly, it also increases the very thing it pretends to oppose — racism itself. The unfair or inaccurate imputation of racism promotes racism.

This is, I think, a current, widespread conservative strategy for opposing a party that now has a black president. It has roots in real racism -- in common, long-standing white perceptions that black people are professional victimologists who can't think straight because they're so wrapped up in the past, and so on -- but I think there's something new about how this strategy is now playing out. In fact, conservatives seem to feel that they have to revamp their racial politics, because they're now faced with a black president.

Since we live in a society and power structure that is still, in an unspoken way, framed by white perceptions and attitudes, Barack Obama has continually backed away from contentious racial issues. I think he did so again in the Gates case, after initially pointing out, accurately, that racial profiling is still a problem, and I think he generally does so as a political necessity. And yet, conservatives keep stalking him with a giant tar brush, all the while claiming that he's the real racist.

The strategy now seems to be to convince America at large that racism is a thing of the past (and indeed, many white people do already believe that, and a few non-white people too), and that anyone who points to racism, of any sort at all, is therefore a paranoid race hustler. And more than that, not only are their claims that racism still matters unfounded -- to "cry racism" is itself racist.

I think this is what conservative crybaby Glenn Beck is basically up to, when he claims that Barack Obama is a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred" for white people.




This is all sick, twisted stuff -- to not only deny a vast amount of evidence that racism still exists (let alone that it's a major problem), but then to add that those who point out that it does exist, and that it is a major problem, are doing so because they're nostalgic for the good old days of Jim Crow and slavery. And that they themselves are the "real racists."

I'm rarely speechless, but these claims, and the respectful attention they're given by the corporate media, are all just . . . wow.

Republicans are widely understood to be a largely white political party full of people who have little genuine interest in embracing people of color, the people that most Republicans suspect (sometimes unconsciously) are basically inferior, in a lot of ways.

Is this strategy -- of denying racial realities and trying to reverse things by affixing the label of "racist!" onto their opposition instead -- really going to work for them?

Where is all this craziness going?

gradually realize that race is actually a significant factor in their lives

Stephen Colbert offers his own satiric take on something that bubbled up from Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, something that most white Americans still have trouble seeing, let alone wrapping their heads around -- their commonsensical, yet nonsensical assumption that minorities are "biased" and white people are "neutral."

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word – Neutral Man’s Burden
www.colbertnation.com

What I think distinguishes "satire" from other forms of humor is that satire includes serious social commentary. As is so often the case, Stephen Colbert makes a great point here. I wonder, though, how much his point really hits home for the white members of his audience.

Do you think many white Americans heard and understood the week-long revelations -- which was discussed in many public spaces by many pundits -- about common white presumptions regarding their own supposed neutrality?

Is there any hope that as more and more non-white people become significant figures in white people's lives, such contact will render commonsensical the truth that we are ALL influenced by our various social positionings, including that of race?

Will we ever reach a point where a majority of white Americans realize that in terms of race, they're not just free-floating individuals? And that instead, being categorized as "white" has a lot to do with who they are, and with how they think and feel, and act and react?


h/t: lisa @ sociological images




(And for those who can't watch the video, here are the relevant parts of the show's transcript.)

Stephen Colbert’s THE WORD segment from THE COLBERT REPORT for July 16, 2009:

Nation, I have never let past life experience get in the way of how I approach a situation. For instance, I don’t prejudge if a hot stove will burn my hand….who knows what will happen next time? [Shows burned hand to camera] But listen to what Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor believes.

[Tape of Sotomayor hearing]

“I can state very simply what I believe, life experiences help the process in the listening and understanding of an argument. . .”

[Cut back to Colbert]

Because of Sotomayor's obvious "things I have learned" bias, the Supreme Court's neutrality is in danger! Which brings us to tonight’s “WORD”: NEUTRAL MAN’S BURDEN

Folks, over the past 220 years the vast majority of our Supreme Court judges have been neutral, like Samuel Alito.

[Tape of Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearing. Justice Alito says:]

“When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.”

[Cut back to Colbert]

Yes, he takes his life experiences into account, but he does it neutrally! So why is he neutral, and not Sotomayor? It’s because Alito is white.

In America, white is neutral.

Now for years, band-aids only came in only one color…white person. It’s standard “person” color. In fact it is so standard, that when I was a kid, in crayola boxes, it was the color called “flesh.” Now most Americans accept this [points at his own hand] as “neutral” without thinking about it.

And that is why the decisions made by all those white justices were not affected by their experiences; because their life experiences were “neutral.” That led to “neutral” decisions.

For instance, take the Dredd Scott Case. Those justice’s life experience, being white men in pre-Civil War America, some of whom owned slaves, in no way influenced their decision that black people were property. And the personal backgrounds had nothing to do with the all neutral court’s decision that it was legal to send Japanese-Americans to internment camps in 1942. Imagine how the life experience of an Asian judge would have sullied that neutrality!

Now, I am sure that Asians are neutral in Asia, and Africans are neutral in Africa, and Hispanics are neutral in Hispania. But folks, it doesn’t work here!

Now I am not saying, I am not saying that Sotomayor’s life story isn’t compelling. Everyone say how compelling her life story is.

[Run clip of three GOP senators saying how admirable her life story is.]

[Cut to Colbert]

It’s just if that if that compelling, humble, strong and admirable life story in ANY way informs her judgment, she will destroy our nation!

But folks, the thing is, she’s probably going to be confirmed anyway. So the best we can hope is to neutralize her personal background. The way Band-aids did when they reached out to minorities. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “After hearing calls to make Band-Aides more inclusive of various skin tones, the company released its shear Band-Aid.”

So in addition to white band-aids, WE NOW HAVE INVISIBLE BAND-AIDS. Problem solved.

The same goes for the court. If you’re a white male like Sam Alito, naturally, everything that happened in your life just helps make you a completely neutral objective person.

But if you’re Sonia Sotomayor…. everything that happened in your life ….SHOULD BE INVISIBLE.

And that’s THE WORD!