Newly minted AG Eric Holder, in a speech that must have had his boss banging his head against a wall in the White House residence, declared:
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.” He went on to say, “Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”
Oh, don’t “we?”
I was always under the impression that talk was cheap. Having a black president and a black attorney general, I would have thought, counts a good deal more than talking. To quote another cliche: Actions speak louder than words.
I would concede the notion that there is a certain, shall we say, tentativeness when it comes to discussing deeper issues of prejudice. However, I am moved to ask:
Whose fault is that?
I mean, what should we discuss? Racial epithets that whites can only refer to as “the N word” whereas blacks use the term routinely in rap songs? The word “ņìggárdlÿ,” the utterance of which in a private staff meeting resulted in a mayoral aide in Washington, D.C. being forced to resign? What about off-hand jokes by radio personalities that wind up getting them fired from their gig no matter how much they endeavor to apologize for it? How about rioters in LA who express their dissatisfaction with what they see as racism by smashing into local electronics stores and stealing televisions and air conditioners? How about everyone from the ubiquitous Al Sharpton–as big a racist as there ever was–to the National Association of Black Journalists (were there an Association of White Journalists, such an entity would be declared racist by its very existence) declaring that the only possible interpretation of a NY Post cartoon was one that had racist overtones?
The fact is that black leaders, black activists, black organizations, have made it clear that any slight, real or imagined, is cause for condemnation, retaliation, and media pillorying of the highest order. Under the current atmosphere, who would WANT to discuss racism? Well…Barack Obama did, back when he gave that superb speech about Rev. Wright. I don’t recall whites rioting over it. I don’t recall whites going on TV in droves and screaming for censure. My recollection is that it was a major turning point for white voters to assess Eric Holder’s future boss and deciding that they liked what they saw.
If you touch a hot stove, get burned, and say, “Whoa, I’m not touching that stove again,” is that an act of cowardice? Or is that just a reasoned response to an atmosphere created by many members of the very audience that Holder would presumably claim as his constituency? And by the way, not for nothing, but when did an attorney general become an “average American?”
PAD
• 
Well put PAD.
“From all appearances, white men automatically associate Asian women with sexual submissivness availability. But that’s not something anyone talks about, really, is it?”
Sorry,A.T., I associate Asian women with the same things as Black women, white women, Jewish women, and all other ethnicities I have or have not dated, and if you ever meet my wife, you’ll find submissive has got nothing to do with it.
Curiously, I’m perfectly satisfied to just be an American. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.
You know why? Because you’re allowed to be one without having to constantly and perpetually prove yourself.
People who have everything stripped from them tend to cling that much more tightly to what little they have left. If all they have is their cultural identity, they’re going to grab onto it with both hands. When you’re already in a sufficiently comfortable position, you don’t need those things as much, and can easily let go of them.
Ummm…. Wow. Everyone’s going to town throwing blame back and forth for the racism discussion.
Me? I think EVERYONE’S to blame on some level. From people who screech racism to those that are overly politically correct, and from those that use a racist term for themselves while excluding anyone else from using them… And all inbetween.
It all contributes to this endless contention between people regarding race. Each and every person has to look at themself and ask what they’re doing that might be adding to the problem. And that answer is usually as simple as not treating other people as just other people, but differently.
But then again, I’ve got Asperger’s Syndrome and don’t think the way most people do. Maybe I’m wrong, but as long as everyone sees themselves as belonging to categories, there’s gonna be some level of racism and discrimination, and that’s no good for society in the long term.
You know why? Because you’re allowed to be one without having to constantly and perpetually prove yourself. People who have everything stripped from them tend to cling that much more tightly to what little they have left.
And being Jewish, I wouldn’t know anything about that?
I think Jews have a pretty clear sense of what it is to have everything stripped from them. Oddly, I don’t see a lot of Jews referring to themselves as Jewish-Americans.
Weird.
PAD
People who have everything stripped from them tend to cling that much more tightly to what little they have left. If all they have is their cultural identity, they’re going to grab onto it with both hands. When you’re already in a sufficiently comfortable position, you don’t need those things as much, and can easily let go of them.
A reasonable statement except that an awful lot of the people who use race as a cudgel to strike out at others are hardly in the desperate situation you describe.
Indeed, it’s been an interesting observation that some of the most irrational radical/reactionary individuals are those who have had more than their fair share of comfort. Many of the suicide bombers came form educated backgrounds, putting them in the top 5% of the world’s population.
Certainly, nobody who is in college should dare insult the 99% of the world who will never get that opportunity by pretending that they have had everything stripped from them. But we are all products of the lives we lead. Realistically, it’s almost obscene for an American to think they suffer much from racism when in many parts of the world ethnicity is used for institutional oppression and even extermination. Then again, the fact that someone somewhere suffers more than you do doesn’t really lessen the pain that you feel for whatever harm comes your way.
Racism sucks!!!
PAD,
It would seem to me that Holder was right about needing to discuss this more openly, but we need to do it without the anger that perhaps his ‘coward’ comment has provoked. As a black man, I’m willing to talk to anyone who desires a degree of mutual understanding. Obviously, racism has affected the black community in ways that aren’t gonna go away overnight, and that fear has undoubtably led to false accusations. To re-purpose your stove metaphor, there are a whole lot of black people with burn marks on their hands. The trick is that this can’t be done by groups, only one-on-one so you actually know where the person is coming from and do away with all the generalities that got us here in the first place. For instance, I hate the use of ‘the n-word’ in casual conversation and music, have never understood rioting under any circumstance, and while I thought Imus was an a-hole I didn’t neccessarily think (or care) that he should be fired. See, we’re not that far apart at all on this stuff.
Look, first of all I want to address the Post cartoon. No matter what the original intent of the artist was, it’s no shocker that someone would see it as being racist. I mean, c’mon, making parallels between chimps and a black man…
Yes, if that had been clear from the cartoon it would have been appalling. The whole objection here, though, is that people are projecting racism into topics that weren’t obviously racist at all. There was a comic strip a while back– I think it was Dilbert– where one character was evaluating another’s written product. Trying to recall from memory: “You know how they say an infinite number of monkeys sitting at typewriters would eventually generate Hamlet?” “Yeah?” “This? Ten monkeys, five minutes.” How is this cartoon a different joke? Is it racism-free when it involves Catbert and an intern, but racist when applied to some legislative aide during an administration led by a black man? Remember, the comment was that the primate had written the stimulus bill, and when was the last time you remember a President of the United States drafting legislation? Me either. As the cartoonist himself pointed out, if any one person were to be identified as the author of the stimulus package, it’d be Nancy Pelosi.
Frankly, most of the time when members of Congress are being compared to monkeys, it’s the monkeys have the most cause to be indignant.
People who have everything stripped from them tend to cling that much more tightly to what little they have left.
Minority citizens of the United States have had everything stripped from them? Really? I hadn’t realized that Brooklyn had collapsed into anarchy. I had some weird idea that conditions for women and racial minorities in this country had gotten markedly better over the past half century or so.
First, I urge everyone to listen to the song “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” from AVENUE Q. Funny *and* appropriate.
Second, there’s so much sensitivity over race that it largely makes any meaningful discussion nigh-impossible. If you say anything negative about any member of any race, you may be labeled a racist — and you’ll then spend your time defending yourself against charges of racism rather than whatever you were discussing. (On this site that’s been avoided somewhat.)
Third, I disagree very strongly with Holder. There is still racism in America, and there will always be racism in America, but we’ve made great strides forward (not the least of which is our first African-American president). Many stereotypes have been broken down, many courts have worked hard against discrimination, and I think progress is made each day.
Fourth, for the idea that Asian women are portrayed as submissive… take a look at ex-pørņ star Asia Carrera. Asian (heck, it’s in her pørņ name) and also a member of Mensa, a classical pianist, and the creator and moderator of her own website (made years before anyone could just toss one together). Plus if you look at her adult films, she doesn’t play a meek or submissive role in them (except for a few early s&m ones).
Finally, as the song in paragraph 1 mentions, racism has never been exclusively white. I recall a DOONESBURY cartoon a few years back where a college was wondering what happened to integration with blacks-only fraternities, blacks-only organizations — and was then told that the black college organizations were now demanding separate drinking fountains. Maybe there’d be less racism is members of certain ethnicities didn’t tend to congregate exclusively with each other so often.
@PAD: “If you want to find me some rap songs that use that language that were written by anyone other than black rappers, be my guest. But I doubt you’ll succeed.”
You doubted it, but I succeeded anyway. =D
Try listening to stuff by Noriega, Big Pun, Cuban Link, or any of the other Latino New York rappers.
The one socially redeeming aspect of mainstream rap in the new millennium is that it suddenly became okay for Latinos to refer to themselves as “ņìggáš”. They took the word from its derogatory roots and solidified it as a label for a street mentality/attitude. Still, white rappers are not allowed to use it, but in terms of robbing the word of its power, we have a long way to go.
I think what Holder is talking about (and if he is, I agree) is that too often we try to pretend we’re colorblind. We like to overlook the impact that the visual difference between people has.
I’ve heard people say “I don’t see a black man and a white man standing there, I just see two human beings.” Bull**** to that, I say. Anyone can see the difference: their skin is colored differently. Their noses are different, the texture of their skin is different, etc. It’s the same thing as seeing a fat man and a thin man, or a tall woman and a short one. I’ve heard Jewish people talk about other people looking or not looking Jewish. We can’t pretend we don’t see these difference- they’re right there in front of us.
The dangerous part about not admitting that we can see these differences is that we don’t admit the bias that comes with it.
I also agree with PAD in that we don’t talk about these differences because the PC people nail you to the wall for talking about them. It’s a mistake (the silence), I feel. We should discuss the impact a person’s visual appearance has: because becoming aware of it is the only way to avoid the bias it brings.
@JamesLynch:
I’m not disagreeing with you in anyway about the Doonesbury cartoon, but I thought I would shed some light on the behavior in question (ethnic congregating).
Most of the time it occurs because the minority people (used here to mean “less than the majory”) feel shunned by the majority, usually out of a sense of inferiority (but not many will admit the inferior feelings). Example: a very close friend of mine is a shy Asian. We recently began arguing over which bars we were going to hang out in: he wanted to hang out in areas more populated by Asians, and I wanted to go to “whiter” areas. I usually join him in the Asian places, but he stopped joining me at the white places, and I finally had to call him out on it- I asked if he was being racist. He explained, that as a shy Asian, he was almost always rejected by the women at the white bars. Asian women were more receptive to his quiet mannerisms. He had nothing against white women- he was just feeling really bad about himself for getting turned down so frequently.
The moral: just because minority people collect together does not mean they are trying to keep people from the majority out.
“My point, however, was that too many representatives of the black community have made it extremely difficult to discuss racism without being accused of being a racist.”
You know, you could just as easily say that many representatives of the Jewish community (such as B’nai Brith or the ADL) have made it extremely difficult to discuss Israels treatment of the Palestinians without being accused of anti-semitism.
You know, you could just as easily say that many representatives of the Jewish community (such as B’nai Brith or the ADL) have made it extremely difficult to discuss Israels treatment of the Palestinians without being accused of anti-semitism.
You could. You’d be wrong, though. Israel has been hammered in the media and the blogosphere for its response to rocket attacks. Israel’s critics clearly feel free to speak their minds.
It used to be there were three things that you never discussed at dinner, we now have the four whipping boys of internet debate; politics, religion, race and sexuality. Again and again we haul them out, give them a dámņ good kicking and then put them down again, with – I suspect – very little learnt and few opinions changed.
I really loathe the “playing the race card” phrase. It’s such a weaselly way of accusing someone of something while actually doing the exact same thing yourself.
Do white people pounce on any instance of racism by non-whites? Probably some do, to some extent. Of those, there’s probably a percentage thinking “see how you like getting picked up for every innocent slip of the tongue you make”!
For the record, my “Oh FFS” response to A.T. was definitely aimed at what she posted and not related to her “Being an Asian female” introduction. (BTW, was that context setting, establishing credentials, or consciously/sub-consciously setting up any detractors to take a race card hit? Who knows, and indeed, who cares? There’s only so much marrow to be sucked from chewing and chewing away at every nuance of every utterance!)
Is there more focus on Black vs White racism than Asian/Hispanic/Jewish/Martian vs White racism? Probably. Is that good or bad? Certainly more bad than good I feel. Why is it the case? My gut feel would be that historically the Black struggle has thrown up more memorable and visible instances that shape the way people view the topic – Martin Luther King, Selma, Watts – that’s what got into the history books and into the mindset of the nation.
Racism is there every time anyone says, or thinks, or acts based on the premise that “(colour) people are (noun)” or that “(colour) people (verb)”. Simple as that, the minute we identify a group solely on race, we are being racist. And everyone does it to some extent or another, because that is how our minds work, by grouping and labelling for convenience’ sake. And because we always end up seeing the world as “us and them”, whatever criteria we use to populate those two groups. Good or bad, it’s what we do, and short of drastically changing human nature I don’t see us stopping any time soon.
Being a white, straight male I don’t know what it’s like to be female, gay, or black, or asian,or whatever. But that’s down to dumb luck, it’s not some special secret advantage that I schemed and lied for, so why do some people seem to see it that way? I can empathise, I can even sympathise in situations where sympathy is not synonymous with condescension, but I do get a wee bit ticked off with those who think I don’t care ‘enough’ about whatever oppressed minority they represent.
Which brings me – finally – to this point. It seems to me that a lot of people are so hooked on zero tolerance for racism that they equate every instance of racism with baby eating and genocide.
Case in point, “it’s the little things, like a Hispanic or Asian person being asked how they know English so well, that kind of show the enormity of how large scale this issue is”
Sorry, “No”. It’s the sense of outrage people are expected to feel over “the little things” that saps the will to deal with the bigger things. If someone’s feelings are hurt because some white person is an idiot, I can sympathise, but it’s not on a scale with the racial discrimination that has slowly been eradicated over the last 50 years. (There’s actually a part of me that thinks people get so worked up over (I’m sorry!) the diddlyshit stuff precisely because all the big dragons are dead or dying!)
Cheers!
You could. You’d be wrong, though. Israel has been hammered in the media and the blogosphere for its response to rocket attacks. Israel’s critics clearly feel free to speak their minds.
I’d put that down to the fact that anti-semitism as a label doesn’t have the stopping power that it once had. That doesn’t stop the critics from being labelled as such.
Even the Jerusalem Post said last week “criticizing Israel is not [b]necessarily[/b] anti-Semitic” though they quickly followed it up with a series of caveats.
What? No liveblogging the state-of-the-union? Aw.
All the comments about Fox News at the beginning of this post are somewhat comical, since Brit Hume and Juan Williams had this exact discussion on the Sunday morning news program this week. Extremists on both sides of this issue make it next to impossible to talk about.
For that matter, most of our political discourse has become this way. Don’t like Bush? You are unpatriotic. Don’t like Obama? You are racist. Don’t like Bill Clinton? You are a sex-obsessed right-wing hack.
The 24-hour media crossfire mentality, aided by the Rove/Gingrich/Clinton/Emanuel divide and conquer electoral strategies, have served us poorly. How much bipartisanship can you get when each side considers the other the devil’s own?
I really loathe the “playing the race card” phrase. It’s such a weaselly way of accusing someone of something while actually doing the exact same thing yourself.
I’ll be happy to help retire it but what substitute could we use to describe someone who falsely uses the charge of racism to shut down any attempt at dissent from their point of view?
Racism is there every time anyone says, or thinks, or acts based on the premise that “(colour) people are (noun)” or that “(colour) people (verb)”. Simple as that, the minute we identify a group solely on race, we are being racist. And everyone does it to some extent or another, because that is how our minds work, by grouping and labelling for convenience’ sake.
I agree, though it isn’t necessarily race that is the important category for everyone. I’ve known people who didn’t give a rat’s patootie about color, as long as the money was green.
(There’s actually a part of me that thinks people get so worked up over (I’m sorry!) the diddlyshit stuff precisely because all the big dragons are dead or dying!)
Words of wisdom from across the pond.
Don’t like Bush? You are unpatriotic.
No no, it’s “don’t pay taxes? You’re unpatriotic!” Unless you’re up for a cabinet post, then it’s just an honest mistake. (Maybe we could get the budget balanced if we audited every member of congress. But the result might be a lot of them getting kicked out and dámņ, what a great loss that would be.)
And being Jewish, I wouldn’t know anything about that?
I think Jews have a pretty clear sense of what it is to have everything stripped from them. Oddly, I don’t see a lot of Jews referring to themselves as Jewish-Americans.
And yet you do self-identify as “Jewish”. You acknowledge your membership in a culture defined by ancestry.
What term would you suggest for those whose ancestry traces back to people from the African continent who were forcibly transported to America, and whose culture was shaped by the peculiar institution of slavery? If you don’t think much of the term African-American, then what works for you?
Please excuse my HTML fail on the previous comment. The first two lines (not just the first) should be italicized, as they are Peter’s words, not mine.
He explained, that as a shy Asian, he was almost always rejected by the women at the white bars. Asian women were more receptive to his quiet mannerisms.
I’m sorry he thought that, because certainly *I* would have been more attracted to a shy guy of any ethnic group. Maybe women who go to “white bars” (gosh, that sounds odd) just aren’t looking for shy men. Frankly, as a shy woman, I found science fiction conventions much more preferable. 🙂
Frankly, as a shy woman, I found science fiction conventions much more preferable. 🙂
And as a woman at a Sci-Fi con you’d have a veritable pick of the litter.
I’ve never understand people who use the term African-American when they’re describing someone, or pointing out anyone who has brown/dark skin. The term African-American always came off as a very presumptuous one to me. Just because someone has brown/dark skin why do we need to tag American on them?
If, for example, someone saw a picture of comedian Lenny Henry, would it be correct to call him African-American? Yes, he has brown/dark skin and his ancestors are probably from Africa (I don’t know that off-hand) but the man was born and lives in England.
Or how about former NFL kicker Gary Anderson? He’s Caucasian, but he was born and grew up in Africa. If we are to properly describe him with a term, wouldn’t he, a man born in Africa and then moved/lives in America be correctly called African-American?
Richard–
I personally use the term “black” as a physical descriptive, and “African-American” to describe the culture that arose from American slavery. People describing Lenny Henry as African-American are not thinking things all the way through.
“First, I urge everyone to listen to the song “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” from AVENUE Q. Funny *and* appropriate.”
Yes! I was just about to bring up that song, but you beat me to it. It really should be our national anthem.
While I agree with your point, I must point out that the LA riots may have started in a race related incident, but the majority of crimes were NOT committed by blacks.
That is a media myth. Anyone who chooses to blast me for this statement please check facts before doing so.
Indeed, it’s been an interesting observation that some of the most irrational radical/reactionary individuals are those who have had more than their fair share of comfort.
And Al Sharpton would be a perfect example of that, imo.
And as a woman at a Sci-Fi con you’d have a veritable pick of the litter.
Which still isn’t saying much. 😉
And yet you do self-identify as “Jewish”. You acknowledge your membership in a culture defined by ancestry.
But Judaism is somewhat unique in this regard, as it is both a religion and a ‘race’. This isn’t the case with other religions. Muslims are Arab, Persian, etc. Christians come from everywhere, and so on.
Yet, PAD’s point remains: He is Jewish-American, but he doesn’t feel the need to qualify every statement about his racial background with that fact.
Stop. No, really, stop. Whenever you try to talk about race you come across as a complete imbecile because nothing you have to say rises much above the level of “Well, THEY call each other…”
My take on the “Well, THEY use the word” space on the I’m Not Racist Bingo Card goes something like this:
I was given the nickname “Pouncer” by a certain circle of friends after an incident in a hotel room involving a bottle of wine and a rock guitarist of some repute. Those who were present at the incident are welcome to call me Pouncer. Certain close friends who are privy to the details of the incident might also get a pass. Complete outsiders, however, do not call me Pouncer unless they really want to piss me off.
Similarly, I don’t mind if my best friend teasingly calls me a bìŧçh, but I in fact DO mind if some guy I didn’t want to go out on a date with calls me a bìŧçh. (Which happened quite recently, in fact.)
It’s all about context, people. Words do not exist in a vacuum.
What term would you suggest for those whose ancestry traces back to people from the African continent who were forcibly transported to America, and whose culture was shaped by the peculiar institution of slavery? If you don’t think much of the term African-American, then what works for you?
Well, “person” seems adequate. If you want to give it a national tinge, how about “American?” It’s patriotic. It’s succinct. We fought a revolution in order to secure the term. And it’s a hëll of a lot more accurate than “African-American” since on average their last, I dunno, ten generations of ancestors were born in America.
Or is there something inherently so wrong with being simply an American that the only way we can feel good about it is to attach another country as a prefix?
PAD
My take on the “Well, THEY use the word” space on the I’m Not Racist Bingo Card goes something like this:
My take is this; I remember listening to Coretta Scott king as a kid, hearing her talk about how her kids wanted to go to some amusement park (in my dimming memory it was called Funland. does that ring a bell for anyone?) and being told they couldn’t go. This was gobsmacking to me. A kid not allowed to go to an amusement park? In the simple mind equations that you have as a child this seemed a way greater atrocity than anything else I’d heard on the TV. At some point the N word got mentioned and one of my parents grimly and in no uncertain terms explained to me that this was a low class word to be used only by people who wanted to be low class. The kind of people who would keep a kid from going to an amusement park.
To this day that is what goes through my mind when I hear it. When I hear Black kids use the word it doesn’t make me think “Well, THEY get to use it so I can too.” I just think that it’s too bad nobody told them a good reason not to use it.
Then again, Lenny Bruce argued that if we keep using the words they lose their power. I don’t know though.
1Posted by Bill Mulligan at February 25, 2009 09:28 AM
[i]I’ll be happy to help retire it but what substitute could we use to describe someone who falsely uses the charge of racism to shut down any attempt at dissent from their point of view?[/i]
Liberal? 😛
Cheers!
Peter, you don’t seem to be grasping the essence of my question.
Put it this way–why do you identify yourself as “Jewish” in addition to being a “person”? Answer me that question and I’ll see if I can explain myself from there.
“And as a woman at a Sci-Fi con you’d have a veritable pick of the litter.
Which still isn’t saying much. 😉
“
The odds are good….but the goods are ODD
I identify myself as Jewish if it’s relevant, because I happen to BE Jewish. It’s empirically indisputable. I’m Jewish because my mother is Jewish, and that’s pretty much that. When it comes to my nationality, however, I identify myself as an American. Not a Jewish American. Not an Israeli-American or an Asian American or even a Palestinian American (since my mother was born in the continent of Asia in Palestine before it became Israel.) Not a German American (since my father was born in Germany). Just a plain old American.
The usual saw I get is that people feel a need to add county hyphenates in front of their names in order to celebrate diversity.
Because segregating people along national and racial lines has traditionally worked so well for us.
Howzabout we work on celebrating our unity for a while, is all I’m saying.
PAD
Peter,
I’m a huge fan from your Hulk & Aquaman run, not some hater. Just wanted to clear the air first.
But, you’re completely wrong on this.
Eric Holder wasn’t wrong and you’re accusation of how the non-whites emotional reaction in regards to discussion of racial problems in America only strengthen his argument.
Yeah, us non-whites do tend to get testy about racial discrimination, because we live with it all our lives, and we do get angry when we see that the country we love so much is so reluctant to deal with the matter head-on. So what if some individuals get upset or downright angry when broached with the matter? Does that mean that all discussion should be stopped? It sounds a bit whiny: “My point, however, was that too many representatives of the black community have made it extremely difficult to discuss racism without being accused of being a racist.” This is when the courage part comes in. We all need to plow through the anger, idiocy and yes, down right bigotry from all sides to DISCUSS the issues instead retreating and hiding simply because some people starts to yell and scream “racist”.
And blaming this on the non-whites sounds racist as well. There is enough blame to go around for everyone.
And as for being a hyphenate American, sorry but that’s not on us non-whiteys, but on American society on whole. I was born in Seoul, South Korea and came to the U.S. when I was 7-years old. I’m proud of my Korean heritage, but I don’t consider myself a Korean-American or Asian-American, but simply American. It is others who label me as such. Go to the DMV or look at any other forms or commercial surveys. It is the government, society and corporate America that uses the label.
Go talk to some non-white people you don’t know and ask them what would they prefer to be labeled as: simply American or hyphen-American. You’ll be surprised at the answers.
And Peter, btw, you call yourself simply American, but you have the luxury to do so. You’re White. No one who doesn’t know you, would label you as Jewish unless you told them so. Heck, I didn’t know you were Jewish for more than 15 years until a friend told me about your fracas with John Byrnes and your Jewish identity came up. And I don’t see too many people walking around calling themselves Roman Catholic-Americans, Baptist-Americans, Lutheran-Americans, Buddhist-Americans, etc…
Few other things:
1) Al Sharpton is a blowhard, an idiot and a bigot. No surprise there.
2) That cartoon about the shot Chimp and stimulus bill: Not racist. I NEVER associated the remark to Obama. Why? Because I knew that Obama and the White House staff DID NOT write the bill. Heck, Obama and his staff took major flacks for NOT writing the bill in the first place. I don’t think the cartoonist ever intended to mean that.
3) Yes, some in the black community and the media did blow this out of proportion. But the black community is also angry with all the REAL events of discrimination that go unnoticed, ignored and never dealt with. No excuse, but simply saying… And the media? They just want to juice the ratings and sell more newspaper.
6) Simply because Obama was elected president doesn’t mean that ALL racial strife and discrimination magically vanished. It proves that we have come a long way. It also prove that if the country is in enough dire strait (world-wide economic meltdown, two wars with no end in sight, etc…), people will be jolted out of their comfort zone and think outside the box and elect a man most qualified to lead despite his skin color or the sound of his name. Obama’s election should cause for frank and honest discussion on racial problems in America, not to simply shrug our shoulders and say “Oh, well… That mess is done and over with.” and turn around and duck our heads back in the sand.
5) Peter, I love you man… you’re a great writer and I see pretty much eye-to-eye on most socio-political matters, but you came off like Clint’s character in GRAND TORINO: a cranky old white man complaining about why those dámņ coloreds won’t grow-up and start behaving like white people.
Seriously, I never thought I lived to see the day when you sound just like John Byrnes. This is really depressing.
Peter,
I’m a huge fan from your Hulk & Aquaman run, not some hater. Just wanted to clear the air first.
But, you’re completely wrong on this.
Eric Holder wasn’t wrong and you’re accusation of how the non-whites emotional reaction in regards to discussion of racial problems in America only strengthen his argument.
Yeah, us non-whites do tend to get testy about racial discrimination, because we live with it all our lives, and we do get angry when we see that the country we love so much is so reluctant to deal with the matter head-on. So what if some individuals get upset or downright angry when broached with the matter? Does that mean that all discussion should be stopped? It sounds a bit whiny: “My point, however, was that too many representatives of the black community have made it extremely difficult to discuss racism without being accused of being a racist.” This is when the courage part comes in. We all need to plow through the anger, idiocy and yes, down right bigotry from all sides to DISCUSS the issues instead retreating and hiding simply because some people starts to yell and scream “racist”.
And blaming this on the non-whites sounds racist as well. There is enough blame to go around for everyone.
And as for being a hyphenate American, sorry but that’s not on us non-whiteys, but on American society on whole. I was born in Seoul, South Korea and came to the U.S. when I was 7-years old. I’m proud of my Korean heritage, but I don’t consider myself a Korean-American or Asian-American, but simply American. It is others who label me as such. Go to the DMV or look at any other forms or commercial surveys. It is the government, society and corporate America that uses the label.
Go talk to some non-white people you don’t know and ask them what would they prefer to be labeled as: simply American or hyphen-American. You’ll be surprised at the answers.
And Peter, btw, you call yourself simply American, but you have the luxury to do so. You’re White. No one who doesn’t know you, would label you as Jewish unless you told them so. Heck, I didn’t know you were Jewish for more than 15 years until a friend told me about your fracas with John Byrnes and your Jewish identity came up. And I don’t see too many people walking around calling themselves Roman Catholic-Americans, Baptist-Americans, Lutheran-Americans, Buddhist-Americans, etc…
Few other things:
1) Al Sharpton is a blowhard, an idiot and a bigot. No surprise there.
2) That cartoon about the shot Chimp and stimulus bill: Not racist. I NEVER associated the remark to Obama. Why? Because I knew that Obama and the White House staff DID NOT write the bill. Heck, Obama and his staff took major flacks for NOT writing the bill in the first place. I don’t think the cartoonist ever intended to mean that.
3) Yes, some in the black community and the media did blow this out of proportion. But the black community is also angry with all the REAL events of discrimination that go unnoticed, ignored and never dealt with. No excuse, but simply saying… And the media? They just want to juice the ratings and sell more newspaper.
6) Simply because Obama was elected president doesn’t mean that ALL racial strife and discrimination magically vanished. It proves that we have come a long way. It also prove that if the country is in enough dire strait (world-wide economic meltdown, two wars with no end in sight, etc…), people will be jolted out of their comfort zone and think outside the box and elect a man most qualified to lead despite his skin color or the sound of his name. Obama’s election should cause for frank and honest discussion on racial problems in America, not to simply shrug our shoulders and say “Oh, well… That mess is done and over with.” and turn around and duck our heads back in the sand.
5) Peter, I love you man… you’re a great writer and I see pretty much eye-to-eye on most socio-political matters, but you came off like Clint’s character in GRAND TORINO: a cranky old white man complaining about why those dámņ coloreds won’t grow-up and start behaving like white people.
Seriously, I never thought I lived to see the day when you sound just like John Byrnes. This is really depressing.
Oh, dámņ! Sorry to all for the double post! I-I just never posted here before and I goofed… Ðámņ you, Red Kryptonite! Ðámņ you to hëll!
It’s semantics.
People have multiple identities. They are fluid. Race, nationality, religion, country, region, sexual orientation, egender, economical status, hobbies. Sometimes a person might feel that one of or two of the identies are significant and he self-identifies using that identity. He might use a hyphen if he wishes to self-identify with two identities and stress the connection to both, or he might not, and still self-identify himself with more than one identity. Sometimes two identities are strongly connnected. Other identities might become less important and passive, while in other cases we find people working hard to hide or reduce the significance of a certain identity.
Sometimes ideologies and organizations are formed that further one identity.
Historically there were times and places where the state went to great effort to segregate and seperate people along certain identity lines, and there were places where the state went to great effort to try to erase particular identities. The US did both. On the one hand it is very diverse. On the other, with diversity questions of identity become more difficult, so there was a pressure to assimilate. At its ideal the US is supposed to be able to enjoy both worlds, be united while celebrating diversity.
In this time period a lot of people are looking for identities, ethnic, religious or otherwise (Goth for example). It is also a time where it is perceived unacceptable for society to try to supress peopl’es particular identities if they wish to pursue them. So multiplicity of identities is more tolerated than in the past.
Specifically, from a sociological or an anthroplogical point of view African-American is a very real identity, with it’s own historical and cultural markings. It is as real as being Jewish or Muslim or Irish or Gay. The decision whether it should matter or not is an individual and political decision. The same is true of Jews. For one it might be a useless appendix, something that doesn’t really matter, for another it might have great significance.
It seems that identities become more important to people if there are external forces, pressures, threats that make them matter. Proposition 8 caused people to rally around their sexual identity. 9.11 caused the American identity to become more important for a while, while before it was taken for granted. The failure of Arab nationalism in the middle east as well as problems of immigrants in other places has pushed many people to focus more on their Muslim identity.
As a principal there is no reason to begrudge people there personal identities unless it affects their interaction with others.
Jae Yu covered most of what I wanted to say, but it should be pointed out that black people don’t use ‘African-American’ to describe our nationality, only our ethnic background WHEN ASKED. If you ask many others the same question, many will simply answer ‘Italian’ or ‘Irish’ or whatever without even acknowledging the American part.
Furthermore, black people (generally) don’t try to separate ourselves, we’ve been treated differently since we got here. I’ll be the first to admit that things are much better now, which is why we tend to get upset when the old ways pop back up.
“Or is there something inherently so wrong with being simply an American that the only way we can feel good about it is to attach another country as a prefix?”
Dude. Wealthy white males don’t get to tell black people what they should want to be called.
Dude. Wealthy white males don’t get to tell black people what they should want to be called.
Dude. You’ve made two posts, and both were basically slaps across the face to PAD.
Are you done yet?
Btw, being wealth, being white, and being male should have nothing to do with it.
Or would you be ok with a poor Asian female telling black people what they should be called?
No? I didn’t think so.
Conspiracy theorists will abide in any society- witeness that blowhard Santenelli on the King of all Conspiricists G Gordon Liddy- where Gibbs said “I don’t know where Santelli lives…”
To which GGL says “That’s a veiled threat, he knows where you live”…what? Apparently to these wingnuts you can know something by NOT knowing something- that’s Preston-Logan Economics right there and sums up the last 8 years.
“Dude. Wealthy white males don’t get to tell black people what they should want to be called”
nobody gets to tell anybody what they should want to be called.
I agree that a person/group should be able to label themselves. As an example (also politically charged), the pro-life/pro-choice labels. It drives me crazy to hear ‘pro-death’ and ‘anti-choice’ from the opposition.
That said, as an American, I get annoyed by the self-segregation when I hear ‘African-American’ or ‘Asian-American’. It goes against the grain since one of the ideals we were founded on was to be a melting pot. Maybe in practice it hasn’t worked out very well, but that’s the chafing that happens between ideals and reality.
The unted states was not founded to be a melting pot, that idea only came later. African-american and Asian-American are no more self-segregating than the words “I” and “individual.” We (humans, not just americans) are not borg, we don’t all have to be the same. The question is how can we be different together. Emphasizing the differences too much or trying to force a unity are both recepies for problems. In practice the history of the US has involved tension between groups in the past as well as the present, especially immigrants and natives. But somehow it did work out. Present times present new wrinkles, but the problems are essentially the same.
It’s amazing the power that labels we’re given hold over us. Especially the negative ones, often given at some distance by some f***wit who you wouldn’t trust to predict the current weather when standing outside.
But it’s so – I’ve had a few labels put on me in my life that still writhe in my gut when I think on them, altho it’s been ….wow, 15 years sence I last heard any of them.
The first was ‘puke-face”. this came about because, as a child, I had various aliments that left me feeling ill and spending 2-4 days a week mostly spent wretching and want to vomit. I could, and did, function well enough to got to school and be otherwise “normal”. Well, for a given value of “normal”
But, as the old saying goes – kids are cruel.
I heard “puke face” or some variation thereof almost daily until i graduated high school.
The ailment is long treated and gone, but there’s still a bit of bitter in me about it all.
the second came about in the summer of 1990, wich i spent in Montgomery Al working at a tire store with, to use a label, rednecks. I summer when i was sneered at by co-workers and even my uncle for being a, to use their label, a ņìggër lover.
and i spent most of that summer feeling heartsick and alone in the city of Dr. King.
And of course being a theatre major in college, there were constant innaccurate speculations about my sexuality by the kind of guys played by John Metuzack in college-based comedies.
All of which is to say I’ve labored under the assumptions of fools and seen that it shuts doors.
I’m fortunate enough, as I said, that I havn’t heard any of those things in a long, long time.
In the time sence I’ve had and have a lot of friends of varied ethnic backgrounds, genders, faiths, and sexual preferences. All of us know all the labels, used them in jokes or serious conversation. Even occasionally applied them to people who had earned our ire. “A little bit racist sometimes” indeed.
All that said (at length, I know, thanks for being patient) while anyone can wear, with pride, any label they choose, I do agree the best label is “Person”.
It’s amazing the power that labels we’re given hold over us. Especially the negative ones, often given at some distance by some f***wit who you wouldn’t trust to predict the current weather when standing outside.
But it’s so – I’ve had a few labels put on me in my life that still writhe in my gut when I think on them, altho it’s been ….wow, 15 years sence I last heard any of them.
The first was ‘puke-face”. this came about because, as a child, I had various aliments that left me feeling ill and spending 2-4 days a week mostly spent wretching and want to vomit. I could, and did, function well enough to got to school and be otherwise “normal”. Well, for a given value of “normal”
But, as the old saying goes – kids are cruel.
I heard “puke face” or some variation thereof almost daily until i graduated high school.
The ailment is long treated and gone, but there’s still a bit of bitter in me about it all.
the second came about in the summer of 1990, wich i spent in Montgomery Al working at a tire store with, to use a label, rednecks. I summer when i was sneered at by co-workers and even my uncle for being a, to use their label, a ņìggër lover.
and i spent most of that summer feeling heartsick and alone in the city of Dr. King.
And of course being a theatre major in college, there were constant innaccurate speculations about my sexuality by the kind of guys played by John Metuzack in college-based comedies.
All of which is to say I’ve labored under the assumptions of fools and seen that it shuts doors.
I’m fortunate enough, as I said, that I havn’t heard any of those things in a long, long time.
In the time sence I’ve had and have a lot of friends of varied ethnic backgrounds, genders, faiths, and sexual preferences. All of us know all the labels, used them in jokes or serious conversation. Even occasionally applied them to people who had earned our ire. “A little bit racist sometimes” indeed.
All that said (at length, I know, thanks for being patient) while anyone can wear, with pride, any label they choose, I do agree the best label is “Person”.