Category: race

Shared Sorrow, Shared Joy QUESTION

A very good (white male) person I know wrote me this:
The civil rights struggle in United States. Equality of all race, gender, creed, and sexual orientation is a very good thing, and something we as Americans can have pride in as “we” march towards progress. However, personally, I feel like I’m not allowed to take ownership (perhaps a poor choice of words, I’m looking for something closing to ‘being a party to’) in the achievements of accomplishments of black leaders because of my own skin color. I want to celebrate and claim this men and women as a part of me, because while we may not share the same shade or skin, we share a common humanity. However I feel uncomfortable that it may not be welcomed by some, or I don’t want to offend folks that feel that is an experience or achievements that are special to a certain segment of humanity.

And I wrote back quickly, somewhat in a hurry, before heading off to ANOTHER conference:

It immediately occurred to me that your question re: race could be an interesting conversation on the blog [isn’t that typical of me?], not mentioning you by name. But, my short answer is, Life’s unfair. You don’t get to celebrate as much with the victories because you didn’t get to share in the pain and the humiliation. That’s not meant mean-spiritedly, I hope you recognize.

That may have been a bit glib. But I was recently reminded of this quote:
“Oh, it is sad, very sad, that once more, for the umpteenth time, the old truth is confirmed: ‘What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.'” That was from Anne Frank’s diary in the spring of 1944. I was reminded of that again when I read about the specific grief by many people in South Korea over the killings at Virginia Tech. Why was that? Certainly, if the killer had been white, would all white people cringe with embarrassment? I suspect not. So if this is true, the specific joys can be shared only so much.

And I’m not even going to get into the ongoing stuff that still go on, such as allegations about higher auto loan rates for blacks and Hispanics, even accounting for differences in income.

Incidentally, someone sent me this link explaining a “psychological disorder”. Anyway, I don’t know that I have a question per se, or even a coherent thought, but I am soliciting your comments anyway.

You might also comment on this: I’ve long been of two minds about hate crime legislation. On one hand, there are people who do target folks because of their race or religion, and sexual orientation. As Rep. John Conyers put it, “These crimes constitute an assault not only on the victim but against our communities.”

On the other hand, I’m not insensitive to the notion that the law should be “blind to the personal traits of the victims”, even if it hasn’t always been so in the past, to the detriment of minorities.

Still, I’m leaning towards the former position because of a story I saw on ABC News regarding the growth of one particular hate group: the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, which by most accounts, was fading in the 1990s, has had a resurgence by targeting Hispanics, seemingly assuming that their victims are all here illegally, which was 1) untrue and 2) irrelevant when it comes to assault. There was a story of an American teenager of Mexican descent beaten. So I’m hoping that hate crime legislation can be used especially against groups that practice such vulgarities.
ROG

ROG

Here Now the News


One Fred G (for Generous) Hembeck passed this on to me: Rupert Murdock’s New York Post front page from yesterday. I don’t remember which of these many characters in Anna Nicole Land this Larry is, but the picture is worth posting anyway.
He (Fred, not Larry) may be featured in another post in the near future.
***
Meanwhile, I was watching ESPN last night when the crawl made mention of two stories:
Men exonerated in rape charge – oh, yeah, the Duke lacrosse team members.
Don Imus suspended by his network – oh, yeah, for dissing the Rutgers women’s basketball team.
Interesting how, in some way or another, race, gender, class and power all played into both “sports” stories.
***
I read that Google Earth is mapping the atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. Thought I’d look for it myself, but absentmindedly used Google Maps instead. I discovered something quite curious. There’s a Darfur, Minnesota 56022, about 130 miles southwest of St. Paul.
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However you feel about the war in Iraq – and I’ve made myself quite clear on this in the past – there’s something really unsettling about the Defense Dept. extending the tours of duty of US soldiers by 25%. It has me worried about what happens if/when another war breaks out; also, the “bait and switch” seems patently unfair to the soldiers and their families.

ROG

ROG

Roger (Finally) Answers Your Question, Greg

Sir:

I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I have a question about black people. As a foolish white person, I have noticed a certain comraderie that black people share even when they don’t know each other. This is something I have rarely seen among us whiteys. I wonder if you notice this too, and if you have any explanation why it’s a phenomenon. It’s very interesting.

You can ignore me if I’m just stereotyping and need to get my head out of my butt.

Greg

Sir? SIR? Really! We’ve exchanged music. I know I’m about two decades your senior, but still…

You my have heard of a term called “white skin privilege”. (I’d look up a reference but I don’t have Internet access – see below). Whether you do or don’t, and I’ll contend that there is something to it, the greeting you see, I suspect, is an acknowledgement of a people looking after their own. Beyond that, there was the fact that there was the common experience. When Nat Cole had his short-lived TV show in the mid-1950s, I will practically will guarantee that 90% of the black people were watching (and obviously, not enough of the white people); ditto with I Spy or other shows with black stars, when that was extremely rare.

You don’t see that many white people doing the head nod with unfamiliars because the white male system is still the dominant culture, even as it becomes less so, statistically, in this country. But it’s interesting that you ask about it these days, because I see it far less often than I used to, when I was in my teens and twenties. There was a sense of solidarity in the common struggle, not just for justice, but occasionally for survival. Maybe it’s because the racial dynamic has changed in the country. So I’m going to assume the correctness of the premise of your question, as far as it goes, Greg. But I don’t think it’s just a “black” thing. I think it’s an “other” thing.

I have seen the nod with south Asians who don’t know each other, but feel – I surmise, since I didn’t ask them – that shared experience of feeling somewhat like the outsider.

When I was going to college in the 1970s, all the long-haired hippie freaks gave the head nod. They surmised, probably correctly, early on, that the values and experiences of those other people were not dissimilar to their own. (Later, though, when hair was not such a sign of rebellion, that assumption went right out the window.)

I find that I get it with bicycle riders, an “us against the motorists” salute.

Find a room of one businesswoman and a dozen or more businessmen. Another businesswoman enters the room, and more often than not I’ve seen it. The look. The “I’m not alone here” look, the “you may have some idea what I’ve experienced” look.

I got on a bus this year with a bunch of teenage, mostly black kids getting out of school, who were, to be generous, rather boisterous. Immediately, a middle-aged white woman and I caught each other’s eye, and in fact, ended up sitting together in our little cocoon from youth. We were surely The Others in this case.
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I didn’t plan to stretch the question-answering for three days, but I’ve been having technical difficulties with my computer at home. I try to get on the Internet; it doesn’t work; I call Time Warner Cable and a technician puts me through all sorts of exercises with the computer, the end result of which being Internet connectivity. For about ten minutes. I did this exercise thrice on Tuesday night, and once on Wednesday night. A techie is coming to my house today. Between 12:30 and 2:30, smack dab in the middle of the day.
ROG

ROG

Torture: I’m Against It

Well, that does seem obvious, I suppose. But this winter, ABC News was doing their Basic Instincts series, and they broadcast a piece on The Science of Evil. They replicated the Milgram experiment:
“The Milgram experiment was a series of famous scientific studies of social psychology, intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant’s personal conscience.”

Then I discovered Ella Mazel. She is a…vintage woman who, in 1998, had put together a “treasury of quotes on the past, present, and future of the color line in America” called And don’t call me a racist!, which a colleague of mine had received at a conference, and had given me a copy. Ms. Mazel doesn’t sell the book, although she appreciates money for the postage.

Subsequently, she’s compiled Not in MY name!, a collection of quotes on the past, present, and future of the practice of torture. Even without photos, or specific descriptions of torture, I found it to be a disturbing read. This latter book is available only online.

Finally, I found a compelling read which matched my opinion as to Why I Stopped Watching “24”.

ROG

Walking Home, Minding My Own Business

I found the experience of being called for jury duty last week to be extremely affecting on me, despite the fact that I never even got to actually sit in the box. It forced me to think about a number of things. By the end of the week, all will be made clear. Maybe.

Part of it involves this story about my childhood, which I could have sworn I had told before. Maybe it’s that I THOUGHT about telling it more than once.

Anyway, so I don’t have to keep mentioning it throughout the story, all of the players in this tale, except for my father and me, are white.

As I’ve described previously, I lived in a predominately Slavic neighborhood in Binghamton, upstate New York, and there were only a handful of black kids in my school. Often, I would walk my friends home before going home myself. Often it included my friend Carol (not to be confused with my wife Carol).

One day, though, when I was 16, my classmates weren’t around for some reason, and I ended walking a girl named Peggy, who lived across the street from Carol, home. We weren’t great friends, but we went to the same elementary school, which was small, so we were friendly.

Just as I get to Peggy’s house, this guy from next door to Peggy’s house started yelling racial slurs at me, and quite possibly at us. He was under the mistaken impression that she and I were dating. Having been trained in the method,of Martin Luther King, Jr., I ignored him. I said nothing, and I did not look at him.

Suddenly, the guy, who has been getting closer and closer, attacks me. I’m not sure that I saw him coming. He was, it turned out, a 23-year-old Marine from Florida who was visiting his father. Don’t remember much except that my glasses flew off. I found them, and retreated to Peggy’s porch. By this time, Peggy’s mother, who must have heard the commotion, was on the porch in a shouting match with the Marine and his family.

Someone had called the police. I explained to the officer what happened; I presume the Marine gave his version, too. The policeman said that I could press charges if I wanted to.

I went home, talked with my folks, and decided to go downtown the next day. The judge, whose name I’ve forgotten, took my paperwork, but made it clear that he thought my actions were silly. He believed – perhaps from the police report – that it was just “some spat over a girl.”

I went home and I was livid. LIVID. I could use a half dozen exclamation marks to express my near rage at being dismissed in that way. So I wrote a letter, a long, angry, nasty letter to the judge, commenting on his lack of listening skills. It wasn’t “some spat over a girl”; this jerk attacked me, and him making light of it was not helpful. Having composed it, I did not feel compelled to mail it. And I didn’t.

Instead, my father hand-delivered my letter to the judge. Obviously, I didn’t ASK him to do it, and now I’ve a bit peeved with him, too.

The judge then called and asked to see me. I complied, and he apologized to me.

There was a trial, with that same judge on the bench. I testified, Peggy and, I think, her mother testified. I’m not sure because I didn’t hear it. They kept me out of the room, to see if our testimonies jibed; my father, who was in the courtroom, assured me that they did.

Then the Marine, his father, and I think his mother and/or his wife or girlfriend testified. This testimony I did hear, and the details were wildly inconsistent.

Anyway, I suppose you’d like to know the results of the trial. So would I. I never got word from the judge or his office as to the outcome. Since I don’t remember the name of the Marine, perhaps I never will. To this day, I appreciate the actions of Peggy and her mother, neither of whom I’ve seen in decades.

First time I ever voted, in 1971, the judge was up for re-election on my absentee ballot. I didn’t vote for him, though; I wrote in my father.

ROG
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