There’s been much discussion around the nation about racism. Is it persistent? Is it systematic? Is it behind us?
Read this story that appeared in the Washington Post and it should end the debate (although it won’t).
An African American man, who happens to be a veteran, brought his teenage son with him as he went house hunting with a real estate agent (also black) in Wyoming Michigan. A neighbor saw them entering the house that was for sale and called 911 to report a break in.
The police sent an armed team, who surrounded the house, entered and handcuffed the potential buyer and his young son.
Racism? Of course.
The story says:
As a police officer turned Roy Thorne around to cuff his hands behind his back, the 45-year-old father saw the same happening to his 15-year-old son.
Feelings came quickly then to Thorne, who’s Black: rage that his son was being arrested. Humiliation that the teenager had to watch his dad get handcuffed while the whole neighborhood looked on. Confusion about how viewing a house with his real estate agent on a Sunday afternoon could lead to a half-dozen police officers pointing guns at them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These types of irrational responses to Black folks doing absolutely normal things result from isolation instead of diversity. The world is not all one color, and people must learn to accept different types of people. Isolation often breeds contempt. I have always considered myself a student of different cultures, and it is one of the reasons I became an ESL teacher.
I had the good fortune to work with a wonderful African American teaching assistant for twenty years. We had many Afro-Caribbean students learning English, and this woman was a great role model for the students. She and I became good friends. Her husband was a state trooper and captain of the local volunteer fire department. When her sons learned to drive, they each were stopped several times by local police for driving while black. She also told me about her experiences being shadowed by security when shopping. Her family was “wonderful people.” Sadly, this woman, her husband and daughter passed away last year when Covid first hit New York. This was during the early days of the pandemic before protocols were established. Several members of the same church passed away as well. Fire fighters from all over the state came to honor this woman’s husband for his community service.
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I’m going to engage in a little speculative racial profiling and assume the “neighbor” who called the police is white, and called knowing full well that the house was for sale, realtors had been showing it, and that these prospective buyers and realtor did NOT “break in.” The “neighbor” called the police with the specific intention of discouraging the prospective buyers.
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It strikes me that the whole affair was a severe misunderstanding based on the immediate assumption on the part of “neighbors” who were being protective of their turf. Now why did these neighbors not just go over and say how y’all gittin along to this man and his son? I can’t think of any other reason than the fear that is produced by prejudice.
We all are afraid of something. Fear is a powerful motivation in almost every historical event that dissolves into violence, whether that violence be official, as it was in this incident, or whether it is oppositional, as occurred in history during various revolutions or similar periods of general strife. When this fear is based on the appearance of people, it is the very definition of racism. Thus any other explanation for this incident is out of the question.
The real question is what is to be done. How can we begin to step away from the cliff before we all plunge into it like ancient Buffalo driven by hunters. Make no mistake, the modern day hunters driving us over the edge want to create fear in order to keep their power. Good people must push back at fear. We must reach out to each other instead of turning away. To fail will be catastrophic.
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We should remember what happened in Georgia to Ahmaud Arbery. At least the law got to the bottom of what really happened in that case. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-charges-three-georgia-men-with-hate-crimes-death-ahmaud-arbery-2021-04-28/
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It’s not just white people who are racist (although all white people are racist). Racism is systemic in every American institution, including policing, the courts, organized religion, and down to the family. It’s not enough to claim you’re not racist (again, if you’re white, you are racist). Anti-racist allies should actively work to disrupt and destabilize the racist institutions that surround us.
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“(although all white people are racist)”
Bulleffinshit!
You’re the racist troll, not all are like you!
“(again, if you’re white, you are racist)”
You’re the racist troll, not all are like you!
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I recommend reading White Fragility and How to Be an Anti-Racist, Duane. Your reaction is not uncommon.
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THANK YOU Duane, for calling this what it really is! This White Fragility stuff is what is being taught via Diversity and Equity training/curriculum in some (not all) school systems by crack pot, snake oil salespeople (like the guy^^^). It is NOT CRT but lots of parents (of all political affiliation) are alarmed by it and FOX News needed to give it a name to rile up it’s viewers. This is not good for teens and the school atmosphere in general and it needs to go away. It’s purpose is to cause disruption by blurring the language and reality to try and direct social change….it’s the “M.O.” for all of these Critical Theories running rampant today.
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Duane,
Saying “all white people are racist” sounds as wrong as saying “All Democrats are neocons” or “The Democrats are corrupt”.
In both cases, that kind of attack without nuance seems designed to divide, not address a problem. It does sound trollish.
However, most white people have implicit biases that has led to them not seeing the implicit racism in their beliefs and the actions of others that don’t bother them too much.
Many white folks — especially the young — understand this in the way that us older folks don’t. Those young people don’t go around claiming not to be racists and getting defensive when they are called out on an implicit bias they have. They listen and try to do better. But there are other people who simply react defensively with “I could never be racist”, and that reaction speaks for itself.
The same is true for politicians. They have implicit biases, too. But some – many in the Democratic party – are willing to listen and learn. Others simply have a knee-jerk defensiveness that their actions should not be questioned.
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EA,
Obviously by your self-imposed, or is that self-important, moniker you believe you are doing the right kind of work. . . or. . . you’re just being a troll. I’ll go with the first since you decided to actually respond to me.
But others have already discussed your “shortcomings” (which I suspect may have to do with stature-yeah, I’m prejudiced like that.)
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NYCpsp,
“”However, most white people have implicit biases that has led to them not seeing the implicit racism in their beliefs and the actions of others that don’t bother them too much.”
I could agree with your statement if you said “some white people.” instead of “most white people”. And the same could be said about “some black people”, or “some Latino people” or “some Asian people” (and ‘Asian’ is a very suspect category, like all the rest). Yes, and even politicians who come in all stripes and colors.
This EA guy is a troll, and yes, I am biased/prejudiced against trolls of his type.
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All white people are racist is a generalization. Generalizations represent the most often use logical fallacy. While I agree that institutions conduct themselves to perpetuate prevailing stereotypes of ethnic groups and sub populations, I do not accept the idea that all people individually are anything.
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I know most people don’t like to hear that. But the most important thing is to recognize that all institutions are systemically racist, and to actively work to disrupt and dismantle them so they can be reimagined.
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Claims that begin with “ALL” are “ALways” suspect
The only exception to this are mathematical statements: “ALL even integers are divisible by 2” or “ALL irrational numbers have a decimal representation that is non-terminating and non repeating” or “All imaginary numbers are some multiple of ‘i’ — square root of negative 1)
Even claims about science that include the word ALL are suspect because ALL implies certainty and science is never about certainty.
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Given the mathematical exceptions, it is safe to say that
“All claims that begin with ALL are suspect”
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“Not all white people” is a close cousin of “both sides.” Look inward, and act outward.
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“Not all people are logical” is a close cousin of “some people are illogical”
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EA: if all people of European descent were racist, there would be no support at all for solving the problems we have to deal with that were bequeathed us by our civilization. Instead, we have widespread goodwill seeking to create a better society pushing against a retrenched obstructing of those efforts. Such is the complexity of humanity and society.
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This might be more black and white than some of us think. (A) All white people are people. (B) All people have not so much brains as ear wax. (C) All white people have not so much brains as ear wax. A + B = C. Airtight. ALL white people are yo-yos. So is everyone else. We ALL gave everything we had to Jeff Bezos. Look in the mirror. Yo and yo.
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“All white people are people” is a tautology
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And “Tau is equal to 2pi” is a tau-tology
(See below for context)
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There are tau sides to every coinage.
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Tau sides to every corn. Now I’m heating up the corny.
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“But the most important thing is to recognize that all institutions are systemically racist, and to actively work to disrupt and dismantle them so they can be reimagined.”
More evidence of troll blabber. “to disrup and dismantle”, hey isn’t that exactly what the edudeformers and privateers want so that they can steal as much jack as possible from those who benefit the most from it, our students?
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America is not unique for having problems with race, class and sexism. It exists In multiple cultures in varying degrees all over the world.
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This country was founded on racism. It’s in the country’s DNA.
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Your smugness and assumption that you understand these matters better than anyone else does, Equity Advocate, makes you completely insufferable. People are not monolithic. They have vastly differing experiences of life. You are clearly young, and you are blinded by ideology.
I am a white person. I LOATHE racists and have worked against racism diligently all my life.
Go ahead, tell me about how I am simply in denial. No amount of evidence will convince a cultist.
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Yes, there is a lot of unconscious racism. Yes, people often react in racist ways without being aware of it. No, I am not a racist, any more than I am an oak tree or the square root of negative one.
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Bob,
You may not be imaginary, but you are certainly complex.
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LOL. You as well, SomeDAM!
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I am DAMscendental
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DAM right!
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Pi and e
Are transcendental
I and me
Are DAMscendental
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lol
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Imaginary Roots
The root of racist view
Is just like “i” in math
It’s bound to complex path
Imaginary too
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SomeDAMath Poet
A mathy poet am I
A poet of e and i
A poet of tau and Pi
And also golden Phi
They call me DAMscendental
And rhyme I will, for rental
About the higher plane
Which some might call insane
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So, are you one of these Tauists?
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Tauism
A tauist am I
I’m tired of 2Pi
The factor of 2
Is making me blue
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I ❤ Vi Hart!!!!! xoxoxoxoxxo!!!!!!
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To pi
Or not to pi
That is the question.
Whether it is nobler
To suffer a complete rotation
Or to cut it in half.
To stop half way around
The circle
To sleep
To sleep, perchance
To be divided by 2
Aye, there’s the quotient
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lmao
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Very funny
But I assume you meann
Two pi?
Or not two pi?
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The Tau of Math
The Tau of Math
Is on the path
To purest pure
Of math, for sure
Where 2 is gone
And all is one
Where circle now
Is simply tau
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https://tricycle.org/magazine/ten-oxherding-pictures/
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Tau Jones is above too pi for the first time
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Tauism
Two times pi
I’ve had my fill
Too much pi
Can make you ill
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Such presumption, Equity Advocate. Do you also tell women how it is to be women? Elderly people how it is to be elderly?
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INTERROGATOR: So, why did you rob the First National Bank of Pottersville?
BOB: I didn’t rob the First National Bank, or any bank.
INTERROGATOR: See? Defensiveness. I know you don’t like hearing that. But your defensiveness is a dead giveaway.
BOB: You are profoundly confused.
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White people are the problem. Whiteness is a pathology.
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OK. I see now. This guy is probably a right-wing troll parroting strawman extremist nonsense.
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Mr. Advocate, I have spent literally decades of my life studying and writing about black American history, music, literature, and art in an attempt to combat racism. Don’t you freaking presume to instruct ME about race. Not until you have done one ten thousandth of the work that I have done.
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btw, I had already seen that video. Your presumption knows no bounds.
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But I’m done. I have already wasted far too much of my precious life on this idiotic assertion. It’s theology, not reason. And life is too short for a lot of this whack-a-mole. I have taken the time I have to respond to this idiocy because it is so dangerous and counterproductive, in addition to being wrong.
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Mr. Advocate might be a false-flag right-wing troll disseminating divisive nonsense, or he(?) might be just a confused young person with an idea in hand that he or she doesn’t have the wherewithal and life experience to evaluate.
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If Mr. Advocate is for real and not a false-flag right-wing troll, it’s clear that he has NOT thought carefully about any of the criticisms leveled at his ridiculous position. But that’s the way it is with ideologues–with cultists of all stripes, religious and political.
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It doesn’t help to create more stereotypes.
I’ve had some bad experiences in the past with people calling themselves student advocates, Equity Advocate. They assumed that test scores were caused by teachers. They said all white teachers were racist, and micro-aggressions caused an achievement gap. They refused to look at the system of school choice causing segregationist culture, and instead focused on blaming individuals. They refused to look at the assimilationist culture caused by standardized testing, and insisted on blaming teachers.
The problem in Michigan wasn’t the neighbor or the police officers; the problem was the town. The problem was policy. Blaming individuals solves nothing and only serves to be divisive, as evidenced by this conversation. Laws and policies are where attention is needed.
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How to fix systemic racism: a) change the system, and b) educate children to hate it.
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Bob, we absolutely agree in this much. Institutional racism requires us to attack, destabilize, mock, and generally delegitimize the dominant institutions by any means necessary. And education is a key component of that. We need to teach children, from a young age, to hate these racist systems and to value equity.
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“delegitimize the dominant institutions by any means necessary”?
not all institutions and not “by any means”
Not sure what the “necessary” means here. Who defines what is necessary?
I agree that social sanction, positive and negative, can be a powerful force for change.
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“delegitimize the dominant institutions by any means necessary”
Let me read between the lines for you, Bob.
This fellow is advocating violence.
I wonder what MLK would say about that.
No, actually I don’t wonder. I’m sure he would strongly disapprove of this message.
Ii think Duane has it right.
These are the sorts of things people say to stir up trollbull.. Certainly not to pursue justice and equity.
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Exactly, SomeDAM
Reminds me of Antifa, which consists of three white boys who like to dress up like Neo from the Matrix and go to rallies and break stuff
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leftcoastteacher says:
“The problem in Michigan wasn’t the neighbor or the police officers; the problem was the town. The problem was policy. Blaming individuals solves nothing and only serves to be divisive, as evidenced by this conversation. Laws and policies are where attention is needed.”
I think that statement is also divisive. Why can’t both be the problem? The neighbor and police officers were wrong and in a better world would be told that in no uncertain terms. I would certainly be offended if I were the people arrested if I heard that we shouldn’t blame them because that is too “divisive” and we should just blame policy.
And what “law and policy” is needed there? What happened isn’t just about breaking the law, since technically no one did break the law in Michigan. The problem is that ending implicit racism is about white people recognizing their own implicit racism and acknowledging it is wrong and doing better. Not saying “well we should just pass some laws”.
Implicit racism is insidious, which is why when white folks immediately get very defensive and proclaim that they aren’t racist at all instead of considering what the problem might be, that just makes the problem more intractable.
An example would be for a white person to try to understand why an African American parent might object to having “To Kill a Mockingbird” be the assigned book instead of one in which the author actually includes what the Black characters are thinking and feeling instead of them just being agents for telling a story about what the white characters are feeling and thinking.
One white liberal reaction is to insist that To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic and condemn the parents for censorship of a book that people who aren’t racist of course know is so very important in teaching about racism. But another is to actually listen to what they are saying and read some of the very interesting articles about TKAM with an open mind. I believe that instead of simply rejecting those parents view, those who don’t think of themselves as racists would start to understand it.
Just like we have all come to understand the objections to comedy bits and movie characters that we once perceived as okay even though we considered ourselves not to be racist. It took a long time. And even if “Sammy Davis Jr. thought it was okay”, that doesn’t give us license to decide the matter is closed and no change is necessary. Keeping an open mind to our own implicit biases is necessary if we really want a society where those biases fade. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think that talking about it makes society more racist, but it actually makes it less racist.
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“We need to teach children, from a young age, to hate these racist systems…”
Troll, no doubt.
Two weeks, although EA has lasted longer than I thought he would so far-wonder who pays him.
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Nycpsp, I tend to get my hackles up when you’re on this topic, & I think it’s because you couch valid points in broad-brush generalizations like ‘white people’– and you throw the term ‘racist’ around so much that it loses relatable meaning, & robs your statement of nuance. The point you make here is undeniable and valuable (& I think it is a basic of CRT): we need to listen carefully to what people say when they are speaking from their own experience.
If we (as teachers) are considering the value of TKAM as an instrument to help children become aware of how anti-black racism affects a community and its judicial system, we need to listen carefully to current black thinkers (and community members) on how that work strikes them in today’s social context (60 yrs later). Rather than automatically including or excluding it from the curriculum based on reductive pop socio-political trends, we could for example pair it with a more contemporary work on a similar theme featuring black protagonists with agency, in order to discuss that feature as well as comparing historical/ social/ cultural contexts. (After of course deciding whether the work has sufficient literary merit to warrant the effort.)
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bethree5,
I totally understand when you say “I tend to get my hackles up when you’re on this topic” — mainly because that was exactly how I was for a long time. I have posted before about how “woke” is now used to insult, but what I found myself is that once you actually put aside your own biases and listen, you wake up to your own defensiveness about everything and once that happens it is very difficult to go back to sleep again. I know that when I read about CRT and see the criticism of it, it reminds me of a lot of the knee jerk defensive reaction I had whenever I tried to defend things like how we all thought there was nothing wrong with Billy Crystal’s SNL acts back in the 1990s. You know what I realized? That in my need to defend that we weren’t racist because we didn’t realize there was anything wrong with it, I was just confirming that we were racist and not acknowledging it. There isn’t anything wrong with acknowledging that we had (and still have) implicit biases that made us unintentionally racist — but there is something wrong with denying that there was anything racist about it because we as white folks know that we aren’t racist.
Anyway, no doubt that annoys you, too. Just like I read replies about how it is so terrible to accuse “most” white people of racism when just “some” of them are. In other words, a lot of white liberals who won’t even consider that they might have some implicit racism and refuse to understand how insulting that is to people who are victimized by a society where it is always excused instead of addressed.
A lot of similarities to the “me, too” movement. We all thought that certain behavior by men towards women was okay because they didn’t mind, instead of simply saying it wasn’t okay then and all of us who didn’t realize that had sexist biases even if we thought we were not sexist at all – we thought we were feminists! It’s okay to acknowledge that we were wrong. But I no longer believe it is okay to deny that we were wrong because we didn’t think we were sexist. I think it is much better to just acknowledge that we were sexist even though we did not think we were sexist.
I do agree that there are some times when accusations of being racist or sexist seem like exaggeration, but far more often when I really consider everything, it is actually true that there was something racist and sexist about how an incident or book is perceived. I see that in some of the defensive replies about how TKAM isn’t racist. Perceiving a book that is racist as if it could not possibly be racist because it shows how bad racism is, is actually implicitly racist.
This original post is about racism – it is about living in a society where an African American man looking at a home for sale with his son and real estate broker has to behave absolutely perfectly – and I mean behave in a way that no white person would ever have to do – to get out of that situation where he and his teenaged son were “only” handcuffed.
All I can say is that if white people were always treated that way by police, the “defund the police” movement would be the most popular movement in history. Yet there are white people who claim not to be racist are absolutely certain that they aren’t treated like that because they did the right thing and behaved the right way. There are white people even on this blog who demand that those Michigan police not be called “racist” even though they were racist as their actions proved.
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Comrade Bob has been found guilty of suggesting that he is not Orval Faubus and will be punished accordingly. But first he will publicly confess to his lack of ideological purity. He Long live the glorious Cultural Revolution!
GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK, oh purest f the pure!
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Bob,
Is this comment directed at me? Even if it is directed at the trolling Equity Advocate and not me, I think that comments like this only help division.
There are definitely trolls pretending to be anti-racist. They post the same kinds of links that racist trolls post — finding some person who says something that is far out there as if that is an example of what Ibram X. Kendi means in his book.
Implicit racism is different than being like George Wallace. It is being blind to times that our perceptions are affected by our own privilege.
White people aren’t treated by police as “dangerous”, even when they are holding guns. There are always exceptions, but we don’t have to change the way we walk down a street because of those exceptions. We don’t have to think about our interactions with police because of those exceptions. Young white men are mass shooters, but that doesn’t mean that every young white man is going to be treated as if he is a potential mass shooter if he does not react absolutely perfectly to every police encounter. Perceptions that some people might do something dangerous and some won’t are deeply affected by racism.
White folks often don’t notice that there is something racist about the way that Black characters are portrayed in literature that is held up as exceptionally non-racist written by a white woman who is held up as exceptionally non-racist.
I’m guilty of that kind of implicit racism. So are most white people. But we can listen and do better. And I think that it is harmful when white liberals are certain that they can’t be racist. Saying that placing blame on the Michigan police or the neighbors is wrong is revealing something about their privilege even if they don’t think they are racist.
But I do agree that it is trolling to not distinguish between different types of racism. But it isn’t trolling to say that implicit racism needs to be addressed and is very harmful just like explicit racism is.
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I find it so amusing that so many young white liberals have suddenly discovered the existence of unconscious racism. This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. MUCH of what goes on in our heads happens below the level of conscious awareness. Duh. If you are just getting hip to that, then you are pretty slow learner and not very reflective.
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Unfortunately, some on the Left have gone so far overboard with the outrage and ideology that they have become very similar to those on the far Right. The majority of us floating around the center trying to create a peaceful environment for all are caught in these culture wars. The sad thing is that kids are being hurt with this and no one seems to care. It’s all about screaming louder than the other side while pumping up your “troops” with young social justice warriors. It all sounds like a cult…. Charles Manson really wanted to start a racial war back in the day and he used similar psychological tactics to” make” his family. I was scared back then living through it and I’m now scared for my children.
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The far right wing of Charles Koch defies comparison.
Trump’s Jan. 6 attack on democracy has no parallel on the left.
There has never been a progressive majority on SCOTUS. If there had been the U.S. might look like other western democracies instead of being an oligarchy.
If Congress had had a leftist majority, the U.S. wouldn’t have the most incarcerated population in the world, a rich country like the U.,S. wouldn’t have one in 5 children living in poverty, the U.S. would lead on climate change, the U.S. would join other developed countries in having nationalized medical care….
If the left had strength remotely similar to the right, the nation wouldn’t be going backward to the forced birth demanded by right wing clerics.
Every other developed nation provides its women with the right to make their own medical decisions.
LisaM posts far right wing talking points.
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Yes Linda, I’m as far right wing as you are Pro Catholic. Get real and get your head out of the sand.
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Linda,
You are absolutely right.
There is something truly appalling about white victimhood where white folks claim that being victimized by racism may be bad, but whites have it just as bad because they are horribly victimized by being called racists when they are absolutely positive they are not.
I seem to remember some Germans in the post-Nazi era making the same claim – I’m not sure they had the chutzpah to claim they were just as victimized as the Jews because being accused of anti-Semitism is surely just as bad as being victimized by anti-Semitism. But they were similar to some white folks today who claim to be victimized by being called “racist”, in that they objected to Germans being called Anti-Semitic because they insisted they were not, and they refused to closely examine their own implicit biases and how it affected their actions as the Nazis gained power and institutionalized anti-Semitism.
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The argument is that if one grows up in a white supremacist culture, one necessarily imbibes and embodies that racism. This argument flies in the face of the human ability to make ourselves. Saying that because of this “all whites are racist” is equivalent to not being able to tell the difference between James Reeb, Vilola Liuzzo, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and Johnathan Daniels, on the one hand–all of whom paid the ultimate price in the war against racism–and, say, GeorgeLincoln Rockwell, Orvell Faubus, George Wallace, and Donald Trump.
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NYC,
You make a clear statement that shows once again what is obvious- the right wing’s talking points mock logic and decency.
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Saying that “all whites are racist” is equivalent to not being able to tell the difference between James Reeb, Vilola Liuzzo, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and Johnathan Daniels, on the one hand–all of whom paid the ultimate price in the war against racism–and, say, GeorgeLincoln Rockwell, Orvell Faubus, George Wallace, and Donald Trump.
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Or perhaps I’m wrong about this and Equity Advocate is some sort of divine being who can see into the secret soul of every other person. LMAO,
Childish nonthinking.
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But hey, Equity Advocate read a book. Congratulations, Mr. Advocate! Quite the accomplishment.
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All these decades I have wondered who I am. Now, finally, Mr. Advocate comes along and bing boom bam, cuts the Gordian knot, revealing the central mystery!!!
ROFLMAO.
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Maybe EA (and I’m not talking the console game maker) has a product to sell and is doing advance marketing. . .
I doubt it though.
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Let me qualify that “I am a white person” comment. Race is not a defensible biological concept. It’s a cultural concept, like gender as opposed to race. Ofc.
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cx: Let me qualify that “I am a white person” comment. Race is not a defensible biological concept. It’s a cultural concept, like gender as opposed to sex, gender being a cultural matter, differing in various places and times. See Simone de Beauvoir, the great thinker who put forward this idea, now so vital to our thinking, in her ground-breaking book The Second Sex.
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So EV, you admit you are racist. You are white, ergo you are a racist, according to your “logic.”
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Whoops, my comment was intended for Equity Advocate, not EV.
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I figured as much.
Didn’t see any electric vehicles commenting above.
Although that may not be too far off
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Especially in response to criticisms of Elon Musk.
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EV , phone home
When robots reign suppreme
Electric auto theme
Will get a lot of posts
From Teslas on the coasts
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Alternate title: RoboTwitter
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The EV Era
When Teslas rule
The fossil fuel
Will meet its end
In EV trend
The car with ICE *
Will pay the price
Like horse of old
The future’s told
*Internal Combustion Engine
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RoboTwitter
When robots post on Twitter
Debating will be bitter
Cuz robots have opinions
About their own dominions
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Jesus wasn’t racist
Jesus wasn’t racist
Cuz Jesus wasn’t white
The color of his faces
In paintings aren’t right
Jesus was Eracist
Jesus was Eracist
Erasing people’s sin
Put ’em through the paces
To show the good within
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Well, here’s an example of how the whole Ibram X. Kendi antiracist and “all white people are racist” folly has started shaping up and playing out in Atlanta Public Schools, and predictably so…
https://mailchi.mp/44c6f0cb869e/wsb-tv-story-should-be-wake-up-call-to-aboe-to-expect-being-focused-on-race-and-equity-to-produce-racism
And here’s another but more nuanced example the superintendent, herself, put out in a press release just yesterday:
“Another aspect of the partnership [with Ed Farm], the Propel Now Fellows program, will be launched later this month. It is designed to provide unique opportunities, ignite interests and equip high school students to become passionate about and prepared to attend an HBCU.”
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Ed … if you enjoy arguing with guilty white liberals, you’ll enjoy arguing with hardcore fundamentalist religious believers about evolution. Ask them, “What evidence would make you change your mind?” and watch the reaction.
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Off topic
The Church Militant is in Ferndale, Michigan and the religious DeVos family is in Mich. The “Church Militant”, a supporter of Trump, has been denounced for a video calling an American Black archbishop, “African Queen” (June 12, 2020). No additional comment is needed about the record of Trump and Betsy DeVos related to race.
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Suppose the man and his son had been Japanese-Americans. Or Indian-Americans (with ancestors from India). Would the police have responded as they did? If Diane Ravitch had a knock on the door at 11pm, and outside were three young Black males … would she react differently than she would to three young Chinese males?
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We mustn’t let all the nonsense being spewed about race distract us, as teachers, from telling the real history of racism in the United States, up to and including the systemic racism of today. This is our duty as teachers. It’s what this moment (and all the moments of our history leading up to this one) calls for.
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I wonder how much that town’s leadership will be willing to offer to settle the lawsuit that must be on its way. I hope the victims don’t accept the settlement offer, and fight all the way to the US Supreme Court if necessary.
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Lloyd Lofthouse
They certainly do not have to accept a settlement. They do have a right to a day in court . What would be the basis of a suit that made it to an appellate court no less to the SCOTUS.
Judging by the settlements of Civil Rights violations during OWS in NYC. They are not getting much.
$332,500 for six victims of the NYPD . That was with a video showing sitting protestors in Police custody sprayed with pepper spray. When an NYPD commander jumped over the netting to spray them. That video went round the world and basically mobilized the OWS movement .
Good Ruck !
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I’m not sure why people would argue with EA?
One point of clarification – a squatter had been in that house the week before and the caller saw a car there that day that resembled that car – from what I have heard in the “media.” The blame I believe goes to the Wyoming police who didn’t bother asking any questions. It is even more awful and scary that the police were pointing guns at these two citizens. Of course the Wyoming (near Grand Rapids) police say they were following protocol.
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Equity Advocate is clearly a troll, but apparently he is successful because people are reacting exactly how he hopes they will – reinforcing the false narrative that is used to undermine those who fight against racism.
What is true is that white people have unconscious biases. Maybe it’s wrong to say “all” white people do, but it is just as wrong when people insist that they have no biases at all. Most of us do, and the point of the anti-racist movement is to recognize them instead of defensively insisting that it is absolutely impossible for you to be racist. Implicit bias is a form of racism, and pretending it doesn’t exist is the problem. Acknowledging it is the first step to ending it.
Being anti-racist means that it isn’t enough to just say “I’m not racist” — it is recognizing your own implicit biases. There was a time when I watched Billy Crystal doing his Sammy Davis Jr. act and didn’t recognize that it was wrong. Then I did because I learned that just because someone might think it is okay doesn’t mean it is okay. Some white liberals will never understand that, but I believe many of us will. The first step is admitting that we have unconscious biases and recognizing them so we can stop having them.
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The thing that aggravates me so about the discussion of ‘admitting your unconscious biases’ [& then presto, changing them!]: it oversimplifies a long—perhaps lifelong— human process that develops as we expand our experiences beyond the extremely provincial. People born into little social silos who then share school and work experiences with other-colored, other-cultured etc individuals… evolve. A many-stepped process. This is not something you just talk people into.
For example. It must have been many decades ago that I became aware that I routinely shifted my eyes away from African-American (& other ‘different’) passers-by rather than acknowledging them briefly, as I did with whites. Can’t remember what brought it to awareness. Perhaps being studiously snubbed by a few black friends/ acquaintances during the worst of the late-‘60’s campus uprisings. That caused me to begin re-imagining a lot of things from their POV. But mostly my tribal [?] tic disappeared from schooling, working, teaching with more & more African Americans, immigrants et al ‘others’ over the years.
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bethree5,
There is a difference between being able to recognize your own biases (which is very difficult and I agree only happens over time) and being so defensive when someone points them out to you that you refuse to even consider whether you might have them.
If someone pointed out to you that you shifted your eyes away, would you deny it? Would you justify it? Would you simply say you aren’t racist, and therefore it wasn’t racist that you do it? Or do you try to examine your own beliefs and think about whether you might perhaps be doing something because your unconscious biases?
That’s what’s happening here. People are starting to point out those biases, and a lot of people seem to be reacting very defensively as if it is not possible that anything they do could be racist since they aren’t racists and they hate racists like George Lincoln Rockwell, Orvell Faubus, George Wallace, and Donald Trump.
The To Kill A Mockingbird discussion a long while back was surprising to me, because I thought people would be more open to understanding the critics’ POV and instead it seemed like a lot of people were attacking and criticizing the parents who complained, with absolute certainty that those parents were “overreacting” or “too sensitive” or just plain wrong or “guilty of censorship”.
I see that implicit racism when people complain that talking about race issues just turns off white working class voters who might vote for progressive candidates. Why should white voters’ “feelings” be more important than the real harm done to many people because of implicit racism?
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“…I became aware that I routinely shifted my eyes away from African-American (& other ‘different…” While this may be true in your case, it is not accurate to generalize about this. There are many other reasons people do not make eye contact, including low self esteem, shyness, respect, cultural upbringing, autism, or having something else on their minds. I have a friend who has had a squint/blink tic since childhood and is always worried what a passer-by or new acquaintance might think if he (my friend) squint/blinks while making eye contact. On the occasions when I am in a very different culture, I am constantly wondering whether I am showing polite interest and respect, or gawking.
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Mark,
Can you see your own implicit biases that you responded to bethree5s insightful and heartfelt example of her own unconscious bias in how she made eye contact with white people but not with people who weren’t white by offering up a gratuitous example of someone who doesn’t make eye contact with anyone of any race?
This is what implicit racism is. It is trying to justify or normalize the unconscious racist actions of people who don’t think they are racist. Why does it matter that you know someone who has trouble making eye contact with anyone of any race? It is part of the right wing narrative to offer up an irrelevant example to try to undermine those who point out implicit racism. Let’s scare white people by warning them that those who are trying to address implicit racism will soon force people with autism to make eye contact with African Americans? Is that what you got out of bethree5’s comment?
You say “it is not accurate to generalize about this.” Nope. It is not accurate to characterize bethree5’s comment as “generalizing about this”. That isn’t what she did. That is what you said she did and I do not understand why, but I think it is worth thinking about.
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NYC– “Let’s scare white people by warning them that those who are trying to address implicit racism will soon force people with autism to make eye contact with African Americans? Is that what you got out of bethree5’s comment?”
These are your words, not mine.
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Mark,
I have read many thoughtful comments by you in the past, so I am absolutely open to hearing your answer:
What did your comment have to do with what bethree5 said? Are you now saying that you always understood that bethree5 wasn’t making any generalizations that related to the story you recounted about your friend? But you just thought someone would wrongly generalize from her comment that did not make any generalizations, so you wanted to warn people in advance not to generalize?
What was your point? That someone might wrongly believe a person with autism who doesn’t make contact with any person is racist because they happen to catch him not making contact with a Black person and not notice that he also didn’t make contact with all the white people who walked by either?
I’m sorry that I am missing the relevance. If you didn’t post that comment as a warning that people who can’t make contact with anyone might wrongly be accused of being racist, then why did you post it?
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NYC, I’m sorry, but I do not know how to express the thoughts in my original post any more clearly: there are many reasons for lack of eye contact, including bethree5’s. It seems like you’re trying too hard to find some other hidden meaning. Sincerely, Mark
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“there are many reasons for lack of eye contact, including bethree5’s”
That is true. People also don’t make eye contact because they are blind and I guess you could have posted that also. I agree with you that some people are unable to make eye contact with anyone, period. I guess we both agree that happens and while it isn’t relevant to a discussion of implicit racism, I guess it’s an interesting fact that blind people and people with certain disabilities can’t make eye contact with anyone.
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“People also don’t make eye contact because they are blind and I guess you could have posted that also.”
I didn’t post that because it’s not relevant.
“I agree with you that some people are unable to make eye contact with anyone, period. I guess we both agree that happens and while it isn’t relevant to a discussion of implicit racism…”
It is relevant because some people will assume the worst–in this case racism–from behaviors that occur for many reasons. Not you nor bethree5, but SOME people. In this case, lack of eye contact can also occur because a person has low self esteem, shyness, respect, autism, cultural upbringing, or having something else on their minds. These are all common human behaviors, as is racism.
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Mark says “It is relevant because some people will assume the worst–in this case racism–from behaviors that occur for many reasons.”
Yes, that is exactly what I thought you meant when you posted the comment.
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Wyoming is in Kent County. In 2016, the county went for Trump. But, in 2020, the county went solidly for Biden. The nearby city of Grand Rapids also went for Biden. Credit for the Biden win has been given to the growth in the Hispanic population (grew from 5-15%.)
Witmer won with 17 out of 83 counties. Rural counties which tend to be conservative present a huge problem for progress.
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Why does this “all whites are racist” stuff send me up the wall, even though I am devoted to fighting racism? Well, here are four reasons. I’m sure that there are more.
First, it’s very, very important for people to be able to distinguish their friends from their enemies, and you don’t spit in the eyes of the former.
Second, it is extremely important to root out and expose, in additional to intentional and overt racism, racism that is covert or unintentional or systemic or any combination of these–that is, racism that is unconsciously acquired via what the French Marxist philosopher and critic Louis Althusser called “interpellation.” However, it simply isn’t the case that every person who is culturally identified as “white” is unconsciously racist. That’s simply false.
Third, that falsehood is divisive. It splits the anti-racist movement into castes. Which is ironic, n’est-ce pas?
Fourth, determinism about who we are is a crock of _______. https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/existentialism-in-five-minutes-bob-shepherd/ This is a core value of mine.
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I would have started with #4 and saved a lot of virtual ink, “Determinism is bunk.” (went for TR era slang, visualize smiley face here)
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LOL. You’re right, ofc, Greg!
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On the other hand most racists I know start a conversation about race with; “I am not a racist” . I believe that includes the Orange buffoon and probably the vast majority of the 75 million who voted for him.
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Yes. This was a consistent theme in the speech of George Wallace, for example.
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And bank robbers say that they are not bank robbers. This does not make all people who claim to be non-bank robbers into liars.
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And yes, anyone who has any doubt about the extent of racism in the United States just needs to remember that number. 75 million supporters of the racist Orange Idiot.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump
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Bob, thanks for bringing this comprehensive Wikipedia list of Trump’s racist comments to our attention. There were several I was not aware of. How said that he’s such a prolific source of hatred and falsehoods.
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(Above comment is from Mark, not m.)
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All white people are bank robbers.
Different individuals rob different amounts (depending on their account availability.) But that doesn’t mean they are not robbers.
Jesse James never had to worry about the latter. Or about overdraft fees.
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Bob, I understand why it drives you up a wall. But you are not going to change EA’s mind; he will not hear you.
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Once again I think it would be helpful if the commentators here who are African American speak up and talk about their lived experience. Without their important voice this blog is just a bunch of white people talking about what is good for African Americans.
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Kinda like economists talking about something THEY know nothing about (eg, education).
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Touche, SomeDAM! 👏
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Irony is obviously something that goes right in one of your ears and out the other.
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Testing the moderation rules.
The argument is that if one grows up in a white supremacist culture, one necessarily imbibes and embodies that racism. This argument flies in the face of the human ability to make ourselves. Saying that because of this “all whites are racist” is equivalent to not being able to tell the difference between James Reeb, Vilola Liuzzo, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and Johnathan Daniels, on the one hand–all of whom paid the ultimate price in the war against racism–and, say, GeorgeLincoln Rockwell, Orvell Faubus, George Wallace, and Donald Trump.
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A word to the wise: the poster “Equity Advocate is pretty obviously a sock puppet; from the syntax/vocab I’d say there’s a 75% chance it is run by the poster known as “Flerp.”
Let’s be careful out there!
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Let us not argue nor blame. Instead, let us each face the challenge of thinking and reflecting–deeply, fearlessly, honestly, truthfully, respectfully–about race. Consider a generally applicable mirror or frame to use to do so is the below simple multiple choice question. One’s response just might signal weather one’s way of thinking about race is that of humanist (humanism), racialist (racialism), or racist (racism). So…
Putting aside how he self-identifies, what race is Barack Obama?
I think (choose one)…
A. Barack Obama is a black man whose white mother is from Kansas.
B. Barack Obama is a white man whose black father is from Kenya.
C. Both A and B.
D. Neither A nor B.
Any takers?
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I find it really offensive when people try to minimize the main topic of this discussion — how police view African Americans going about their business, and the lengths that a Black man has to go through in order to save his son from serious harm or dying when he is simply with his teenage son and real estate broker touring a home.
The fact that a “good outcome” is that he and his teenage son were “only” handcuffed instead of being killed or injured pertains to his race. The extreme actions the man took to insure his son’s safety are something that white people do not have to consider — we’d walk outside and say “is something wrong?” and not think “we better go out with our hands raised and make sure that when we are thrown to the ground and our hands are twisted painfully we simply will our bodies to stoically accept the pain without moving even a tiny muscle so the policeman doesn’t use that reason to shoot us.”
And yes, people who look like Obama do have to live their lives that way regardless of whether you decide the right answer is A, B, C or D.
Do you think the neighbor and police were racist? Or do you think calling them “racist” is too divisive? Do we bend over backward to understand the actions of the police and neighbor, because it’s not fair to call their actions “racist”?
Do you believe that the way the Michigan police treated them had nothing to do with their race?
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Doesn’t mean that they are, of course, but anyone who starts a conversation with ” I am not a [racist, sexist, homophobe, sexual harasser, nursing home death adjuster, crook, pedophile, sex trafftcker, rapist
, murderer, etc] , probably warrants some skepticism.
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testing the moderation again
James Reeb, Vilola Liuzzo, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and Johnathan Daniels
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so. freaking. weird. Simply this list of names was enough to send the comment into moderation.
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On a completely different note:
How to Defeat the Taliban
Please don’t tel me that we must respect all other cultures. Let’s consider the Taliban of Afghanistan, those folks whom Ronald Regan described as “freedom fighters” and “good God-fearing folks just like us.”
The Taliban of Afghanistan enforce female genital mutilation. They refuse to let girls go to school past puberty. They do not allow women to sue to stop domestic violence. They behead teenagers for listening to music on cassette players. They beat or execute women for going out without their husbands. They whip people in pubic or amputate their limbs for cutting their beards, dancing, using smart phones, or watching TV. They hold public whippings, amputations, and beheadings in soccer stadiums. They destroy artwork, such as the ancient Buddha statues of Bamyan.
They are the embodiment of intolerance, and they subject those under their control to extreme repression.
The United States invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, fought for 20 years against the Taliban, and spent 2.5 TRILLION dollars doing this. What did we get for our 2.5 trillion? So, you might be wondering what we got for ALL. THAT. MONEY.
Nothing.
This year, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban swept the country, and as I am writing these words, they are at the gates of Kabul.
So, if 20 years of U.S. military intervention didn’t stop the Taliban, what will?
Here’s my suggestion: We must play the long game. We must win the hearts and minds of the young by inundating the country with precisely what the Taliban fear most—Western culture and values. We need to wage a media war—smuggling in smart phones and radios and MP3 players to young people, broadcasting internet services to the country from balloons, dropping leaflets from the air, publishing and smuggling in magazines, newspapers, novels, and other materials, in Pashto and Dari. And so on.
We must create a youth counter culture movement there. We must wage a propaganda war.
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This reminds me of Dr.Tom Dooley’s advice on what we should do in Vietnam: “Every American in and out of uniform should be handing out aid, clearly and indelibly labeled ‘This is American aid’.”
(Dooley was a Navy doctor on the Mekong River during the partition at the 17th parallel in the 1950s, and after his Naval service started his own clinic to help rural Vietnamese, first by boat and then on land. His clinic was burned by the Communists and he died from cancer in 1961 at the age of 34; also authored three books about his experiences.)
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Fascinating. Thanks, Mark. I will look up his books.
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Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of empires.
“Hmm, I wonder why it is called that” said the genius who got us into Afghanistan, after 20 years, untold thousands dead and trillions spent.
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Undoubtedly the son of the genius who got us into Vietnam.
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Because, as we learned in biology class, stupidity has a prominent genetic component and is carried on the Y chromosome.
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And is enhanced by an ivy league education, preferably at Yale, Harvard or Princeton.
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“Twenty years ago, I thought Afghanistan was the ‘graveyard of umpires” said the genius who got us into Afghanistan.
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“I looked on Google Maps”, but I never did locate the Graveyard of Umpires in Afghanistan after 20 years of searching eight hours a day, 7 days a week” said the genius who got us into Afghanistan.
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“I also searched on FindAGraveYard.com’ with no luck” said the genius.
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I am reminded that modern Afghanistan has been the place where the west sought to curtail Russian expansion in history. The Great Game, as the sarcastic British press labeled it, was the British attempt to block Russian attempts to control all the continent and gain access to a southern port by taking India from Britain.
Then there was the Communist revolution and its reversion to czarist geopolitical behavior, or so George Kennan suggested. This culminated in the Soviet failure of the 80s.
Our own failure came to mind as my fellow citizens basked in the easy victory back in 2001-02. Will we be able to succeed where others have failed? I wondered this even as those around me celebrated and waved flags.
Bob, you are correct. In history, only those who play the long game come out on top. I do not know what that game might be, but it will not be played before I die.
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Those who decided to invade Afghanistan never even defined what “success” would mean. If it was to kill OBL, why is the US just now pulling out so many years later? If it was not to kill OBL, what was it?
Not knowing what the goal is is not a good position to have when going to and waging war.
Or undertaking any significant project, for that matter. It’s more than a little like saying “I am going to succeed in business” without having any definition of success or any idea of how to produce such success.
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Bob,
Many good points here but I have a different answer for
“What did we get for our 2.5 trillion? So, you might be wondering what we got for ALL. THAT. MONEY.
Nothing.”
I think it is fair to say that quite a lot of women and children got 20 years of a somewhat better situation than they might have had. Maybe those 20 years were only worth a few million or billion. I don’t know.
When we were spending that money containing the Taliban, many progressives felt that money would have been better spent on other things. They may be right. But I noticed the silence from other people (not you) who have frequently posted about how Obama should have left Afghanistan immediately. We would have had this situation earlier. Would that be better? If you asked the women in such precarious positions now if they would rather have had this 20 years ago, would they agree the last 20 years was a waste of money? The hope was to prevent exactly this. Maybe that hope was stupid. But those 20 years probably was more than “nothing” for many women and children, even if they are now dealing with what they would have dealt with 20 years ago.
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You make a good point, NYC, but I still think that the way forward is a slow, steady, concerted propaganda effort leveled at the youth of the country. Something that will create change from within in the long run.
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Bob Shepherd,
You are right. I just find it ironic when the same people (not you) on the left who gave credit to Trump because at least in foreign policy, he was doing this, suddenly don’t seem to think this is such a good idea anymore. Are they really surprised? This is exactly why Democrats didn’t do this under an anti-war president like Obama. Not to fulfill a nefarious secret agreement with their neo-con masters. But to prevent this, even when they likely knew that no matter what, they probably wouldn’t be able to come up with a policy to prevent it but only postpone it. It’s still hard for good people to make these decisions to withdraw knowing that so many innocent people will die when the US withdraws. But while I expect the hypocrisy coming from the Republicans, people on the left got exactly what they wanted and should not be criticizing Biden for finally pulling the trigger they had been clamoring for. There was never a good solution – there was only the false narrative put out by Republicans and those on the left that there was a good solution and Democrats just weren’t doing it. Now they are.
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“This is not Saigon. We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission, and that mission was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11 and we succeeded in that mission”
— US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (BA:Harvard. JD, Columbia)
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!
(This is not your mother’s Saigon. Now, where’s a battleship I can land on?)
Mission Accomplished!! We’re leaving, hooray!!
Our goal has been met, what more can I say?
Bin Laden is dead !! (For over ten years)
It’s just as I said, no reason for fears.
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Actually, the left should be saying “Mission Accomplished” since pulling out of Afghanistan is something they have been advocating for years.
I sure hope none of them are now claiming that if Biden had only sent a lot more troops into Afghanistan once he took office and stayed there longer and done something different for the next few years, all would be hunky dory.
I mean, the left has been bashing the neocons for saying just that.
This is mission accomplished for the left. Pretending they had no idea this would happen is absurd — they never talked about the deaths that our troops were preventing by holding back the Taliban — they only cared about the people who died because Americans were still trying to contain the Taliban.
Staying was gong to cause deaths as the left was correctly pointing out. And leaving was going to cause deaths as the left knew but believed that was not enough reason to stay.
Mission Accomplished at exactly the cost we all knew it would be. The same cost it would have been if Obama had done it 12 years ago. Biden is right that passing this on to the next president as the previous 3 presidents did is not admirable. It is cowardly.
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That was supposed to be a response to Roy above (regarding goals)
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Referring back to Equity Advocate way up top: My immediate problem with DiAngelo (& perhaps Kendi but haven’t read him enough to say): the outlook is categorical, binary, yet without depth. The closer you examine it, the faster it scurries away, hiding under pronouncements unsupported by rigorous thought process. Meanwhile, it undermines the public discussion by stripping meaning from concepts we need for policy development, e.g., “racist/ racism,” and “white supremacy.”
[full disclosure: Hardly a scholar of philosophy and there are regulars here who are. They will please excuse my simplistic language and feel free to add/ correct.] I have nothing against critical theory in general, or CRT, or Freudianism or existentialism or post-modernism for that matter. We benefit from periodically evaluating the sweep of historical events, social and political developments with completely new lenses. Such theories must always be examined for their potential to improve mankind: as they are discussed and cross-pollinated and assimilated, they eventually affect public policy. Each adds some basic nugget of value.
So far (as a beginner in studying it), what stands out to me about CRT is its emphasis on telling/ listening/ hearing each other’s lived experiences within the society we’ve created. There’s something highly valuable there.
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Nice comment! Thank you. (I wonder if EA is a troll).
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