Category Archives: race matters

  • black faces 1224_s31

    Stuff I Appreciate About Black Folks

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    Hey – want to watch me stick a fork in an electric outlet? ‘Cuz that’s pretty much the same thing as being a white person who talks about black folks, right? Or at least some would have you think so. But I’m going to do it, because African Americans are forever getting dumped on in our society and are rarely called out for all the things that are great about them.

    Now, before I get started, allow me to provide proper cover for myself. For those not in the know, I’m married to a black man. I have 5 mixed race kids and two African American stepsons. So if nothing else, my “I have black friends” creds are actually solid. (I’ve written more about my experience with race here and you can learn more about my $.99 ebook on race in American here.) Of course, there is as much variety among black folks as among any other group of people. I’ve known sweet, shy, reserved black women and loud, sassy, confrontational black women. Macho black men and nerdy black men. And the things I’m going to list here aren’t universal. There are always people who go against the grain. But as a general rule, these are things which I have observed to be common among black folk I have known that are not nearly as prevalent among the white folks I have known.

    Of course, every positive trait has a dark side when pushed to far. My goal isn’t to idealize African Americans, but like I said, we continually dump on black folks and discuss problems in the black community. For this post, I’m just focusing on things which I personally appreciate about black folks I have known. So having properly covered my ass, here goes:

    1. They respond to your problems with grace and understanding.

    Probably because black folks have had to deal with so many really serious, awful problems for so long, they aren’t particularly phased by your problems. Usually they’ve heard or seen it all before – and worse. And if your life is going to hell because you did something wrong, well, the black folks I’ve known probably disapprove of your dumb choices as much as anyone else. But they also know that you’re the one who is going to have to live with the consequences of your dumb choices, so there’s really no point in piling on. Better to help you move forward than waste time berating you much less exacerbate the problem by turning you out. In my experience, if your life goes all to shit, you’re much better off going to your black friends or a black church for support than to your average middle class white person or church.

    2. They tend to be more tolerant and less put off by people’s quirks and oddities.

    It could just be the particular black folks and the particular white folks I’ve known, but I’ve found that black folks seem to be more willing to just accept people as they are without feeling the need to express disapproval or pressure others to change. “That’s just the way he/she is” is a very common sentiment. Not only that, but I’ve seen a real willingness to not simply tolerate, but enjoy people’s oddities and quirks. To laugh without being mean or even be challenged by people’s differences. To understand that sometimes negative traits are the very things which also produce positive abilities (“stubborn’s just the other side of determination”).

    3. They’re often quick to offer praise and encouragement.

    I guess when your chances to shine have been limited by society and the culture at large is only willing to reflect negative messages back at you, you have a greater appreciation for the value of building people up. The world hands black folks enough criticism and critique, so it seems that a lot of black folks have chosen to respond by doing just the opposite and focusing on the positive they see.

    4. Black folks have a willingness to be open and real.

    I have white friends who I have known for years who have almost certainly had terrible things happen to them but would never share them. But most of the black friends I’ve had, once they’ve sized you up and decided that you’re good people, are open books. Which means it’s OK for me to be an open book as well. I don’t have to worry that I’ll share something which leaves me thinking I’ve revealed too much or which is so shocking that it makes the other person uncomfortable (see #1).

    5. Good instincts.

    I was raised, like a lot of white women, not to trust myself. I was taught to discount things that made me uncomfortable as probably making too much of nothing and to think that other people could probably see me better than I could see myself. The black folks I’ve known don’t do that. Instead, they have learned to rely on instincts to stay safe in a hostile and capricious world. And having practiced using their instincts to size up people and situations from childhood up, they tend to have really good instincts. My husband’s family is more than a little bit crazy, but if they tell me that someone is good people or that a person is no good, I trust them.

    6. Comfortable with sexuality.

    Vilifying black sexuality has practically been an American pastime for several centuries now, but this is actually something I really appreciate about the black folks I’ve known. Pretty much every white person I’ve known has joked that their parents had sex exactly once for each child they had. I don’t know any black person who harbored (or even wanted to harbor) any such delusions about their parents. People have sex. Old people, ugly people, fat people, poor people, nice people, mean people, smelly people. It’s just part of life and something we all do. And while I was caught completely off-guard the time my sister in law asked me if I thought my husband was sexy and stammered like an idiot in response, I think that this frank acceptance of sex is a healthy, positive thing.

    7. Creativity with words.

    My husband and the friends he grew up with would do something they called “playing the dozens” which was basically an insult competition with each person engaging in spontaneous wordplay to come up with the most biting and creative insults possible. Which may not be the kindest pastime ever invented, but creating good insults is its own art form. Doing it regularly will teach you to use words creatively far better than any writing course ever could. As a writer myself, I particularly like and enjoy words. And black folks habitually find ways to use language creatively and often unexpectedly. I get comments fairly often on my writing style and part of that comes out of having spent time with African Americans and having absorbed some of the idioms and patterns of speech which I’ve heard there. Plus, my degree is in literature, so I am semi-qualified to declare that the very best literature of the 20th century was written by African Americans.

    8. A spiritualized view of life.

    Black folks are a bit notorious for their tendency to embrace superstition and conspiracy theories. But the other side of this is that many black folks understand their lives and the world in spiritual terms which really resonate with me as a spiritual person. They are more open to recognizing the ways that the Spirit works and moves. Making choices for reasons which aren’t entirely rational, but are spiritually driven is something which is accepted and respected. Whether it’s man-made or God driven or demoniacally empowered, there’s more to life than what’s apparent on the surface and most black folks seem to know and respect that.

    9. The economy of black folks tends to line up fairly closely with God’s economy.

    I’m not so much talking about economy in terms of money here. Rather, I mean the economy of what is valuable, desirable, worthy, etc. God’s economy is rather upside down. The first are last, the last are first. You give up your life to gain it. When you are poor, you are blessed. Rejoice in suffering. Those of us who enjoy living in a system which was created largely by and for us can often avoid being last, losing our lives, being poor and suffering excessively. But African Americans have never had that luxury. Which I think means that they have been in a better position to embrace God’s economy. To accept the upside down nature of God’s ways more deeply than people who can avoid being last if they want to can. They know that being last, being poor, having your life taken from you and suffering don’t necessarily mean that you’re failing at life. And it’s certainly not the final word.

    10. Black folks are usually quite good at understanding how other people are going to perceive them.

    I am terrible at this. I cannot tell you how often I have been caught completely off guard by someone who responds to me in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I’m really good at putting myself into someone else’s shoes right up until it comes to anticipating how they are going to experience dealing with me. Then I’m clueless. I make an observation that I think is neutral or even positive and it gets taken as an insult. I’ll think I’m being nice and trigger the other person’s every insecurity. On the other hand, my husband and most of the other black folks I know are quite aware of and tuned into how other people are going to experience and respond to them. I’m sure it comes from moving around in an often hostile environment and the often heavy price black folks pay for getting it wrong. I sometimes get irritated with my husband for saying it, but as a white person I’ve been able to walk through life being pretty clueless. But the flip side is that my husband is an absolute master at navigating social interactions in a way that I will never be. Some of that’s personality, but some of it really is the difference between being white and black in this country.

    So, there’s my list of stuff I appreciate about black folks. I’m sure I could think of more items to add if I thought about it, but I think this is a pretty good start. Hopefully I haven’t inadvertently insulted anyone.

    Now, I’m not simply sharing these things here to give my white person stamp of approval to beleaguered black folks. Rather, actively seeking, noticing and valuing the gifts which people different from myself bring is part of my job as a functioning part of the body of Christ. It’s no secret that the body of Christ is shockingly divided by race. Scriptures describe the church as a body. Too often, we read that as applying to our own particular congregation and our giftings. As if each one was its own body, having within it all it needs. But really, the body is much bigger than that. And it does have many parts. It has different nationalities and races and classes which make up those parts. As such, learning to integrate the church is going mean learning to appreciate the particular gifts and strengths that these various and differing parts bring with them.

    Too often, we want to homogenize the body – find a way to make black folks more like white folks and Asian Christians more like American Christians. But really what we ought to be doing is looking out for what other parts of the body have to offer that we’re lacking. What bit of truth they have a more solid grasp of than we do. What they know and understand that we’ve been blind to. We need to be actively looking for these things and expecting to find valuable gifts that God has brought forth among all different sorts of people. So take my little list as a starting point.

    But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” . . . So that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. ~ 1 Corinthians 12:18-21, 25-26

  • race

    The American Race and Race

    October 10, 2012

    1 Comment

    Gather ’round, folks. Auntie Becky is going to tell you a story. A metaphor really, about race in America. And about the American Dream.

    Imagine for a moment, a long relay race where for generations it has been considered acceptable and in some cases even required to break the limbs of a one group of people trying to run the race. The people thought this was OK. After all, it wasn’t long ago that this group of people had been used as horses to pull everyone else’s carts around the track. At least they were free of that back-breaking work. Now, they just had to contend with some needed cobbling. To keep the race running smoothly. Make sure the people who have been running the race so diligently for generations don’t lose any hard-earned ground. Anyone who resists the “in group’s” right to break bones is killed, so that keeps everything on an even keel. Not a bad system, really.

    Of course, people with broken bones do not do very well in the race. Pretty quickly there are people lying all over the place with broken bones and deformities from past breaks which were never set properly. Many people in that group will simply stop trying to participate in the race. Maybe even set up little shanty towns around the track to do the best that they can outside of the race. The more ambitious set up little lemonade stands along the track and play music for the people running by to keep themselves out of the darkest, scariest parts of the shanty towns. A few are fast enough to elude those who would break their bones, but these would be few and far between. The track is littered with those who tried to be one of the fastest few but got caught. Their broken bones and mutilated corpses remind the out group not to try to hard or rebel against the natural order of things.

    Now, let’s say that after a very long time, once most of the people who are able to run the race are pretty well ahead, that people start to come to their senses and decide that it is wrong to break the limbs of the out group. So they ban limb breaking. From that point forward, a person’s success or failure in the race will depend on their efforts and abilities. Continue reading »

  • white-and-black-preschool-girls1

    Do You Think I Should Send This?

    June 21, 2012

    2 Comments

    Dear Bertha*,

    I am writing to let you know that my daughter mentioned to me today that on several occasions now your daughter Suzi-Q has made derogatory comments to her regarding her half-black heritage. The poor thing even tried claiming that you had told her that you didn’t like black people too. I knew you would want to know about this right away so you can talk to Suzi-Q about not repeating every ridiculous thing she hears some ill-bred child on the playground saying. And of course, we wouldn’t want other, more credulous people to catch wind of her claim that you don’t like black people. I’m sure that she’ll never repeat such nonsense again once she understands that people will assume she is being raised by repugnant trailer-park trash who doesn’t deserve to breathe the air that the Good Lord provides us. I mean, obviously I’ve known perfectly fine people who live in trailer parks and it’s completely possible for scummy filth to reside in a lovely home like your own. But you know how people can be with their ridiculous stereo-typing and absurd assumptions based on the shallowest of pretenses. We’ll just have to hope Suzi-Q’s unfortunate statements haven’t gotten back to anyone else and harmed your family’s good standing in the community. Continue reading »

  • Privilege

    The Real Reason the Term “White Privilege” Needs to Die

    May 25, 2012

    16 Comments

    Want to start a fight? Put an honest white person and an honest person of color in a room together and tell them to discuss white privilege. “White privilege” is one of those phrases that means two totally different things to most white people and most people of color. Outside of colleges and and multi-cultural training seminars it is a complete conversation stopper that does nothing to illuminate anything and everything to sow seeds of enmity between races. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s a phrase that should be abandoned altogether.

    “Now, wait a minute, Rebecca,” I can hear some of you saying, “you’re a white person married to an African American. You’ve even written a book which is enormously sympathetic to the perspectives and experiences of African Americans and quite critical of whites inability/unwillingness to deal with those perspectives and experiences. How can you speak so negatively of ‘white privilege’? Isn’t it just a reality?”

    And that’s just it. If I as an extraordinarily sympathetic white person who can offer hundreds of examples of the ways that racism has affected my husband – who is just one man! – hear the phrase “white privilege” and get my hackles raised, then clearly there’s a problem. And frankly, I really don’t think that the problem is with me. The problem is with the language involved. Continue reading »

  • What a white girl knows about race

    December 12, 2011

    2 Comments

    Maybe they were right!

    I am the whitest of the white girls.  I just am.  I’m cool with that.  One of my black girlfriends told me that when she had moved to the Chicago area back in the 80′s my hometown was one of two places she was told by her mother to avoid ever being in.  Before going to high school, the only african american I had ever spoken to was working at a store.  But, one of the first people I met at the Catholic high school I attended was Elaine, an African American from Joliet, a small industrial city about 30 minutes from my home.  We were both in the honors program, so we had most of our classes together and we hit it off.  We shared a wicked sense of humor and spent inordinate amounts of class time writing long notes whose main purpose was to get the other person to laugh out loud while reading it.  I can’t believe we never got caught! 

    We never really talked about it, but there were differences.  We were BBFs (Best Buddies Forever), not BFFs.  Mostly she ate lunch with the other black kids and it never occurred to me that she would do otherwise.  It’s got to be hard spending all day surrounded by people who can’t really “get” you and may not even like you no matter how good or nice or cool or talented you are.  I’d want a break too. 

    Looking back, I realize that I was white-girl clueless in a way that a less tolerant and kind person might have been unwilling to deal with.  Continue reading »

  • blk-father

    A Letter to a Young Black Man

    September 16, 2011

    4 Comments

    I hope he doesn’t mind me doing this, but I have a stepson who is going through some stuff right now.  And while on my walk yesterday, I felt God put this message on my heart for him.  I’d like to post it here as well because I know that there are so many young men who need to hear it.  I realize that young black men aren’t exactly my target demographic, so anyone who wants to should feel free to pass it on as they see fit.  I just ask that my name be included.

    Andrew, I saw your post from earlier and wanted to check and see if you are OK.  I have been meaning to write you anyways because yesterday when I was out walking, God put a message on my heart that I think he wanted me to pass on to you.  It’s about how important you are.  I’m sure you’ve been told before that you are important, but I’m also sure that you don’t actually believe it or have any idea how true it is.  You can’t.  Because no matter how often you may have been told that you are important, so much of what you have seen in real life has told you that men, black men in particular, are only problems.  You’ve never consistently seen men be important and good.  You’ve seen women raise their kids without fathers and carry the majority – if not all – of the financial load for their families.  And this isn’t to rip on your mom, but her choosing to keep your dad from playing a meaningful role in your life must have screamed to you that fathers were optional.  And if your own father is optional, then how could you not be as well?  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Not only are you not optional, you are absolutely essential.

    We talked earlier in the week about trashy girls trying to find love in ways that will only leave them angry and bitter and alone and probably with a kid or two in tow to boot.  But even with young women you know who aren’t trashy, how many of them know what it’s like to be loved properly by their fathers?  They may know that they don’t want to go the way of the bootie girls, but if they’ve never seen a man really love a woman (ideally their mothers), they don’t really know what to look for either.  They are just smart enough to recognize a particularly ridiculous losing strategy.  Even your own mother or other older women you know.  How would they be different if they knew they were loved by a man who was good and who they could depend on?  Would they be softer?  More free?  Strong without so many hard edges?  Less defensive?  Better mothers?  None of the women you know can do for themselves or their children what you can do for them as a man.  (And to be clear, this is hardly a black problem.  Whites and Hispanics and Asians and purple people are all suffering from the same problem.  Its just particularly acute in the black community.  Which simply means that the black community is more ripe and ready for young men like yourself to bring change.)

    Now, it’s not right or fair that you are coming onto the scene so late in the game that its been generations since it was common for families to work the way they need to work.  And you have no one to show you the way.  But when it’s most dark and its most desperate, that’s when the heroes start to show up.  And that’s what you are called to be: a hero.  Which probably sounds overwrought and ridiculous.  But its not.  Just by committing to being a good. loving man, you will change the world in ways that will reverberate through communities and generations and heaven itself.  Your children and the woman you commit to will depend on it.  And there will be girls who see you and know what they should be looking for when they seek a loving man.  And there will be boys who see you and know that they too can be better and do better and that they really are important.  There will be other men who are ready to quit who will see you and get the shot of courage they need to try and stay the course.  And in time, as others in this generation take up the work of being good. loving men, the rest of the world will see those with no role models and no reward doing things differently and maybe the rest of us won’t have to go as deeply down the hole of family destruction and expendable men as what has been pretty normal for you and your peers.  This is really important work that only young men like yourself like you can do.  You’re like Frodo with the ring or Luke Skywalker facing Darth Vadar; only you can do what needs to be done to set things right.

    And its not going to be easy.  Most of us have this fantasy that if we are doing the right things, the people around us will see it and applaud it and God will give us favor.  In reality, the opposite is true.  If people see what you are trying to do, they will be suspicious.  They will insist that they don’t need or want what you are trying to offer because they don’t trust it or think that they’ve been getting along just fine without you or any other man.  Some guys who don’t want to have to work that hard or be that serious and deny themselves easy pleasures will be unhappy that you’re, as they say, “raising the price of pussy”.  And you have to be really, really strong to do great things in hard times so the enemy will be allowed to interfere so that you can get strong enough fighting him off to persevere and finish the race.  It’s hard.  But we need you.  Life cannot continue as it has been.  You have suffered enough and seen enough people around you suffer to know that for life to continue as it has been is completely unacceptable.  It cannot be allowed to continue to be this way!

    I know you were brought up in the church, but I don’t have any real idea what, if any, relationship you have with God.  But I do know that God specifically offers the things that you need.  He is father to the fatherless.  In Isaiah he says, “Can a mother forget the baby she has nursed at her breast? Even if a mother forgets her own child, I will not forget you.  See, I have carved your name in the palm of my hand.”  And he’s the role model you don’t have but need.  Let me show you how this works in a way that may be helpful to you where you are at right now.  From what I have seen, you seem to be someone who feels emotions very intensely.  I do as well.  There are moments when I feel like my pain is going to destroy me.  God is the same way.  There is a passage in one of the epistles where it says that Jesus prayed with loud cries and shouts.  This is not the way that a happy, serene, untroubled man prays.  Jesus went off to pray by himself regularly (a good example) and he would be so upset that his disciples sitting off at a distance could hear him crying and yelling at God.  So, I follow Jesus’ example and bring my pain to God.  Over and over and as dramatically as I need to.  Its also helpful for me to realize that Jesus wasn’t too keen on being here sometimes.  Because sometimes, I just don’t want to be here anymore either.  It’s too hard and painful and unfair and the rewards are too meager compared to the suffering.  Remember when Jesus asked how long he would have to put up with the fools he was surrounded with after one of the disciples said something particularly stupid?  He knew what it was like to think that being here just wasn’t worth it.  God doesn’t just know what you’re going through because he sees you going through it.  He knows because he’s experienced it as well.  And you can look to see how he handled things to figure out what you can do to overcome.

    One last secret I’m going to pass on to you.  Learn to pray for the right things.  So often we are discouraged and lose faith because we are in dire need and we pray and nothing happens.  Or we are doing the right things and find ourselves in a gutter instead of at the mountain top.  I’m struggling with this right now and its heartbreaking and frustrating and I have no answers for it.  But what I do know is that every spiritual blessing or gift I have ever asked for has been given to me.  And when I needed to change some part of my character or heart, if I just kept bringing my failures to God and asking for his help to do differently, He changed me.  Which is going to be vital for you.  Because if love is what we do rather than who we are learning to be, it won’t last.  Love has to come out of who you are learning to be or it will be crushed when its rejected or too hard or you fail again.  But if its part of who you are, it will just keep coming up out of you until it has worked its magic.

    So that’s the message I have for you.  You can take it, leave it or run screaming from the crazy white lady who’s trying to tell you what to do!  It’s up to you.  But I have one last warning before I leave you alone.  A hero doesn’t do things the way that everyone else does.  So, please don’t think that what I’m telling you is the same old “men need to take up their leadership position” bullshit that people spout and humanity’s been trying for millennia.  It doesn’t work.  Your mission is to love.  Pure and simple.  And not the kind of love that says “this hurts me more than it hurts you” or “I did this because I love you.  Now be grateful” or any of the other crap you’ve seen passed off as love.  Love is patient, kind, forgiving, tolerant and rarely pushed to anger.  It is not bossy or demanding or proud of itself.  It doesn’t point out other’s mistakes, but notices what is good about them and builds people up for those good things.  And it doesn’t quit.  Which is why it always wins in the end.  Because you don’t lose until you quit the game.  And even if you quit the game, you can always go back in.  Which is why I know that even someone like you who has already made mistakes and has no role model and has been told his whole life that people like you are more trouble than they are worth can do what God has given you to do.

    Hang in there, Andrew!

    -Rebecca

    PS I would highly recommend that you head over to my blog and take a look at a post I recently wrote called “Godly Submission”.  What the church has taught about men and women and submission has done much more harm than good and I think you might find it helpful in finding a different way of understanding how to relate with women in this regard.  Here’s the link: http://wp.me/pa4Ae-93

  • Check Yourself

    June 3, 2008

    2 Comments

    I have written before about issues of race, especially as pertains to conservative’s perceptions about race before.  My basic premise is that I do not think that conservatives have an accurate or often even rational view of race in America.  Now, mind you, I’m not some goofy lefty here to incite white guilt and pander for more government programs.  I am coming at this from a conservative perspective myself.  For me this is both a moral issue and a practical imperative.  I say a practical imperative because if we think that we can keep the problems which arise in impoverished, minority communities isolated, we’re not paying attention.   Over and over, we can see that things from social breakdown to styles of music and dress spread outwards from our cities into the lives of middle class white suburbanites.  So my point is, it matters.  If you are a conservative who cares about the breakdown of the family or porn posing as music, then you need to care as much about issues of race as you do about what goes on in leafy suburban neighborhoods.

    As I have argued before, one of the main barriers to dealing realistically with matters of race and the ongoing fall-out of the history of race relations in this country, is an almost complete denial of race as a real issue worth dealing with.  What is crazy, and what I did not realize was that this is not at all a new phenomena.  We like to think that race is not an issue anymore because we have made so much progress.  Anyone claiming that race is an obstacle for them must be trying to “play the race card” and “make themselves the victim”.  However, it turns out that even back when we would all agree that the state of affairs for African Americans was horrid, unequal and morally indefensible, white Americans thought pretty much exactly the same thing!

    I came across some statistics today which I think we all need to remember the next time we are tempted to write off race as an actual issue today: Continue reading »

  • The American Race and Race

    May 21, 2008

    4 Comments

    Gather ’round, folks. Auntie Becky is going to tell you a story. A metaphor really, about race in America. And about the American Dream.

    Imagine for a moment, a long relay race where for generations it has been considered acceptable and in some cases even required to break the limbs of a one group of people trying to run the race. The people thought this was OK. After all, it wasn’t long ago that this group of people had been used as horses to pull everyone else’s carts around the track. At least they were free of that back-breaking work. Now, they just had to contend with some needed cobbling. Anyone who resists the “in group’s” right to break bones is killed, so that keeps everything on an even keel. Not a bad system, really.

    Of course, people with broken bones do not do very well in the race. Pretty quickly there are people lying all over the place with broken bones and deformities from past breaks which were never set properly. Many people in that group will simply stop trying to participate in the race. Maybe even set up little shanty towns around the track to do the best that they can outside of the race. A few will be fast enough to elude those who would break their bones, but these would be few and far between. The track is littered with those who tried to be one of the fastest few but got caught. Their broken bones and mutilated corpses remind the out group not to try to hard or rebel against the natural order of things.

    Now, let’s say that after a very long time, once most of the people who are able to run the race are pretty well ahead, that people start to come to their senses and decide that it is wrong to break the limbs of the out group. So they ban limb breaking. From that point forward, a person’s success or failure in the race will depend on their efforts and abilities. Except, many of the people from the out group still have broken arms or deformities from past injuries. Some of them were born after their forbearers gave up the race as a lost cause and have never run a day in their life. Many of them have never left their shanty towns to deal with the people in the race before.

    Instead of offering training and rehab and counseling and medical care, the people in the race resentfully offer a selected few a slight head start to make up for the fact that they haven’t been able to get a fair shake at competing. Some do-gooders head into the shanty town to paint the walls of the homes of those who are least prepared to compete in the race in order to make them a little more comfortable where they are. A few people who are willing to train people stuck in the shanties make timid efforts at offering their assistance, but the do gooders painting the walls come out and say nasty things to them. So the potential trainers go back to the race and content themselves with yelling out helpful advice about moral bravery and perseverance as they run past. Continue reading »

  • Conservative Delusions About Race, Part II

    May 3, 2008

    1 Comment

    Last week I wrote a post titled “Transcending Race and Delusional Conservatives” outlining several ways that mainstream conservative thinking about race is wrong. (And I am coming at this as a conservative myself, mind you.) Today, in the Washington Post, Gary MacDougal wrote a column titled “Jeremiah Wright’s Wider Toll” which is one of the worst examples another conservative misconception about race that I have seen: the “if they would just get over it, they would be successful” meme. The premise of the column is that Jeremiah Wright’s worst offense is preaching a message of racial grievance which leads to a lack of personal responsibility and effort by those stuck in inner city communities.

    Now, there is a grain of truth behind the idea that an emphasis on racial barriers can create the perception that it is not worth trying because failure is inevitable. It can also contribute to an inability to overcome normal setbacks and obstacles, since their presence may well be seen as evidence of the futility of trying to attain success as an African American. However, in the hands of many conservatives this relatively small factor in the disparity of outcomes between whites and blacks becomes the entire explanation for problems in black America. The thinking is that if African Americans would just let go of their anger and resentment, stop seeing themselves as victims and take responsibility for their own actions, African Americans would experience as much success as any other group in America.

    There are many problems, fallacies and illogical assumptions with this line of thinking. I’ll start with the most obvious one as demonstrated by Mr. MacDougal’s column:

    Imagine getting up each morning to go to work in a society that doesn’t want you, doesn’t respect you and seeks to hold you back. Your spiritual leader has told you this, after all. . . If this is the message you got from your mentor, would you expect that you could succeed? Would you try very hard, if at all?” [emphasis mine] Continue reading »

  • Separated by a Common Language

    April 29, 2008

    3 Comments

    Richard Cohen at the Washington Post wrote an interesting column today titled “Words Heard Differently”. He starts by riffing off George Bernard Shaw’s observation that The USA and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language. Today, it’s white Americans and African Americans who are suffering that fate. How true that is.

    A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a story coming out of Chicago about a woman who had gotten in trouble for saying that her next door neighbor kids were “climbing in a tree like monkeys”. The problem is that her neighbor kids are black. Their father had a fit and called the police. I expected my husband to roll his eyes at the father’s ridiculous reaction to this woman’s comment. Instead a rather nasty argument ensued. Where I heard an innocuous figure of speech that I’ve used about my own kids, my husband heard an ugly reference to the old characterization of African Americans as some sort of primate. My darling husband has been rather ornery lately and I figured that accounted for his response. So we called a couple of African American friends including one who is one of the most mild mannered men I know to ask their opinion. All of them, including my exceptionally mild mannered friend said that they too would throw a fit if someone referred to their kids as monkeys. I realized that although I thought (and still kind of think) that this is ridiculous, my opinion wasn’t really the one that mattered on this point.

    One of the comments made by our mild mannered friend which kind of caught me off guard in regards to the monkey comment was, “it’s not like this (an African American being upset over being referred to as a monkey) is the first time this has happened. Of course people would know that we’d find that offensive. It’s not like they don’t know.”

    The thing is that the white people I know are largely ignorant of exactly these sorts of things. Heck, I’ve been married to a black man for years and the fact that referring to kids climbing in a tree as acting like monkeys would be offensive if they are black had never even occurred to me. But there is a real sense among many African Americans that white people know these things and that their claims to the contrary are disingenuous. Or at least a sign of inexcusable ignorance.

    I guess that from the perspective of an African American this makes some sense. I have never literally compared a black person to a monkey. I have never heard another white person do so. I am aware that this imagery was used in the past, but honestly, the fact that people used to use corn cobs for toilet paper in the past has more resonance with me than comparisons of black people to apes. It just hasn’t been on my radar.

    However, my husband has been called a gorilla in a way which was clearly meant to be a racial insult. He grew up seeing those insulting images of black people as apes and could identify with them and wonder if that was how white people would see him. In his neighborhood, it was common knowledge saying someone looked like an ape was worse than insulting his mother or his manhood. He is well aware of the power of this language. His assumption is that I would be as well.

    All of this makes me think of a conversation I had with my oldest son yesterday about the book To Kill A Mockingbird. We were discussing the importance of the character Boo Radley to the story. You probably recall that at the beginning of the story Scout (the main character) and her brother are obsessed with getting a look at their reclusive neighbor and make elaborate plans to get him to come out. The adults around them all tell the children to leave him alone. If he wanted to come out he would and it was rude and unkind to try and harass him into coming out. The kids simply couldn’t comprehend how what they were doing was wrong. Wanting to stay inside all the time was wrong; wanting to get a glimpse of a neighbor was perfectly normal.

    It was a measure of the maturity which Scout gains over the course of the book that at the end, after Boo Radley has saved her and her brother from a murderous attack, she sees things differently. In the end, a more mature Scout understands just what the adults had tried to tell her at the beginning of the book: that exposing Mr. Radley to unwanted attention is unkind and potentially cruel. The fact that Mr. Radley’s lifestyle was unfathomable and alien to her and her sensibilities didn’t give her license to insist that he be made to change to suit her needs and desires.

    I think that often when whites and African Americans are dealing with each other, we behave like immature Scouts. We want to be able to tell the other what is reasonable and right without regard for the other’s perspective. Because I think that the other’s reaction, thinking or way of dealing with life is ridiculous, my job is to convince you of this truth and expect you to adjust yourself accordingly. However, a much more productive and probably mature way of dealing with our differences would be to simply accept them as reality and respect that. African Americans often see our country differently than white Americans do. They sometimes hear words spoken differently than many white people do. White people often really are clueless about the differences in our perceptions of the same things. Rather than insisting that the differences are the problem and insisting that the other side MUST see the error of their ways and change, we probably just need to understand that the differences just are. They are a reality we need to deal with and make some accommodation for. I still think it’s silly, but I will never say that black kids climbing trees are “acting like monkeys”. It’s a matter of respect and maturity, IMO. Two things which are sorely lacking between white and black Americans.

    For my previous take on the dynamic of “white person inadvertently messes up, black person goes ballistic”, see here.