still ask that old camouflaging question, "but what about the children?"

Update: video of Keith Bardwell being interviewed added below


Yesterday's news from Louisiana -- about the denial of a marriage license to an interracial couple -- reminds me of a scenario that I've encountered several times in real life, and also many times in movies and TV shows (but I can't remember any particular example of the latter -- can you?).

A black and white couple want to get married, but the parents and others object. Especially the white parents. But of course, they won't admit to the racism that's motivating their objection. Maybe not even to themselves.

So instead of saying something like, "I just don't want you marrying someone who's black," they often say instead, "But, but . . . what about the children? They'll have so much trouble, feeling, you know, accepted and all."

I'm guessing that by now, most readers of this blog have already heard about Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, in Louisiania. Bardwell is entrusted by the people of his parish with the official task of issuing marriage licenses; when Beth Humphrey (who's white) and Terence McKay (who's black) approached him for one, he refused. And, of course, like just about every other white person these days who commits an act of blatant racism, Bardwell said he's not a racist -- he has higher concerns in mind:

I'm not a racist. I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.

Bardwell has thought about these things, you see -- long. And hard. (And deep. Repeatedly, in and out, in and out -- I hope you catch the um, thrust, of what I think he's also thinking about.)

Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said. "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."

Well, how thoroughly magnanimous of you, Justice Bardwell. Not to mention, intrusively paternalistic.

Speaking of Bardwell's house, which I'm sure is just overrun with joyous hordes of black and white children carousing together, he also had this to say:

I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.

Ah yes, black friends too, piles of them. Right there, in his bathroom!

Bardwell's incredibly retrograde actions, and his obviously diversionary concern for the children, have already lit up the Internet -- seems like every blog and news site I read is excited about it. My favorite response so far comes from blackgirlinmaine:

[All] the news accounts I have read about Bardwell state that he is not a racist, hell he even lets Negroes use his toilet. Nice to know should I ever darken his doorstep with a hot case of the runs, he will let a sista use his can . . . mighty nice of him. I wonder if I could drink from his cups too?

Mighty white of him too, I'd say.

And to think that Bardwell could express such doubts about the future acceptance of the children produced by interracial unions right when the preeminent counterexample, President Barack Obama, was addressing a town hall meeting in the same state, Louisiana. Oh, the sad, bitter ironies wrought by blinkered white oblivion!

I think it's easy enough to mock and dismiss Bardwell's Jim Crow-era sentiments (and actions -- he says he's turned away other interracial couples as well), as those of a mere, isolated individual. But then, as I wrote above, isn't his camouflaging concern for the children of such unions -- a concern that probably masks his more genuine distaste for what happens in the private lives of such couples, and for the supposed dangers of "race-mixing" -- aren't all those "concerns" still fairly common? Maybe the ongoing familiarity of Bardwell's diversionary attention to hypothetical children is one reason his actions still strike a collective nerve.

Anyway, I think someone should sit Keith Bardwell down in front of a TV and watch an old movie with him. In fact, I'm pretty tempted to watch it again myself, and to make it my weekend movie rec. Here's a brief review of that movie by Jonathan Kim, posted at YouTube right after Obama's inauguration:




[For anyone who can't watch the review, here's the movie you should watch. My thanks to the many swpd readers who sent me alarmed and aghast emails about this racist travesty.]

UPDATE: Keith Bardwell explains himself, and adds that he doesn't "see what the problem is," now that the couple in question has married with someone else's help:

hate sagging, especially when white guys do it

This is a guest post by Filthy Grandeur, who blogs eponymously here, where she writes of herself, "I'm a writer still trying to figure out what I'm doing, so I'm trying to do a lot of different things. I'm a daydreamer who hates being social. I'm afraid I fit the stereotype of angry, loner writer who enjoys sitting in the dark writing about things that piss me off. Yes, I enjoy drinking, but no I do not smoke."

So I've long noticed a common white tendency involving sagging pants: white people in general seem to hate sagging, and that hate is only intensified when the person sagging is also white.

I notice this tendency because my brother sags, and I have observed a number of instances where white people have not been too shy to express their judgments toward him.  He's been told to pull up his pants, helpfully reminded that he's not black (as if my brother is unaware of his skin color), and told to stop talking with that "accent."

These criticisms often came from members of our own family.  I can recall several instances where our dad yelled at him for "acting black."  But often this criticism comes from complete strangers (all white), usually in the form of street harassment.  He's told me that he's had white people shout at him from their cars while he walks to work, telling him to pull his pants up.

A few years back, he used to work for our family's landlord (who also own a rental store).  Once when he went into the store and asked for our landlord, the white man at the counter, instead of simply pointing my brother in the right direction, asked him, "You hang out with a lot of blacks?"

My brother ignored him and again asked where our landlord was.  The man then asked him if he is ashamed of his race.

There are also the ubiquitous "wigger" remarks -- again, often aimed at him from relatives.

There's this white tendency to police other white people's appearance in that manner of definition we know as "defining what it is by what it is not." This is within the parameters of white culture and proper performances of whiteness, which includes disdain for sagging.

I think an important thing to consider in this is that it's always adult white men and women policing my brother's attire.  It seems that the older generation is always going to find something they don't like in youth culture, especially when it comes to how they dress, but there's more malice against sagging. An important aspect of youth culture is that it embraces the idea of revolt, which of course can add to the longevity of certain fashion choices.  That sagging is supposedly a form of prison culture is apparently one reason why white people find it disgraceful.

The perceptions about sagging are entwined with stereotypes of sex and violence as linked to notions of black masculinity, which are only worsened by sagging's origins when one factors in the over-representation of POC in prisons.  Perhaps seeing white people sag or perform other aspects of black culture is in effect crossing some sort of invisible barrier.  When the "us" and "them" boundaries become blurred, there's suddenly a threat to whiteness, which would explain the discomfort white people have with the way my brother dresses.  His apparent lack of white solidarity causes him to be viewed as a race traitor; it's that sort of mentality which makes him acknowledge that yeah, maybe he is, but it's not like he was seeking white approval anyway.

But the fact that these people are finding something abhorrent in the way others dress is deeply disturbing.  These sorts of attitudes are not only condescending when coming from white people ("we didn't give you all these freedoms so you could dress like a hoodlum"), they also illustrate a sense of entitlement, that white people get to say what is and isn't civilized.

It's especially evident that this condescension and hate is not as pronounced when we're talking about a predominately white youth culture (think goth).

Thoughts?  Stories of your own?

ask black men wearing dreads for weed

The following is a partial transcription of an audio interview of Lull Mengesha by Gus T Renegade. The October 8 interview took place on Renegade's blogtalkradio program, "The Context of White Supremacy," and was occasioned by Mengesha's new book, The Only Black Student.


GT Renegade: I gotta do this one, because I have experienced the exact same thing. . . . [Lull Mengesha] talked in the book about how while he was a student, he had dreadlocks. I have dreadlocks now. I suspect he already knows where I'm going with this, how many times you were stopped by white -- not just random white people, but white students that you might've had a class with -- "Uh, could you hook me up with some weed?" Can you talk about that please for our listeners?

L Mengesha: Right. There's like a dual effect to that. Oftentimes students will see that you fit a Bob Marley stereotype and assume that you're a drug dealer or that you have a connect and can get them some weed. So, a lot of students would always ask me if I had any weed. And I don't smoke weed. I can see where they're going with it, you know, if they see a black student on campus, their assumption is that I'm a drug dealer.

But also, on the tail-end of that, what you'll see is when there's petitioning or tabling on campus, or really, any active things are going on, students ignore you. They won't engage in conversation with you or ask you to participate in whatever they're doing. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that they might not see you as a student, but I think those two situations play into each other. Students will see you as a drug dealer, but they also won't see you as a student.

GT Renegade: Wow. . . . I can co-sign on both of those. The weed thing was kind of startling because I had dreads for years. I'm not from Seattle. I moved here not that long ago. I had dreads in lots of other cities, and I've never had white people, just random white people that I didn't know stopping me on the street, "Hey, do you have any weed?" That was a whole new experience for me that really just, made me very uncomfortable.

L Mengesha: Is that something that you really only faced here in the Northwest?

GT Renegade: Yes sir. I have lived in California, I have lived in Georgia, I have lived in Virginia, I have left the country. I have never been anywhere where I have been stopped by random white people on a constant basis. I even -- I am not exaggerating. I was telling a white person, I was explaining this to her, and she was incredulous, she didn't believe me, she thought I was making something up.

A white person walked up in the middle of our conversation about this and said, "Hey, do you have any weed?" And I just looked at her, and she said, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened!" I said, "No, you're not listening to me. This is every day!"

And so we kept talking for about ten minutes, and she said, "I can't believe he just walked up like that!" Another white person walked up: "Hey, do you have any weed?" And her mouth just hit the ground, and she said, "Oh my God! What is this?!" And I said, "This is every day."  . . .

So like I said, when I read your book, I laughed, I immediately connected. And I can also connect with the tabling thing and how they ignore you for that. They assume you sell drugs, they assume that you don't want to talk about anything political, or if they're organizing to vote, or anything where you might have to use your brain--"No." In addition to that, I've seen tons of white people who smoke weed on campus, and people don't seem to bother them, or run up to ask if they sell drugs or anything like that. It's just, very, very interesting.

L Mengesha:  Right. I think another thing, within the white community, probably there's no stereotype for who smokes weed. So they wouldn't know who to walk up to. But I think for the black community, I guess the stereotype is that if you have some type of Bob Marley look to you, you have like, a weed connect.

GT Renegade: Wow. And I do not, anybody who finds me in Seattle, I do not. You're talking to the wrong person!


Lull Mengesha also said during the interview that his book, The Only Black Student, will soon be available in bookstores around the country. It's available online, at Amazon and elsewhere; a review of the book recently appeared in the Seattle Times, and Mengesha was also interviewed on National Public Radio (NPR).  

Gus T Renegade's online show, "The Context Of White Supremacy," includes extensive interviews with many leading experts on race, racism, and whiteness, including Tim Wise, Peggy McIntosh, Eddie Moore, Jr., Matthew Frye Jacobson, Ian F. Haney López, Noel Ignatiev, Robert Jensen and others.

fail to see how race and gender intersect

During the comments for the second of two recent posts here, on the difficulty that white people often have with truly listening to non-white people, thesciencegirl noted "the very obvious fact that WOC often experience sexualized racism or racialized sexism; the 2 are often difficult to separate." This distinction prompted fromthetropics to ask, "Is there a difference between 'sexualized racism' and 'racialized sexism'?" Then fromthetropics and another swpd reader, RVCBard, each sent me emails describing their experiences with living at intersections of racialized and gendered oppression, that is, as women of color. Each agreed to having their thoughts posted below in a joint guest post.

What do you think -- is sexualized racism different from racialized sexism? What should white people try to keep in mind in their encounters with people of color who are also women? Or should I make that, women who are also people of color? 

(For more on and from these two generous writers, see their other guest posts, here, here, and here.)


RVCBard writes,

Quite a few people commenting at SWPD asked about racialized sexism and sexualized racism. I didn't directly respond to that in the threads, but I have been thinking about it.

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that it's virtually impossible for me to explain the difference between racialized sexism and sexualized racism. That's trying to parse racism and sexism in a way that I don't experience it. Rather than focus on the rightness or wrongness of that question, I'll set a few things straight about my experiences as a Black woman.

As a Black woman, it has been my experience that White people (particularly White men) generally do not perceive or value me as a woman. Yes, I am biologically female (like any other animal - note the irony here), but I'm not seen or treated as feminine or womanly. Typically, White men only recognize two modes of Black womanhood: Mammy and Angry Black Woman (aka Evil Black Bitch - take your pick).

It's easy to imagine what this means. When I'm seen in Mammy mode, I am only valued insofar as I take care of White people. I'm only worthy of attention and respect to the extent that I'm willing to extend endless physical, financial, emotional, and moral support more or less with a smile on my face. It doesn't seem to matter how much this puts me at risk or actually harms me. Without saying as much, they treat me as though they are entitled to endless patience, hospitality, politeness, and generosity. And when I show that my patience, generosity, politeness, and hospitality have limits, the response is not "I'm sorry" or "Let me fix that" but "What's the matter with you?" Thus begins the transition from Mammy to Angry Black Woman.

In personal and practical terms, this means that White people (especially straight White men), treat me as though I don't have legitimate feelings, or at least feelings that can be hurt. When I'm not completely placid or jovial, White people treat me like I'm misbehaving or a rabid animal. If I'm upset, White people don't take it as a cue that something is wrong. White people have a tendency to talk at me instead of to me or with me. They try to debate my feelings, give me unsolicited advice, or "try to talk some sense into me." Rarely do White people actually ask me what I need to get better, let alone offer comfort or reassurance for whatever I'm going through. Instead of treating me like a sane, intelligent adult with the needs and vulnerabilities of any human being, I feel like White people treat me like I'm a toddler who needs to be appeased or disciplined before going on with their lives. Even my friends do this to me. It's degrading and humiliating to be made to feel so insignificant.

It's as though, emotionally speaking, I'm treated like a linebacker at the big game and not like a real person with real feelings and real vulnerabilities. I often feel as though I'm not permitted to be complex or to need anything. Somehow, sheer fierceness is supposed to carry me through life. My Black Woman's Attitude becomes this superpower that renders me invincible, some strange blend of kevlar and teflon for the spirit. Apparently nothing can penetrate or stick to me. So I often get the sense that White people feel free to pile on the bullshit without offering any relief from it. It's so rare that White folks treat me with gentleness that I notice when it happens. Then again, what I'm interpreting as extraordinary tenderness is really just being treated like a human being.


fromthetropics writes,

There are some experiences which I have been struggling to understand and reconcile with, until some commenters here mentioned the terms ‘sexualized racism’ and ‘racialized sexism’.

In answer to my question in the comments,

Genuine question here to anyone who knows: Is there a difference between 'sexualized racism' and 'racialized sexism'? If so, what is the difference.

Angel H explained:

The way I understand it, sexualized racism is akin to fetishism because of a perceived sexual stereotype ("Black Brute" stereotype, "Latin Lover" stereotype, "Geisha Girl" stereotype, etc.) I think that racialized sexism would be more of a societal stereotype like the "Black Welfare Queen" stereotype or the "Submissive Asian Housewife" stereotype.

Please let me know if I'm making any sense! ^_^

Yes, that makes sense, but I still can’t seem to shake off this blanket of vagueness that I see when I think of my experiences. Let me relate some of them here.

One time I went with my (white) partner to see his two white male friends. They had met while they were in Indonesia on a language study exchange program. They all seemed to have had Indonesian girlfriend(s) or ‘girlfriend(s)’ while there. It was the first time I was meeting these two men. But no sooner had I sat down then I felt a sense of ‘yuck’ dumped onto me like a vague slimy mass. I felt as though his friends saw me as an ‘Indonesian woman’ as opposed to just a person or even just a woman. It was as though they saw me more as an Asian decoration that a white man could f*** (in both the literal and figurative sense).

I had heard that one of them used to have a few Indonesian ‘girlfriends’ simultaneously while studying there. This man’s reasoning was that Indonesians do this too, and hence in Rome do as the Romans do. (Though many others have informed me that in Indonesia ‘girlfriends’ or ‘boyfriends’ often just mean texting the opposite sex on a regular basis as opposed to anything really serious, though of course some may go a bit further.) So he was practicing a warped sense of cultural relativism at its peak (or rather, moral relativism), if you ask me. (And I’m sure had he had the chance to explain himself, he may have cited the practice of polygamy in Indonesia, though he of course would have omitted the fact that many Indonesian women abhor it.) The other friend was simply a sexist male slut, I was told.

Nothing overt happened that day. In fact, I had only a vague recollection of the stories that I had been told before I met them. But I felt a very strong sense of ‘yuck’, almost independently of those stories, as I sat there. This ensued into a huge row between my partner and I afterwards. (To be fair, these were not his close friends.)

On another day the other friend related how one of the Thai women he met in Indonesia was chasing after him by sending emails and what not. He laughed through his nose as he told the story. I felt an immediate ‘yuck’ slime splattered on me. Again, I felt as though the woman was not just a woman in his eyes. She was a ‘Thai’ or ‘Asian’ woman. I could see the prefix there, large and bold. My partner laughed too and said to him, ‘Well, it wasn’t like you had gone out with her or anything…did you?’ The friend didn’t answer in words but just gave a cheeky/sly smile as he puffed on his cigarette. My partner showed a slight sense of discomfort and surprise with this response. (I thought, Gosh! Are you seriously that naïve???? Sigh.)

But I had no evidence, as is customary. It was difficult for my partner to understand what it was that I was taking issue with. Understandably so, seeing that I had no real explanations either, apart from the ‘yuck’ feeling, and ‘just because’. But it hurts to the core.

‘What about my housemate,’ he asked. ‘How come you don’t complain about him?’

Good question. His white male housemate was going through a phase of sleeping around with women he does not care about. These are choices I personally disagree with, yet, even then, I have never felt this way (‘yuck’) when talking to him. I feel as though he sees me as a person, as a woman, as his friend’s girlfriend/partner without the prefixes ‘Asian’ or ‘Indonesian’. His personal life and choices do not come into play when he talks to me. My partner tried to understand what I was saying, and I think he managed to partially understand the difference.

Here’s another story told by a young white woman (of a non-English speaking background). A couple (white man, Indonesian woman) came to have dinner at her parents’ house. At one point the Indonesian wife said something in Indonesian to her white husband. The white husband said, ‘yeah, yeah,’ as though he was listening. The host asked the white man what his Indonesian wife had said. The man said, ‘I don’t know. I can’t understand what she’s saying either. It doesn’t matter.’ Upon hearing this, the young woman who was relating the story decided that she did not want to be in a cross-cultural relationship lest this happens to her – devalued as a female ‘ethnic’ Other.

Can anyone relate to this? How does one explain the dynamics of this ‘yuck’ feeling and the effect of the ‘prefix’ so that others, particularly (white) men, may understand?

Could it be that it is easier for men to see a woman of another color as a pseudo-prostitute? Is that what the ‘yuck’ feeling is about? Or is that – prostitute – too strong a word for people’s comfort?

derail dialogues on race with the arab trader argument

This guest post (which originally appeared here) is by Abagond, who writes of himself, "I have lived most my life in or near New York City. Although I tend to think of myself more individually, I am in fact part of the wave of middle-class West Indians who left the city in the 1990s to bring up their children. . . . My parents were writers, which meant we did not always have enough to eat. I have been writing 'articles' since I was six. I would look at the insides of worms and write about it."


The Arab trader argument is my name for an argument white Americans often use to defend the evil they do in the world. It 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!

See how it works? Pretty cool trick.

Not!

The thing is utterly morally bankrupt. It is the everyone-does-it argument that we tried when we were eight. Our mothers did not buy it then and it does not work now – except maybe for the morally blind.

But that is just what many white Americans seem to be: morally blind. They know the evil that is done in their name, not just in the past but even now, but they do not want to see it. And when they are faced with it, they try to excuse it with stuff like this.

Maybe moral blindness leads to morally broken thinking – or is it the other way round?

It would be like if I robbed a bank and then said, “People rob banks all the time, what is the big deal?” Or if I slept with someone’s wife and I said, “Your wife had an affair two years ago. See! I am not that bad. Why are you angry at me?”

Do you see how shameless this kind of argument is?

It amazes me that anyone even tries it, for two reasons:

1. That anyone would waste more than two seconds trying to excuse something so clearly evil, like the slave trade, the Japanese American prison camps, racism, etc.
2. That they would try to use such a bad argument with a straight face and not see just how bad it is.

But they do it.

It seems to bring comfort to them, but that comfort is completely one-sided. It brings no comfort to those who have to suffer their evil. Like when the Jews were being sent to the death camps, did it bring any comfort to them to know that the Turks killed over a million Armenians?

Forms of this argument:

• This is the way we have always done it
• Blacks do it too
• Blacks are racist too
• There will always be racists

Right and wrong are not determined or proved by what everyone does, much less by what some people do, like Arab traders. That would just excuse everyone to sink to the lowest, meanest, most evil levels of behaviour.

A simple and far better way to determine right and wrong, without getting deep into religion or philosophy, is the Golden Rule, which is not “Do unto others as some others have done,” as the Arab trader argument would have it, but “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Acts of racism fail this test by their very nature.

shuttle ambivalently between whiteness and ethnicity

Reconsider Columbus Day

Tomorrow is Columbus Day in the United States. Like many other countries in "the Americas," we still mark this day, officially and otherwise. Celebrations of the efforts of Columbus usually erase the horrors of what he and his men did to indigenous peoples, thereby erasing as well the indigenous peoples themselves.

Many people in the U.S. remember this childish mnemonic device: "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Far fewer have heard this worthy addition, by Historian James Loewen: "In fourteen hundred and ninety-three, Columbus stole all he could see."

Some white Americans, particularly those of Italian descent, remember Columbus differently, for their own ambivalent purposes. Considering how they do so can shed light on both the past and the present of racial whiteness, including who is now considered "white," what they and other "white ethnics" gave up in the process of becoming that way, and what they now try to recover or hold onto about themselves and their supposed heritage.

Christopher Columbus' first sighting of land that came to be known as "America" occurred on October 12, 1492. Columbus Day was first celebrated in the U.S. in 1792, in honor of the 300th anniversary of Columbus' landing. Columbus was working at the time for the queen of Spain, and his efforts are widely credited with opening the door to Spanish conquest of "the Americas." In the mid-1800s, since Columbus himself was Italian, some Italian Americans began celebrating their heritage on Columbus Day.

As a result of this later, secondary remembrance, conflict has arisen when other groups, especially Native Americans, began protesting this holiday. For anyone who might still wonder why anyone would protest Columbus Day, Andrea Robideau, leader of a university-level Native American Women's Association, put it this way: “For a lot of native people, making Columbus Day a national holiday tells us that they honor someone who started a genocide against our people.” Robideau put it that way while she was selling t-shirts that read, "Killumbus."

Some Italian Americans take such protests against Columbus Day as an insult to their own heritage -- or perhaps to what remains of it, now that they and their ancestors have paid the price of the ticket into whiteness by bleaching away most of what marked them as "Italian." (And whether these ancestors even identified as "Italian" before arriving in the U.S., instead of as "Sicilian" or some other regional identity, is an interesting question.)

After their ancestors endured that cultural loss so that they and their descendants could enjoy being full-fledged "Americans," which at that time meant "white Americans," along came widespread recognition of non-whiteness via the Civil Rights Movement, and then the ascent in the 1990s of multiculturalism and/or "diversity," which mostly meant racial diversity. All of this new racial awareness and celebration made white Americans feel left out at times, as well as increasingly ambivalent about their own whiteness. After all, the only people affirming and celebrating that racial group were those who'd done obnoxious things with their heads, like putting pointy white sheets on them, or shaving them, or filling them with ridiculous, disproven ideas about the supposed superiority of a supposedly threatened white race.

And so it was that as fewer and fewer "white" people wanted to claim their racial grouping in some active, celebratory way, more and more of them turned instead to revival of the faded heritage of their European ancestors -- and not just Italian Americans.

In an article about this kind of "ethnic revival," scholar Matthew Frye Jacobson writes:

The leader of an anti-racism workshop in the 1990s once noted a disquieting inclination on the part of white participants to dissociate themselves from the advantages of whiteness by emphasizing some purportedly not-quite-white ethnic background. "I'm not white; I'm Italian," one would say. Another, "I'm Jewish." After this ripple had made its way across the group, the seminar leader was left wondering, "What happened to all the white people who were here just a minute ago?"

The sense of a sentence like "I'm not white, I'm Italian" rests upon several historical preconditions, now loosely relayed in the term "ethnic revival": the Civil Rights Movement heightened whites' consciousness of their skin privilege, rendering it both visible and newly uncomfortable. The example of black nationalism and later multiculturalism provided a new language for -- and perceived cache in -- the specificities of an identity that was not simply "American." After decades of striving to conform to the Anglo-Saxon standard, descendants of earlier European immigrants quit the melting pot. Italianness, Jewishness or Greekness were now badges of pride, not shame.

One unfortunate result, Jacobson goes on to note, is the tendency to hold up European immigrants as the real "model minority," a highly dubious honor normally given to Asian Americans:

Despite recent fixations on Asian-American success . . . European immigrants remain the nation's real "model minority": Their saga supplies the "standard" template of incorporation and advancement against which all other groups are judged. It supplied the post-slavery, fresh-off-the-boat innocents who have become the most potent symbol in protests against affirmative action, busing or reparations.

In conservative populism, white ethnics represent precisely those little people so in need of protection from the excesses of liberal social policy; and their exemplary mobility -- from steerage to ghetto to suburb -- is deployed in damning critique of both the contemporary welfare state and contemporary ghetto-dwellers.

As the following two television clips demonstrate, the conflicted feelings of people who can be described (rather oxymoronically) as "white ethnics" have made their way into popular culture. In the first, from "The Sopranos," New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano struggles, in his usual NSFW way, to articulate his mixed allegiances -- being Italian versus being white -- to some of his loyal minions, who are upset about upcoming protests against a Columbus Day parade. The second clip, from "Mad TV," satirizes both Italian American stereotypes and the whitening process of assimilation.

In both cases, the alternating sympathies of such "white ethnics" are on display, in a sort of ambivalent shuttling back and forth between polar attractions: the privileges and comforts of whiteness, and the warm, nostalgic memory of a faded group identity. Like such memories of other white ethnics,this collective identity can be as confused and delusional as the ongoing and uncritical celebration of Columbus Day -- a "celebration" of the beginnings of an Anglo-Saxon empire in an Italian mercenary's efforts to extend the rapacious and murderous plunderings of Spanish royalty.











[An earlier version of this post appeared here last year; h/t for the Reconsider Columbus Day video: Irene's Daughters]

never admit to being a racist

Here's a news clip about a white American who serves as an especially stark example of a couple of common white tendencies. Somehow, white people in the U.S. of A. have gotten to the point where no matter how racist something we've said or done is, we find it very difficult to acknowledge that it is what it is -- racism. That blockage often seems to happen because of another seemingly universal white American tendency, which is the refusal to simply admit, at least in public, "Yes, you're right, I am a racist."




I wonder if the reporter here, Michelle Marsh, would have gotten any further with Patrick Lanzos if, instead of asking him if he himself "is a racist," she had instead asked him if what he did was racist. Could that be the start of a more effective conversation with people like this guy?

But then, maybe not, with someone this delusional. I think it's clear that a man who would put a sign like that outside his establishment -- an establishment adorned inside with a Klan robe, for God's sake -- is indeed a racist, and that he thinks his racist actions are completely justified (no matter how bizarrely contrary they are to his NAACP membership and the portraits of black heroes hanging on his walls).

I don't mean to overlook Michelle Marsh's action-oriented question in this interview, "Why did you put that sign up?" Nevertheless, there's a lot of attention in this news clip to whether Patrick Lanzos is a racist. Lanzos himself seems to believe what just about all white Americans also seem to believe these days, which is that there's nothing worse than being identified as a racist. Oddly enough, even in extreme cases like this one, focusing on whether someone is a racist can become a distraction from the more crucial question of whether something they've done was a racist act.

As Jay Smooth pointed out awhile ago in a classic vlog post that bears repeating (and so I'll post it here), when it comes to racism, it's usually more effective to make it a "what they did" conversation, instead of a "what they are" conversation. In other words, in dialogues about racism, we should focus not on what white people are; we should focus instead on stuff white people do.




One other thought, also prompted for me by thinking about what Patrick Lanzos did, rather than on what he is -- where's the dividing line here between "free speech," a cherished American right that both Patrick Lanzos and Michelle Marsh cite in this news clip, and "hate speech," a designation that could strengthen efforts to take down this racist, hurtful sign? (I discussed this distinction in this post about another racist, hurtful sign ["Hispanics Keep Out"], as did many readers in the comments there.)

claim that obama only won the nobel peace prize because of his race

I snagged the above image awhile ago from some right-wing forum (sorry, can't remember which one). I'm including it here because it illustrates a white-wing -- I mean right-wing -- meme these days, one that's sure to get more play in response to Obama's Nobel Peace Prize.

The common conservative complaint encapsulated by that image is that people who criticize Obama for any reason are automatically labeled racists. I think that complaint is demonstrably groundless. It seems obvious that while racism surely helps to motivate many of Obama's critics, there's plenty to criticize Obama for that has nothing to do with his race. It's also obvious that those who criticize his policies rarely get labeled racists simply for doing so.

I suspect that this claim -- that you just can't criticize a black president in these politically correct times without getting slapped with a "Hi, I'm a racist!" name-tag -- is more of a backstage complaint among Obama's conservative critics. As in, something they tell each other, more than something they say a lot in public, and during debates with whatever constitutes "the left."

Another conservative claim that I think will arise in the next week or so -- a criticism that I think is racist -- is that Obama only won because of his race. That the Nobel Peace Prize has become the Affirmative Action Prize. I've certainly heard that specious claim often enough (actually, far more than often enough) as a supposed explanation for Toni Morrison's receipt of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature.

As with the common conservative complaint about being labeled a racist simply for criticizing Obama, I think this Affirmative Action Card will probably be played more frequently behind closed doors than out in public. After all, whenever you say such things about Obama out in public, people automatically jump up and call you a racist, right?

But wait, waddya know, some conservatives are already saying that in public. Here's a writer named Eric Erickson, writing this morning at a blog called Redstate: "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news."

Wow, that was fast. It also demonstrates the incredibly limited range of Erickson's thought process (that's the "only thing" he could think of in response to this news?).

At Baudrillard's Bastard, Ortho Stice also predicts more of this psychopathological response -- that white people will "say Obama does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize and he only won because of his race." And over at Racism Review, Sociologist Jessie Daniels is predicting that "this amazing news will prompt a torrent of racist backlash."

Yes, more of all that does seem likely. Of course, those spewing that torrent will swear all up and down that their denunciations are anything but racist.

Are you hearing or seeing any other examples yet of a racist backlash to today's big news for Barack Obama?

By the way, here's his five-minute acknowledgment speech. What happens to the arguments of Obama's critics when he agrees with them that he doesn't deserve the Prize?

friday music -- "motown by white people"

Why do white people so often prefer black music when it's performed by white people?

Exhibit A: the following commercial, which appears to be authentic, and was posted at YouTube with the title "Motown By White People."

In light of yesterday's post on Harry Connick, Jr.'s denunciation of white-Australian minstrelsy, I'm tempted to ask if this group's work is a form of "blackface" as well. However, aside from how the men in this commercial, who call themselves The Blenders, are not literally wearing blackface, I suppose the distinction to be made between the two sets of white performers is something like "mockery" versus "admiration." Which is not to say that there aren't all sorts of more subtle, complex problems with the ubiquitous white appropriation of black music.

In addition to addressing that topic if you like, let's use this post as an open thread. Link away to other posts if you think we should read them, including your own, talk about whatever strikes you as worthy of chatter, but do play nice -- no spitting, please.

stand up and speak out against racism

I'm guessing that most readers of this blog have already heard about Harry Connick, Jr.'s anti-racist activism on some sad-looking TV show down in the big Down Under. Nevertheless, I decided to highlight the clip and his righteous remarks here because it's a chance to do something I rarely do -- give white people credit when they do the right thing.

Thanks to their conditioning in a society that remains fundamentally racist (that is, white supremacist), white people often still do racist things. Sometimes they do that intentionally, though more often they do it, I would bet, without even realizing it (that is, unintentionally -- unconsciously).

But then, at other times, when white people are confronted with blatant racism -- such as, say, other white people shuckin' and jivin' in a ridiculous blackfaced throwback to the Jim Crow era -- sometimes white people stand right up and call that kind of obnoxious crap exactly what it is.

So kudos to Harry Connick, Jr. for doing that, and may other white people follow his lead when confronted with racism (blatant or subtle), be they in the U.S., Australia, or other national contexts.

And speaking of national contexts, did you know that a common designation in Australia for that land's indigenous counterpart to the U.S.'s "Native Americans" is "blacks"? It's true, or so I've heard, and read.

So, does that make a "blackface" performance like this one that HC, Jr. objected to any different there than it would be in the U.S.? It surely doesn't make it any less wrong, and obnoxious; I'm just wondering if it makes it any different.

I'm also wondering -- would an Australian TV audience laugh less readily if a group of white Australians blacked-up like this for a stereotypical, supposedly humorous imitation of indigenous Australians, instead of black Americans?




White Australian TV-show Host (@ 4:40): I noticed, when you were very kindly judging red faces [?], I noticed that when we had the Jackson Jive on, and it didn’t occur to me until afterwards, that I think we may have offended you. I deeply apologize on behalf o all of us, because I know that to your countrymen that's an insult to have a blackface routine. So I do apologize to you.

Harry Connick Jr: Right, thanks Daryl. I just wanted to say on behalf of my country, I know it was done humorously, but you know, we've spent so much time trying to not make Black people look like buffoons that when we see something like that we take it really to heart. And I know it was in good fun, and the last thing I want to do is take this show to really a down level, because I love this show and this country, but I feel like I'm at home here, and if I knew that was gonna be a part of the show, I definitely wouldn’t have done it. So I thank you for the opportunity. I gotta give it up, cause Daryl said at the break, he said, Man, you need to speak as an American. Not as a White American or a Black American, but as an American I need to say that, so thank you for the opportunity.


[My thanks to the many readers who emailed links to this video]

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?

listen poorly during discussions of racism

After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are justly seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way.

--Peggy McIntosh

I've been closely watching the comment thread for the most recent post here, in which guest writer RCVBard kindly explained her experience with the common white tendency to question non-white knowledge and authority. I don't remember another instance on this blog where some of the commenters have demonstrated so clearly the common white tendency that the post itself was about.

As several readers pointed out, it was as if some people had read RVCBard's post and thought they understood it, and yet completely missed her main point. After reading a post about the common white tendency to question the knowledge and authority of non-white people, many apparently white readers went on to challenge the expressed knowledge and authority of the post's non-white author.

I think the discussion there (which at this point is still going on) calls for some review, partly in order to emphasize that main point -- that white people often challenge non-white knowledge and authority. Basically, some readers still don't seem to get what the problem is. Also, a large gap between common white and non-white perspectives became evident in that thread, and I'm now trying to pin down just what that gap is -- exactly how, that is, the two sides see things differently. As a white person, I'm not sure I entirely get that, but I'll do my best to explain it here, as well as some of what happened in the comments. Please correct me as you see fit.

Very early in the thread, three readers in a row expressed doubt about the post. The first wrote,

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?

I've seen this basic, common white response to non-white explanations of racism many times. The skeptical white listener basically says, "So far, I doubt what you're saying is true. Surely something else accounts for what you're saying is racism. Give me more evidence, or else I will remain unconvinced." This commenter's demand for a evidence of a "pattern" came despite the fact that the writer of the post, RVCBard, is a black woman -- and therefore likely to have encountered, analyzed, and understood racism many times in her life -- and also, despite the writer's explanation in the post that her encounters with this phenomenon have been "too many to count," and thus constitute a "pattern" of the sort that the commenter asked for.

Since I was raised as a white person in the U.S., I too used to think of black people as biased when it comes to race -- as ever anxious to "play the race card." I now understand that people of color tend to know that they're likely to be thought of that way when they point out instances of racism, so they do so sparingly.

Since I now understand this dynamic, I suspect that when people of color do decide to explain their experiences with racism to white listeners, they've usually made a careful decision to do so, despite the skepticism they're likely to encounter. This also suggests to me that I should listen carefully, instead of skeptically, because there's a good chance that I'm going to hear something insightful about my own unconscious white behavior.

This common white skepticism also appears in the next comment:

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.

Translation--"I don't doubt what you're saying, but really, I doubt what you're saying."

The next two commenters expressed their direct agreement with this one, and like many subsequent commenters, they repeated the rather obvious claim that the questioning of subordinated knowledge and authority by the privileged happens in terms of other categories, especially gender.

Here's how I read a familiar white opinion that was taking shape -- as I jumped in to summarize that opinion in a comment,

"Hmm, yeah, maybe that happens, but I HAVE seen something like that happen to me, in other ways. It may be true that white people do that to black people and other races, but ya know, men DO do it to women, young people do it to old people, and so on."

I also asked people of color reading the blog what they think and feel when they hear such responses to their efforts to explain racism. Many replied, including Rufus, who wrote,

I feel they're deflecting. I feel that by them providing those types of unrelated examples, they're trying to somehow dilute the situation... sort of like a "it happens to everyone, so suck it up."

As for what I think, usually it's "I'd like to jump off a roof right now..."

Later on, the author of the post, RVCBard, commented,

Quite a few posters here are illustrating the main point of my post.

As if I, as a queer woman of color, who's lived with this my whole life, cannot tell the difference between racism and sexism and need someone else to set me straight because I'm "confused." As if by some fluke, they're some sort of so-called neutral observer and not an active participant in the dynamic I'm talking about.

I find it quite intriguing how people decide that it's my job to convince you that the dynamic I'm talking about is real and that White people are overwhelmingly the main culprits.

I also find it interesting that my using an experience to illustrate my point is being critiqued as though I am drawing my point from these isolated incidents instead of picking my most recent examples from a lifetime of similar experiences.

You all seem incapable of believing that I actually know what I'm talking about.

It's hard to put into words how hurtful and irritating that is.

I think the entire comment thread contains a wealth of honest non-white reactions to a common white tendency, a tendency that most white people don't even know about on a conscious level, but one which they repeatedly exhibit, unconsciously. Habitually. It also contains many examples of common white habits, especially that of failing to listen well when someone non-white is talking about racism. Which, again, is exactly what the post itself was about.

Getting over bad habits can take a lot of practice. And a lot of repetition of a new form of behavior to replace the bad habit. I think that when it comes to listening to non-white explanations of racism, that right there is one new habit that most white people still need to develop -- listening, and doing so respectfully. As well as staying on topic. And resisting the urge to connect with the experiences of the explainer by saying that those experiences remind you of something else that you've been through (that, my white friends, is such a common form of derailment). And resisting the urge to basically argue that you somehow know more about non-white experience than non-white people themselves do. And resisting the urge to defend yourself (and other white people) when you get called out for doing such things, instead of trying to understand why you (and they) were called out.

So just what is that gap that I said I could see in that comment thread, the one between common white and non-white perspectives in such discussions? What is the basic difference here in the two sides' perspectives?

So far, I would say it's something like this -- white people don't have to think much about race; however, given the ongoing reality of racism, most non-white people do have to think about it, and analyze it, and figure out how it works. As a result, most white people know less about racism than most non-white people do. Nevertheless, a great, sad, and even tragic irony is that when non-white people take the time and effort to explain examples of racism, white people often doubt what they're hearing, they often think they know more about a phenomenon with which they've had less direct experience, and they often want to talk about something else instead. They also commonly fail to understand how dismissive they're being when they do those things.

If you participated in or read that other comment thread, do you think I'm missing anything here?

question non-white knowledge and authority

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.


Observation: White folks seem to be comfortable with non-Whites as long as we indulge the fantasy of subservience, but when we exert any form of authority or influence, they become uncomfortable, even hostile. That is, if they even acknowledge us as being any kind of legitimate authority at all. It doesn't matter how great (President of the United States) or trivial (intellectual discussion) the situation, White people seem to default to undermining, questioning, scrutinizing, or outright denying the expertise, ability, and power of people of color.

Experience: My roommates (mostly White men) had gotten into a small debate about using pesticides in our living area. Several of them were going on and on and on about how it's perfectly safe, won't hurt anything, blahblahblah, while my friend (an East Indian woman) was saying that the chemicals were harmful when used in close proximity to humans and animals. BTW, she has 2 Master's degrees -- one in chemistry and another in environmental science (I believe). The people arguing with her? Several never so much as took a college course, and quite a few may have graduated with a Bachelor's in something decidedly not focused in chemistry, biology, or environmental science. Nevertheless, instead of deferring to her expertise, they still ran their mouths about what they "knew" about these things.

Observation: White people seem to have this need to be first, most, and best of everything. They're all about individuality when it's about them being special, but when people of color try to express their own extraordinary traits, there's a tendency to respond in a way that places the White person on par with or above a person of color.

Experience: Too many to count. But a recent example -- dog training. I've been breeding, raising, and training large breed dogs (particularly rottweilers) from birth to death for my entire life. For a brief time, I was even a pet trainer at PETsMART. So I have the theoretical and practical knowledge to assist people with most dog rearing and dog training needs, especially with large dogs (65+ lbs).

My roommates became the de facto owners of a lab mix. But they were having problems with teaching him good behavior. They tried yelling at him, rubbing his nose in his mess, spanking him, and so on. I made it clear that I knew what to do and I'd gladly offer my tips and advice to make things easier. I knew gentle training techniques that work for big dogs. I knew what they should eat. I knew how to make a potty schedule. And what I didn't know, I could ask of even more experienced people.

Did they take me up on it? No. Somehow, none of my knowledge or experience means anything to these guys who think rearing a puppy is all about establishing dominance as the alpha male. Cue me rolling my eyes really hard. But I did get endless amusement out of my friend when he nearly pulled his hair out trying to teach his puppy to roll over while I very quickly and very calmly achieved what he was attempting. Again, did he ask me how I did it? Did he come to me about teaching the puppy to do other things? NOOOOOO! Apparently, it's not my combination of knowledge, experience, and patience. It's just some sort of fluke!

date asian men less frequently than asian women

Friday music, Friday topic --

"Date an Asian," by Jen Kwok (Caution: NSFW Language Ahead)





In "Asian American Interracial Relationships Today," Sociologist C.N. Le writes,

The other issue that comes into play here is how Asian women are frequently fetishized. Historically, it was very common for Asian women to be portrayed as docile, subservient, exotic, mysterious, and/or seductive. These images can be traced back to Chinese prostitutes who were "imported" into the U.S. back in the 1800s and through the prevalence of "war brides" (Asian women marrying U.S. military servicemen) after World War 2, and these images are constantly reinforced and perpetuated in the media.

Many Asian Americans argue that this cultural stereotype or fetish of Asian women is a large reason why many males (particularly White males) are attracted to Asian women. In this sense, Asian women are not seen as equal partners but rather, as sexual objects to be controlled and used by the male.

These critics point out that in most areas of popular American culture, rarely do you see the opposite happening -- Asian males being the subjects of infatuation or sexual desire by White women. In fact, these critics point out that Asian males have been and continue to be purposely portrayed as non-sexual martial arts experts, nerds and geeks, or evil villains and that this portrayal serves to eliminate Asian males as potential rivals to White males for the affection of Asian women. These critics also note that it is the saddest irony when Asian women either allow themselves to be objectified and fetishized or when they buy into and accept these demeaning portrayals of Asian men and eliminate them as potential partners.

As one particularly stark example of the "cultural penalty" that many Asian American men face when it comes to dating and overcoming the cultural stereotypes against them, a team of economists at MIT recently analyzed the dating preferences of users of online dating sites (PDF of the study, 1.5mb). In Table 5.6 (page 49) of the study, they found that when it came to the dating preferences of White women, their first preference was to date a White man, which is not suprising nor uncommon. But their data showed that the White women in the study would also consider dating men or color, but only if he made more money than a comparable White man, as follows:

• Latino American men: + $77,000
• African American men: + $154,000
• Asian American men: + $246,000

As I noted, these theories and criticisms can sound rather one-sided. However painful or grating they may be, it is necessary for us to look at how both Asian American men and women can become the targets of objectification and how this reinforces and perpetuates ethnic stereotypes against both.


H/T for the video: 8 Asians; for more humorous commentary, see "Yellow Fever," by Wong Fu Productions

think of barack obama as "arrogant"

I noticed recently that someone landed on this blog by entering this question into Google:

"Does anyone else think obama is the most arrogant person they know?"

Although I have no way of knowing for sure, I have a sneaking suspicion that this Google-user is a white person.

For one thing, while I've heard white people say that about Obama, I've never heard non-white people say it.

For another thing, it's reminiscent of old (and still current, in some places) descriptions of black people who don't act humbly enough as "uppity." Black people who act, that is, as if they're the equals of white people.

I don't think white Americans in general have completely gotten over that kind of thinking. Or is it more like, a feeling?

Not that we all think and feel that way. I like to think, or hope, that I don't think and feel that way.

To me, Barack Obama's general demeanor seems more "down to earth" -- almost the opposite of "arrogant." He does seem educated, informed, and intelligent, but I don't equate such qualities with "arrogance." Maybe I'm partially influenced in this by my looking at him from a middle-class perspective?

At any rate, what I'm led to think by such a Googled question about Obama being "the most arrogant person" the Google-user knows is this: a lot of white people think, even unconsciously at times, that a black person who acts NOT like he's above other people, but like he or she is the equal of other people, is acting "arrogant." I also think that's a word that a lot of white people who use it that way would not apply to someone who acts the same way, but isn't black.

I wish I could cite some studies of this phenomenon. Since I don't have any to refer you to, I will note that at this point, the above thoughts are tentative and speculative.

What have you experienced in terms of common white perceptions of "arrogance," be it that of Barack Obama or of anyone else?