The Racists Return - Did They Ever Go Away? (2 articles) * The Racists Return (Joe Conason in TruthDig) * The Unbearable Whiteness of Being (Mark Naison in History News Network)
========== The Racists Return By Joe Conason TruthDig (drilling beneath the headlines) August 11, 2010 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_racists_return_20100811/ Among the most revealing aspects of life during the Obama presidency is the panoply of responses to a black family in the White House. What made so many of us proud of our country on Jan. 20, 2009, has increasingly provoked expressions of hatred from the far right. That is troubling, but not nearly as troubling as the behavior of conservatives who excuse, embolden or simply pretend to ignore the bigots surrounding them. Last spring, after unruly tea party protesters on Capitol Hill were accused of spewing racial epithets at civil rights hero John Lewis, an African-American congressman from Georgia, conservatives rose up in furious denial. Where was the proof? How could anyone suggest that racial prejudice lurks behind the festering right-wing hatred of President Obama (and his family)? Anger over that episode still lingers in certain quarters, motivating the deceptively edited video attack on Shirley Sherrod and the NAACP by a website called Big Government, Inc. Even if the alleged assault on Lewis and other black congressmen did occur, argued prominent commentators on the right, it somehow only proved that there is no racism in America worthy of concern. A writer for National Review (the conservative magazine that historically opposed civil rights legislation) confided that the whole subject made him yawn: "That these things are even remotely newsworthy leads me to one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery, then we had Jim Crow-and now we have the occasional public utterance of a bad word. Real racism has been reduced to de minimis levels, while charges of racism seem to increase." But this summer has seen several loud and ugly outbursts of very real racism-including threats of violence against the president of the United States-that go well beyond the utterance of any single word. As if suffering from a facial tic, leading figures on the right cannot seem to suppress their inner Klansman these days. Advertisement Is there any other way to explain Glenn Beck's crazed rant comparing the Obama administration to an old movie about a society where apes and chimpanzees dominate humans? What did the Fox News host mean, exactly, when he shrieked: "It's like the damned Planet of the Apes. Nothing makes sense!" Is there any other way to explain the grotesque new best-seller by radio host Laura Ingraham, "The Obama Diaries," where, among other things, she depicts first lady Michelle Obama eating ribs at every meal? Why would she feel the need to describe the president as "uppity" by putting the word in the mouth of his mother-in-law? No wonder Stephen Colbert taunted Ms. Ingraham to her face for "hideous and hackneyed racial stereotyping." Of course, these are only two of the more egregious instances in recent weeks of social poisoning that dates back well over a year. Symptoms can be seen across the country now, even in amusement parks and church carnivals, where small children are exposed to this spiritual sickness. At the Big Time fair held by Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Roseto, Pa., last week, a game called "Alien Attack" featured "an image of a suited black man holding a health care bill and wearing a belt buckle with a presidential seal," at which players were encouraged to aim their popguns. Anybody who hit the cardboard figure in the head or the heart could win a prize. Irvin L. Good Jr., owner of Goodtime Amusements, who is responsible for this disgusting garbage, denied that the figure represents Mr. Obama. "We're not interpreting it as Obama," the inaptly named huckster told a local newspaper. "The name of the game is Alien Leader. If you're offended, that's fine, we duly note that." Meanwhile on the New Jersey shore, patrons of the Seaside Heights boardwalk could hurl baseballs at a black, jug-eared Obama figurine, winning a prize if they managed to smash it. As seen in a video posted on the Gawker website, this object closely resembles the grinning "lawn jockey" statuettes that used to festoon suburban lawns in a less decent era. Most conservatives were late in taking responsibility for their movement's immoral opposition to civil rights. It is time for them to step up and denounce the racism that is again disfiguring our country in their name. [Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer.] ========== The Unbearable Whiteness of Being By Mark Naison History News Network August 2, 2010 http://www.hnn.us/articles/129497.html Reading Ross Douthat's column in the New York Times blaming Ivy League admissions for the disaffection of working-class and middle-class whites made me laugh. As someone who grew up in a working class neighborhood and spent large amounts of time with working-class whites during my years coaching baseball and basketball in Brooklyn from the early 80s to the late 90s, I can assure you that among working-class Brooklynites, Ivy League admissions NEVER CAME UP when the subject of white racial grievances were raised. That subject was, and still is, one that upsets white Fordham students, but in the ballfields, bars and gymnasiums of Canarsie, Bergen Beach, Bensonhurst, Marine Park and Bay Ridge, the racial fears of working-class whites were overwhelmingly focused on things they experienced on the job and fears for their children's safety as neighborhoods and schools turned from predominantly white to predominantly black and/or Latino. When my working-class white friends and fellow coaches attacked affirmative action-which they did vociferously and often-it was about preferential treatment that they saw blacks and Latinos getting on the job, especially in the civil service. They were convinced that in any government agency-whether it was the police department, the fire department, the bureau of motor vehicles or the board of education-they were going to be passed over for promotion by blacks and Latinos with lower test scores. When I told them that these compensatory racial preferences, which were being steadily undermined by Supreme Court decisions, were far less damaging than the discrimination that blacks and Latinos still faced in the skilled construction trades, they listened, but were not convinced. The fact that they might have to get a higher test score than their black or Latino co-workers to get promoted to sergeant or office administrator irritated them enormously, and easily led to self-pitying arguments that "a white man couldn't get a break in America anymore." When I challenged them with a litany of things blacks went through on a daily basis-from job and housing discrimination to harassment by police-they listened, but rarely relinquished their deep sense of outrage that color conscious hiring was now official policy in many government agencies and some private employers. But resentment of affirmative action was hardly the only issue white working-class people I know raised when talking about race. Their biggest concern was that their kids were going to be beaten up and/or harassed by black and Latino peers at Brooklyn neighborhoods and schools turned from majority white to majority black and Latino. Since this is something that happened to me when I was in high school (see White Boy: A Memoir) and to many kids in my Park Slope neighborhood (see Jonathan Lethem's novel Fortress of Solitude), I could hardly tell them that they were making these things up, even though my own children had overwhelmingly positive experiences in integrated schools and neighborhoods. When talking about race, they were prone to view the world through the prism of "the glass half empty." Whereas I saw neighborhood change as an opportunity to create a more open and inclusive society, they saw it as a threat to the value of their only asset-their home-and something that would put their children and families at risk. Were they wrong about this? There was certainly evidence, both objectively and subjectively, that their fears had substance. Given these two sets of concerns, about fairness on the job and safety in the neighborhood and the schools, it is no wonder the working class and the middle class look at the changing demographics of American society with some trepidation. As whites are in the process of becoming a minority, not only in the nation as a whole, but in the communities they live in, they wonder if their economic and physical security, which were already somewhat fragile, is going to be compromised. And when they see a black president, they fear that their concerns will easily sacrificed in favor of some unspecified "black" or "liberal" agenda. Their fears and concerns when it comes to President Obama often take forms that are ugly and irrational, especially given the president's history and actual policies, but the experiences which fuel their fears are ones that must be examined critically. The racial resentments of whites of modest means are a complex mix of inherited racist attitudes, folk tales, rumors spread by the media and through word-of-mouth, and real-life experiences which lead them to fear their emerging minority status. We ignore the latter at our peril. We need to have a continuing dialogue about race with our white working-class and middle-class neighbors that confronts their prejudices but allows their grievances to be heard. Only through that kind of dialogue-which should take place between ALL Americans-can create the basis of a fair and just society in which everyone feels recognized and respected irregardless of racial or ethnic background. [Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and over 100 articles on African-American History, urban history, and the history of sports. His most recent book, White Boy: A Memoir, was published in the spring of 2002 ] ========== _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
