The Best of myblackfriendsays.com

Whaddup.

There was a time in my combo English and Social Studies class in high school where I was talking to my friend Reagan about life. She told me that if she ever put out a compilation CD, she would call it The Best of Reagan, instead of Reagan's Greatest Hits. That way, she could put the songs she liked the most, which wouldn't necessarily be the most popular ones. I always thought that was a great idea, and so I am going to use it now. I also reserve the right use it if I put out a compilation CD of all my favorite musical performances.

So without further ado, here is the best of myblackfriendsays.com, as chosen by me.


Disc 1
1. A black guy and a biker walk into a bar.

2. My take on an awesome poem by Daniel Beatty.

3. The word I made up.

4. Ah, the Swagger Wagon. You'll have to click in the post where it says minstrel show, if you want to know what we're all talking about. (Hint: It's something quite similar to a minstrel show.)

5. Why school funding will always be unequal.

6. An unarmed black guy you probably didn't hear about on the Nightly News. #handsupdontshoot

7. One of my favorite Music Mondays. Bonus points to the person who can tell me what it has to do with race and inequality.

8.What Nas and Newt Gingrich have in common.

9. You are excluded from chicken cutlet night.

10. Starburst yes vs. Starburst no.

11.How to stop being racist (for reals this time.)

Disc 2

1. Why you shouldn't expect compassion when dealing with your privilege.

2. More adverts like this, please.

3. Why calling things/people ethnic is unnecessary.

4. Playing with my money is like playing with my emotions.

5. My thoughts on that song that LL Cool J and Brad Paisley did. The link to hear the song is broken, but you can still read the lyrics. Hearing the actual song is really not that necessary. :P

6. Some responses to my most dedicated commenter, Anonymous.

7. Another awesome commercial.

8. Why hearing black is beautiful shouldn't scare you.

9. Taylor Swift's revenge: Part II

10. Why people don't want to vote for Mitt Romney

11.It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand.

12. And finally, where it all began...My first post.

Now, for an important announcement. I am finished writing new posts for myblackfriendsays.com. My time here has come to its natural end. To quote Marvin from Season 5 of Big Brother, "It's been real and it's been fun, but it a'int been real fun." ;)

To be honest, I have met some great people through this blog (both in real life and just on the computer). I'm really happy for the opportunity that I gave myself to think more critically about my own views on race and inequality. And I hope that you have gotten something out of this blog over the years. If you'd like to say somewhat in touch, you can like this blog on Facebook, otherwise this is where we say our goodbyes.

If I may quote one more person. Well, he's a monster...Murray from Sesame Street...

"PEACE!"

:D

I got assaulted by the police, and all I got was this big bag of money.

In our latest installment of Some Cops Behaving Badly we have the story of Dana Holmes, a white woman that was recently arrested for DUI just outside of Chicago. I will post the video, but it's 6 minutes long. For me, that is pushing it when it comes to attention span for videos on the internet. Here is a recap of the important parts: Three cops are there, and she is being patted down by one female officer. She lifts up her foot, the way someone might when being asked to show the bottom of their foot to someone else. All of a sudden, the cops grab her and throw her into a cell. They then proceed to strip her clothes off. She just lays there in the cell face down crying. Then a few minutes later they throw in a blanket for her to cover herself with.

Feel free to watch for yourself:



[ETA: here is a link to a shorter video that actually shows her clothes being removed.]

A couple things: In the police report, the officers claimed that she "kicked" one of them. Anyone with functioning eyes can see that is not what happened. To me, it looked like she was following instructions to show them her feet and then all of a sudden they got pissed and went cray. Also, they claimed they removed her clothes because they were performing a "strip search." I'm no cop, but I've watched plenty of cop shows. That is not how you do a strip search. For one thing, when you're searching someone with no clothes on you have them bend over so you can look up their butt to make sure they haven't hidden anything there. That didn't happen.

Why?

Because they weren't strip searching her, they were taking all her clothes off because they could, and she had clearly done something that they didn't like. They were trying to humiliate her and teach her a lesson. That lesson being: Don't F with the police.

I'm guessing she got the message.

This example shows us, that we live in a nation where regardless of race, color, creed or national origin--if you give cops attitude they all can (and some will,) make your life a living nightmare.

So let me tell you what is most likely going to happen next. First, I have to point out if this video didn't exist, absolutely nothing would happen. This would be a disturbing story that Dana Holmes told her friends and family, and that would be the end of it.

But since we have moving picture proof of the encounter, here's what's going to go down: Dana Holmes is going to sue the police department, and the officers involved are going to be put on paid administrative leave while they investigate. Ms. Holmes and the police are going to reach a settlement, where she receives a lump sum cash payment. It'll be anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 dollars, depending on how good her lawyer is. The cops may or may not be reprimanded, but most likely all the cops involved will be allowed to keep their jobs. On the off chance they do get fired, they will go to their police union and challenge their firing(s). Then they'll get re-hired once all the media attention dies down. Ms. Holmes might spend her money to buy a house, or she might blow it all on meth to deal with the PTSD she got from being treated so callously by the police. Since it's her money now, she is free to do with it what she wishes.

Here are just some of the problems I have with the likely outcome to this situation.

1) I am a bit uneasy with the idea that people that go through traumatizing things get money for it. Obviously, no one is going to turn down money. But it seems like if you were the recipient of a bunch of cash from a lawsuit like this, the money would seem like blood money. How would you enjoy it? It seems like whatever you bought with it would just be a constant reminder of your horrible ordeal.

2) Paying money as punishment for doing something wrong makes a little more sense when you are talking about suing corporations, because corporations are motivated by money. But what about when you are talking about the government? The government doesn't have a profit motive. I'm not sure what the government is supposed to be motivated by. If I had to guess, I would say something like the common good . How is it in the interest of the common good to pay one person a large sum of taxpayers' money, and let the so-called public servants that caused the money to be paid to continue to work and receive more of the taxpayers' money? It's not.

3) I am not necessarily opposed to the idea of any victim of police brutality getting money. But the problem is that when we just pay off victims, and do nothing to change the system that caused the incidents in the first place. We are just inviting more incidents to happen. A better outcome in this situation would be for Ms. Holmes to get her check (or not,) AND have all the police involved in this incident fired and banned from working in law enforcement at any point in the future. The PD where this happened could put out a strongly worded statement saying how those officers were wrong, and they have no tolerance for such behavior. They would show this by retraining their officers and continuing to fire cops that decided to engage in such behavior in the future.

If I can turn this into a follow up friday for a moment, I want to go back to the last time I wrote about an incident of some police behaving badly. Except this was an unarmed black man who got shot 10 times by a cop. Yeah, he died.

My white friend Paula (whose late father was a cop,) said this:

I can assure you that no one dislikes bad cops more than good cops do.

Well Paula, they sure have a funny way of showing it. I have never heard a cop that is currently employed by a police department speak out publicly against another cop when they do something wrong. People who know me in real life, know that I don't use absolute language often. So when I say never, I mean never...not even one time.

It would be so great if these good cops would come together and create and organization called Police Against Police Brutality. Or maybe Police for Positive Policing. I said here that I don't like it when people always define themselves as against something.

I googled the first term I mentioned, and you know what I came up with? A group called something like Black Cops Against Police Brutality. And it looked like their website hadn't been updated since 1988.

Don't get me wrong, I am happy to see such a group exists. But it doesn't surprise me that black cops are against police brutality, since black people are disproportionately the victims of police brutality. Since cops are disproportionately white, I think it would be nice to see a group that encompassed police officers of all races that were committed to ending abuses in departments across the nation.

I'm gonna wrap it up here, because I've been writing for awhile. Once again, I have to give my disclaimer that I am in no way attempting to disparage all cops. I know from personal experience that some cops are quite cool. My general impression of the number of fleeting experiences that I've had with them is that if you're neutral or nice to them, they will be neutral or nice to you.

I am talking about the minority of cops that do damage to the reputation of cops as a whole. Some other examples of positive policing that could occur would be:

--Making videotapes like the one that recorded Ms. Holmes standard in all police departments, big and small. I also think that all cops on patrol should wear cameras on their person. There should also be serious penalties for departments that "lose" footage, because that seems to be an unusually common occurrence when said footage is subpoenaed in court cases.

--Removing the Internal Affairs department and having incidents of cop misbehavior be investigated by a panel that has nothing to do with the police. It would be awesome if the panel was just made up of randomly selected residents of the area that the department served.

--Making it easier to fire bad cops. This goes for teachers too. And anyone else that is protected by a union. If you're pro-union, you should not be pro-union so incompetent people can keep their jobs. There are many benefits that unions bring about, but keeping substandard employees employed shouldn't be one of them.

So, we'll see how the situation with Dana Holmes plays out. I am interested to hear what you think about what I've written, or about any of the topics I've discussed more generally. Click below all those colorful boxes at the end of this post where it says, " _some number_ comments" and leave me a comment.


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Follow up Fridays

Hi all. So, if you're new around these parts, follow-up fridays is where I respond to some of the comments and questions that I have gotten on recent posts. It's a way to keep the conversation going, and sometimes leads to totally new conversations.

Let's start with a comment I got from chunk hatzumomo on this post, How to stop being racist (for reals this time.)

Chunk said:

In point #3, we are asked not to judge ourselves better than people who make more overtly racist comments. Are we not free to judge on the content of character? I obviously look like an A-hole trying to argue that I should be judged better than Johnny, but by lumping us all together in the same category of racist humans, you are removing the carrot that motivates one to stop posting racist comments. I think it would be better to say we can never achieve the elimination of racist ideas, but we can certainly do "better" than to post racist comments.

This comment raises a really good point; a concern that I think a lot of other people besides Chunk share. The popular narrative is that overt racists are bad, and everybody else is good. I think I can understand some of the unwillingness behind starting to lump yourself in with the already established bad people.

I agree with Chunk's last sentence that we should try to do "better" than to post racist comments. The difference is that I think that it should not be about being better than other people, it should be about being better than ourselves. Does that make sense?

Like, I don't see a lot of value in trying to get some feeling of moral superiority because you don't do things that other people do. We all do the things that seem to be the best for us to do at the time.

Another problem with comparing ourselves to others, is that if you look at someone who is doing worse than you, there is little motivation for you to improve yourself. It's like, Well I don't use slurs on twitter, so my not being racist journey is done.

To me, it makes a lot more sense to look at yourself, and ask if your behavior is in line with your own values. Is the no slurs on twitter standard the standard you want to hold yourself to? Or do you want to go further than that? I'm not saying there is a right or wrong answer, you're the only one that knows.

But Chunk, even if you can't buy into the argument that you are not better than Johnny--there is still something really important for you to think about.

The way that white privilege works, even if you think you are better than that troglodyte johnny--you both get the same privileges from our society, because you are both white.

Now, you might think you are entitled to those privileges for some reason (because you're nice and smart and work hard or something,) but you can't possibly think that he deserves them, can you? That sounds like a pretty good reason to dismantle white privilege to me.

Ok, moving on to my most recent post, Why school funding will always be unequal.

First, let me say that I really appreciated you all sharing your personal experiences and opinions on that post--I enjoy reading what you have to say, and I know that it is easy to just read a blog post and keep it moving...so thanks for not doing that.

Paula said:

music, art, etc., are still an advantage even if everyone has access to them. That earlier statement that it was no longer an advantage if everyone had it bothered me. Learning is an advantage to the person because it enriches their life, not just if it allows them to be one up on others.

I have to say after reading this, I have to agree. I didn't mean to imply that having a well-rounded life doesn't have inherent advantages, but I can see how what I wrote made it seem that way. Reading a great book or looking at a beautiful piece of art can change someone's life in a positive way, regardless of how many other people have done the same thing.

I was thinking more about it in the way that anonymous started to describe:

Music classes and computer labs can have advantages even if every school has one. The better teachers tend to teach at the better schools. The instruments can be better if they cost more. The computers can be upgraded and have specialized software, etc.

On some level I disagree with the first sentence, because I agree with the sentences that follow.

Let's just talk about the computers. If there is a federal law that says, Every school must have x computers per y numbers of students. Every computer must be in working order, and must have Microsoft Word and Excel.

So now the poor schools get computer labs. I am pretty convinced that in a few years time, we would start to see something like virtual reality labs in the fancy schools.

Because it's not really about yeah we have a computer lab and hey it's no problem if other schools have them too if they can scrape the money together.

It's about being better. It's about being the best.

And if you can be the best now with just a computer lab, then great. But if all of a sudden you have a bunch of other schools in the running that were never competition before, it becomes What do we have to do to stay on top? That's our society, that's capitalism. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just calling it like I see it.

Harvard is a big deal because it is very hard to get in. 1+s (or 1-s, thank you Chunk,) are a big deal because every choir doesn't get them. If you put the word private in front of a word (like park, school, garden, bus, etc.) 9 times out of 10 it is going to be nicer and/or higher quality than the same thing that has the word public in front of it. The exclusivity itself brings something.

Trying to legislate our way to equality is not going to work. Some people don't want things to be equal, because equal means more competition. And if you're not confident you can beat all that new competition, it's better to just keep them out of the game from the jump. Or if that doesn't work, to constantly raise the bar or change the rules so that you're the one that is most likely to make it to the end.

Virtual reality lab experience will become the thing that gives someone an edge in college admissions. Foreign language classes in all high schools? Well, now the people that have been studying them since elementary school are the ones that will get the job. Are you picking up what I'm laying down?

I know some people might say that I am cynical. But I tend to see myself as being honest, and looking around the corner at what is coming ahead. If we really want things to be better (whatever that may mean,) we need to get real about what is going on, and try to find solutions that don't just give us the same problems presented in different packaging.


But enough about what I think--what do you think? Leave me a comment.

Follow up fridays

Let's get to it, shall we?

From Anonymous on my post about the Sephora mailer [Note: this is normally where I would be putting in hyperlinks, but blogger is being all stupid and not working right. So no links today, sorry readers.]

Anonymous said...
I would gladly use that $15 card if you dont want it. there still accepting expired ones. need a gift for my lady. Email me please the Code and pin!!!!

Sorry, mailer is on it's way to being recycled. But Sephora ususally has a lot of coupon codes floating around, maybe see what google can find for you?

From my Asian friend, weezermonkey:

Can Asian people say "nappy"?

I think one just did ;) Hee hee.
Personally, I don't really care who says "nappy." Like most words, I think it is all about the context.

And from another(?) Anonymous on my post about the Useless Crap and Coffee Store:

Racism has existed since there became more than one race on the earth. Probably even since someone gained a different hair or eye color from someone else. Unfortunately, it will continue to exist long after you and I are dead and gone. The fact that it consumes you so much is sad. Do I think you're an angry black woman? No. I think you're just angry. Period. This just happens to be a convenient and prevalent avenue for you to vent. Also sad. When all is said and done, at the end of your life, are you really gonna reflect back on other people's ignorance? It took you days to finish writing this? Really? Get over it. Better still...get over yourself.
Just in case you're wondering if I'm a white racist "attacking you back", I assure you, I've been considered Negro, Black, African American, Black American and whatever else we've been considered for the past 55 years. Life is way too short to let something like a person's color or another person's reaction to my color take up a single moment of my life. Honestly, I feel sorry for you. Not because you were followed in a store, but because you let being followed in a store consume you. Shame.

Anonymous, I don't believe that racism has always existed or will exist forever. I wouldn't be writing this blog if I did. I think the rest of your points were addressed in my original post.

I'll leave you with this quote from Goethe:

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

As my mom would say...marinate on that.

Follow-Up Fridays

I want to revisit this post that I made two weeks ago about an anti-abortion ad that was put up in New York City and taken down the next day. I got some good comments/questions, so I just want to expand further on some of my own ideas, and maybe hear more about what you all might have to say.

My white friend Rebecca said:

Is it true that when the unemployment rates are low and the economy is thriving that crime rates drop?

To the best of my memory the time during the Clinton administration our economy was thriving (we were operating on a surplus right).

Yes, Rebecca I do believe that you are right that when the economy is good, crime rates tend to go down. And you are also right that we had a budget surplus under Bill Clinton (Oh, how times have changed...)

But I also think that the authors of Freakonomics took this into consideration when writing the chapter, and found that crime decreased more sharply under President Clinton than during other times of economic prosperity, leading them to speculate that economic prosperity alone was not an explanation for the significant decrease in the crime rate.

My black friend Michelle said:

My understanding as to why that billboard was immediately taken down was that the parents of the little girl in the ad were not informed (or misinformed) as to the ad content.

Yes, I also heard that the little girl's parents were not aware what her picture was going to be used for. But my understanding was that they knew that it was a stock photo, and models for stock photography know that they don't have any control over where their image is going to end up. It reminds me of that Friends episode where Joey is on posters all around Manhattan that say he has an STD.

Additonally, after doing some more research on the internet, it would seem that the protests of pro-choice groups was the biggest factor in getting the billboard removed. At least according to one of the leaders of a pro-choice group. She wrote in part:

I truly believe that our collective quick action, phone calls and letters to the [billboard] company are directly responsible for their decision to pull the ad.

When I wrote the post, I came across some blogs with phone numbers telling people to call and complain about the ad, saying that it was racist. I'm like, "How is this racist?"

One of the (white) bloggers said that is was insulting black women's intelligence by assuming they weren't smart enough to make informed choices about their own reproductive health. I would argue the opposite; that it was giving black women information they most likely didn't already know that might or might not have a significant impact on what reproductive decisions they choose to make.

Now, I understand that the ultimate goal of the group producing the ad is probably to decrease the number of choices that all women have by making abortion illegal. But I personally don't see anything wrong with bringing to light the fact that there is a disparity in the abortion rates between black women and white women. Just like I don't see anything wrong with highlighting disparities in home ownership, incarceration rates, higher education rates, life expectancy, etc. These disparities exist and they should be discussed.

Michelle also said:

So what if abortions occur disproportionately among Black women?
Black women are at a disadvantage. And that's just the way it is.

I would say if black women are at a disadvantage (at least in part,) due to the legacy of historical racist practices and policies, that is an issue of concern for me. Hell, even if this turns out to be an issue of class and white women are aborting their babies primarily because the don't have the financial means to take care of them--that bothers me a lot too.

The reason that I asked you all if it might be racist/racish to be concerned about the rate of black abortions, is because if a white person was like, "I'm going to have this baby so I can help propagate the white race." We would all be sitting here thinking, "Hmm...white supremacist much?" The whole discussion of the number of white babies vs. the number of black babies can start to sound a little Race War-y. But no one reading seemed to have an issue with that. If you did, leave me a comment and I can try to explain why I don't see it that way.

Both Michelle and my new black friend Dayka (Hi Dayka!) offered up some alternate explanations for why the statistics might be the way they are, or aren't actually the way they seem to be. I guess my answer to this would be that the statistics from the CDC are pretty clear cut, and I don't know that the alternate explanations that you provided would be significant enough to explain away the huge disparities in the abortion rate.

For example, Dayka I know you mentioned that white women are more likely to have abortions through private doctors. This may be true, but most hospitals are required by their state laws to report the number of abortions that occur in their facilities. And I don't believe that two out of three white doctors are "protecting" their white patients by not reporting the fact that the patient had an abortion. Especially when you consider the reporting of the procedures is completely anonymous.

My white friend John Ferguson suggested that maybe more black women don't have abortions, perhaps a subset of black women have several abortions which skews the rates. My response would be: either way, this is a problem.

John Ferguson actually said a lot of other things. John, I wish you and I had been able to talk about this more the last time we saw each other, so I could have cleared up some of the things that I said. But I guess instead, I can do it on my blog where everyone can read it (:

Just a few things I want to clear up:

1) I don't believe that black men are inherently more violent or genetically predisposed to commit more crimes than white men.
2) I do agree with the idea that people born to poor,uneducated mothers are more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system. Note that I didn't say commit crimes, I said come into contact with the criminal justice system (i.e. get caught.) So if there are fewer poor black males to target and incarcerate because of abortion, then the crime rate is going to go down.
Just like if there are fewer poor white males to target, the crime rate is going to go down. Remember, the Freakonomics chapter said nothing about race, it focused on class.

As a sidenote, nobody answered my question about if a decrease in the crime rate should be seen as a benefit of legalized abortion.


I think it's interesting that just based on the comments, no one seems to have a problem with the idea that class based abortions are something to be concerned about. Even if it were proven that this had nothing to do with race, and everything to do with class, should it be disturbing to us that poor women have three times as many abortions as middle-class women or rich women? Perhaps it is not racism; it's just classism--does that make it somehow ok?


I think my white friend JD made an excellent point when she said:

It seems like as a society we've decided that age and situation of the mother, the circumstances of the pregnancy, and disability are "good" reasons, whereas race and gender are "bad" reasons [to have an abortion]. Or put another way, if the mother doesn't want a child, it's a good reason; if the mother (or society) doesn't want a particular child, it's a bad reason. [emphasis added]

JD posted a link in her comment to a very thought provoking article about abortions being used for sex-selection in countries like China and India. I would recommend that you all read it.

I think that the pro-choice camp (of which I am currently still a part, ) has painted itself into something of a corner. By promoting this idea of abortions for whomever, whenever, for whatever reason, and fighting tooth and nail any and all attempts to restrict access to abortion, they are insulting the intelligence of the average human being who recognizes that abortion is (at the very least,) an end of the possibility for a particular organism to have a life. And certain organisms are being disproportionately targeted by the procedure.

One of my most favoritest english teachers in college said that abortion was like waking up one morning and having a world class violinist attached to your shoulder. The violinist would die if you cut him off of your shoulder, but if you didn't cut him off, he'd be with you everywhere you went for the rest of your life. What should you/would you do?

I know that there are more comments that I didn't get to and I also know that this post is probably not as polished as it could be. But little dude is doing his afternoon nap wake-up routine, so I have got to go get him. Thank you all for leaving your comments and I hope that we can continue this conversation. And if you are a new reader like Dayka, I hope that you will look over to the sidebar on the right hand side for all the different ways that you can stay connected with me and know when I make new posts.

Thanks for reading; I look forward to hearing your feedback.

It's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say again...

There's been something I've been wanting to blog about for awhile now, but I haven't. Mainly because I don't want to start crap and also because I am not exactly sure what I want to say. The possibility of crap starting is very high, because it concerns an extremely sensitive topic: abortion.





The billboard above was put up in a neighborhood in NYC a few months ago. It was taken down the next day, amid protests from I'm not sure who.

Now, I have always considered myself pro-choice. But something about the idea that this billboard is so offensive that it immediately needs to be taken down rubs me the wrong way. It is certainly a provocative ad, and the overt racial angle makes it even more so. I have written here before about how black women get a disproportionate number of the abortions in the U.S. They get almost 40% of the abortions and are only 12% of the female population. To me this is not something to be happy about, or even indifferent about.

But part of me feels like if I want to keep my pro-choice label, this is not something I can have an issue with. Because having an issue with the idea of abortion without restrictions is a slippery slope that leads to abortions for no one other than people who have enough money and connections to get them even when they are illegal.

I have also been doing a fair amount of reading about eugenics lately, and it is disturbing to me how closely the ideas of family planning and getting rid of "degenerates" have been tied if you look back in history. And it makes me wonder how much of that pairing is still unspoken today.

Let's make this even more uncomfortable. I don't know if you've read the book Freakonomics, but you should. It is a really interesting book that uses the lens of economics to explain lots of different things that you wouldn't normally look to that field to explain. There is a chapter that talks about how when Bill Clinton was President, there was a precipitous drop in the crime rate that people were not sure how to explain.

The authors of Freakonomics theorized that the reason for the drop was the legalization of abortion. They argued that babies/fetuses/whateveryouwanttocallthem that were most likely to be aborted, are the same people that were most likely to commit crimes. Fewer potential criminals exsiting = less crime. I believe in the book they talked about people most likely to be criminals were males who were born to young, poor, uneducated single mothers. I read the book a few years ago, but I am pretty sure that I remember that they pointedly did not mention race. However, looking at what I said earlier about the abortion rates, and what I wrote here about incarceration rates, what is left unspoken is that many of these abortions were given to black women having black babies.

I have noticed in conversations that I have had with pro-choice women in the past, there are often statements like, "Well, I would never get an abortion, but I think they should be available for other women."

I have always wanted to ask (and now finally am,) "Why is it necessary for you to let people know that you personally would never have an abortion? What are you trying to tell people about yourself by saying that? And who are these other women that abortion should be an available choice for?"


Here are some other questions that I have:

Do you think it is racist/racish for a black person to be concerned that black women are more likely to have abortions than white women? Why or why not?

Should a reduction in the crime rate because of the legalization of abortion be seen as a benefit of abortion? Why or why not?

If you are pro-choice, reading this, and getting mad me...I want to offer something to you. I think that part of the reason you're getting upset is because I am taking abortion, something that is commonly associated with liberals (i.e. the good white people,) and joining it up with not wanting black people around/not caring if fewer black people are around--something usually associated with conservatives (the racist white people.) Think about it.

I am not sure of the answers to the questions that I posed, which is a big part of the reason I asked them of you. I am very curious to hear your thoughts, so you should strongly consider leaving me a comment. Remember that you can leave comments anonymously.

Follow-Up Fridays

Ok folks, let's see how this is going to go. So many points to go over, and I am not really sure the best way to organize this.


We should start at the beginning. This entire post is going to be about this post that I wrote last week. I would suggest that you read that post, and the comments that people left before we get started here.

I am going to start with Andrea's comment. First, I want to say thanks to Andrea for being a long-time reader of my blog and also for deciding to comment on that post. I hope that if you read what I have to say in response to your comment and you have more to say, that you will leave me another comment. Then you can become part of my small commenting crew that I love (shout out to all my regular commenters :)

Andrea (like everyone,) said a lot of different things. I am not going to post the whole comment, just some highlights.

You said that racism has to involve a disadvantage, and I can tell from this blog that you have an educational advantage over many white people.


I do have an educational advantage over many white people. First, I was born with a certain level of intelligence. Then, I lived in neighborhoods that allowed me to go to very good schools my entire life. I had engaged teachers, and lots of educational resources at my disposal. I also had parents that had enough money for me to do extra-curricular activities, on top of the already great education I was receiving during school hours.

I was also the only black kid in my classes 98% percent of the time. We always hear this story about black kids going to college and it being some kind of culture shock. Not me. I was all, "Hey! More white people--this is just like high school!"

The reality is, my educational experience is not the educational experience of most black people. And I will be the first to admit that I have a lot of privileges that a broke, uneducated white person doesn't have. But I am wondering why seeing people that looked like me was so uncommon in my high school experience, yet so common when I watch these documentaries about our broken education system where kids don't even have books, or teachers that show up to teach them. The fact that I am such an anomaly is a sign of the institutional racism I am talking about.

This is a good segue into Chunk Hatzumomo's question:

would a white person with little money or power be considered a racist.

Great question, Chunk Hatzumomo. This person can be a racist under the hating people of color definition, but not in terms of exerting power over the life of a person of color definition. Except maybe through doing some sort of physical violence, because that is what I would be most afraid of if I came across a person like this.

You make a good point when you say this caricature is what most white people think of when they think of a racist. I think this idea of the uneducated, trailer-living, klan member is a convenient distraction because it allows other white people to say, "Well, I'm not like that guy, let me go along my merry way." Without ever having to look at the things that they are doing that do contribute to the problem of racism.


Okay, back to Andrea.

because of your skin color you don't believe that you could ever be racist. I think that other groups feel that they have a free pass to act in racist ways toward white people because of the same mom/dad thing you were writing about the other day.

I did not say that I could never be racist. If we're using the hating people of a different race definition, I said in my original post that all people are capable of being racist. And even in my mom/dad post, the whole point of that post was that if the tables were turned and the marginalized groups became the dominant groups, that they would have to make sure to fight the tendency to do the things that were done to them, out of some sort of retaliation. Like the guy who pledges the fraternity and gets hazed really badly, and becomes the most sadistic frat brother when it's his turn to do the hazing. I won't call it human nature, but there is definitely something that can happen with people who have been wronged. I first heard it on that show Beyond Scared Straight on A&E: Hurt people hurt people. I think it is probably just easier to inflict pain on others when you've been hurt, than it is to have compassion
for the people that hurt you, or just for people in general.

I have always found the highlighted part of your racish condescending and somewhat offensive. I can't imagine a situation where a white blogger could use the phrase "doesn't that make you happy black people?" without being thought of as racist.

I don't think it's racist, I think it's funny. It was meant as a joke. The reason that I wrote that part of the definition is because one one thing I have noticed about some white people is how upset they get about the idea that there are things that people of color are allowed to say that white people aren't allowed to say (we all know what I am talking about.)

I bet if you took a survey, this topic would be in the top three of things related to race that white people would want to discuss. It's like, "Really? Of everything, this is what you want to talk about?

Now, the phrase being condescending--I could see that. It wasn't my intention for it to be condesending or offensive, so that should settle that part of it. If a white blogger wrote something similar, I wouldn't think it was racist. Racish, maybe--but that just gives us an opportunity to talk about it further, because that's what it means for something to be racish.

Ok, JD is up next

People of color can be racist against other people of color

True. This is called internalized racism. Sorry JD, I could write more about this, but I still have a lot to cover and I am already getting tired of writing. I'm sure you understand.

what does it mean to be "white"?

I think this is an excellent question. I know when I think of white I think first of people who descended from Western and Northern Europeans, followed by people whose ancestors come from Eastern and Southern Europe. I would not consider people from the Middle East or Latinos white, even though the U.S. Census would.

I think the myriad of ways that one could answer this question just helps to support the idea that the entire concept of race is a social construct and doesn't have any "true" meaning. You can read more about my thoughts about what it means to be white by clicking here . There is also a book in my Read More Books sidebar called Learning to be White that talks about this. I also just checked out a book from the library called The History of White People that might give some info--maybe I'll write a blog post about it when I'm done reading.

And now: my mom. I know you are all jealous that your mom's don't comment on your blogs (and vociferously disagree with you to boot ;)

a black person's racism can be quantifiable and have a significant negative impact on a white person. If I don't like my white boss, I can sabotage his success. I can sue a company if I feel discriminated against and impact their bottom line. I can get myself in a position of power and perform reverse discrimination as deftly and shrewdly as the next white guy.

One important thing that I left out of my definition of racism that I thought of in two minutes was the idea that the best examples highlight some kind of pattern. So mom, if there is a pattern of white bosses being sabotaged by their racist black employees, or qualified white males being denied opportunities at every turn because of "reverse discrimination," I would like to see them. And the idea that a black person suing for experiencing racism is itself racist--I don't have a response to that.


If your ancestors were guilty of some heinous act and you had to suffer for it today, would that feel good?

I don't think white people are suffering because of what their ancestors did (or didn't do.) They might feel some combination of gulity, confused, ashamed, angry, proud, neutral, defensive, concerned or any number of other emotions--but suffering is not how I would describe it.

Alas, I am not white, so if any of my white readers want to jump in and let me and my mom know how you feel about the "heinous acts" of your ancestors--leave me a comment.

Perhaps by having a belief that whites are the ones "doing all the racism" and you being a powerless person of color, you are hurting no one but yourself by having those beliefs.

This part of your comment really pissed me off. Do you really think that I believe I am powerless? I know you can't really think that. Right now I am just shaking my head at the computer screen.

The fact that I spend time writing about power and different ways that I, and other people are treated unfairly because of the different ways that we don't conform to the dominant culture is not an example of me being powerless, it is an example of me having power. You say that thinking that white people "do all the racism" makes me angry and defensive. No, having racism done to me is what makes me angry and defensive. It doesn't really matter what I think, it matters what I live and what I see other people living. This makes me angry. This makes me angry. This.

And this.And this.And this.And this.

These things happen whether I write about them or not. Coming here and writing about them makes me less angry, because it lets me feel like I am doing something to change this fucked up world we live in. Sorry mom, I know you don't like it when I curse, but sometimes curse words are the most appropriate words to use.

Okay, I am going to wrap it up. I have to admit, I was apprehensive about responding to my mom on the public forum that is my blog. But then I remembered that what I know about people tells me that the majority of you have complicated relationships with your moms too. This makes me feel less weird about it.

I also want to point out that I spent the bulk of my time talking about privileged black people, underprivileged white people, brown on brown racism, white Arabs with blond hair, and scheming and conniving black employees. What are the reasons for this? Who/what are we not talking about when we're talking about those people?

I'll leave you with a comment from my white friend John Ferguson:

Water flows downstream, and so water molecules flow downstream. Of course for a moment, because of an intervening event (like a rock thrown into the river causing a splash), some water molecules might go upstream. Not too informative about the way rivers work, or where the water is going to end up.

I would really love to hear your comments, so please--share them with me.

Return to Treasure Island.

Hmmm. So when I wrote my last post about the flea market, I really wasn't expecting to get as many comments as I did. Not that I am complaining, I just thought the post that I wrote the week before was more interesting.

Anyways, I figured I would respond to your responses. My old friend anonymous had this to say:

Does everything about race offend you? If she saw you coming and hid the book ( but not before you saw the title), would that offend you?

Maybe there aren't many black folks where you live and she was trying to sell the book to the author's intended audience.


Let's start at the beginning...

Does everything about race offend you?


Yes.



lololololololol, just kidding. No, anonymous--everything about race does not offend me.


If she saw you coming and hid the book ( but not before you saw the title), would that offend you?

No, it would not offend me. I would think it was weird though. I actually wasn't offended when she showed me the book. It was more like, "Gee you must have very limited interaction with black people if your first instinct after talking to a black person for 30 seconds is to show them something about black people." I actually thought it was funny. People can just be clueless sometimes, and this incident was a good example of that.

If I had been offended, I wouldn't have helped her to make a living by purchasing the book that I was originally looking at.

Maybe there aren't many black folks where you live and she was trying to sell the book to the author's intended audience.

Who is the author's intended audience? What are you basing your answer to the last question on?

So many times when I write this blog, I think to myself: Do I need to make such and such explicit, or can I just leave what I've written as is? I usually decide to just leave it, because that means less writing for me. But more often than not, I get comments that make it clear to me that perhaps there is no such thing as overexplaining/oversharing.

I do not think the lady at the flea market is a mean, bad or evil lady. I am not in her head, but my impression of the situation is that she had no malicious intent when she showed me the book. I do think that her showing me the book came primarily from the fact that I was black. As I said in the original post, I don't have a problem with a white vendor showing me something that is related to being black, if it makes logical sense.

And in my understanding of logic, black person = automatically interested in purchasing black item ≠ logical sense. It's not like the book was just sitting on top of the stack, she actually dug through a pile to show me this book. I am a fan of suggestive selling as much as the next person, but I know enough about selling to know that you are more likely to build the sale if the items you suggest are somehow related to the original item.

Moving on.

yourwhitefriend (who actually is my white friend) made two comments on this post.

First:

For reals. I witnessed this event and still can't believe it happened.

And then a little later:

I have to say, though, that what if she really did just think that the pictures were cool, and had absolutely no idea what the title was (since she obviously had no idea what it was about either, I wouldn't put it past her to be that clueless)? Or maybe she did realize what the title was, but thought you might enjoy the pictures anyway, as someone who was expressing an interest in old books. Wouldn't it have been worse/racish if she were going to show you the book to point out the pictures, but then chose not to for fear of offending you?

Yes, this is giving her more credit than she probably deserves, but it's perhaps something else to think about.

Welcome to my brain, mywhitefriend. There are many times (though not in this particular instance,) where I have strange encounters with white people where I wonder if they were racist/racish/neither. I spend precious minutes after the fact trying to figure out what was going on. This is time I could be using to decide what I'm going to make for dinner, what I think the U.S.'s next step should be in Afghanistan, or who I think is going to get voted off this week on Dancing With The Stars.

Remember when you were talking to me about how rude other shoppers were being at the market? When that happens to you, you know instantly that it's happening because those people are just rude or having a bad day or something similar. You don't spend any time at all wondering if they are rude because they don't like people that look like you. Think of the brain space that frees up!

I realize that don't have to think about such things. But I don't really believe that ignorance is bliss. I prefer to have as accurate of an understanding as possible about the world around me, and often that means analyzing things that happen to me. I don't let racist/racish things that happen in my life limit me in significant ways. However, I also believe in holding other people accountable for their actions instead of deciding to bear the burden all myself. Just like it is helpful for me to learn how to react to things in productive ways, isn't it also helpful for others to learn to act in productive ways? I think so.

Comments? You know what to do.

Follow-Up Fridays

So, I am attempting to write this post before my son wakes up from his nap. Let's see if I can do it. I also have noticed that I start a lot of my posts with "So,". Sometimes I delete them and sometimes I don't. Just writing that because I was thinking it, and wondering if you've ever noticed it too.


Anyhoo, today's follow up friday comment comes from Rebecca. Rebecca commented on my last post about the use of the word ethnic and said:

I'm terrible at stuff like this but I'm going to try my best......I think that those adjectives are used because they refer to something that isn't the norm. If you walk into a room with 100 people all wearing suits and one is wearing a yellow shirt, you will say "the guy in the yellow shirt"

So I think what this food manufacturer is trying to do is call this ethnic because around here.......that is what isn't the norm. (Now, I'm not saying the food isn't NORMAL) but it's the thing that's different in the frozen food aisle next to the fried chicken that I've been familiar with since I could eat.

Do I even make any sense?

Yes, Rebecca you do make sense. If I am understanding what you are trying to say, you're saying that in the context that I describe ethnic doesn't mean bad; it just means different.

There are several things that I want to say back and haven't spent a lot of time trying to organize them, so now it will be my turn to wonder if I am making any sense (:

I think I will bring back my handy bullet points.

--I was thinking about this idea of difference in a more neutral way when I wrote the post. I consciously decided to use the phrase "not normal" instead of the term "abnormal", because I knew that the word abnormal would probably trigger people in a way that I was not looking to do.

--I disagree somewhat with the idea that ethnic just means different or outside the norm. If we use your example of the guy in the yellow shirt, we wouldn't look at that guy (assuming he is white and wearing an oxford shirt,) and say, "Look at that guy in the ethnic shirt." or "Or look at that ethnic guy in the yellow shirt." The word ethnic has attached to it this idea of racial or cultural difference.

--To take the last bullet even further, cultural difference alone is not enough for something to be called ethnic. For example, traditional French cuisine is not something that most people in the United States eat on a daily basis. But if there was some escargot in the frozen food aisle, it most likely would not be described as ethnic food. Ethnic is most commonly used not just for cultures different from the dominant American culture, but cultures that are associated with people of color.

--Even if ethnic does just mean different...Different from what? Outside of whose cultural norm? Why is fried chicken the "normal" food and like Steven said on my Facebook page , the lasagna right behind it not labeled in the same way? If there is an Indian family who goes to your grocery store and eats chicken tikka masala regularly, that food is not ethnic for them. Heck, if there is a white family that eats Indian food a lot, it's not ethnic/different for them either.

--This leads me to my most important bullet (er, two dashes) point: Why is it that the white people get to decide what/who is different? "Well, we're the majority myblackfriend." Yes, that is true, but according to census data, it probably won't be true for much longer. It also wasn't true in the pre-civil war South.

Numbers might seem like a convenient explanation, but I would argue that it has more to do with power. Power to make the rules, and power to decide who is or isn't following the rules. Because if it was simply a numbers game, when Latinos begin to make up a larger and larger proportion of the U.S. population, white people would happily say, "Oh, I guess you should be in charge now, Latinos--just let us know what cultural/societal changes you want to make!" That doesn't seem to be happening.

--Let's go back to the yellow shirt guy for a second. If I saw yellow shirt guy, I would just notice him and then go about my business. But other people in the crowd might stare at him and whisper among themselves, "Look at that guy in the yellow shirt! Doesn't he know we're all supposed to be wearing suits? He's so dumb/unprofessional/clueless/etc. I'm not going to go network with him." [Rebecca, I have turned your hypothetical situation into a networking event.]

But supposed to be in suits according to whom? To the white guys a long time ago that said that suits are what you wear to look professional. These same white guys decided that ham sandwiches are food, and samosas are ethnic food. To many people, difference doesn't just mean difference--it means bad. To the crowd at the networking event, yellow shirt guy isn't just wearing a yellow shirt, he now has all of these negative characteristics attached to him because of his choice to wear the shirt.

Just like someone who eats tikka masala might be called weird/not normal/UnAmericanbecause they bring something "outside the norm" to school for lunch. I have heard too many stories of kids of color being made fun of for things like this; so I know it happens.

--All of these two dash points don't talk about my original point from the last post. That if you take the term ethnic as it's actual definition, it doesn't make sense to use it in the context of the frozen meal because all frozen meals are ethnic. Rebecca, part of what I gleaned from your comment (and correct me if I'm wrong,) is that the makers of the meal didn't mean any harm in
naming the product what they named it. I would agree with that, I don't think they were trying to say anything bad.

My point is that 1) they didn't describe the product accurately and 2) By characterizing it is as different, the manufacturer is further marginalizing Americans who don't see the food as different, because that is what they eat regularly at home. They are also reinforcing the idea that non-different Americans (i.e. "real" Americans) tend to eat certain types of food.

I feel like I'm rambling a bit, and my quotes and italics are all messed up, but the little dude is calling for his mama--so I've got to go. Rebecca, I really appreciate your comment and I hope that I was able to clarify better what I was trying to say. If you have more comments about my comments, I would love to hear them. And if anyone else has a comment, leave it for me.

Follow-up Fridays

So we're bringing back our old friend Follow-up Fridays. That's where I comment on your comments. Because like I said in my last post I have more to say about the Swagger Wagon video and some of the comments/questions that were posed. Maybe I should change the subtitle of my blog from, Thoughts on race and inequality in America to Thoughts on the Swagger Wagon commercial . Ha ha, just kidding.

So my white friend JD asked me,

What do you think of the white dude in SNL who plays President Obama? Surely there's some makeup involved, but it doesn't seem as offensive as the second video.

I don't have a problem with that guy. His Obama impression has definitely improved; would everyone agree? I wonder if he really does the best Obama, or if they didn't pick another white guy from the cast because it would have required more makeup. Or how maybe having more than one black person on the cast might give them more options when it comes to parodying black celebrities. Not much of a resemblance between Kenan Thompson and Tiger Woods, am I wrong?

But one thing that stood out for me when I was watching that minstrel show video was just how unoffended I was by those two guys. Which to me showed that for me, it's not really about the black paint...it's about something else. Another thing that I noticed was how I didn't know any of the people that they mentioned when they were talking about the great minstrel shows of yore (exception: Al Jolson,) it's like that part of history has just been erased and we (people my age,) know almost nothing about it.

My Asian-American friend weezermonkey asked me:

Did you catch the MTV Movie Awards? How would you classify Aziz's character Taavon?

To answer your first question: Of course I watched the Mtv Movie Awards! I am a pop culture slor!

For those of you not in the know, Taavon was a character that host Aziz Ansari created. He was a "swagger coach" and did a little tape piece and also accepted an award as this character. If you want to watch him in action, you can click on the video below.



To answer your second question weezer, I thought this character was really funny. There were two major reasons why. First, Aziz Ansari is not white. Unfair, I know-- but him being not white I think gives him more leeway. It's like, since he has probably experienced racism in his own life, he is less likely to perpetuate it than someone who never has. I'm not saying this is an actual true statement, it's just what my brain thinks.

The second and more important reason that I thought Taavon was funny is because I am familiar with Mr. Ansari and his comedy. I know that he appears to have a true appreciation of hip-hop culture, and that he also addresses a lot of racial issues in his standup. I also know from watching his standup that he has a google alert on his name, so maybe this blog post will come up the next time he checks, and then he can see this message: I'm a big fan! Leave me a comment!

But having this information about Aziz is important because it helps put the clip into a context. And I think it also helps to further pinpoint what the problem for me was with the Swagger Wagon video. With Aziz, it's like look how well I can imitate a person from hip-hop culture, whereas with the couple in the minivan video the whole joke lies in how poorly they were able to do it. It's like "Look at how lame we are--isn't this funny?"

I can see the point that both Moufbreatha and john C made about the juxtaposition between the uncool minivan and the coolness of hip-hop culture. And I agree that it can be funny to try to make something unhip hip by associating with something edgy. But what unnerved me was this element of mockery that existed in the swagger wagon video. There was no attempt to say, "Actually we are cool even though we drive a minivan and we do have actual swagger--watch us demonstrate it." Like with Aziz. Or to use an example with actual white people, the Lazy Sunday video from SNL:



Those guys are working it. It comes from an understanding of what they are parodying, and they are able to rap about cupcakes and matinees with conviction; just like Kanye West is able to rap about working at the GAP.

To use another example: The Beastie Boys. I don't really know what they rap about because I think they kind of suck, but they have had long careers and everyone would agree that they treat rap/hip-hop with some level of respect.

I have always wondered why white people laugh if a comedian of color talks about how uncool they are. Chances are, if a white comedian makes fun of people of color, the people of color are not going to be yuk-ing it up. Has anyone else ever noticed that?

This is what I told my husband: I think the reason that white people laugh so freely about being dorky is because at the end of the day, in our society being cool isn't really that important. What is important? Having enough money to buy a minivan. Going to college. Being happily married and having tea parties with your kids. And many white people are very good at those things, so it is easy to have a chuckle at your own expense when someone talks about how you have an overbite when you dance, or are a little too friendly with your dogs.

Remember those articles that I linked to about the disparities in so many important, significant areas of life (education, criminal sentencing, infant mortality) between blacks and whites? No one made any mention of them. I wonder what that's about? Those disparities are not funny, they're real. And not much has changed with them since those Amos and Andy guys were painting their faces mocking black people. As my favorite Kenan Thompson SNL character would say:

OOoooh Weee! What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up? With that?

DJ Pauly D on the 1's and 2's...

So, I watched the season finale and the Reunion show for Jersey Shore last week.

One of the first questions that the host of the Reunion show asked the cast was if they felt like the show portrayed Italian-Americans in a derogatory light. My man Pauly D had what I thought was a very good response. He said something to the effect of, "I was not on the show to represent all Italians, I was representing myself." His co-stars also reiterated a point that they'd made previously, that if you didn't like the show then change the channel and watch something else.

I agree with Pauly, he is not (nor should he be) responsible for carrying the reputation of the entire Italian-American community on his shoulders. But it was his answer to a related question that made me a little confused. The host Julissa asked if the word "guido" was a derogatory term. He said, "Oh no no no--it's not."

I think what he should have said was, "Well, speaking only for myself and not all Italian Americans--I don't find that term offensive." It's like, you can't have it both ways, bud. You can't on the one hand say that you speak only for yourself, and on the other think that you can give the people watching permission to use a word that many people do find offensive. Because I can guarantee you that thousands of people saw that show, and have now incorporated guido into their vocabularies primarily because Pauly D said that it was okay.

I said the last time I talked about this show, that I had a lot more to say, but Sweet Tomatoes was calling my name. I really appreciated the insightful comments that I got on that post, and I wanted to incorporate some of them here to help guide this post along. It's like Follow Up Fridays, except it's Saturday and I'm not really following up, I'm adding on.

Here is part of what my white friend Carema had this to say about stereotypes:

I am not in as much agreement that the stereotypes that are probably presented in Jersey Shore are harmless as they may seem. Stereotyping, no matter how seemingly inane, leads to prejudice, that leads to discrimination.

I can see how it could seem like I was saying that the stereotypes that the cast of Jersey Shore reinforced were "not that bad." I agree that stereotypes are harmful, or at the very least, not helpful ( you can read more about my thoughts on this subject here.)

What I was trying to say has more to do with the second sentence of the excerpt. Why does someone fitting into a stereotype have to equal discriminating against them? Why does someone doing things differently from you automatically make their way inferior? Like I have said before, I fit some stereotypes...so what? It doesn't mean that anything else is automatically true about me.

And here is some of what my white friend JOHNFERGUSON had to say about stereotyping:

Like all jokes and humor about subordinated group identity and cultural difference, it is funny because we can all say, “Yeah that is so true.” But like you noted about the use of pejorative naming words, it is mostly OK when we perceive that the teller of the joke is on our side. When we feel some suspicion that they are taking some attitude of superiority, we are offended.

This is such a critical point. Jersey Shore is only "harmless fun" if everyone is laughing with the cast and not at them. But sadly, we know that is probably not the case.

One of my friends on Facebook posted a Jersey Shore related link on her wall only to have one of her other friends comment, "It's ridiculous they don't realize that they're actually being made fun of."

Now, I don't know this other person. So I can't say if he was speaking as a person who actually does the making fun of, or simply as a concerned citizen.

But I think we can all agree if people are watching the show and treating Italian-Americans worse as a result...that's a bad thing. I watch the show and like the show because I know that I am watching it with a critical eye, and am not looking down on the people I'm seeing on the screen.

But the problem is that there are probably lots of other people who say they feel the same way as I do, but are more inclined to do or say something racish to the next Italian-American they see because that show has been introduced to their brains.

So, where does that leave us? I don't know. I know that Mtv is running a Jersey Shore marathon before the Super Bowl, and that the show is more than likely going to be picked up for a second season. As a reality show connoisseur, I can tell you that the next season won't be as good. They caught lightning in a bottle this time around, and whatever they do next time is sure to be more manufactured and artificial. But this show made Mtv a lot of money, and you can bet they will milk it for all it's worth. I just wonder what that means for all of us.

Comments? I'd love to hear them.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?

So, the first question that I got from my post asking for questions. This question came from my white friend jgalt:

Do you believe that since you are a light skin black woman, who does not speek with a negro dialect, that you could be the first female President on the Democratic ticket?

Great question, jgalt. I do think that my light skin and lack of negro dialect (unless I want to have one) would help me if I decided to run for President. But I think my non-chemically straightened hair, state school education, and intense lack of motivation to become the leader of the free world would all work against me.

But what a great segue into talking about the Harry Reid incident you have given me, jgalt! Did you plan that? ;)

Reader, if you don't know what incident I am referring to--you should watch the news more. Or, just click on the link.

As far as I am concerned, the only thing that is wrong with what Sen. Reid said was his use of the word "Negro". I will chalk this up to a racish
mistake. It makes sense: he's an older guy, and for a significant portion of his life that was what black people were called.

I think he actually deserves props (that's negro dialect for "credit",) for being aware of the effect that skin color can have on people's perceptions. I don't think that is something that most white people have even thought about. And most importantly: What he said is true. Barack Obama would have had a more difficult time being elected if he had darker skin, and if he didn't speak the way he does. I also think Obama would have had a tougher time if he weren't half-white, if he were married to a white woman, or was a descendant of slaves instead of a Kenyan immigrant.

I am far more concerned about the comment that Bill Clinton made, one that hasn't gotten nearly as much media attention. " A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee." What the hell?

Unlike Reid's statement, this is not true. Unless by " a few" Clinton means "fifty". President Obama has degrees from Harvard and Columbia, these don't usually lead to jobs serving politicians coffee. No, Clinton seems to be talking more about the fact that Obama is black and in Clinton's mind black = coffee getter. And remember when Clinton made the remark about how "Jesse Jackson did well in South Carolina too" when reporters were questioning him about if his wife would win the primary there? Two pretty pathetic comments coming from the man who was supposedly, "America's first black president."

I'll just take comfort in the fact that Clinton ruined his entire legacy because he couldn't keep it in his pants, and for the rest of history people won't think of him without also thinking of cigars, navy dresses, and naive young interns. Nice job, dude.

One more thing (well, two more.) President Obama is such a forgiving man. He is always forgiving these people who say ignorant/disrespectful/mean/racish/racist things to him. Forgiveness is a good quality to have, and I bet his wife helps him a lot with this ( I am envisioning lots of late night conversations, where he's not as cool, calm and collected as he appears in front of us.)

Second, I think if Sen. Reid and former President Clinton had been Republicans, the media's coverage of these two incidents would have been very different.

But enough about what I think--what do you think? What do you agree with that I've said here? What do you disagree with? And most importantly, Why do you feel the way you do? Leave your comments after the jump.

Ok, there is no jump--I've just always wanted to say that.

Follow-up Fridays

Let's get to it. Aaron had a lot to say on this post, but I want to focus on one thing in particular.

I said this:

"But black people are supposed to be the ones with all the crazy musical talent."

And Aaron said this:

That almost struck me as an odd thing to say on a blog that's all about racial dialog because it sounds like stereotyping. Granted, at times, there are grains of truth within stereotyping, but I thought we were supposed to avoid that in order to gain a better understanding of each other.

You're right Aaron, that is stereotpying. We should avoid doing that, because it inhibits our understanding of one another. When I wrote that, I was trying to use sarcasm (not very effectively,) as a way to deal with the frustration that I sometimes feel being a black person in America in general, and in particular while writing this blog. Have you ever heard that saying, "sometimes you've gotta laugh to keep from crying"? I think that is what I was struggling with when I wrote that. The fact that Rissi Palmer doesn't seem to be on track to becoming the next Taylor Swift doesn't make me want to boo-hoo, but writing about things like this, this, and this does. And the fact that they are all related in some insidious way makes me angry at times, and makes me wonder if things are ever going to change. I really hope that they do, because I think that if we could move past our pesky insecurites and fears, we've all got a lot of untapped into awesomeness at our fingertips.

This is not to say that black people are not "crazy" musically talented

I'll say it: black people are not "crazy" musically talented. I believe that there are people with talent from every race. I say here that even these so called "positive" stereotypes are not helpful. Even if we were to do a study that said black people are over-represented in the music industry, the explanation wouldn't be because of our inherent ability. Just like Minnesotans being over-represented on hockey teams is not due to some genetic Minnesotan mutation. Like you said in your comment, it can primarily be attributed to the culture. Which is exciting, because who decides what makes up the culture? We do!

Love the blog, keep up the good work!

Aaron, I am really glad that you are enjoying this blog, and even happier that you are leaving comments. I hope you'll keep doing both (:

I actually wanted to spend the majority of this installment of Follow-up Fridays talking about another comment that came earlier in the week on this post in response to another reader using the phrase "white trash"

jgalt said:
The word "white trash" is just as bad as the word "nigger". Both words are about degrading one's race and stoops to the lowest and viale elements of the human experiance. These words are filled with hate and anger and do nothing but pollute the dialoge and clogs the efforts to move forward as civil parties. I challenge you to read the post and insert the word nigger for white trash and you will see my point. The tone of your post would take a different demenor and would probly cause you to rethink your use of words. It would have been better to advance your theory in a way where name calling and ridicule is left out. Your sister's friend is exercising her god given right to live her life and pursue happiness as she sees fit. If one disagrees with it so be it, as long as she is not infringing on anothers right to pursue their happiness. Her choices would not be yours but the name calling does nothing to advance your theory on how her life is turning out. People live a wide arrange of complex and simple lives, that I believe is what makes this whole human experience so devine. Life is constantly changing and the choices we make allow us to control our destinies. The choices that one person makes my not be your but I would rather celebrate the fact that those choices are allowed to be made and not controled by an oppresive government. Words matter.

I normally go line by line on Follow-up Fridays comments, but I'm not going to do that here. Basically, I agree with everything that jgalt had to say. I used to have an entry about the phrase "white trash," but I deleted it because I felt like I wasn't accurately expressing what I wanted to about such a puzzling phrase. But I've been doing a lot of thinking, and think I have a better grasp on what I want to say and how I want to say it.

The phrase "white trash" is degrading. I don't understand describing another person in that way. Well, I do understand it in the same way I understand why anyone puts anyone else down: in a not very effective way for the insulter to feel better about him/herself. But I have always found it peculiar that many (most?) white people have no problem describing other members of their group this way. You don't really hear people of color denigrating each other with racial slurs. If they do use racial slurs, it is usually in context that is meant to have an entirely different meaning. And if they are using it to be insulting, it's pretty much guaranteed that that person is suffering from some serious internalized racism (like the black cop in Boyz in the Hood ::shudder::) So, what is the deal with "white trash"?

And then it hit me--the term "white trash" is an element of social control.

don't drive the right car? White trash.
don't wear the right kind of clothes? White trash.
don't handle conflict by pretending it doesn't exist? White trash.
don't write thank you cards in a timely manner? White trash.
don't live in the right kind of house? White trash.
don't have an acceptable family structure? White trash.
don't throw the right kind of parties? White trash.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Basically, if you're white and you do anything socially that another group of white people don't agree with, you can have this label slapped on you. Pretty effective way to keep people in line, and keep them obsessed with "keeping up appearances." It's also a good way to keep people buying -ish, since so much of what I mentioned above is about consumer goods, but that's another post for another day.

So think the next time you're contemplating using this phrase remember: no human being is trash. Trash is what you sweep into a dustpan and then put in the dumpster. Sometimes if you're feeling particularly irresponsible, you set it on fire in your backyard. You don't do that to people, even people who wear cutoff jean shorts. YKWIM?

Comments? You know what to do.