The substance of Keli Goff's HuffPo article of September 26, 2011 is that at the present time, she and other African Americans are often confronted with what critic Toure calls "the unknowable" – a sense that one is being treated differently and not quite appropriately due to race, but one that is not backable with hard proof because, obviously, the other party isn't going to 'fess up to any misdeeds or bad intentions or bias, etc. I think the point is that while this sort of thing ranges from the silly to the serious (like losing out on a good job or not getting a home loan), the nagging suspicion it engenders takes a toll on a person's well-being.
I'd suggest that we (including our assumptions and sensibilities) are more or less a product of the generation or two preceding us. I have some affinity with the WWII / Depression generation – probably more affinity than I feel with my own – because of the stories and insights my parents passed on to me. Both of them were products of those times. I'm not African American or any other ethnic minority, so I don't experience the contemporary racial "unknowable" that the writer references to Toure – i.e. "am I really being treated differently in this instance, or am I making unfair assumptions about others?" But it's perfectly reasonable, I think, to feel this way – if you're black, you're dealing not only with the present (which may well hit you with racist moments of its own, and ambiguous or ambivalent moments that are impossible to decide and make you feel sort of like Larry David in one of those ridiculous "WTF" situations he gets into on Curb Your Enthusiasm) but also with the blatant and dreadful insults and material injuries that may be part of your family's past and that is definitely part of black people's collective past. We most certainly do not live in a post-racial society, and the past is still embedded in present consciousness to some extent.
The Obama presidency has really called out the full-on racists from under whatever rock they'd been hiding for a few decades, and on rare occasions when I allow myself to read a major newspaper comments section, it's pretty clear that these guys spend ALL their time tapping out racist garbage on their keyboards at five in the morning. They hate Obama for so many manufactured unreasons that they've lost count of them. Apparently, it's hard to keep track of all the people feeding us our unreasons these days. Blink, and we miss ten of them…. But seriously, one can only hope that this kind of blatant, open contempt for a president of African descent marks the last gasp of the Old White Guard: you know how it goes – progress always calls forth a backlash, just as MLK Jr. would tell you. Only when certain people feel threatened do they get downright ugly, and when they do, you know you're making progress. The Obama presidency has been painful at times because of the vileness of the opposition, but who really should have thought it wouldn't be? A smooth ride was never in the cards.
But here's a thought – a conservative columnist in one of the papers I occasionally read seems quite taken with President Obama's gaffes – stuff like "the intercontinental railroad" (I actually like that one! All aboard the Kansas City to London Express!) and other verbal slipups that most presidents make simply because they have to go around the country talking a lot. Someone might say, "liberals made fun of GWB's silly remarks and Reagan's fact-challenged gems, so how's this different?" They have a point. But still, what I take to be the disrespectful manner of the columnist in question makes me suspicious, and perhaps this feeling approximates an instance of what Keli Goff and Toure would call an "unknowable," even though I'm not African American and don't experience the full force of what they're talking about. Might there be some hint, in other words, of playing to those who just can't abide the president's skin color and consider it high time that we take all that power out of his supposedly incapable black hands and give it back to a white guy where it belongs? Maybe even to a white guy who drips with ignorant scorn for the scientific method and has no idea how a modern economy works? In sum, I think a fair amount of the criticism launched against the current president is a product of racial contempt, acknowledged or otherwise. Not all of it, of course, but enough to deserve serious consideration.
Keli Goff: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you."
ReplyDeleteAbout the unknowable, just because you can’t put your finger on it doesn’t mean you can’t put your finger on it. Recalling Election Year 2010 and the NY gubernatorial Tea candidate, Carl Paladino, this comes to mind – those infamous email attachments of Mr. and Mrs. President as primates, as gigolo and hooker, wink-wink-and-nod, and all that low class stuff.
Goff makes a case that racism need not necessarily be overt, that it can be far more insidious when covert; but stealth racism is unmistakable no matter what form it takes.
I have been reading about the baked cookie sale run by Young Republicans at the UofCa Berkeley campus: $2.00 for white cookies, $1.50 for Asian, $1.00 for Latino, $0.75 for black American, to protest affirmative action admissions. Damn nice of them to discount cookies by race, ethnicity, and gender. Another ugly example of stealth racism.
What we call ‘affirmative action’ in the US is called ‘reverse discrimination’ in the UK; different terms, same concept. Perhaps campus Republicans might prefer the UK term because, in their view, ‘reverse discrimination’ is ‘discrimination’ no matter which way the vector points. Had they done more homework, they might have read Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, who says:
“The point that I think needs to be made ... is that by the time anyone steps on a college campus ... there has already been 12- to 13-years of institutionalized affirmative action for white folks, that is to say, racially embedded inequality, which has benefited those of us who are white. And it's only at the point of college admissions that these folks seem to get concerned with color consciousness."
I just lost my appetite for cookies.
One of the best observations as to what it's like to be a black person in the U.S. was in a book of interviews complied by Studs Terkel. A black man explained that being black was like wearing a pair of shoes that are a half size too small; most days you manage okay but there are some days when your feet just damn hurt.
ReplyDeleteFor my 50th birthday, I went to Mazatlan in Mexico with a dear friend who happens to be white. We met as college freshmen and have been best friends for more than 30 years. We had been in Mazatlan for three days before I could put my finger on this peculiar feeling that had been haunting me since I arrived. For the first time in my life, I wasn't conscious of my skin color. To the Mexicans we encountered, we were Americans and my race didn't mean much to them. My friend and I went in a high end jewelry shop where you had to ring a bell for admittance. The sales person was focused on making a sale. She drug out trays of silver and turquoise and encouraged us both to try them all on. In the U.S., it is far more likely that I would have been ignored and that the sales person would have been guarded in how much jewelry was displayed at once for fear that I might pocket a few pieces.
It was the most amazing feeling, to enter a retail shop and not be followed by the sales clerk. To enter a restaurant and be greeted enthusiastically and not ignored. When my color was noted, it was with admiration. One woman wanted a picture of me with her husband and children because she insisted that I must be an American celebrity. For the first time in my life, I was a person, not a black person. Regrettably, I had to leave my country to have that experience.
Studs used to have an office next to my ex-wife when they worked for Chicago Magazine. He was quite a character - a link to the old Left from the 20's and 30's when it was really dangerous. He wore red socks every day and it was a political statement having nothing to do with baseball or Boston.
ReplyDeleteI knew a guy when I was in Chicago. He had a radio show on Public Radio and he was black and Jewish. When he was about 50, he traveled to Egypt and the Middle east and as he said, it was astonishing and almost refreshing that people disliked, distrusted and even hated him for being Jewish instead of being black. Like standing on your left foot after your right one gets sore.
When I was 50, I went to China and toured around with some of my wife's family. In Xi'an, a city with a heavily Muslim population, her cousin said to me "It's easy to identify Muslims but how in the world can Americans tell you're Jewish?" Of course it was nearly impossible for me to tell Chinese Muslims from Chinese Confucianists, Taoists or even Communists, so I had to laugh. I had recently grown a beard so when we visited an ancient Mosque, I was greeted by Chinese youngsters who kept asking "cousin?" Sure, why not. To an outsider our precious differences seem miniscule.
Everyone should be encouraged to spend some time in a place where they stand out against the ethnic and racial background - and for those who do at home, the reverse might be interesting too. I remember Richard Prior's comments about his trip to Africa.
Octo, Sheria and Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteInsightful comments, thanks.
“I have some affinity with the WWII / Depression generation – probably more affinity than I feel with my own – because of the stories and insights my parents passed on to me. ”
ReplyDeleteI wanted to respond to this earlier because it resonates strongly with me. I mentioned several post down that the maternal and paternal sides of my family were respectively poor and rich. During the Depression years, however, both sides of my family were poor.
My paternal grandfather was a tool and die maker who started several machine shops, all of which failed during the Depression. Too poor to own a car or afford bus fare, he hitchhiked every day from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey to the Big City in search of prospects and work. It was not until WWII when family fortunes changed. He landed a government contract and made shell casings for the war effort. After the war, he retooled and started a cutlery manufacturing company that became famous (click here) and made the family wealthy.
My maternal grandfather was a house painter, his life made harder from a handicap since childhood - deafness. During the Depression, my grandmother contacted tuberculosis and spent five years in a sanitarium; my mother went into foster care due to my grandfather’s disability. I surmise there may have been abuse during those years in foster care - my mother has been emotionally fragile as long as I can remember.
Both sides of my family struggled during the Depression years, and it was hard for them to gain acceptance and find work due to the rabid anti-Semitism of the 1920s and 30s. The relatives who remained in Europe did not survive WWII.
My paternal grandfather died before I was 6 years old, and my uncle took control over the family fortune. Although an astute businessman, he was also callous and abusive, a cheat and a scoundrel. A falling out between my uncle and my father underscored my estrangement from all paternal relatives.
The cousins on my maternal side, including my mother, were academically gifted, intellectuals, artists, writers, atheists and socialists. They informed my core beliefs and values. Although I grew up privileged in wealth from my paternal grandparents, my heart has always been with my maternal relatives and their struggles.