What is wrong with this picture?

1.)   He is the President. She is being disrespectful. As hell.  Period. Point Blank. End of Discussion.

2.)   White privilege conditions white people not to see white rage. However, it makes them hyper-aware of Black threat.   Newt Gingrich is white rage personified. And for it, he gets loads of applause.  So is Jan Brewer, but usually we think of white rage in masculine terms. Gender stereotypes condition us not to see white women as being capable of this kind of dangerous emotional output. We reserve our notions of female anger for Black women. Such hidden race-gender logics allow Brewer to assert that she “felt threatened,” even though she was trying to handle the situation “with grace.”

Now look back at the picture: who is threatening whom? Couple white rage with white women’s access to the protections that have been afforded to their gender, and you have something that looks ironically like white female privilege. Yes (yes, yes), the discourse of protection is based upon problematic and sexist stereotypes of white women as dainty and unable to care for themselves, and yes, these stereotypes have caused white women to be oppressed by white men. But remember, gender does not exist in a racial vacuum. It is performed in highly racialized contexts, and history proves that what constitutes oppression for white women in relation to white men, dually constitutes privilege for white women in relation to Black men. (I’m not spoiling for a fight today, so anybody who feels uncomfortable with such assertions should probably go read some Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics and then try again.)

What I know is this: 100 years ago (less than, actually) a Black man even standing that close to a white woman would’ve gotten him lynched.  (Seriously, I just discovered that even accommodationist Booker T. Washington was beaten in New York in 1911 for talking to a white woman.) And I know that if a Black woman had wagged her finger at Bush II or even Bill Clinton, we would have seen her faced down, handcuffed, with Secret Service swarming. When your race and gender grant you opportunities to be treated with dignities that others don’t have or conversely, to heap indignities on those people, that is what we call privilege. Deal with it.

3.)   Unchecked white rage has always been dangerous for Brown and Black folk in America. Jan Brewer’s Arizona is not safe for Brown people and by implication, not safe for Black people (Presidents included). Not only has she terrorized and racially profiled immigrant communities, but she has gutted one of the model Ethnic Studies programs for high school students in this country.  If there were ever a time for Black and Brown solidarity, it is now. And hell, lest we forget, Arizona is not even safe for white women. It is the vitriolic racial climate that Brewer’s anti-immigrant, anti-Latino policies have helped to foment that led to the violence against Gabby Giffords.

(It’s amazing what different stories these two pictures tell.)

4.)   This picture demonstrates something important. The logic of racial supremacy dictates that white people are most comfortable when people of color do the affective labor involved in maintaining white supremacy. (No disrespect to Gabby Giffords: of course, I don’t think this hug shared between colleagues supports white supremacy. But this kind of bodily connection is important for humanizing Black public figures, and it is the logic of that which I’m getting at.)

Historically, it was not enough to be placed in positions of servitude; affecting an attitude of subservience was also critically important.  Failure to be deferential could get you killed, even if you were doing the tasks at hand. The term “uppity Negro” hasn’t always been a slogan to rock proudly on a t-shirt.  Something happens when Black and Brown folks decide that we do not exist in the world to make white people comfortable. And white folks feel it.

This is why a movie like The Help so powerfully resonates with White America, and with countless facets of Black America as well.  The affective labor of white supremacy prefers Black people in certain postures, like for instance dishing out hugs and words of affirmation to  little white girls who will become white women that they, indeed, “is smart, is kind, is important.”

As if the world would ever teach anything different. The effect of such labor is powerful: white America feels more comfortable with the disturbing realities of racism, and Black people can convince ourselves that our humanity, and indeed, our struggle is being acknowledged.  Even her well-deserved Oscar nomination has not convinced Viola Davis of such ridiculousness. (And um, would someone help Charlize Theron get a clue?)

5.)   Finally, I just have to say it: If Jan Brewer and any other bad-ass wants to leave here with the fingers and toes they came here with, I would suggest they keep their hands to themselves. Because frankly, I wish a*&%$# would wag a finger in my face… Kudos to the President for keeping his cool.

Originally delivered Aug. 16, 1967, at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta. Transcript courtesy of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute

Dr. Abernathy, our distinguished vice president, fellow delegates to this, the tenth annual session of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, my brothers and sisters from not only all over the South, but from all over the United States of America: ten years ago during the piercing chill of a January day and on the heels of the year-long Montgomery bus boycott, a group of approximately one hundred Negro leaders from across the South assembled in this church and agreed on the need for an organization to be formed that could serve as a channel through which local protest organizations in the South could coordinate their protest activities. It was this meeting that gave birth to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

And when our organization was formed ten years ago, racial segregation was still a structured part of the architecture of southern society. Negroes with the pangs of hunger and the anguish of thirst were denied access to the average lunch counter. The downtown restaurants were still off-limits for the black man. Negroes, burdened with the fatigue of travel, were still barred from the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. Negro boys and girls in dire need of recreational activities were not allowed to inhale the fresh air of the big city parks. Negroes in desperate need of allowing their mental buckets to sink deep into the wells of knowledge were confronted with a firm “no” when they sought to use the city libraries. Ten years ago, legislative halls of the South were still ringing loud with such words as “interposition” and “nullification.” All types of conniving methods were still being used to keep the Negro from becoming a registered voter. A decade ago, not a single Negro entered the legislative chambers of the South except as a porter or a chauffeur. Ten years ago, all too many Negroes were still harried by day and haunted by night by a corroding sense of fear and a nagging sense of nobody-ness.

But things are different now. In assault after assault, we caused the sagging walls of segregation to come tumbling down. During this era the entire edifice of segregation was profoundly shaken. This is an accomplishment whose consequences are deeply felt by every southern Negro in his daily life. It is no longer possible to count the number of public establishments that are open to Negroes. Ten years ago, Negroes seemed almost invisible to the larger society, and the facts of their harsh lives were unknown to the majority of the nation. But today, civil rights is a dominating issue in every state, crowding the pages of the press and the daily conversation of white Americans. In this decade of change, the Negro stood up and confronted his oppressor. He faced the bullies and the guns, and the dogs and the tear gas. He put himself squarely before the vicious mobs and moved with strength and dignity toward them and decisively defeated them.  And the courage with which he confronted enraged mobs dissolved the stereotype of the grinning, submissive Uncle Tom.  He came out of his struggle integrated only slightly in the external society, but powerfully integrated within. This was a victory that had to precede all other gains.

In short, over the last ten years the Negro decided to straighten his back up, realizing that a man cannot ride your back unless it is bent. We made our government write new laws to alter some of the cruelest injustices that affected us. We made an indifferent and unconcerned nation rise from lethargy and subpoenaed its conscience to appear before the judgment seat of morality on the whole question of civil rights. We gained manhood in the nation that had always called us “boy.” It would be hypocritical indeed if I allowed modesty to forbid my saying that SCLC stood at the forefront of all of the watershed movements that brought these monumental changes in the South. For this, we can feel a legitimate pride. But in spite of a decade of significant progress, the problem is far from solved. The deep rumbling of discontent in our cities is indicative of the fact that the plant of freedom has grown only a bud and not yet a flower.

And before discussing the awesome responsibilities that we face in the days ahead, let us take an inventory of our programmatic action and activities over the past year. Last year as we met in Jackson, Mississippi, we were painfully aware of the struggle of our brothers in Grenada, Mississippi. After living for a hundred or more years under the yoke of total segregation, the Negro citizens of this northern Delta hamlet banded together in nonviolent warfare against racial discrimination under the leadership of our affiliate chapter and organization there. The fact of this non-destructive rebellion was as spectacular as were its results. In a few short weeks the Grenada County Movement challenged every aspect of the society’s exploitative life. Stores which denied employment were boycotted; voter registration increased by thousands. We can never forget the courageous action of the people of Grenada who moved our nation and its federal courts to powerful action in behalf of school integration, giving Grenada one of the most integrated school systems in America. The battle is far from over, but the black people of Grenada have achieved forty of fifty-three demands through their persistent nonviolent efforts.

Slowly but surely, our southern affiliates continued their building and organizing. Seventy-nine counties conducted voter registration drives, while double that number carried on political education and get-out-the-vote efforts. In spite of press opinions, our staff is still overwhelmingly a southern-based staff. One hundred and five persons have worked across the South under the direction of Hosea Williams. What used to be primarily a voter registration staff is actually a multifaceted program dealing with the total life of the community, from farm cooperatives, business development, tutorials, credit unions, etcetera. Especially to be commended are those ninety-nine communities and their staffs which maintain regular mass meetings throughout the year.

Our Citizenship Education Program continues to lay the solid foundation of adult education and community organization upon which all social change must ultimately rest. This year, five hundred local leaders received training at Dorchester and ten community centers through our Citizenship Education Program. They were trained in literacy, consumer education, planned parenthood, and many other things. And this program, so ably directed by Mrs. Dorothy Cotton, Mrs. Septima Clark, and their staff of eight persons, continues to cover ten southern states. Our auxiliary feature of C.E.P. is the aid which they have given to poor communities, poor counties in receiving and establishing O.E.O. projects. With the competent professional guidance of our marvelous staff member, Miss Mew Soong-Li, Lowndes and Wilcox counties in Alabama have pioneered in developing outstanding poverty programs totally controlled and operated by residents of the area.

Perhaps the area of greatest concentration of my efforts has been in the cities of Chicago and Cleveland. Chicago has been a wonderful proving ground for our work in the North. There have been no earth-shaking victories, but neither has there been failure. Our open housing marches, which finally brought about an agreement which actually calls the power structure of Chicago to capitulate to the civil rights movement, these marches and the agreement have finally begun to pay off. After the season of delay around election periods, the Leadership Conference, organized to meet our demands for an open city, has finally begun to implement the programs agreed to last summer.

But this is not the most important aspect of our work. As a result of our tenant union organizing, we have begun a four million dollar rehabilitation project, which will renovate deteriorating buildings and allow their tenants the opportunity to own their own homes. This pilot project was the inspiration for the new home ownership bill, which Senator Percy introduced in Congress only recently.

The most dramatic success in Chicago has been Operation Breadbasket. Through Operation Breadbasket we have now achieved for the Negro community of Chicago more than twenty-two hundred new jobs with an income of approximately eighteen million dollars a year, new income to the Negro community. But not only have we gotten jobs through Operation Breadbasket in Chicago; there was another area through this economic program, and that was the development of financial institutions which were controlled by Negroes and which were sensitive to problems of economic deprivation of the Negro community. The two banks in Chicago that were interested in helping Negro businessmen were largely unable to loan much because of limited assets. Hi-Lo, one of the chain stores in Chicago, agreed to maintain substantial accounts in the two banks, thus increasing their ability to serve the needs of the Negro community. And I can say to you today that as a result of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, both of these Negro-operated banks have now more than double their assets, and this has been done in less than a year by the work of Operation Breadbasket.

In addition, the ministers learned that Negro scavengers had been deprived of significant accounts in the ghetto. Whites controlled even the garbage of Negroes. Consequently, the chain stores agreed to contract with Negro scavengers to service at least the stores in Negro areas. Negro insect and rodent exterminators, as well as janitorial services, were likewise excluded from major contracts with chain stores. The chain stores also agreed to utilize these services. It also became apparent that chain stores advertised only rarely in Negro-owned community newspapers. This area of neglect was also negotiated, giving community newspapers regular, substantial accounts. And finally, the ministers found that Negro contractors, from painters to masons, from electricians to excavators, had also been forced to remain small by the monopolies of white contractors. Breadbasket negotiated agreements on new construction and rehabilitation work for the chain stores. These several interrelated aspects of economic development, all based on the power of organized consumers, hold great possibilities for dealing with the problems of Negroes in other northern cities. The kinds of requests made by Breadbasket in Chicago can be made not only of chain stores, but of almost any major industry in any city in the country.

And so Operation Breadbasket has a very simple program, but a powerful one. It simply says, “If you respect my dollar, you must respect my person.” It simply says that we will no longer spend our money where we can not get substantial jobs.

In Cleveland, Ohio, a group of ministers have formed an Operation Breadbasket through our program there and have moved against a major dairy company. Their requests include jobs, advertising in Negro newspapers, and depositing funds in Negro financial institutions. This effort resulted in something marvelous. I went to Cleveland just last week to sign the agreement with Sealtest. We went to get the facts about their employment; we discovered that they had 442 employees and only forty-three were Negroes, yet the Negro population of Cleveland is thirty-five percent of the total population. They refused to give us all of the information that we requested, and we said in substance, “Mr. Sealtest, we’re sorry. We aren’t going to burn your store down. We aren’t going to throw any bricks in the window. But we are going to put picket signs around and we are going to put leaflets out and we are going to our pulpits and tell them not to sell Sealtest products, and not to purchase Sealtest products.”

We did that. We went through the churches. Reverend Dr. Hoover, who pastors the largest church in Cleveland, who’s here today, and all of the ministers got together and got behind this program. We went to every store in the ghetto and said, “You must take Sealtest products off of your counters. If not, we’re going to boycott your whole store.” A&P refused. We put picket lines around A&P; they have a hundred and some stores in Cleveland, and we picketed A&P and closed down eighteen of them in one day. Nobody went in A&P. The next day Mr. A&P was calling on us, and Bob Brown, who is here on our board and who is a public relations man representing a number of firms, came in. They called him in because he worked for A&P, also; and they didn’t know he worked for us, too. Bob Brown sat down with A&P, and he said, they said, “Now, Mr. Brown, what would you advise us to do.” He said, “I would advise you to take Sealtest products off of all of your counters.” A&P agreed next day not only to take Sealtest products off of the counters in the ghetto, but off of the counters of every A&P store in Cleveland, and they said to Sealtest, “If you don’t reach an agreement with SCLC and Operation Breadbasket, we will take Sealtest products off of every A&P store in the state of Ohio.”

The next day, the next day the Sealtest people were talking nice, they were very humble. And I am proud to say that I went to Cleveland just last Tuesday, and I sat down with the Sealtest people and some seventy ministers from Cleveland, and we signed the agreement. This effort resulted in a number of jobs, which will bring almost five hundred thousand dollars of new income to the Negro community a year. We also said to Sealtest, “The problem that we face is that the ghetto is a domestic colony that’s constantly drained without being replenished. And you are always telling us to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps, and yet we are being robbed every day. Put something back in the ghetto.” So along with our demand for jobs, we said, “We also demand that you put money in the Negro savings and loan association and that you take ads, advertise, in the Cleveland Call & Post, the Negro newspaper.” So along with the new jobs, Sealtest has now deposited thousands of dollars in the Negro bank of Cleveland and has already started taking ads in the Negro newspaper in that city. This is the power of Operation Breadbasket.

Now, for fear that you may feel that it’s limited to Chicago and Cleveland, let me say to you that we’ve gotten even more than that. In Atlanta, Georgia, Breadbasket has been equally successful in the South. Here the emphasis has been divided between governmental employment and private industry. And while I do not have time to go into the details, I want to commend the men who have been working with it here: the Reverend Bennett, the Reverend Joe Boone, the Reverend J. C. Ward, Reverend Dorsey, Reverend Greer, and I could go on down the line, and they have stood up along with all of the other ministers. But here is the story that’s not printed in the newspapers in Atlanta: as a result of Operation Breadbasket, over the last three years, we have added about twenty-five million dollars of new income to the Negro community every year.

Now as you know, Operation Breadbasket has now gone national in the sense that we had a national conference in Chicago and agreed to launch a nationwide program, which you will hear more about.

Finally, SCLC has entered the field of housing. Under the leadership of attorney James Robinson, we have already contracted to build 152 units of low-income housing with apartments for the elderly on a choice downtown Atlanta site under the sponsorship of Ebenezer Baptist Church. This is the first project [applause], this is the first project of a proposed southwide Housing Development Corporation which we hope to develop in conjunction with SCLC, and through this corporation we hope to build housing from Mississippi to North Carolina using Negro workmen, Negro architects, Negro attorneys, and Negro financial institutions throughout. And it is our feeling that in the next two or three years, we can build right here in the South forty million dollars worth of new housing for Negroes, and with millions and millions of dollars in income coming to the Negro community.

Now there are many other things that I could tell you, but time is passing. This, in short, is an account of SCLC’s work over the last year. It is a record of which we can all be proud.

With all the struggle and all the achievements, we must face the fact, however, that the Negro still lives in the basement of the Great Society. He is still at the bottom, despite the few who have penetrated to slightly higher levels. Even where the door has been forced partially open, mobility for the Negro is still sharply restricted. There is often no bottom at which to start, and when there is there’s almost no room at the top. In consequence, Negroes are still impoverished aliens in an affluent society. They are too poor even to rise with the society, too impoverished by the ages to be able to ascend by using their own resources. And the Negro did not do this himself; it was done to him. For more than half of his American history, he was enslaved. Yet, he built the spanning bridges and the grand mansions, the sturdy docks and stout factories of the South. His unpaid labor made cotton “King” and established America as a significant nation in international commerce. Even after his release from chattel slavery, the nation grew over him, submerging him. It became the richest, most powerful society in the history of man, but it left the Negro far behind.

And so we still have a long, long way to go before we reach the promised land of freedom. Yes, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt, and we have crossed a Red Sea that had for years been hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance, but before we reach the majestic shores of the promised land, there will still be gigantic mountains of opposition ahead and prodigious hilltops of injustice. We still need some Paul Revere of conscience to alert every hamlet and every village of America that revolution is still at hand. Yes, we need a chart; we need a compass; indeed, we need some North Star to guide us into a future shrouded with impenetrable uncertainties.

Now, in order to answer the question, “Where do we go from here?” which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes and representation declared that the Negro was sixty percent of a person. Today another curious formula seems to declare he is fifty percent of a person. Of the good things in life, the Negro has approximately one half those of whites. Of the bad things of life, he has twice those of whites. Thus, half of all Negroes live in substandard housing. And Negroes have half the income of whites. When we turn to the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share: There are twice as many unemployed; the rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites; and there are twice as many Negroes dying in Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population.

In other spheres, the figures are equally alarming. In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools receive substantially less money per student than the white schools. One-twentieth as many Negroes as whites attend college. Of employed Negroes, seventy-five percent hold menial jobs. This is where we are.

Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amid a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy.

Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly and degrading. In Roget’s Thesaurus there are some 120 synonyms for blackness and at least sixty of them are offensive, such words as blot, soot, grim, devil, and foul. And there are some 134 synonyms for whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness, chastity, and innocence. A white lie is better than a black lie. The most degenerate member of a family is the “black sheep.” Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language should be reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro child sixty ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority. [applause] The tendency to ignore the Negro’s contribution to American life and strip him of his personhood is as old as the earliest history books and as contemporary as the morning’s newspaper.

To offset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. Any movement for the Negro’s freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be buried. As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation, no Johnsonian civil rights bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation. And with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, “I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history, however painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents, and now I’m not ashamed of that. I’m ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave.” Yes, yes, we must stand up and say, “I’m black , but I’m black and beautiful.” This, this self-affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.

Now another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in to economic and political power. Now no one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness. Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of the white power structure. The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power, both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. Now the problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power, a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change. Walter Reuther defined power one day. He said, “Power is the ability of a labor union like UAW to make the most powerful corporation in the world, General Motors, say, ‘Yes’ when it wants to say ‘No.’ That’s power.”

Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often we have problems with power. But there is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly.

You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. It was this misinterpretation that caused the philosopher Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject Nietzsche’s philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love.

Now, we got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best, power at its best is love, implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on.

Now what has happened is that we’ve had it wrong and mixed up in our country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power, and white Americans to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience. It is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly abhorred in whites. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.

Now we must develop progress, or rather, a program— and I can’t stay on this long— that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income. Now, early in the century this proposal would have been greeted with ridicule and denunciation as destructive of initiative and responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual’s abilities and talents. And in the thinking of that day, the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. We’ve come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed, I hope, from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available. In 1879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote in Progress and Poverty:

The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves driven to their tasks either by the, that of a taskmaster or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who somehow find a form of work that brings a security for its own sake and a state of society where want is abolished.

Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor, transformed into purchasers, will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.

Now, our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God’s children on their own two feet right here on earth.

Now, let me rush on to say we must reaffirm our commitment to nonviolence. And I want to stress this. The futility of violence in the struggle for racial justice has been tragically etched in all the recent Negro riots. Now, yesterday, I tried to analyze the riots and deal with the causes for them. Today I want to give the other side. There is something painfully sad about a riot. One sees screaming youngsters and angry adults fighting hopelessly and aimlessly against impossible odds. And deep down within them, you perceive a desire for self-destruction, a kind of suicidal longing.

Occasionally, Negroes contend that the 1965 Watts riot and the other riots in various cities represented effective civil rights action. But those who express this view always end up with stumbling words when asked what concrete gains have been won as a result. At best, the riots have produced a little additional anti-poverty money allotted by frightened government officials and a few water sprinklers to cool the children of the ghettos. It is something like improving the food in the prison while the people remain securely incarcerated behind bars. Nowhere have the riots won any concrete improvement such as have the organized protest demonstrations.

And when one tries to pin down advocates of violence as to what acts would be effective, the answers are blatantly illogical. Sometimes they talk of overthrowing racist state and local governments and they talk about guerrilla warfare. They fail to see that no internal revolution has ever succeeded in overthrowing a government by violence unless the government had already lost the allegiance and effective control of its armed forces. Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen in the United States. In a violent racial situation, the power structure has the local police, the state troopers, the National Guard, and finally, the army to call on, all of which are predominantly white. Furthermore, few, if any, violent revolutions have been successful unless the violent minority had the sympathy and support of the non-resisting majority. Castro may have had only a few Cubans actually fighting with him and up in the hills, but he would have never overthrown the Batista regime unless he had had the sympathy of the vast majority of Cuban people. It is perfectly clear that a violent revolution on the part of American blacks would find no sympathy and support from the white population and very little from the majority of the Negroes themselves.

This is no time for romantic illusions and empty philosophical debates about freedom. This is a time for action. What is needed is a strategy for change, a tactical program that will bring the Negro into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible. So far, this has only been offered by the nonviolent movement. Without recognizing this we will end up with solutions that don’t solve, answers that don’t answer, and explanations that don’t explain.

And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. And I am still convinced, and I’m still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country.

And the other thing is, I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate, myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

And so I say to you today, my friends, that you may be able to speak with the tongues of men and angels; you may have the eloquence of articulate speech; but if you have not love, it means nothing. Yes, you may have the gift of prophecy; you may have the gift of scientific prediction and understand the behavior of molecules; you may break into the storehouse of nature and bring forth many new insights; yes, you may ascend to the heights of academic achievement so that you have all knowledge; and you may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees; but if you have not love, all of these mean absolutely nothing. You may even give your goods to feed the poor; you may bestow great gifts to charity; and you may tower high in philanthropy; but if you have not love, your charity means nothing. You may even give your body to be burned and die the death of a martyr, and your spilt blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may praise you as one of history’s greatest heroes; but if you have not love, your blood was spilt in vain. What I’m trying to get you to see this morning is that a man may be self-centered in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. His generosity may feed his ego, and his piety may feed his pride. So without love, benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride.

I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about “Where do we go from here?” that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, “Who owns the oil?” You begin to ask the question, “Who owns the iron ore?” You begin to ask the question, “Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that’s two-thirds water?” These are words that must be said.

Now, don’t think you have me in a bind today. I’m not talking about communism. What I’m talking about is far beyond communism. My inspiration didn’t come from Karl Marx; my inspiration didn’t come from Engels; my inspiration didn’t come from Trotsky; my inspiration didn’t come from Lenin. Yes, I read Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital a long time ago, and I saw that maybe Marx didn’t follow Hegel enough. He took his dialectics, but he left out his idealism and his spiritualism. And he went over to a German philosopher by the name of Feuerbach, and took his materialism and made it into a system that he called “dialectical materialism.” I have to reject that.

What I’m saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social.  And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

And if you will let me be a preacher just a little bit.  One day, one night, a juror came to Jesus and he wanted to know what he could do to be saved. Jesus didn’t get bogged down on the kind of isolated approach of what you shouldn’t do. Jesus didn’t say, “Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying.” He didn’t say, “Nicodemus, now you must not commit adultery.” He didn’t say, “Now Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that.” He didn’t say, “Nicodemus, you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively.” He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized something basic: that if a man will lie, he will steal. And if a man will steal, he will kill. So instead of just getting bogged down on one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, “Nicodemus, you must be born again.”

In other words, “Your whole structure must be changed.” A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will “thingify” them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together.

What I’m saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, “America, you must be born again!”

And so, I conclude by saying today that we have a task, and let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction.

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.

Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

Let us be dissatisfied until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.

Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family will live in a decent, sanitary home.

Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality integrated education.

Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.

Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied.

Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol will be housed by a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy, and who will walk humbly with his God.

Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.

Let us be dissatisfied, and men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.

Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout, “White Power!” when nobody will shout, “Black Power!” but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power.

And I must confess, my friends, that the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. And there will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again, with tear-drenched eyes, have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. But difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. And as we continue our charted course, we may gain consolation from the words so nobly left by that great black bard, who was also a great freedom fighter of yesterday, James Weldon Johnson:

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days
When hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place
For which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way
That with tears has been watered.
We have come treading our paths
Through the blood of the slaughtered.
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the bright gleam
Of our bright star is cast.

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.

Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.” Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: “Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This is our hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow, with a cosmic past tense, “We have overcome! We have overcome! Deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome.”

Martin Luther King – Where Do We Go From Here? (Conclusion) from MLK Speeches on Vimeo.

By Guest Contributor Paula, cross-posted from Heart, Mind and Seoul

The students that I work with – kids and young adults ranging from 5 years to 18 years of age – very clearly understand that there are certain behaviors and language that I will not tolerate or accept in my presence.  Of course the vast majority know that they’re not going to get away with any profanity, but other words including “gay” or “retard”, racial slurs and derogatory actions (such as making an “L” on their forehead to call someone a loser, mocking another student’s speech, calling attention to a part of another student’s body, and yes even pulling ones eyes back to “look” Asian) are not necessarily universally known as utterly unacceptable until I call attention to it and we have a discussion as to why I will not accept it in our collective learning environment.

After the incident, we’ll stop what we’re doing and I’ll do my best to facilitate a discussion around the action or language and explain why it is hurtful to all of us.  Sometimes we’ll do an experiential activity (age appropriate of course) that hopefully drives home the point of impact v. intent and why we need to be aware and responsible of the impact that we’re having on one another.

At the end of the day what I ultimately tell my students is this: Now that you are aware of how I feel about this particular behavior or language and the impact that it can have on me and other people, if you CHOOSE to engage in this behavior or use this language again, I will assume that you are making a conscious choice to hurt me and others in this space and that is not okay.  You have the information now.  It is your choice from now on to use that information for good, not harm.  I will do my very best to protect this space for everyone who enters and I expect you to do the same.

The kids get it.  They really do.  Of course I cannot control what is said and done beyond the classroom, but in my presence they have respected our space and I appreciate and respect them for that.

I think we as adults can take some cues from these students.  Are there people in our lives who are telling us that certain things we say or do are hurtful or offensive?  Are we showing them that we are listening?   Or do we choose to dismiss their feelings and continue to make the deliberate choice to keep on hurting or offending them?

There is a woman in my social circle who has struggled greatly with infertility.  Let’s say that I thought it was cute and funny to call her Infertile Myrtle every time I saw her.  And let’s say that she told me that doesn’t like it because it’s hurtful and offensive and that she’s even explicitly asked me to stop calling her that name.  But let’s say that I really like calling her that because I think it’s an endearing term and because rhyming is just too fun and well, don’t I have a right to my feelings, too?  Well, of course I do.  But I need to decide – is it more important that I not intentionally harm or offend this woman or to do what I want to do simply because I think I have a right to do it?

It seems like a no-brainer, but how many people do we know in the workplace, in our communities and even in our own families who would say that people like this woman need to just “lighten up” and “get a sense of humor, already.”  Gee whiz, I mean, it’s not society’s fault that she’s unable to conceive – why should others have to censor their language just to accommodate her?  And besides, my cousin’s sister-in-law’s aunt’s half-sibling said it doesn’t bother her, so clearly it’s not all that bad.  It’s just a nickname – why does everyone have to be so PC all the time anyway?

But is it just a nickname?  Is it just a costume?  Is it just a simple gesture?  Is it just an innocent punch line?

When we have been told in no uncertain terms that a particular behavior or certain language is hurtful and offensive and when we refuse to acknowledge how our actions are impacting others by purposely choosing to repeat a behavior that we know is hurting a fellow human being, just exactly what does that mean?

I think my students would be able to answer that and I wish more adults were willing to do the same.

Movie theaters used to hold a special kind of magic.

Lined up with my friends, clutching the occasional purchase of popcorn and a soft drink, or sneaking smuggled in snacks, we would watch in awe and horror as teenagers paraded around on screen, seemingly oblivious to the threat of violence lurking around the corner. When I was about thirteen years old, I sat through the original Scream. The rules of horror movies, as articulated by the character Randy, were clear and concise:

Randy: There are certain RULES that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance, number one: you can never have sex.
[crowd boos]
Randy: BIG NO NO! BIG NO NO! Sex equals death, okay? Number two: you can never drink or do drugs.
[crowd cheers and raises their bottles]
Randy: The sin factor! It’s a sin. It’s an extension of number one. And number three: never, ever, ever under any circumstances say, “I’ll be right back.” Because you won’t be back.

But there were some rules that we knew that never were articulated.

1. The black character always dies, normally first. This is normally related to not being lead characters, but easily dispensable side characters. Sure, we had Tales from the Hood, but we knew the score. I think that’s why all of us at the local participatory theater screamed the whole way through I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. “Run, Brandy, Run! You gotta make it because they already killed Mekhi!”

2. Upper middle class white kids are the stars of these things. In general, no matter how big and bad the villain is, they are still hanging out in pastoral campgrounds or tony neighborhoods, waiting for their victims to sun themselves on their cabanas. The only exception I can think of was Candyman who was black and haunted the Cabrini-Green housing projects. And later, came a few other things we need not name. But in general, horror film villains and heroes alike were in the providence of “not us.”

So when Moses and his crew took to the screen, defending their tower block from alien invasion, my inner fourteen year old wanted to jump up and start yelling.

Unfortunately, my 28 year old self knows we don’t do those things at the Museum of Modern Art, even if we really, really, want to.

[Some light spoilers ahead.]

We’ve already posted Emma’s review of Attack the Block (see here) and Kartina’s analysis of the race in the film (see here) so I won’t rehash already covered territory. Instead, we will talk about the interesting racial subtext director Joe Cornish inserted into the film.

I was fortunate enough to catch the film with a special treat: Joe Cornish was there, along with Luke Treadaway, to discuss the film after the screening. If you didn’t play the trailer above, watch for the first title screen, which reads: “The deadliest species in the galaxy” before cutting to a shot of the kids. Cornish created the film specifically as a reaction to other films that showed those people and that environment on a pessimistic way.  Cornish grew up near tower blocks, noting that they were erected after London was bombed (commonly referred to as The Blitz) in World War II. This appears to have influenced his perception of events as he reserves no sympathy for the press, who often demonize the people living in the tower blocks.

The opening scene, which establishes Moses (amazingly played by John Boyega) as an anti-hero, shows the crew robbing a young white woman. Cornish said he pulled the scenario straight out of real life: he was mugged by a group of teens. But, he explained, “Instead of being frightened, it fascinated me.” So from the start, Cornish aims to reverse the viewers thinking – to start with that act of robbery, allow all the attendant thoughts, emotions, and stereotypes to creep in, and then peel back the layers to expose the teens humanity.

Delectably low-budget feeling, Cornish pointed out that the film was influenced by older American cult classics like The Warriors, The Outsiders, Gremlins, The Goonies, Over the Edge, Predator, and ET. (“I see it as a complete flip of ET,” Cornish emphasized.)

Cornish continued, explaining “You can watch horror as genre movies or as political movies.” He give a nod to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead for the craftily included racial subtext and reveals one of his own: The idea for the design of the alien forms was to take what the press wrote about lower-class kids – feral, dark, unthinking – and physically embody it as the monsters they fight.

It was a joy to listen to Cornish – he explained everything from the awesome soundtrack (by one of my favorite groups, Basement Jaxx, and with overall director by Steven Price, who last scored Scott Pilgrim) to the symbolism behind the names. In response to an audience question, Cornish explains Moses and the theme of redemption. “Subtle, wasn’t it,” he starts, also noting that he liked the extra flourish of the idea of the naming, and thinking of the hopes that the parent had for the child they would name after such a strong religious figure. “It might be a bit heavy with the biblical stuff, but fuck it, I liked it,” he concludes.

He also dropped another Easter egg, explaining that many times, cost plays a major role in what is shown in the film. He indicated he had “an amazing, Errol Flynn style fight with Moses climbing up the balcony and fighting the aliens,” but it was too costly. He notes that sometimes, though, innovation comes from brokeness, pointing to George Lucas’ iconic Death Star as something amazing that resulted from a budget issue.

At one point, I wanted to ask a question – after being so amazingly frank on issues of race and stereotypes, how was Cornish going from a project like Attack the Block to a reboot of Tintin? After I identify myself, Cornish reveals he’s actually read some of our commentary (!) and explains that Tintin is a complex character. He notes Tintin was written from 1929 to the 1980s.  Hergé later regretted some of what he wrote; Cornish points out the most controversial title (Tintin in the Congo) is still popular in Africa. He also explains that Tintin as a character has evolved; Tintin is a pacifist by the final book, so evolution is built into the text. The movie is based on the 9th book.

As I departed, a reader named Keisha caught up to me in the hallway. We talked a bit about the film and she asked a question that I had wished I’d thought of – since the film was well-received in the UK, did the riots change that perception? It’s a question we will have to find the answer to, perhaps another time. Cornish has hinted at a possible sequel (with ideas supplied by Boyega), but the jury is still out.

Since we’ve all become huge fans of the film on Racialicious, some of the folks involved in the promotion have offered us a giveaway – one lucky reader will win a free DVD copy of the film, and one runner up will win the theatrical poster. To win, give us your best idea for what should happen in the sequel OR what they should do (or should not do) with an American remake. 300 words max, in the comments to this post, winner selected Friday. If you are not selected, don’t worry – Attack the Block is out on DVD today!

By Guest Contributor Caroline Karanja

A fairly amusing episode of Parks and Recreation left me wondering about the effects of de-racializing the civil rights movement into a simple fight for equality. Since when does hetero-normative white society become the victim?

The show centers around quirky and optimistic Leslie Knop, who is devoted to her job at a local government office in Pawnee, Ind. Alongside her is department head Ron Swanson, a sarcastic-yet-lovable nature lover played as a hipster Alpha male. His
Libertarian political philosophy is the foundation of the show’s sarcasm towards big government.

In the episode “Pawnee Rangers,” Leslie is troop leader of the Pawnee Goddesses. They host fun activities; they eat candy and have puppy parties. Ron’s Pawnee Rangers is an outdoors club that’s really out there “roughing it.” They are the kind of boy scouts that dig their own trenches, live in boxes and eat food from a can. In this episode, everyone learns a lesson about equality during wilderness weekend.

It all begins when out of pure lack of fun one of Ron’s rangers goes to the Goddesses, asking to join their club. Leslie turns him down. The irony is that Leslie started the Pawnee Goddesses because Pawnee Rangers didn’t accept girls. The Younger Goddesses protest, referencing the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision in hopes of getting Leslie to change her mind.

During the group forum, a young white girl Abigail says to Leslie, “Isn’t it like Brown v Board of Education? Separate but equal is never really equal. We should let the boys in” Casey, a young black girl responds, “I disagree. I think there is a benefit to educating the genders separately.” Casey, of course, is a very conscious decision on the part of the writers. Her words constitute the only non-white voice in the whole debate.

Leslie, in a “talking-head” interview segment, playfully dismisses the two well-articulated points made by the girls, essentially avoiding the issues of gender and race presented, a signature move for the show. Although the show rarely devotes a whole episode to social inequality or “isms,” there are always hints of these issues. The show’s eccentric humor helps mask the politically aware and socially conscious undertones found though out the show.

As I was watching this episode, I couldn’t help but think about how the social movements today evoke the civil rights movements in their agenda. An extreme case is the debate surrounding the Slutwalk movement, when some demonstrators tried to call upon black oppression to stress their point. These connections have also been made in the gay community, as some have compared racial prejudice with anti-gay sentiment. In this particular context, Parks and Recreation represents the growing trend of mainstream media commercializing and claiming a stake in the civil rights movement.

In Pawnee, equality is brought by the Brown decision and exhibited through the female Pawnee Godesses. The main goal is to bring equality to the male Rangers, which eventually emasculates the hyper-masculine Ron. Once he loses his Rangers, he can no longer “Be a Man” – a statement, which as we learn in the beginning, is the only rule in the Pawnee Ranger guidebook.

Considering how Ron’s “plight” was portrayed, it begs the question: how can mainstream movements that call for social and political equality such as the recent feminist and anti-capitalist demonstrations relate to the fights, struggles and victories of non-white communities without offending, devaluing or co-opting them?

Pawnee’s wilderness weekend slightly complicates and humors the idea of equality. It commodifies the movement, creating a platform through which, the audience must laugh at the issues of “inequality.” This episode demonstrates the complexities of these issues that require, if nothing else, a passing thought.

By Guest Contributor Michael P. Jeffries

Just two weeks ago, the live audience at the Republican presidential candidate debate cheered in gleeful support of the death penalty. At the time, sensible Americans, secure in their own polite disapproval, bookmarked the incident as another harrowing YouTube amusement, and returned to normalcy the next day. The climate has changed, and there will be no such return to normalcy after Troy Davis’s death. We cannot make up for the blood spilled while the death penalty languished as mere speck on our political radar, but we can and will work to eradicate it.

Desperate for redemption in this dark hour, we have to believe that history will reveal the Davis execution as the spark that eventually incinerated the death penalty in the United States. I worry, though, that the worthy goal of eradicating capital punishment, even if achieved, will distort and erase the tormenting racial subtext of this incident. The very possibility of even characterizing the racial meaning baked into this case as “subtext,” speaks to the suppression of the truth about racism in the United States.

It is a testament to the depth of human empathy and faith that violence did not erupt between the largely black group of protestors and law enforcement, given the number of police officers who have attacked and murdered black people without being punished. The government has repeatedly confirmed that the lives of Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, and countless others are not as valuable as that of fellow innocent, Mark McPhail. If there is any reason to be prideful or thankful after Thursday, it is that that Americans burning with anger and despair embodied the civility their government was so woefully unable to reflect. Law enforcement officers at the scene should be commended for their professionalism as well.

Race also inflects the “I am Troy Davis” and “too much doubt” mantras that emerged over the past week. On one hand, the phrases are a simple display of solidarity, invoked by people of all backgrounds who view the execution as a personal affront and miscarriage of justice. For many who claim them, the words do not reflect absolute conviction that Davis is completely innocent, only that he did not deserve to die in this manner. No murder weapon was ever found. No DNA evidence exists. Police misconduct made a mockery of the suspect identification process. Seven of the nine witnesses recanted their testimonies. None of this was enough to spare Davis’s life, let alone reopen the case.

On the other hand, for black and brown people, the phrase, “I am Troy Davis” takes on a different significance. It shouts the truth that nobody is safe from a punishment system that cannot tell one working class or impoverished black or Latino person from the next. As Marc Mauer reports, “1 of every 3 African American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can 1 of every 6 Latino males, compared to 1 in 17 White males.” The stereotypes of the inner-city “thug” and the “illegal alien” pervade popular discourse on crime and race relations. Every subject who meets the race/class criteria is presumed guilty, by definition, of cultural pathology and criminality.

The punishment complex simply formalizes the social and cultural guilt poor blacks and Latinos are already marked with, using the ‘criminal’ stain to draw the eye away from centuries of institutional racism, exploitation, and discrimination. “I am Troy Davis” is nothing if not an expression of deep fear and justified paranoia. Imprisonment is warranted for those who pose a danger to society. But too often, all it takes for a black or brown person without privilege to be locked up without recourse is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if his execution does not come gradually, through the ills of denied civil rights, underemployment, shoddy health care, and decrepit schooling and social services, the punishment complex will intervene to hasten his social and biological death.

The coming days are for reflection, self-evaluation, and action. The pace of the journey away from capital punishment can and must be quickened. But as we stumble away from our current lot, with our eyes on a horizon free of the death penalty, we must be careful not to ignore the ground on which we walk. It is filthy, littered with racial injustice and exploitation, and the dust and grime we kick up sticks to us as we try to move on. Let us leave this place behind, and leave it clean.

Image courtesy of Friends of Justice

By Sexual Correspondent Andrea (AJ) Plaid

I’m glad I saw the legend, at least.

I had heard about Samuel Fuller’s film White Dog in whispers, like a deeper-than-the-FBI-and-the-Illuminati-plotting-in-Area-51 conspiracy theory among my more “conscious” Black acquaintances — mostly because the film was banned, though no one ever said exactly why.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I attended a screening of the film at the the Maysles Cinema in Harlem, hosted by the the Ego Trip hip hop collective – who are, in full disclosure, the R editrix’s heroes – as part of the movie’s house series, “I See White People,” billed in the theater’s program as a “quarterly series on the visibility of white racism, white privilege, and unacknowledged white culture.” Ego Trip’s Chairman Jefferson Mao added, deadpan, that the film was chosen because “we’re fans of the racist dog horror genre.”

To say the film’s history is “complex” should qualify it as one of the word’s understated synonyms. The history of the book upon which it’s based would qualify as another synonym. Spoilers and highlights from a Q&A discussion Ego Trip hosted after the screening are under the cut. (If you have a slightly deeper quick-and-dirty curiosity, read here.)

SPOILERS AHEAD

The plot is rather simple: Julie, a young white actor (played by 80s teen star Kristy McNichol) decides to adopt a white German shepherd she hit during a nighttime drive.  She thinks the dog is the perfect pet. However, other people suss something’s wrong with it, starting with the actor’s white boyfriend (Jameson Parker).  What’s wrong is the white dog is a “white dog,” a canine trained to lethally attack Black people, from the sanitation worker to the actor’s Black co-star to a random pedestrian.

When Julie finally recognizes this, she sends the dog to a wild-animal training refuge for re-education. The refuge’s owners are divided on what to do with it: Carruthers (Burl Ives), a white man, tells her the dog is a lost cause; Keys (Paul Winfield), a black man, reluctantly, then determinedly, tries to reform it.

Keys also explains to Julie that the dog’s behavior was probably the result of conditioning: the original owner paid homeless and/or drug-addicted Black people to abuse the dog when it was younger, to the point that the dog was conditioned to associate Black people and being attacked. This is underscored by an encounter between Julie and the owner, an older white man and his two granddaughters. Later, the dog, retrained to not attack Black people, hesitates about attacking Julie, then turns and runs towards Carruthers in teeth-baring mode. The dog leaps, and Keys shoots.

Director Roman Polanski was hired to direct White Dog in 1975 before his being brought up on statutory rape charges led him to leave the U.S.  Six years and several creative teams later, screenwriter Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), who was to have worked with Polanski, and director Samuel Fuller took on the project (with the encouragement, curiously, of ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner.)

At the time, the NAACP, along with other civil-right leaders and organizations, expressed concern that the film would spark racial violence, questioned using a book written by a white man (and a “pulpy” book at that), and criticized Paramount for hiring the mostly white film crew. The studio brought in two Black consultants to critique the Black characters. One, a vice-president at the local PBS station, said he found nothing wrong with the depictions; the other, an NAACP vice-president, thought the film would aggravate race relations in light of the Atlanta child murders occurring at the time.

Fearing a NAACP-threatened boycott, the studio shelved the project without telling Fuller. Infuriated by Paramount’s action, Fuller moved to France and “never directed another American film.” White Dog was theatrically released in France and the U.K. to positive reviews in 1982. The first time the movie appeared in wide release in the U.S. was as an edited-for-TV movie for cable in 1983. NBC planned to broadcast White Dog in 1984, but scrubbed the plan due to continued pressure from the NAACP. At best, some people may have caught the flick in the subsequent years in art-house movie houses and at film festivals. Finally, the Criterion Collection released White Dog on DVD in 2008.

The ensuing Q&A became a fascinating discussion of why the dog would have become such a trigger for the NAACP’s fear. As Ego Trip’s Gabriel Alvarez noted, “Using the dog to symbolize racism is interesting because the dog is seen as part of family.”

One audience member said that, because of the furor surrounding the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal, the pop consciousness around dogs and African-Americans, especially men, would drastically alter White Dog’s reception if released today — especially in light of Keys having to kill the dog at film’s end. Other audience contributions from that night:

• “The symbol of dog is ingrained into the consciousness of Black people with the civil rights movements with dogs and hoses.”
• “I remember hearing about an MLK park where some people wanted to have a dog park.  But it became a big issue along racial lines.  What I found out was Black people felt it was disrespectful to have a dog park in a park named after MLK due to the history of dogs and Blacks and violence.”
• “What the movie shows is that there’s a need to be truth and there needs to be reconciliation. What I’ve noticed is that young white people need to be aggressive with their parents regarding racism.”
• “I want to know from white people how can white people facilitate change….”
• “By creating such things as film. Yeah, the film is cheesy, but there’s also a film language that Fuller uses.”
• “What people need to do is to understand and deconstruct that the country has been founded on inequality.”

The discussion turned to how the film dealt with racism itself, a topic I engaged in with Jefferson:

Me: It was a very ’80s message film.
The moderator responded that White Dog was “straightforward” about white racism.
Me: It was straightforward because it was the ’80s. So the racism was (more) obvious, so the message was obvious. Now it’s morphed into Glenn Beckian ‘I can be racist, but don’t call me a racist.’
Jefferson: Stylistically, it’s very 80s. But it was ahead of its time. Fuller’s career was interesting. He was known for a lot of B movies but tried to sneak in social issues. Yes, it’s 80s exploitation, but there are powerful moments, like the child getting whisked away while the dog is hunting.
Me: But saying that it’s very 80s isn’t a slag, but a simple observation.

After the Q&A, I shared my opinion with Gabriel that every decade has a “message” film about racism that is reflective of not only of time period stylistically, but also where ideas about racism were and are. The 80s had White Dog and John Sayles’ Brother from Another Planet. The 90s had John Sayles’ Lone Star, Anthony Drazan’s Zebrahead, and Tony Kaye’s American History X. All of them were “race message films” that were very much of their time.

Exiting the theater that night, I noted the strange irony — and hope – of the series being housed in an indie theater located in the nexus of white-gentrifying Harlem. Perhaps this series is a good tonic, if not a great meeting point, for whites and the PoCs left in Harlem to gather to talk about the transitioning nabe and how well-off whites gentrifying it isn’t simply viewed as a “the neighborhood changing” so much as a blithe takeover, fortified by unaddressed white privilege, of a perceived spiritual and physical home of some Black people and our allies in the US and the world. However, considering that two white couples who came to watch the flick left as soon as the film was over—and, as a result, tipped the Q&A audience to majority people of color. We’ll see.

The Maysles Cinema crew wants to take their “I See White People” series on tour. Next stop: Brooklyn, NY.

Last week, Tricia Rose was invited on PBS’ Need To Know for a segment titled “Fixing America.” Amid discussions of federally funded campaign dollars and guaranteed employment, Rose explained that what America needs is a way to have a real conversation about race and campaigns to “end racial illiteracy.” She’s on at the 6:00 minute mark.

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Professor Tricia Rose:

One way I would fix the country is to create a program that focuses on ending our racial illiteracy. I’m concerned that we’ve been asked to be afraid to talk about race, how talking about race is a racist thing to do, our educational system is driven by very significant differences on race. Our incarceration rate is extraordinary on this matter. Housing segregation, wealth accumulation, access to various resources, they way Obama is being handled – it has everything to do with race and yet we can’t figure out how to mention that word. We need to have a collective way of talking about race, that includes everyone talking together. Ask the artists, ask the historians, ask the teachers, ask the journalists. What do we need to know, in order to be literate?

By Guest Contributor Aisha Schafer, cross-posted from Clutch Magazine

I’ll admit it. I absolutely hate the word mulatto. Along with a few other such terms like “jungle fever” and “swirling.” It brings forth no romanticized, nostalgic sentiment for my multi-racial ancestry when I hear or see it. Mulatto.

Let me list a few of the main reasons why I loathe this word:

• The word mulatto is derived from the Old Spanish word mula meaning mule—the crossbreed offspring of a horse and a donkey. It is an outdated term used to label people with relatively equal White and Black ancestry. And, yes, while it may be true that my Black ancestors were enslaved and often bred to labor as such, they were not animals. Any language that dehumanizes them or their descendants so that they potentially are viewed as comparable to a mule is problematic to me.
• Since the term mulatto was formed as a label to be applied to those people of equal White and Black ancestry, I, along with many others, don’t quite make the cut. My mother is Black American and my father is biracial born from a Japanese mother and White American father. The term mulatto excludes anyone who has other multi-racial heritage outside of the Black/White binary in addition to having Black and White ancestry.
• Now, this one may be a personal hang-up, but I cannot seem to see the word mulatto on paper (or computer screen in our modern tech-infused culture) without connecting it to the adjective tragic, as the two words are often observed in cahoots with each other.

Throughout my twenty one years, as various people have approached me with questions —“Why are your eyes so chinky?” or “Why does your father look White? Are you adopted?” or the all-time favorite “What are you?”— I have been forced to contemplate my multi-racial heritage and, from that, build my ethnic and racial identity. I, Aisha, identify as a Black-Mixed woman. In that order. If people want to know more I will tell them that I am of Black, Japanese, and White descent.

“Black-Mixed” is the term I use for myself and is not one I wish to impose on any other individual. The beauty of self-identification is that you create it for yourself. I encourage all mixed-race/multi-racial persons to form their own racial and ethnic identity free and unbound by the subjective opinions of others, including parents, family, friends, neighbors, etc. In writing this article, I seek not to influence the usage of a specific term, or any term with which an individual may or may not wish to identify.

The idea of the “tragic mulatto” comes from an idea, grounded in Euro-centric ideology, that multi-racial people are so troubled by a persistent state of confused racial self-identity, that the resulting inner turmoil leads to a tragic life. Bullshit. Closed-minded and intolerant individuals of all races and ethnicities are what trouble us—persons who are consistently treated as the other, at certain points in our lives. I want to emphasize again that intolerance is evident in all ethnic communities.

I recall my mother and other Black American members of my family scoffing at Tiger Woods as he publicly stated that he was “Cablinasian”—of Caucasian, Black, Indian, and Asian descent. My family members, like many other Black Americans, saw this statement as a rejection and denial by Woods of his Blackness. I did not see it the same way. Wanting to acknowledge all of your roots does not equal denying one in favor of the others. Yet, this idea has been ingrained into many mixed-race people, including myself, when it comes to any inclination to lean towards either a Black or mixed identity.

For the 2010 Census, my mom called me at school to strongly suggest that I only check the box for “Black” in regard to the question of racial/ethnic identity because, as she reminded me, “President Obama only checked Black.” I decided to go against her wishes, as I often seem to do, and proceeded to check all of the boxes for Black, White, and Asian-Japanese.

My father, of White and Japanese descent, has been such a fundamental figure in my life that I felt that if I neglected to include the ancestry that I have inherited from him, it would be, in part, a denial of the crucial role he has played in my life. This denial of my father’s ancestry, as requested by my mother whom I love and adore, is one I believe to be more damaging than Tiger’s inclusion of all of his ethnic ancestries.

Again, a self-identifying statement from a multi-racial person with Black heritage—which includes his or her various racial and ethnic heritages—is not automatically evidence of his or her desire to remove Blackness. It is completely acceptable for me to make the true statement that I love my Blackness. It is less acceptable to claim the same for my White or Japanese ancestries, which not only helped to shape the curl of my hair and the slant of my eyes, but also were essential in my cultural upbringing.

Why must an individual choose one identity from two parents whom they love? The math simply does not add up. Is this thinking partially a residual effect of the Untied States’ historic one-drop rule? Furthermore, is that rule an aspect of a greater ideology that we, as people of color, wish to support in its persistence?

Thoughts are very much appreciated and welcomed.

I took this white dude to the hospital seven years ago; he’d left his apartment door unlocked and then got pistol whipped when he came home to find someone going through his stuff.

Now why would I so clearly remember a minor injury from ages ago? Because in my eight years working EMS in Bed-Stuy, East New York, Harlem and the Bronx, that was the singular, solitary white patient I’ve had who was a victim of violence at the hands of a person of color.  I remember sitting in the Woodhull ER with him. He was holding an ice pack to his little forehead gash and going “God! I can’t believe I got pistol whipped! It’s like…it’s like a movie!” At that point I had already given up checking the newspapers in the morning to see if any of my crazy jobs from the night before would show up. They never do; the patients are all black and brown and their tragedies, no matter how gruesome, are automatically deemed run-of-the-mill and unworthy for news attention.

In general, the white patients we get are either little old ladies; drunks who tried to play frogger across McGuinness Boulevard; college kid anxiety attacks and overdoses. We also get the occasional “All these Black people are trying to rape and kill me so I can’t leave my apartment!!” and sometimes “I stopped taking my meds and I’m about to do something really really bad.”

All this is to say that the amount of time and energy that white culture puts into being afraid of the crimes that will be committed against them in the ghetto could be better spent thinking about something that actually happens.

For instance, white-on-black crime, which we see faaaar more frequently. A lawyer was interviewing me the other day for a case they wanted me to testify in. A patient I’d had who’d also been pistol whipped, also seven years ago, this time by cops, was suing the NYPD and this lawyer was trying to take apart the guy’s story.  He showed me a picture of a middle aged black man with a swollen lip and busted eye and asked me if I remembered him.

I had to laugh. “Do you have any idea how many times a week I go to the precinct to take care of black men who’ve been beaten by cops? Plenty. Times fifty-two times eight. No I don’t remember that dude.” Or the kid I met last night, who’d been cardoored by a police cruiser and then arrested before he could get up, all for riding his bike on the sidewalk. Or Iman Morales, who was naked on a fire escape in Bed-Stuy having a psychotic fit when PD tasered him, causing him to fall to his death. Or Sean Bell. Or Oscar Grant.

And then there’s the entire 81st Precinct of the NYPD, whose institutionalized racism was recently unveiled by a defecting whistleblower and thoroughly detailed here.

Most white-on-black crime happens without the majority of whites having to perpetrate a single violent act. Another unspoken benefit of white privilege is the ability to win without even having to fight. Gentrification, and the uprooting of communities that it entails, will happen regardless of how the incoming hipsters feel about their neighbors; the pieces are already in place, the gears turning. 911 doesn’t get called- it’s a slow motion race riot, which history has proven can be the most devastating kind.

By Guest Contributor Daisy Hernandez, cross-posted from Colorlines

Every once in awhile, a Hollywood movie hits such a perfect note of familiarity that you leave the theater feeling like you just watched a film about your white friends and it was funny, sweet–marvelous, even. And, as you’d expect, messed up on race. Not messed up in a Mel Gibson sort of way. It’s nothing outright hateful, but rather annoying and mundane, like when the white gay guy says his décor is, ya know, “Asiany,” and you debate whether to spill red wine on his new, white rug or give him an Edward Said book.

This is the charm of Lisa Cholodenko’s new summer hit, The Kids Are All Right. Her white characters are so familiar and even so likable that you want to believe all they need is a better reading list. If only race relations were so easy.

Ostensibly, The Kids Are All Right is about two lesbian moms and their teenage kids who want to meet their sperm donor dad. It’s an all-star cast with Julianne Moore playing Jules, the flaky, new age mom, opposite Annette Bening, who delightfully remade herself into the soft butch mom Nic. There’s Oscar buzz and critics are rightly praising Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon) for the film’s solid script and the actors for stellar performances. Salon’s Andrew O’Hehire declared that the movie “ranks with the most compelling portraits of an American marriage, regardless of sexuality, in film history.”

It’s true. This is a film about two married people who are bored by their middle age sex lives, worried about their son’s choice of friends, and still recounting with giggles how they first met while arguing about how much one of them is drinking. They’re complicated, self-involved and, in their best moments, genuinely loving.

From another perspective though, The Kids Are All Right is also a revealing portrait of where the gay movement has been headed for some time now: white suburbia, Mexican gardener included.

The film is set in Southern California, where Nic and Jules have a comfortable, three-bedroom home, arguments about composting, a glass (or three) of red wine with dinner, a daughter (Alice in Wonderland‘s Mia Wasikowska) and son (Josh Hutcherson) testing the limits of parental authority. They’re the all-American, white family next door.

The political reference point for their home life is not a group of pissed-off drag queens circa 1969. It’s a Mad Men-style 1950s nostalgia. Jules is the stay-at-home mom trying her hand at a landscaping business and feeling that her doctor wife doesn’t appreciate her. Nic is the breadwinner who has to have a drink when she gets home from work. The scenario is inviting, familiar, a storyline about American family life that we want to believe, gay or het.

Like cinematic white heteros and gays in San Francisco’s Castro district, Nic and Jules’ contact with people of darker hues is limited. There’s a black restaurant hostess (Yaya DaCosta, a runner up from America’s Next Top Model), a Mexican gardener (Joaquín Garrido, Like Water for Chocolate), and an Indian teenage love interest (Kunal Sharma, The Cheetah Girls). By the end of the film, the three people of color have been dumped, fired or left behind in confusion.

To be fair to Cholodenko, she was probably just following Hollywood’s race rules. The moment a main character is darker than white bread, the movie becomes about race and doesn’t appeal to a wider (read: white) audience.

But it’s also a portrait of the white gay movement, which has struggled with its race issues for some time now, most publicly after Prop. 8 passed in California and hysterical white gay boys blamed black voters for keeping them from the joys of registering at Tiffany’s. If that happened though it was largely because the movement has failed to build institutions where people of color, like those in The Kids Are All Right, play more than minor roles.

A few months ago, a friend recounted walking into a meeting with the directors of statewide LGBT organizations. It was a majority white room. That the convening looked more like a Tea Party gathering than a 2008 Vote Obama youth rally should have been on the top of the agenda. It wasn’t.

Part of the success of Cholodenko’s movie rests in that, intentioned or not, she’s rendered on the big screen the racial realities of this new gay world order. When Jules is struggling with guilt about what she’s doing outside her matrimonial bed, she thinks Luis, the Mexican gardener she’s hired, is smirking at her, which he is. With comedic self-righteousness, Jules points out that he blows his nose too often. “I have allergies,” Luis explains. Fumbling through her words, Jules accuses of him having a drug problem and fires him.

The audience laughs. I laughed. At Jules, at her hysterical reaction, at how uncomfortably true it is that behind the white lesbian niceties can sit the old racist stereotypes of a Gov. Jan Brewer.

It’s a small moment in the film but a reminder of how the gay world mimics the straight one, where economic power goes hand in hand with a racial hierarchy. Were Luis, the Mexican gardener, to get home, take off his overalls and turn into a flaming queen, it would be hard to argue convincingly that he and Jules have a political struggle in common these days. Not impossible, but certainly a stretch.

By Guest Contributor Macon D., originally posted at Stuff White People Do

I refuse to go along with this week’s warm, feel-good celebrations of Harper Lee’s novel (published fifty years ago today), To Kill a Mockingbird. Simply put, I think that novel is racist, and so is its undying popularity. It’s also racist in a particularly insidious way, because the story and its characters instead seem to so many white people like the very model of good, heartwarming, white anti-racism.

A few days ago, NPR (National Propaganda Public Radio) aired a typically laudatory piece on the novel, voiced by reporter Lynn Neary. As usual on the soothing, soporific NPR, this piece was filtered through, and aimed toward, a well-educated white perspective. These implied people are all too happy to be reminded that racism is a thing of the past, and that things are oh so much better now. The writers of this NPR segment were careful enough to interview some black teachers and students about Lee’s book, but if any offered significant criticism, their perspectives were left out.

The segment begins,

Harper Lee had the kind of success most writers only dream about. Shortly after her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, came out in the summer of 1960, it hit the bestseller lists, then it won a Pulitzer Prize, and then was made into an Oscar-winning movie. Her novel has never gone out of print.

But, in a move that’s unheard of in this age of celebrity writers, Lee stepped out of the limelight and stopped doing interviews years ago — she never wrote another book. Still, her influence has endured, as we mark the fiftieth anniversary of its publication.

NPR’s print version (entitled “50 Years On, ‘Mockingbird’ Still Sings America’s Song”) goes on to say,

For the high-schoolers reading To Kill a Mockingbird today, America is a very different place than it was when Lee wrote her novel 50 years ago. Lee’s story of Scout Finch and her father, Atticus — a small-town Southern lawyer who defends a black man unjustly accused of rape — came out just as the nation was fighting over school desegregation.

That’s right, dear, lily-white NPR fans. Things were sooooo different back then, weren’t they? Thank God racism is dead!

Actually, that right there is the first reason I think this novel is, in effect, racist — it allows, indeed encourages, today’s well-meaning white people to think that “America is a very different place” than it was when Lee wrote her novel, and thus to think that widespread and deeply entrenched racism died a long time ago.

The novel came out, you see, “just as the nation was fighting over school desegregation.” Back in the bad old days, when “the nation” was “fighting”; why not say that mainstream white supremacists, with the support of most white Americans, were keeping black kids out of school while bashing in the heads of their adult parents and relatives? And come to think of it, the heads of those black kids too? But nowadays, you see, “the nation” embraces its black kids.

By way of driving home that particular, comforting implication — “Fortunately, we all pretty much get along now!” — Neary sets her story in a racially mixed, seemingly postracial classroom:

Today, in a 10th grade English class at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., students of many different races and ethnicities are studying the book together. Their teacher, Laurel Taylor, says that the story still resonates — and with students of all backgrounds.

“Trying to find your identity and realizing that your society doesn’t always tell you the right thing” is a particularly profound message for teens, Taylor says. “Sometimes you have to go against what everyone else says to do the right thing. All that kind of resonates no matter where you come from.”

This part of Neary’s segment clarifies the second problem I have with how the novel comes across to so many American readers — its messages get read as “universal” — “To Kill a Mockingbird can teach anyone how to be a better person!” I suppose that’s a nice message, but when people claim that the novel’s messages can be embraced by anyone, the realities of white supremacist violence, past and present, fade from view.

Neary carries on about the book’s widespread appeal — which somehow circles right back to white people:

“The story of Scout’s initiation and maturing is the story of finding out who you are in the world,” says author Mary McDonagh Murphy. “And at the same time, the novel is about finding out who we are as a country.”

Murphy’s new book, Scout, Atticus & Boo, is based on interviews about To Kill a Mockingbird with well-known writers, journalists, historians and artists. Murphy says the novel, narrated from a child’s point of view, gave white people, especially in the South, a nonthreatening way to think about race differently.

Yes, “we” wouldn’t want white people, the principle enactors of racism, to feel at all “threatened” when we try to talk to them about racism. I guess if we did, they’d just up and run away!

Anyway, I could go on dissecting the saccharine nostalgia of this NPR piece (and I should add that, to Neary’s credit, she does get around to injecting some realism, especially by mentioning the horrific and iconic death of Emmett Till). But I’d rather turn to a more critical and insightful view, of both the novel and its effects on different readers.

In a 2003 academic article (published in Race and Class), Isaac Saney wrote about successful black efforts against Lee’s novel in Nova Scotia, efforts undertaken because it’s a racist novel. In 1996, “intense community pressure” by the African Nova Scotian population managed to remove the novel from the Department of Education’s list of recommended, authorized books; in 2002, a committee consisting of parents and educators, seconded by members of the Black Educators’ Association (BEA), recommended that the book “be removed from school use altogether.”

A report (by the African Canadian Division of the Nova Scotia Department of Education) “laid out the community’s concerns”:

In this novel, African-Canadian students are presented with language that portrays all the stereotypical generalizations that demean them as a people. While the White student and the White teacher many misconstrue it as language of an ealier era or the way it was, this language is still widely used today and the book serves as tool to reinforce its usage even further. . . .

The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word ‘Nigger’ is used 48 times. . . .

There are many available books which reflect the past history of African-Canadians or Americans without subjecting African-Canadian learners to this type of degradation. . . We believe that the English Language Arts curriculum in Nova Scotia must enable all students to feel comfortable with ideas, feelings and experiences presented without fear of humiliation … To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly a book that no longer meets these goals and therefore must no longer be used for classroom instruction.

So aside from the multiple usages of the n-word, what exactly is it about the book that provoked such a strong black revulsion? (And I do not mean to imply with this question, of course, that I think all black readers respond to the book in just one way.)

After reviewing common white distortions in the media of this collective African-Canadian complaint,* Saney goes on to offer three primary and compelling reasons of his own for knocking To Kill a Mockingbird from its lofty perch:

1. A common reading of its central symbol (mockingbird = black people) degrades black people.

Is not the mockingbird a metaphor for the entire African American population? [The metaphor says] that Black people are useful and harmless creatures — akin to decorous pets — that should not be treated brutally. This is reminiscent of the thinking that pervaded certain sectors of the abolition movement against slavery, which did not extol the equality of Africans, but paralleled the propaganda of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals, arguing that just as one should not treat one’s horse, ox or dog cruelly, one should not treat one’s Blacks cruelly.

By foisting this mockingbird image on African Americans, it does not challenge the insidious conception of superior versus inferior ‘races’, the notion of those meant to rule versus those meant to be ruled. What it attacks are the worst — particularly violent — excesses of the racist social order, leaving the racist social order itself intact.

2. The novel’s noble, white-knight hero has no basis in reality, and the common white focus on the heroism of Atticus Finch distracts attention from the pervasiveness of 1930s white-supremacist solidarity among ordinary white people.

Central to the view that To Kill a Mockingbird is a solid and inherently anti-racist work is the role of Atticus Finch, the white lawyer who defends Tom Robinson, the Black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. Atticus goes so far as to save Tom from a lynching. However, this act has no historical foundation.

The acclaimed exhibition Without Sanctuary: lynching photography in America … documented more than 600 incidents of lynching. This landmark exhibition and study established that ‘lynchers tended to be ordinary people and respectable people, few of whom had any difficulties justifying their atrocities in the name of maintaining the social and racial order and the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race’. In two years of investigation, the exhibit researchers found no evidence of intervention by a white person to stop even a single lynching.

(In sum, the noble, persistent, obstinate activism of Atticus Finch — which garners the collective respect of the town’s black people — is a soothing white fantasy.**)

3. The novel reduces black people to passive, humble victims, thereby ignoring the realities of black agency and resistance.

Perhaps the most egregious characteristic of the novel is the denail of the historical agency of Black people. They are robbed of their role as subjects of history, reduced to mere objects who are passive hapless victims; mere spectators and bystanders in the struggle against their own oppression and exploitation.

There’s the rub! The novel and its supporters deny that Black people have been the central actors in their movements for liberation and justice, from widespread African resistance to, and revolts against, slavery and colonialism to the twentieth century’s mass movements challenging segregation, discrimination and imperialism … The novel portrays Blacks as somnolent, awaiting someone from outside to take up and fight for the cause of justice.

It was African North Americans who took up the task of confronting and organizing against racism, who through weal and woe, trial and tribulation, carried on — and still carry on — the battle for equal rights and dignity. Those whites who did, and do, make significant contributions gave, and give, their solidarity in response.

Yes, in response. I put those words in bold print because when I first read them, I realized just how white-centered the novel and movie are. I think that had it not been for the movie, especially Gregory Peck’s depiction of Atticus Finch, the novel would not have the status it has today. Peck’s Finch, in his upright disdain for racism, fully embodied a particularly white and male aspiration of liberal nobility. But he does it all on his own; it’s white individualism all over again. And, ironically, non-white people are part of that portrait, but only as props, as accouterments that flesh out the portrait. Any black unrest and activism that would no doubt have inspired and aided any such white crusader is entirely erased.

Despite these faults, and others, To Kill a Mockingbird continues to be among the top three most-taught novels in American middle and high schools (another, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, tends to be taught in similarly fantasized terms). Saney makes the sensible suggestion of supplanting such white-centric readings on racism with some more honest and black-affirming books, such as Ellison’s Invisible Man, Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved, and many others. I would add that many worthy novels were written throughout the twentieth century by other non-white writers as well.

So, what do you think? Do you have warm memories of this (white) “masterpiece,” or not-so-warm memories? If you have read it, do you think your race had anything to do with your reaction to it?

Also, should teachers should stop teaching it? Or teach it differently? And do you know of other worthy replacements/successors?

* Saney writes that in the white-dominated Canadian press,

The arguments advanced by the Black community were consistently presented in a non-serious, even risible, light so as to give the impression that the Black educators and parents are ignorant of the merits of literature, mere emotional whiners and complainers, belonging to a hot-headed fringe. For example, after the decision was made to keep the books in the curriculum, the Halifax Daily News in an editorial was ‘relieved cooler heads have prevailed’, reproducing the racist notions of inherent Black emotionality versus the rationality of white society.

** In a New Yorker piece published last year, Malcolm Gladwell claims that Finch did resemble an actual white antiracist of sorts, Alabama Governor Jim Folsom. Even so, since Folsom was a sort of wishy-washy populist of all the people, rather than a genuinely dedicated reformer, the parallel still leaves Atticus Finch looking less than worthy of emulation. As Gladwell writes, “If Finch were a civil-rights hero, he would be brimming with rage at the unjust verdict [against Tom Robinson]. But he isn’t. He’s not Thurgood Marshall looking for racial salvation through the law. He’s Jim Folsom, looking for racial salvation through hearts and minds.”

by Guest Contributor Regina Bartlett, originally published at Red Clay Scholar

I’m trying to get into my dissertation grind mode.  I frequently find myself in bookstores and online looking for titles that might possibly help me with my endeavors. As I was glancing through my latest search of books, the term “Post Hip Hop” came up.  I turned my head slightly sideways and said, “que?”

I went ahead and ordered the book and have yet to receive it.  First thought that immediately came to mind while looking at the title: “what the hell is ‘Post Hip-Hop?’” My second question: “why?”

I hope you can feel me on this one, folks.  We are in the post “whatever-the-hell-you-want-here-to-make-it sexy” age.  Postracialism, Postindustrialism, post Hip Hop-ism, Post….Americanism? I have yet to wrap my mind around this concept for a couple of reasons:

1.) The push to live in a post society overlooks the need to identify the experiences, people, and events within America that assisted in its construction.  This  band-aid approach to dealing with those issues and concerns that cloud utopic dreams of equality also dismiss the critical traumatic moments that frame and influence ethnic identity in American society.  Which leads me to my next thought: Post-ism for who? It seems that these campaigns address the erasure of ethnic identity and do not attempt to deconstruct white discourse and normalcy. In other words, it’s the black and brown folks that need to dismiss race as an indicator of identity and lived experience.

Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist (1998) has a brilliant scene that challenges these notions of racial privilege, obliviousness, and identity performance. African American elevator inspector Pompeii and his white colleagues are at the company’s annual Christmas Party.  A minstrel show ensues and Pompeii laughs the loudest and hardest, painfully neglecting the ignorance being performed in front of him.  One way to approach this scene is to think of it as “the quiet negro is the safe negro” complex.  Pompeii’s non-reaction indicates a numbness not only to his (lack of) blackness but also his dismissed masculinity.  He is safe and no longer in need of attention because  he simply accepts his position (both racially and within the company’s hierarchy).  Pompeii’s participation in the minstrel show can be seen as a survival move – both to protect his life from his drunken white companions and to save his job so that he can continue to provide for his family.  Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (let’s be real, the MAJORITY of Lee’s catalog) address similar themes of hushed subordination and its consequences on self-identity and blackness.

2) These attempts are rushed.  Now, one of the post-movements that makes complete sense is Post-colonialism because it reflects the struggle and need to address a previously embattled people and the residue influences of their (often European) oppressors on social-cultural interaction. Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Chinua Achebe, and more recently Vijay Prashad acknowledge and explore the racial divide often motivated by colonial rule.

In American society, our celebration of reaching post-dom is a trend, a fad that is often embodied in distinct “moments” of racial harmony and bliss (or such intentions).  Take, for example, the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s. With the ruling of racial segregation as unconstitutional, legislation was put into place for incorporation into American social practice to ban the racial inferiority complex.  What was not taken into consideration was the fact that social practice does not change overnight.  Racial attitude and interpretation is so deeply embedded into our fiber that racial profiling is second nature.  The election of President Barack Obama also seems to coincide with the initiation of postracial America. Right. We do not simply have another president. This time we have a  president who is so scrutinized that he has to hide any brotha tendencies (lol).

To play that girl, I’ll take the bait and entertain the idea that we are in a post-racial America.  What I will NOT accept, however, is that we are colorblind. As I stated in a previous post, Prashad’s astute observations that American society refuses to face color in an effort to present a monolithic American society and, perhaps more importantly, a monolithic ethnic American community, will prove detrimental to our progression as a nation.

Instead of becoming a “clear” community with no indications of race, wouldn’t a more proper definition of post-racial be the acknowledgment of ethnic identity sans the bias behind those associations?

Yesterday, the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights groups announced the filing of a federal suit contesting Arizona’s recently-enacted SB 1070 before it takes effect, calling it “the most extreme and dangerous of all the recent local and state laws purporting to deal with immigration issues.”

“It will cause discrimination, hostility and suspicion based on color, accent and appearance,” said Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU’s Immigrant Law Project. “This law turns ‘Show Me Your Papers’ Into the Arizona state motto.”

The 14 plaintiff organizations named in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court, represent a variety of POC groups: MALDEF, National Immigration Law Center, the NAACP, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

Also represented are 10 individual plaintiffs., including Jim Shee, an American citizen who has been pulled over twice since SB 1070 was signed, and New Mexico resident Jesus Cuahtemoc Villa, Jesus Cuahtemoc Villa, who attends Arizona State University and alleges he could be arrested under the statute because the law only recognizes Arizona-issued identification.

Shee’s case seems to parallel the arrest of an Arizona truck driver who was arrested last week despite providing authorities with both a commercial driver’s license and a Social Security card, and incarcerated until his wife was able to provide his birth certificate.

Linton Joaquin, who serves as NILC’s General Counsel, said the law’s inevitable result will be less safety for everyone in Arizona.

“From beginning to end, SB 1070 is a misguided effort to legislate immigration control,” Joaquin said.

Public reaction to the law, which Guttentag said would take effect in late July, has been divided. According to a survey taken earlier this month by the Pew Resource Center, NBC and The Wall Street Journal, SB 1070 has attracted a mostly positive response:

That sentiment is likely behind incidents like the alleged verbal abuse of a Mexican high school student Augustine Ortiz in San Antonio, Texas. According to The San Antonio Express-News:

[Ortiz's English teacher] proceeded to single him out repeatedly, Ortiz said, pointing at him as she made comments like, “The Mexicans with their attitudes are the racist ones.”

Continuing to point at Ortiz, she allegedly told the class that Mexicans always “expect handouts” and “soon it’s going to be the United States of Mexico,” according to Ortiz.

At the same time, however, sentiment against 1070 appear to be gaining steam, as well: thousands of protesters around the country held demonstrations against the law on May 1; and several cities, including Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles, have passed ordinances favoring an economic boycott of Arizona. Several other civic and business groups have also teamed up for a petition urging Major League Baseball to remove next year’s All-Star Game from Phoenix.

In citing the danger of states creating their own immigration statutes, APALC litigation director Julie Su mentioned the precedent created by past race-based legislation like the Chinese Exclusion Act.

“As was true then, the criminalization of an entire race, and fear driven by economic insecurity, make for bad public policy,” Su said. “The Japanese in Arizona who remember what it was like to be imprisoned in the state’s internment camps can tell you that race-baiting and racial profiling are not only un-American, they make us less safe, not more safe … Not only does the state have no authority to pass its’ own immigration law, but the Asian community knows well that racism and scapegoating lead only to laws that destroy our cohesion as a nation.”

I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the matter of South Philadelphia High School. And it did.

Reader Carleandria points us to an article in The American (the American Enterprise Institute’s Journal) which wastes no time with the headline: “Are Some Races More Equal Than Others?”

Readers, if my eyes rolled any harder, they would be stuck permanently at the top of my brow.

Abigail Thernstrom and Tim Fay feel like they understand the real reason why South Philadelphia High School isn’t getting any play from the press:

Will the Obama administration act aggressively to ensure Asian rights to a public education free of intimidation and actual violence—surely a basic civil right? Or will such action be taken only when blacks are the victims rather than the perpetrators? If the administration acts in the interest of the Asians, black students will be singled out as racially hostile troublemakers—a conclusion that neither the Department of Education nor the DOJ will welcome, if Duncan’s announcement means what it says. [...]

The anti-Asian attacks at SPHS began in October 2008, and prompted Asian advocacy groups to beg for help from the Philadelphia school administration. None was forthcoming, according to AALEF. Three months ago, in early December, tensions came to a head. Trouble started on December 2, and the next day, black students reportedly began to hunt for Asians, checking classrooms were they might be found. A group of apparently organized black students reportedly rushed the stairwells to the second floor where many Asian students were located. Security camera footage from the lunchroom showed a group of 60 to 70 students—most of them black—surging forward with a smaller faction attacking a small group of Asian students.

The AALDEF complaint describes a complete breakdown of adult leadership. One Asian student has charged the lunch staff with “cheering happily,” and others have described security officers as looking the other way. In truth, those charges have been disputed, and other facts are equally hard to pin down. Police and volunteers did try to contain the mounting violence, and at some point the school was “locked down.” School officials later decided to have classrooms dismissed one-by-one, and contacted police to provide extra protection outside the school. The ranks of the police thinned, however, when some had to respond to another emergency, and by the time a group of Asians were heading home they were insufficiently protected. Escorted out of the school by the principal (perhaps only for a short way—another disputed fact), the Asian students spotted blacks lying in wait; they made a futile attempt to run from trouble. In the ensuing attack, one Asian student’s nose was broken, and as many as 13 ended up needing treatment at the local hospital.

While Thernstrom and Fay make token references to not blaming blacks for these issues, the undertone of their article is clear – this group of low income black students are being unfairly preferenced in the press and in the school system, leading to this situation. They pulled quotes from Asian American students but seemingly forgot any discussion of who was targeted (mostly children of immigrants), student responses to this type of race-baiting (which is to focus on the issue and culpability of the administration) and any cross cultural organizing (like the multiracial group of students who came to the striking students and asked them to return to class).

And their article ignores the most obvious reason why South Philadelphia High isn’t getting more publicity: The mainstream media doesn’t care about South Philadelphia High School because the situation doesn’t involve white people.

Let me say that again.

The mainstream media does not find this story compelling because it is the story of the brown, the story of the poor, the story of generation 1 and generation 1.5, the story of kids with accents, the story of violence between two groups no one wants to talk about anyway.

The media wants relateable characters and xenophobic and racist sentiments held by media creators and consumers create no winners in this narrative.

And, most of all, no one cares about poor kids, housed in what my friend Elizabeth Mendez Berry would call “schools of last resort” based on her work with gangs and school penetration. The demographic shift at South Philly High tells the story. The percentage of low-income kids tells the story. Unless the narrative being told about these kids serves in some way to prop up the idea of the American Dream, no one wants to hear it.

No one wants to talk about the struggle, only the triumph.

What’s most infuriating about articles like Fay and Thernstrom’s is that it effectively takes the focus from South Philadelphia High and places it on reinforcing racist beliefs. Articles like this rob the kids of their agency, their organizing, and courage, and instead ask “What’s the matter with black people?” – which, in this situation, is really the wrong thing to ask.*

The picture illustrating this post is the same one illustrating Angry Asian Man’s post from yesterday, for a reason: because these kids need answers, not racist bullshit.

They need accountability.

They need community support.

They need a safe school to attend, even if none of their parents can afford to wave around money or privilege to make it so.

What they do not need are some fuckers trying to piggyback on their suffering to justify racist beliefs.

*I also find it fascinating in an article about the situation at South Philadelphia High School, the statistics offered for consumption aren’t on Asian Americans being bullied at school, or instances of violence toward APIA kids in the communities they call home, or the specific targeting of new immigrants to the US, but discussions on black suspension rates and how to read that metric.

Earlier: How Do We Solve a Problem Like South Philadelphia High?
South Philly High Asian Students Testify On Assaults

In an effort to eradicate the myth of the “seductive/sexually-empowered slave mistress” (most recently perpetuated by Touré on Twitter, apparently), new novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez has penned a work of historical fiction set in a real location: Tawawa House, a summer resort that catered to white slaveholders and their enslaved “lovers,” in the free state of Ohio.

Wench chronicles the lives of four slave women: Mawu, Sweet, Reenie, and Lizzie (the central protagonist) whose masters annually “whisk them away” from the hardship of their plantation lives and put them up in cottages for a few weeks in summer.

For the women, few things have changed, other than their location: they’re still monitored, chained on a whim, and systematically raped. Only now, they’re also given once-lovely ball gowns—years-old cast-offs left behind by the resort’s previous white patrons—and encouraged to doll themselves up for a semi-public dinner and dance.

They’re also allowed the occasional “free day,” an irony, of course, on two fronts: they still must cook and clean, while their masters are away from the resort fishing, and also, as they spend hours of spare time trekking through the woods, where they meet abolitionists and happen upon an adjacent resort for free Blacks, they are constantly reminded of the vicious slave-catchers who lie in wait, at the first sign of any escape attempts.

The four women featured are from plantations in different states, and the circumstances of their relationships with their masters drastically vary. Three of the four hold their masters in varying degrees of contempt, with Mawu being the most hateful and determined. Lizzie’s the holdout: she earnestly believes that she and her master are in love.

Lizzie’s is the central story; she’s the only one of the characters whose post-summer life we’re shown. She and her master have two children. Over the course of their decade-long “relationship” (which began when she was just thirteen), she experiences highs (she’s given the guest room across the hall from the master’s barren wife) and lows (toward the end of the novel, she’s tied to the cottage porch at Tawawa House, while recovering from a very significant illness). We watch her illusions about the ability for “love” to exist between master and slave dissolve, with each passing summer at the resort. And, despite the tragic losses all four women experience, Lizzie’s mental/emotional negotiations and denials are perhaps the saddest of all.

The novel is a fast-paced read, with each of the four main women fully rendered as sympathetic and alive. Most interesting of all: by the end, you begin to realize that the book isn’t as much an examination of the relationship of master to slavewoman as it is a loving meditation on the bonds between women forced into the “slave mistress role.” The central four are steadfast friends, willing to forgive even the most egregious betrayals, because the understand the complexity of this life: hated by house and field slaves alike, yet relied upon to post-coitally plead those slaves’ causes.

There’s an unspoken devotion between them that drives the plot and informs a seldom-examined facet of history. There’s no way you could walk away from it, believing an enslaved woman has any real agency in a “relationship” with her enslaver. Maybe Touré should give it a gander.

In the first part of my “Broken System” series, I addressed the need for a landmark Supreme Court decision to be able to adequately affect the inequalities inherent in our public school system. In response, the inevitable debate began: what would actually fix these problems? A lot of great ideas have been suggested. However, at this point, many of the big changes proposed would be hard to push through, even with government backing, due to the mind-set of our general society. This post offers a possible solution to significantly alter our culture’s relationship to race, which could lead to positive change within our education system.

As a teacher and youth worker, I’ve been through my fair share of “diversity trainings.” And let’s just skip to the point and say that most of them are a big waste of time. They’re either too simple and obvious for people with any sort of awareness (or personal experience), or they’re too superficial to get anybody who really needs it to take it to heart. A couple hours of “diversity training” is never going to help a youth worker relate to kids of other races or backgrounds and/or get over their own sub-conscious (or conscious) biases.

The main problem, of course, is that these “trainings” come too late. Way too late. We wait until these folks are grown adults, with decades of experiences and ways of thinking behind them, and then we pretend that we can change their minds with some magical training. It doesn’t work like that. And we know that.

So how are we supposed to change race relations in our schools (and country)? How are we supposed to address volatile situations like the one in South Philadelphia High?

Well – what if we actually got over ourselves enough to talk to youth about it all? What if we directly addressed these issues? What if we taught our kids that talking about race isn’t a bad thing, that it can actually be helpful and positive? What then?

When I was in college, I remember we had a “Race, Culture, and Ethnicity” requirement. To graduate, we all had to have a certain amount of credits (I think amounting to a one-semester course) of classes pertaining to “Race, Culture, and Ethnicity.” The idea was a good one – but the practice wasn’t so hot. I believe “Cultural Anthropology” (i.e. “hey, look at all those ‘backwards’ brown people”) counted towards that requirement. Ironically, I actually argued myself out of having to fulfill it.

Again, though – the requirement was “too little, too late” to make any sort of real difference.

So my question is – what if there was a “Race, Culture, and Ethnicity” requirement throughout the U.S. public school system? What if, every year, as part of the mandatory Social Studies curriculum, all kids had to learn and talk about race? What if every kid in the States, by the age of 10 or so, actually knew the difference between “race” and “ethnicity”? What if kids were taught to have honest conversations about race – up-front and real – so they didn’t end up turning towards race-based affiliations based on ignorance? What if?

We live in a world where talking about race is assumed (by adults) to be painful and uncomfortable. Where a conversation about race or ethnicity or oppression is expected to be frustrating, and turn to anger and high emotion. Where both sides begin the conversation as opponents on the defensive, as opposed to participants in a dialogue.

Why?

Because we have been implicitly (and sometimes, explicitly) taught from a young age that that’s how those types of conversations are supposed to be. Kids aren’t stupid. They catch the body-language. The discomfort. The tension. They learn to avoid those topics, to suppress it. If they ask a question like “why does that child have darker/lighter skin than me?” they are shushed – as if difference in hue is a shameful thing, as if talking about it is morally wrong. They are taught to parrot the words “we’re all the same, race doesn’t matter” while simultaneously learning that race is a huge deal.

But they never get to talk about it. Due to our segregated lives, most kids don’t have somebody they know well enough of a different background to ask real questions about it. And so they – we – are left ignorant. We are left not knowing, not understanding . . . which inevitably leads to fear.

And when fear takes hold? South Philly High. The South Philadelphia community. The divisive battles about race that continue throughout our country.

All because we’re too stupid to just talk about it. It’s ingrained in the American culture. We just don’t have real conversations about race. We don’t talk to our kids about it. When students bring it up in class, we frantically try to avoid it and move on. Everybody is so scared of the topic of race, we continue on this path towards misunderstanding and injustice.

And the only way to change that – to change a whole culture – is to work with the kids. Start a whole generation of youth on a path towards understanding each other. Facilitating conversations where naturally curious 5 year-olds can ask each other – what’s it like, having different skin color? Do you do things differently than me because of it? So that, later, the 10 year-olds can wonder – without fear of conflict – do you really eat different foods than I do? Why? Why do you talk differently? Leading to the 15 year-olds going deep enough and knowing enough to say, “Wait a minute – we actually have a really similar background, in terms of the ish we have to deal with and overcome.” Taking away the fear, the stigma, so that relationships (good or bad) can be based on commonalities and real differences, as opposed to the “unknown” fear of racial difference.

And I know – it would be painful at the beginning. Very few teachers would be able to do this right (because they’ve been steeped in our culture of discomfort, too). There would be some incidents. But if you started it in first grade, say – and then added a grade every year as the first cohort progressed – you could achieve some positive momentum. And by the time that first group made it out into the real world?

Something beautiful.

Not everyone would be super “aware” and “understanding.” There would still be prejudice and ignorance. But, suddenly, you’d have a whole generation of adults trained to be able to talk about race. Which is the first step to finding solutions. And the possible solutions they could find . . ?

Certainly beyond this blogger’s realm of imagination.

* I have written this whole post through the lens of race, but this could easily be expanded (and should be) to include all forms of inequity and oppression (socio-economic class, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, etc.).

** I should also stress that I’m not exactly inventing the wheel here – many before me have proposed similar solutions, although perhaps not on such a large scale.

When you see a headline like “30 Asian Students Attacked,” one would think there would be massive rage.  An outcry about violence in schools.  A discussion of why our kids aren’t safe.  But in the wake of the attacks and continuing coverage by outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Asian-American blogosphere, the silence surrounding this issue confirms exactly who is considered media worthy in our society and who is not.  The kids being attacked at South Philly High School are part of our community – but where is the concern?  Where is the outcry from mainstream media? Where is the national conversation on…well, I’d take anything at this point.  Race, violence in schools, unsympathetic administrators, class, inter-community tensions, the right to an education in a safe environment – there are thousands of issues to be explored here, and we haven’t heard a peep from most mainstream media outlets.

I’ve been following the news with quite a bit of interest.  This kind of violence doesn’t pop up out of no where - it has to be nurtured.

Chaofei Zheng hiked up his shirt to reveal an angry bruise about four inches long on his right side. He pointed to a matching yellow and purple mark above his left eyebrow.

“I’m scared to go to school,” Zheng, 19, a freshman at South Philadelphia High, said through a translator today.

Zheng is one of several – community organizers say 30 or more – students who were attacked at the school on Thursday, targeted, they say, because they’re Asian.

Racial violence at the school is not new, but students and activists say this week’s attacks are emblematic of a problem that’s not going away.

“There’s a corrosive culture that’s hurting all the kids at the school,” said Helen Gym, a board member of Asian Americans United, who said the district must apologize and “admit that there’s a serious problem at South Philly High School.”

District officials acknowledge the school has problems and racial tensions but say that before the incident, violence was down by 55 percent this school year. Inroads have been made, they say.

Looking at some of the source articles, a clear narrative starts to emerge.  And while it is difficult to opine on a situation that is still unfolding, there are some dominant ideas emerging that need to be scrutinized before any progress can occur.

Racial Tensions Between Groups As Expressions of Power

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the racial make up of the school is composed primarily of black students – 70% of the population is identified as black.  A significant minority group is Asian, 18% of the student population, many of whom are recent immigrants or the children of recent immigrants.  The remaining students at the school are white and Latino (with 6% and 5% of the population respectively.)  No white or Latino students appear to have been interviewed.  Student testimony reveals how racial retaliation begins – a slight on one member of a group damns the whole.  So in this case, the students explain:

Wei Chen, who formed the South Philadelphia Chinese-American Student Association last year after a spate of attacks, saw the violence erupt on Thursday, but was not injured. Chen, 18, a senior, said the attackers had no specific problem with their victims.

“They didn’t know each other,” said Chen. “They just see the Asian face, and they punch it.”

Kelly Muth, a Cambodian student, said she witnessed one of the Thursday attacks. And she thinks she knows what triggered the violence.

“Last week, a group of Vietnamese students jumped a black guy, so they came back for revenge,” Muth said. “But they targeted anybody, anybody Asian.”

Other articles point to a more familiar dynamic – a native-born group exploiting a more vulnerable immigrant group:

Chen said there’s been some progress at the school this year – more community meetings, weekly sessions with administrators where students point out possible problems. Classes for those students learning English used to be on a separate floor, the immigrants kept away from the native English speakers, Chen said.

But new principal LaGreta Brown ended that practice, he said. Brown was not available for comment.

Other articles about community meetings added that additional, outside tensions between the black community and the Asian community in South Philadelphia could also be exacerbating the issues at school.  Minority groups can certainly hold prejudice and bias toward one another, and engage in racist actions they have learned are acceptable.  However, more may be at play here – the school’s demographic information shows a school that was much more racially balanced eight years ago, one that is plagued with withdrawals, and one that leaves the most vulnerable kids – the ones who do not have parents who can afford to send them to a better school, or who are too intimidated to navigate a bureaucracy – to fend for themselves.

The Role of Class

I looked up the website for the school, to try to find more information on the backgrounds of the students.  The school website has not updated student data since 2006; yet it confirmed a hunch I had:

The percentage of students from low-income families in 2005 – 2006 is operationally defined as the percentage of students elligible for free or reduced lunch in the Federal School Lunch Program.

Students from Low-Income Families (%): 71.8%          Citywide: 72.8%

Class is playing as large a role as race in why this story is under reported. I am relying a bit on personal experience here, but low income students, of any race, are less likely to garner as much sympathy as their wealthier counterparts. When violence erupts in schools in areas that are in areas plagued by violence, it’s reported as if it was just another day.  That’s why situations like Columbine rock headlines – the ten year anniversary of the tragic public school shooting recently passed and the news paused to remember.  Columbine was a tragedy – but one that resonated because it impacted the “safe,” predominantly white community and shattered the sense of peace.  Those of us who grew up in other types neighborhoods know that there is no peace to be had – the violence we witnessed didn’t come all at once, but consistently ebbs and flows.  And there is no outcry.  It is considered normal for poorer students and minority students to put up with some level of violence while pursuing an education. It’s just the way it is.  And the rest of the world is not moved by our plight.

I was very lucky.  None of the schools I attended, in various areas, had metal detectors or serious problems with violence.  (Or, if they had, those problems were mostly resolved by the time I enrolled.)  But my friends and family who lived in different areas were not so lucky.  And when violence happened, at their schools, when there’s a drive by near their school building or when kids are being shot in class, it wasn’t considered unusual.  The only outrage came from the community, while most people checked out the article in the Metro section, shook their heads, and turned the page.

How Administrators Perpetuate Climates of Racism and Violence in Schools

When the first response out of a principal’s mouth after a horrific attack is about violence actually dropping this year, there may be some problems with grasping the reality of the situation between the walls of the school. And when you have to revise that initial statement, we really have to wonder how engaged the administration is in ending the violence:

Officials said last night that they erred last week in saying violence was down at the school. A district spokesman said that through the end of November, assaults were up by 32 percent, to 37 this year, and overall violence was up by 5 percent, with 43 total attacks this year.

Attacks on Asian students were down by 38 percent – there were five this year through the end of November, and eight last year, September through November. These numbers don’t include last week’s violence.

30 kids don’t catch beat downs at school without the school environment signaling in some way that this is acceptable behavior. And sure enough, the signs were there:

Ellen Somekawa, executive director of Asian Americans United, said the attacks against Asian students were disturbing, but more so was the district’s reaction, which she characterized as slow and defensive. Almost a week later, some students involved have still not been interviewed, Somekawa said. [...]

Somekawa described students at the school being mocked by staff: ” ‘Where are you from? Hey, Chinese. Yo, Dragon Ball. Are you Bruce Lee? Speak English,’ ” quoting what students had told her.

Troung, the South Philadelphia student, recited a litany of problems with school staff. She singled out the security officers, who she claimed forced Asian students to follow them into a lunchroom where they were attacked and who directed the frightened students to leave school after they were beaten.

Yan Zheng, another student, said that when students were fighting in the lunch room last Thursday, “the lunch lady did not do anything to stop them, and went around cheering happily. . . . The staff shouldn’t just stand there and watch and say, ‘Stopping fights is not my job.’ ”

Duong Thang Ly said the school’s security officers “are the big problem,” saying they looked the other way when a group of African American students interrupted a lunch line and heckled a group of Asian students. They ignored groups of students as they roamed during class time, Ly said.

Many of the solutions proposed showed an astounding lack of ideas on how to solve this problem:

The Philadelphia School District has been criticized for its response, which some have characterized as slow and defensive, but officials on Friday announced a host of fixes – more police officers, more cameras, diversity training, a federal program to deal with racial tensions, an outside diversity committee, and an in-school think tank.

If the kids don’t trust the security officers now, what makes school officials think that adding more will help, especially when they have already discussed how students are reluctant to name people for fear of retribution?  How do cameras help anything but prosecution?  Carmen often explains why diversity training doesn’t work – it often is focused on protecting a company or organization by teaching people how to hide their racism, not by forcing people to challenge their own racist beliefs.  Worse still are the multicultural celebrations, that think by highlighting a groups achievements or individual culture, they can somehow stop racist attacks.  But neither of those methods work because they do not examine the root issues.  Outside committees can provide perspective, but often fail because they are too far from the community to really understand the issue, and often lack the authority to implement their recommendations, and in-school think tanks are often rife with the politics that plague the school.

Meanwhile, kids are still being targeted.

How Framing Influences Perception

Here’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed.  The kids being interviewed seem to express the same ideas over and over – while this is being promoted as a race war, the reality is a lot more complicated.

Wei Chen, a student activist who formed a Chinese-American student group after attacks that happened last year said:

Chen, 18, who stayed home from school today, stressed that it’s a small number of students making things unsafe for everyone. “I have many African American friends; they teach me to say hello,” he said, displaying an elaborate series of hand clasps and slaps, street language that makes him cool. “Every group has good students and bad students.”

And while details about the attacks still seem a bit hazy, it may be that some Asian students participated in the attacks (emphasis mine):

The meeting was a dramatic crescendo in a situation that began Dec. 2, school officials said, when a disabled African American student was beaten up by two Asian students outside school.

The next day, large groups of African American and Asian students attacked at least 30 Asian students, seven of whom required treatment at a hospital. Some of the attackers went from room to room, looking for students to target. District officials said the Thursday attacks were retaliatory, but Helen Gym, a board member of Asian American United, challenged that.

“By linking the two incidents, which involved two absolutely different sets of youth, the district seems to imply that there’s an undercurrent of justification for what happened on Thursday,” Gym said.

Officials announced last night that an outside investigator would probe what happened, beginning next week.

Six African American students and four Asian students have been suspended, and police and School District investigations are ongoing.

What the hell is that about?  It appears this story is further complicated by an insider/outsider dynamic which can be traced along racial lines, but isn’t solely the cause.

Meanwhile, other students take pains to point out that while the racial dynamics make the analysis swing in an obvious direction, the problem runs deeper than that:

It’s not just Asian students who are suffering, Truong said.

“Most of the students at South Philadelphia High School – Asian, African American, Latino and white – are just like us. They are trying to get an education in a school where they do not feel safe or respected,” said Truong.

However, it is heartening to see that despite the lackluster efforts by adults to solve the problem, the students at South Philly High School want to step up where the administation has failed:

At one point, a multiracial contingent of South Philadelphia High students asked the Asian students to come back to school.

Senior student Duong-Thang Ly thanked the students, then added: “We hope to return to school soon, but we want to the school to be safe for all of us.”

So what can be done at South Philadelphia High School?

There are no easy answers to these types of problems, particularly ones that have been going on as long as this one appears to be.  Violence will not be solved overnight. And, while we talk about issues of race and culture often here, anything I say from this point on is armchair quarterbacking – the majority of us aren’t in Philadelphia, South Philadelphia High is not our community school, and ultimately, we can’t know how the situation is actually playing out based on a handful of news articles.  But in the off chance some one is reading who can affect change at the school, I don’t want to leave them hanging.  So here’s my very general ideas for how to help stop the violence and soothe some of the inter-group issues.  Remember, this is generic advice – it will need to be adapted to the individual needs of the school before it is put in play.

Short Term Solutions – Stop Immediate Violence, Allow Kids to Attend School Safely

1.  Extensively poll the students, in confidence.  You want to make an outside task force? Set them on this task – interview every student at South Philly High School (including those who are being suspended for violent acts) about the over all school environment, race, violence, who they trust, and why.  There are 1200 or so students – go class by class, pulling every kid out one by one.  That way, no one is singled out as being the person who said anything – everyone is participating.  If you can’t do in-person discussions (which, considering the crisis level at the school, shouldn’t be too much to ask) then do written surveys in multiple languages, and have people on staff who can read and translate without sending them off anywhere else.  You want to talk about a month to cull the data, and a month to analyze it.  These kids don’t have a year or two years to waste while people are writing reports – they need relief now.

2. One of the key narratives is that immigrant students are being attacked.  These are the kids who are the most vulnerable, yet they have revealed school officials cannot be trusted with listening to their concerns.  While all this is being resolved, reinstate the policy that Chen referred to of pulling the students out of regular rotation with the rest of the student body.  ESL students do learn better if they are exposed to people who speak English as a first language, but these effects are negligible if the students are too fearful to interact.  This should be done immediately, while the data is being gathered.  Pull the kids to their own floor again, provide them with a separate lunch period or allow them to take lunch in the classrooms where they are most comfortable.  Reroute the most sympathetic security officers to provide back up in the ESL wing/floor and to work with the ESL teachers to identify students who are prone to being bullied.  Do not bring police into a school environment.  That is generally a toxic influence, especially when so many youth of color have learned (through words or actions) not to trust the police.  If you want to post a patrol outside of the building, fine.  But many on the police force are not trained to deal with adolescents, outside of programs like D.A.R.E. or other outreach initiatives.  Officers are there to provide policing and force, and that is not an element you want to introduce to the school.  Kids don’t learn on lockdown.  Get more security officers, particularly ones who worked with schools or with rehabilitative juvenile justice programs.

3. I’ll bet a major problem in this school revolves around staff, be it staff turnover or staff shortages.  One teacher explains she left because of all the attacks on foreign-born students she felt helpless to stop.  Get more staff in there, both teachers, teaching assistants, or security.  More sets of (engaged) eyes will help to stem the flow of violence.   If this is not feasible or too expensive, ask organizations like Teach for America or community organizations and leaders to lend some volunteers to the school to be witnesses.  You do not want people to engage with violent students (that what security is for) but you do want to make it so that there are enough adults around so that kids think twice about attacking people.

4.  Pinpoint violent offenders and remove them from the flow of students. According to the school’s own data, in 2005 some 150 students were suspended more than three times over the course of the school year. What are these kids doing to get suspended so often? Are they being violent toward other students? If so, remove them from general matriculation and put them in an In School Suspension program.  Don’t just send them home – give them their work and sequester them somewhere else, so that other students can learn in peace.  Also, have teachers keep an eye out for violent bullies, and recommend those kids spend a day or two in ISS.  I stress this is a temporary solution – most of the kids you meet in ISS will need more help than a school system can give, and may need counseling, removal from abusive home environments, special needs classes for undiagnosed learning issues – it could be any cause. However, the short term goal is getting kids back into school and feeling safe, and a part of that will be removing the admittedly small number of students who are masterminding the problems.

Long Term Solutions – Promote a Safe and Harmonious School Environment for All Students

1. There can be no racial harmony without trust.  However, many of these kids don’t trust each other, or the outside school environment.  This type of reform takes years, but I would suggest starting with each incoming class of freshman and finding time in home room or something equivalent to talk and journal about issues that are impacting them. They need to know that school is a space for them to reflect and that school officials will have their best interests at heart.  Part of this is by establishing connections with more of the students.

2. We want to encourage cross-cultural friendships. A lot of the kids that spoke out were not the ones being abused.  And many of the student leaders referenced having friends of different groups.  This should be encouraged.  Tap the more outgoing kids to become student leaders, and allow them to lead discussion groups and influence the administration on how best to promote kindness and understanding. Friendship is more powerful than rhetoric.

3.  Much of these tensions probably result from community issues spilling into the space of the school.  So a lot of community healing may be in order.  Again, not being based in Philly, I’m not sure how things have changed or what is causing the outrage and lack of empathy, but looking at some of those issues may help kids to engage with school a bit better.

4. Advocate for more resources at the school.  Teachers can only do so much.  Guidance counselors can only do so much.  To succeed and flourish, a school must be able to meet the needs of most students at the school. Outside of safety, what else is happening? Are the students disengaging with the curriculum? Is there a clear path to college, or a trade, or does an adult life feel unattainable for most students? Use the data gathered by the task force to figure out what your students need, and find a way to provide it.

Source Articles:

Allegations of racial tensions at South Philadelphia High
Asian students vow to continue school boycott
Asian students describe violence at South Philadelphia High
100 rally to support S. Phila. High’s Asian students
Principal had a rocky end at old job
Asians say officials, not kids, are the problem at South Philly high

by Latoya Peterson

All conversations on race are not created equal.  Many of them, quite frankly, suck.  Whether it is the endless “nigga vs. nigger” conversation which for some reason is still kicked around by bored people, to the oppression olympics, to derailing and stonewalling in real life, we have all been a part of “discussions” on race where you have to stifle the urge to run screaming from the room.

Carmen wrote about this in post called “When Dialogue About Race Isn’t Just Isn’t Enough:”

There’s nothing particularly useful about rehashing the same tired arguments over and over again: “Why can black people use the n-word but white people can’t? Are Asian women selling out Asian men when they date interracially? Aren’t people who identify as multiracial just running from their blackness?”

Snore…

What many people don’t seem to realize is that the type of “dialogue” sparked by ignorant behavior is almost always exactly of this non-productive nature.

It’s time we raised the bar and realized that we need to aim for quality dialogue about race — not its mere existence.

Predictably, there were people who objected to this on Carmen’s site, with the idea that “well, some people are interested in having these discussions.”  And those folks are welcome to keep arguing in circles all they want.  However, this does not come without cost.  Sparky, writing for Womanist Musings, aptly summarizes why so many of us aren’t up for endless rounds of enagement:

I knew where this conversation was going within the first 10 minutes – gods, the first 5 minutes. The opening lines, even. I knew that I was heading into a long, unpleasant and awkward conversation that was likely going to throw a lot of straight privilege at me, push a lot of painful buttons and generally leave me frustrated, tired and feeling like shit. In short, within 5 minutes of the conversation starting I wanted it to end.

How do I know this? Because I’ve had exactly the same conversation and variations of this about a squillion times before. All completely unoriginal, all tiring, all painful and all immensely frustrating. And I’m quite sure over half have been utterly, completely pointless wastes of my energy and mental health.

My point?

My point is sometimes I can’t do it. And that’s a shame because, even if most failed, I know some of these conversations HAVE worked. I know some ignorant people who bought a clue, listened and did their best not to do it again. Yes, it can be productive. Yes it has worked. Yes calmly and reasonably answering all the ignorant questions you’ve answered a thousand times or politely objecting and explaining why something was offensive can and does work. It’s half the reason I ramble so much about sexuality on this LJ.

And sometimes I can’t do it. Sometimes I’m tired, I’m in a bad mood or I’m just sick to the back teeth of the whole damn hetero-normative world, it’s ignorance, it’s insensitivity and it’s endless reminders that I don’t belong.  Sometimes I’m annoyed because it should be damned OBVIOUS why I don’t find that joke funny, or why I get angry at being called “fag.”

These conversations are painful and tiring and frustrating. They’re very personal (they can’t help but be), they force me to confront homophobia and homophobic ignorance head on. They force me to endure it and slog through it. They force me to be vulnerable. They force me to expose that vulnerability to someone who, at best, may clumsily trample all over me and at worst may deliberately do some stomping.

Conversations about race are not amusing at all when the people who you are discussing the issue with make it clear that (1) they have not thought about the issue much, (2) they don’t care to think about the issue much, but (3) they are determined to talk about the issue anyway.  And, as some of you may know, I was recently confronted with this situation over at Jezebel.Now, I totally could have let this one slide.  After all, it isn’t as if I started writing for Jezebel ignorant of the mainstream audience and many of the dynamics at play.  And I’ve written many posts on race for them that had disappointing comments – it was starting to become kind of par for the course.  But that particular day, I had enough of it – Racialicious was built to discuss race and pop culture, in an intelligent way, and it is geared toward people who already accept that racism is an issue, and pop culture plays a role in perpetuating racist ideas.  And if I already have this space, why the hell do I need to subject myself anywhere else?  I started writing for Jezebel because I am fond of many of the writers there, the editor is cool, I like a lot of the whip smart members of their community, and I have a desire to not be pigeonholed as someone who solely writes about race issues.  So why put myself through extra agony?  With that, I commented, to interesting result.  I should mention here that many, many people wrote into voice their support.  Senior editor Dodai felt compelled to write a formal post after reading my pissy past-midnight comment, dozens of Jezebels commented in support, and I received many emails also affirming the value of continued engagement.  (All of those things were much appreciated).   However, a lot of it was still crap, but sifting through it all and responding to bits and pieces brought to mind a number of things that those of us who are building coalitions struggle with.  There are two major issues when trying to have a conversation as complicated as one centering race.

The Role of Empathy (Bonding vs. Silencing)

A commenter asked me why I did not acknowledge that people, in trying to share their experience, are actually trying to understand, even if they miss the mark a little?  The commenter argued that sharing experiences is  a way to relate someone else’s experience to one’s own which may help to bring about greater understanding.  Now this is true.  But often, what people think is empathy is really one-upmanship.  I wrote back to the commenter:

This kind of dynamic happens often on my blog. A person who is may not be of a the race/ethnicity being discussed shares a story about their experience. It is not the same as others stories. However, there are two very different ways people go about it.

One is when someone is trying to *affirm* an experience by relating it to their own lives. They talk about marginalization based on their sexuality, or based on their race gender combination. For example, many Asian American males and African American females find common ground in being portrayed as undesirable partners in the media. The experiences of an Asian American male and an African American female are not the same – however, there are enough notes of similarity where when we write a post, someone (of either group) wants to reach out and say, “hey, I feel you on this – you are not alone.”

The second is when someone is trying to *deny* your experience based on their limited reality. This is what I object to, because they are building what is a false parallel. So, comments like “As a white woman with kinky hair, I think it’s ridiculous that black women wouldn’t want to straighten their hair! I straighten my hair to look presentable and so should you!” (We actually received that comment on Racialicious, but it went on for paragraphs). It is frustrating when you are talking about a large, systemic issue and people try to make it about the individual. Saying “well, my barbie didn’t look like me either” or “women in ads don’t look like me” as a way of dismissing the systemic in favor of the personal actually stalls conversation.

And to be frank, its one of the reasons that Racialicious focuses our comment mod policy the way we do – our readers hear that shit all day long. They want a space in which the participants are already aware of the differences between systemic and individual acts of racism and can discuss them intelligently. (And, for some reason, our white readership on the site manages to participate in these convos just fine.)

Is this a large issue in feminism? Oh yes. But the frustration comes not because people just *aren’t aware* of these differences – it is because when you present the facts, that are too busy navel gazing to listen.

This happens often and it is a fine line between trying to establish a connection and playing the oppression olympics.  A long time ago, when I first started writing for this site, I wrote a piece called “4th Generation Racist,”about how I had been raised to mistrust white people and to reject white ideals, and how getting more involved with anti-racism forced me to challenge those ideas.  The comment thread for that one was interesting, but I remember being enraged at a comment I received well after the post was published. The commenter provided a laundry list of slights she received at the hands of people of color, concluding with:

There is an issue growing in this country. There are many issues, but one that affects me greatly, and has affected me all of my nearly 20 years of life, and that is “anti-white-bias”. That is how I found this blog. To my surprise, it did not anger me, but I felt that I could add my piece. It is a separate idea, looking in from the other side of the glass. Instead being the victim of social majority racism, I come from a background of experiencing anti-white attitude. It hurts just as bad. Especially to be associated with things that you have not been responsible for. Such as racism. We came on over from Europe, and here we were practically being accused of being slave owners. It’s all very hard to deal with, and it’s a touchy topic. I’d like to discuss racial issues, but there are many that are not discussed simply for not being a popular idea. I am trying to become more comfortable discussing things. Although not everyone will entirely agree with me, I hope that you do not mind my response. I only wanted to contribute a view from a different stand point. Thank you. =)

Her comment was not empathy.  It took a while for me to be able to articulate why the article angered me so, far more than those who called me a racist after publishing it (who obviously missed the conclusion).  Then, I realized why.  Many of the learned behaviors I described were in response to systemic issues in society.  While this commenter also experienced pain, she experienced it on a personal level.  And it is not the same.

I don’t think any anti-racist activist will say that being rejected by a group for who you are should not hurt.  Over the years, we’ve explored ostracization at the hands of a white majority as well as at the hands of others within our race/ethnicity.  We talk about the pain of rejection and non acknowledgment.  No one would deny that this pain is real.  However, it’s quite different from the kind of pain that occurs when you realize it might be a good idea to change your name on your résumé.  It’s one thing to have someone openly attack you based on your race.  It’s another thing when society condones and encourages this type of behavior in ways that impact education, personal wealth, well being, and social mobility.  These things are as different as a first degree burn and a third degree burn.  And thus, when people consistently try to conflate the two, it tends to take conversations about race down frustrating paths – even if they had the best intentions.

The Limitations of Patience

Another commenter wrote in, saying that eventually, these missteps and such will lead to greater understanding.  Even if it is painful going now, it’s part of a process that will eventually lead to a better end.  Sadly, I disagreed with that idea as well. I wrote;

Real understanding can only happen if people empathize, not overwrite the experiences of others. Those of us who are privileged (and we all are, in various ways, just as we all have our own battles to fight) have the ability to make light of someone else’s pain.

On an individual to individual level, this is painful. On a societal level, it is catastrophic.

Some people have endless fountains of patience to continue to challenge the same prejudiced ideas over and over again. But many of us do not. This is not the first time I’ve encountered any of the lines of argument above. And while, on an individual level, it seems fine to try to engage someone with conversation, over time, those of us who are in a historically marginalized group find ourselves arguing the same points over and over again in an endless loop. Sure, it’s cool the first three times you explain something like this. But the 300th? 3000th? There is a reason why many people blogging about issues of social justice maintain that members of marginalized groups have no obligation to teach anyone. Why? There are millions of blog posts, thousands of books, discussion notes, podcasts etc, dedicated to explaining any thing you want to know. Asking people to continually perform on demand is demoralizing.

It is as Mai’a writes here:

in my experience, folks can learn all the theory, all the right words, all of it and yet act fundamentally the same, live out the same patterns of thoughts, still hold the same fucked-up priorities. and yet spout all of the anti-racist rhetoric.

because that is all it is to them. rhetoric.

people only learn as much as they are willing to learn.

and anti-oppression is not complicated. you dont need to read a book or a take a training or read a blog to learn humility, respect, and love. [...]

i guess what i am saying is that in my experience if white folks want to be respectful of poc or understand where they are coming from–they dont need a workshop. there are centuries of writing from poc that they can dive into. there are plenty of poc in their neighborhoods and community organizations. when white folks are ready to be anti-racist, when they are ready to turn from facing the center, to facing the margins, and stand with us. we will be here

Sharing of ideas, conversation, open-discourse do not work if people reject the reality of others in favor of maintaining their ideas about the world. No one is saying that this isn’t difficult or complicated. We all have moments when we fail. We all have moments when we stubbornly refuse others the empathy we crave for ourselves.

However, we are also operating within a system that rewards this micro acts of prejudice. And I don’t see the point of engaging, endlessly, particularly if people don’t really have any need to change. I can call myself a gay ally until I am blue in the face, point to all the posts I’ve written or deeds I’ve done, but it would not change the fact that I, as a heterosexual, will never be the target of that specific brand of prejudice. And as such, maybe I should be careful of trying to insert my hetero-narrative into a context where it doesn’t fit.

At the end of the day, I can walk away from the conversation and go about my life. Others live it. So, in general, it is a good rule of thumb to tread lightly. For some people it is a thought exercise, for others, this is their lives. And while I value my opinions and perspective, it is important to remember that everything is not necessarily about how I see things.

Jezebel has very different norms from Racialicious, and I voiced my anger precisely because that is the way you all do things here. Over on Racialicious, we do it very differently. There aren’t really conclusions to be drawn from that, but I do find it interesting that on black barbie posts or black hair posts or various other posts, the same arguments manifest time and time again.

Some people have mentioned this exchange has been helpful to them, and I am glad for it – however, I should clarify, so people do not continue to worry.

I do not wish to write about race for Jezebel. Where I am, and where I focus my activism, I prefer to work with other people who recognize the issues with systemic vs. individual racism, and are interested and willing to compare the ways in which oppression impacts us in order to raise a stronger fight against it. I’ve written about race daily for a solid three years now – I know what I want to accomplish. I just spent three or four hours I could have been doing other things responding to people’s concerns, and while that is fine sometimes, it isn’t a sustainable practice.

Since I, like everyone else, do not have the luxury of single issue. I will still write here for the other things I am passionate about. But I don’t feel the need to engage all the time. My writing, the writing and speeches and talks of others, all of that are around if people want it. But I firmly believe that you will not change anyone’s mind about anything unless they are willing to hear it.

You are correct in that we cannot judge the intent of others – this is why we say that the *effect* also needs to come under consideration. If you don’t intend to kill someone but do it anyway, the end result is a person is still dead. If you perpetuate racism unintentionally, the end result is still upholding a racist system.

But I am not overly concerned about this. I am one person, working at something that millions of others did before me and millions of others will do after I am gone. I do what I can.

And if people find my ideas intriguing and want to subscribe to my newsletter, they know how to find me.

Writing about race in mainstream spaces can often be frustrating and it can often be rewarding, just as many of you know from doing the same thing in your daily personal interactions.  And while we are all encouraged when we have a breakthrough by talking to others and expanding upon or ideas, it is also important to remember that this must be done in a sustainable way. I have seen too many people with amazing ideas and wonderful perspectives become burnt out and disengaged because they felt they could reach everyone, every time, at every occasion.  But as these structures were not built in a day, and not upheld by one person, the process to dismantling them will also be a long, hard road.

Do people need time to grow and change at a basic level? Of course, and there will never be any shortage of people stepping up to the plate.

But it is also important for those of us who can to press for better conversations about race.  I think one of my favorite moments on television was when Carmen was on CNN and decided she wanted to change the conversation.  It didn’t go over well.  She was cut from most of the remaining segment.  But she was able to get up on national television and say that our focus (at that time, on Jesse Jackson’s use of the word nigger to describe Obama) was misdirected.  She was able to beam that idea into millions of households across America – and even though she didn’t get to say much else, the core idea was there – we can have a different kind of conversation.

And some of us need to conserve some strength to step up in those moments.