". . .No amount of public prophesy, no matter its accuracy, can either repeal the Rules of Racial Standing nor prevent their operation."
Considering the recent and continuing excesses of neo-Confederate sympathizer Al Barger, I've decided to explore the issue of racial abuse of people of color in public fora further. Mike Bowen of Cobb the Blog gave me food for thought in an entry at his fine weblog. He has published Derrick Bell's analysis of how these episodes play out. Bell, is, for benefit of benighted Barger and his followers, a brilliant black lawyer and law professor who has had a significant impact on civil rights law in the United States. Bell, formerly a tenured prof at Harvard, it also a very successful writer. Suffice it to say persons of race-challenged ilk would like him even less than they like me.…
Article comments
26 - Chris
Same song, different post. Al and Mac ought to start a group blog where they take after one another on a daily basis.
Point of Personal Privlege: Tobacco Chewing can allievate the dullness of driving really long distances.
27 - Jim Carruthers
Well, as a fact, "race" doesn't exist. It is a social construct. We should move beyond that, because when the singularity happens, you will be standing there gob-smacked.
If you 'murricans talked more about class and hierarchy (how about the sub-class of working poor regardless of skin colour?) then you'd be better off. But no, you've got to fight some silly political game, which from here, in Toronto, a city where 50% are from outside Canada, seems just pathetic.
28 - Natalie Davis
I am doing my darnedest to stay out of conflicts, but there are a couple of things that refuse to be left unsaid:
Re: "Race doesn't exist": As a member of the dominant racial group, it benefits me to avoid facts about my group's privileged position and the institutions that maintain it.
Part of me is a member of what some call the "dominant racial group"; most of me is not. Scientifically, race does not exist, save for the human race and speed contests. It is a fiction, a construct created by humans for the purpose of dividing humans. I won't play that sort of game. You are all my people and my family, period.
And Eric writes, "I see elements of truth in Bell's theory..."
Huh? What truth exists in Bell's vile theories? Intelligence has nothing to do with melanin and everything to do with environment.
29 - Eric Olsen
That's fine and I agree in theory, Natalie, but the "elements of truth" come from the simple fact that these things have happened in the past for the reasons expressed. But it is not a predictive theory, and much more damage is done to truth by pretending that it is predictive than is afforded by its description of past events.
30 - Natalie Davis
Bottom line: Those "past events" involved individuals under certain environments. They have no bearing on groups of humans and, as you note, should not be used for predicting future events. Of course, I am of the opinion that they should not be used at all, except perhaps to demonstrate the hatred and stupidity of certain "scholars."
31 - Eric Olsen
N, you are dead right about individuals in specific circumstances - individuals are the indivisible unit of humanity and existence, and I also agree that groupings and stereotyping have led to vast misery for the species. But that doesn't mean you can't ever make any generalizations about any aggregate of humans under any circumstances. Niether extreme reflects reality.
32 - Natalie Davis
"But that doesn't mean you can't ever make any generalizations about any aggregate of humans under any circumstances."
I don't recall saying that, or anything resembling that, anywhere in my post.
33 - Al Barger
Here's the thing: Mac Diva is wrong here. She's totally and completely wrong, and I am right.
I have only one main objection: absolute LYING. It is UNACCEPTABLE for her to be making up vile remarks, putting quote marks around them, and then attaching my name to them, as per comment #5 here.
This is LIBEL. It is absolute legal libel being commited against me. She needs to stop.
I have not EVER responded to her in the malicious manner she routinely talks about me. I expressed implicit disregard for her feelings in the "Happy Hate Crimes :)" post, perhaps. However, to recap, she was calling me a supporter of slavery and all kinds of other nasty things that simply aren't true. What, I should let such slander go unchallenged?
I did not curse her or use racial invective, however. She listed several specific columns of mine as evidence of my supposed bigotry, and I responded with this post to defend those specific individual writings. This is not at all equivalent to her numerous unprovoked posts directed at me, such as this one.
I have not ever written about her in the purely bilous manner she routinely writes about me, but that's cool. It'd make life more pleasant if she played nice, but I don't object to any of the silly personal vitriol. Hey, if it makes her feel better.
What's basically happening is that she's having an ongoing childish tantrum, and I'm being blamed for it. She's acting out, and unamenable to any reason, or any attempts to talk sensible or make nice. So therefore frustrated observers are turning on me, essentially saying that I should just let her have her way so she'll stop screaming.
NO. I will not indulge her childishness. I will not tiptoe and refrain from talking about certain topics for fear of hurting her itty bitty feelings. I will not be bullied into silence.
I am NOT making gratuitous personal insults. I exhibit NO malice toward her. The worst that I could legitimately be accused of would be the inference from the "Hate Crimes" post that I'm not especially concerned with her feelings. That's a LONG way from the active attempts she's making to smear my name with lies.
Why would I be concerned with her feelings? What kind of self-hatred would I have to have for that? Perhaps a hypocritical display of pretend affection would somehow be politically useful, but I'm not about that.
In fact, I'm treating her with far more respect than she has shown herself to deserve. I'm going to hold her to the same adult standards of argument and discourse as I would anybody else. I will NOT just let her have her way. If she wants to be here, then she needs to expect the same treatment I would give anyone else.
Nor will I let pure legal libel go unanswered. I don't object to general negative things being said about me, but if someone sees "'some black guy who don't know his place' according to Barger," then that's different. What, Barger said THOSE VERY WORDS, the ones in QUOTE MARKS? Oh, hell no. And then she infers [comment #24] that I have gone back and erased offensive remarks after being called out. Such is not the case. SHE has apparently conveniently edited a few of her own remarks in such a manner in other posts, not me.
I strongly object to the people equating us both as guilty. NO. SHE is guilty of LIBEL. I am innocent. No one need expect me to just accept these ongoing attacks without response.
Finally, let's go back to the nominal topic of this post, "racial standing." Consider the possible differences in norms and expectations for different ethnic groups. If the shoe were on the other foot here, if it were a white boy talking ANYTHING NEAR as abusively and dishonestly about a member of a minority group as MD does with me, I suspect the response would be considerably different. Black and brown folk, caucasians, Asians and green Martians would unite. There would be none of this 'you're both guilty' NONSENSE. The guy would be universally and deservedly rebuked. Period.
34 - Mac Diva
ROFLMAO! Tell that to someone who isn't a former reporter with a law degree, Toots.
35 - Phillip Winn
I assure you, Al, nobody expects it of you. We hope, we pray, and we cross our fingers, but you've shown us that we shouldn't expect it from you, that's for sure.
Since you obviously won't be getting your satisfactory pound of flesh from MD, can you drop it now and let the world see both of your statements and make their own judgements?
36 - Brian Flemming
Nat,
I couldn't agree more.
But so is religion. And religion also exists.
Race as a categorization is not helpful or even legitimate.
I look forward to the day when it really doesn't exist anymore.
But, as Atrios points out, if certain groups of people are identified and targeted by other (more powerful) groups, what are the targeted groups to do?
I'm not saying there isn't a better answer to that than that the targeted groups should band together and fight. That's not a very pleasant option, because it involves fighting, and the ultimate goal is to get away from fighting. But what's the other real-world option?
Right now I couldn't in good conscience tell another group (any categorization--race, class, gender, religion, other) to refuse to acknowledge when they are targeted by another group with more power. To say the imposed categorization doesn't exist is almost to deny one's self the right to unite with others and fight it.
Again, though, I don't find any of this tension pleasant. I don't acknowledge the existence of race (or racism) because I like it. I acknowledge it because somebody else put it there, and it has done and is doing very real things.
37 - Natalie Davis
I am not saying that people should not acknowledge that they are being targeted because of their color or class or orientation or anything. I certainly acknowledge the existence of bigotry -- and one of its subsets, pigmentationism -- because it is real. (I call it pigmentationism because the prejudice is doled out on the basis of skin color.) And, yes, I work to end all forms of bigotry, oppression, and injustice. At the same time, I am not going to claim membership in a group in which I don't belong just because my doing so would make things more convenient for society or for that group. My group boasts all of us as its members -- and it is scientifically sound.
38 - Jim Carruthers
A pal of mine remarked recently about "people of colour", and I (because I'm an asshole, and it has a colour) said, "my dick has an alarming shade of burgundy about 10 times a day, does that make me a person of colour?".
In short, if you spend all your time fighting procedural battles you are wasting your time, and They Win.
Myself, I came here to chew bubblegum. Anybody got any gum?
39 - Natalie Davis
It's bad for your teeth.
Me, I call myself a person of constant sorrow. Sounds great with the accompaniment of a bluegrass band.
40 - Jim Carruthers
No, getting punched in the mouth is bad for your teeth. Gum is bad for theatre seats.
As for bluegrass, instead of sorrow, I use joy and happiness with uplifting rising powder.
41 - Mac Diva
If 'race' would leave me and other people suffering the consequences of it alone, I would be happy to leave it alone. But, it won't.
An example from the blogosphere. My first week reading blogs, I was among a group of people who complained about the troll above, Ricky West, posting bigoted remarks to DailyKos' comments. West departed after being told to heel by Kos. I, because of 'race,' stood out in the group. West singled me out. He has been following me around the blogosphere urging people to attack me ever since. This began long before I had a blog. For ten months wherever I've gone, he has been sure to follow, sometimes with fellow travelers in tow. The impact of such attacks has not been to kill my blog, as West boasts above. However, Mac-a-ro-nies was among the top 100 blogs just two and a half months after I began it and rightly so. The continuing attacks have led to a decline in links because some people are spineless enough to go along with such abuse, though they really gain nothing from doing so. When I am no longer subjected to such bigoted acts as these, then I will no longer have to consider the effects of 'race.'
I don't want to overstate the problem, however. The 120 or so bloggers I'm blogrolled by have been stubborn despite pressure to help 'fix' the uppity you know what from West and his kind. Also, I haven't really applied myself to locating replacements for the cowardly folks who dropped my blog. The important thing is that I have made it a point to maintain the quality of the weblog. It may be smaller, but it is still damn good. That is what counts.
42 - Natalie Davis
Precisely the reason why Mac-a-ro-nies is on my blogroll.
43 - Brian Flemming
What does "Mac-a-ro-nies" mean, anyway?
44 - Mac Diva
Well, I had a reputation on the Net as a writer about the Macintosh and other Apple products, i.e., the Mac Diva. I just accidentally used the monicker when I began contributing material, mainly neo-Confederate research and gun law material, to Atrios, Zizka, Calpundit, and other blogs as a newbie. That role expanded until I was a 'name' in the liberal blogosphere. I became known as Atrios' sidekick as Mac Diva. (I now consider myself separated from my blogfather, but we still communicate some.) Being Atrios' gal pal was a big plus when I started a blog (actually two) about six months ago. Many Atrios fans already knew me and blogrolled and linked immediately. So, it was wiset to remain MD. (And some of the same people later stabbed me in the back, but that is a different story.)
When it came time to choose a blog name, I wanted to play to the Mac Diva sobriquet. Mac-a-ro-nies does that and also implies a Mac user, which I am. The word also can mean a dandy or hip person. There are penguins called macaronies. And, of course, the pasta reference. If I get photos, I will play off all three at different times for site decoration. The pasta reference is cool because it implies variety. Different kinds of pasta = differents kinds of entries. I call my blog my pantry. Have I convinced you it is a good name, Brian?
The entire saga is really quite interesting and I am preparing a narrative of it for a book. (Just a chapter in the book. It is not book-length interesting.) I suspect you can guess some of the currents from just what I've said here. The Atrios thing, for example. I had no idea how many folks were jealous about that until I was attacked by them. How dare Atrios choose some too smart for her own good colored girl as his confidante and sidekick instead of one of them? Ready! Aim! Fire! Anyway, if you want to know more, I can send you a short, rough draft. Be forewarned, it does not cast much of the liberal blogosphere in a favorable light.
45 - Ricky
Here's the link:
http://www.dailykos.com/MT/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=747, so you can read for yourself, but the quotes start about halfway down the page. Kos doesn't tell me squat, and even notes that I've done nothing wrong in
the comments (so much for that assertion) and I posted nothing at all that Mac Diva suggests. When called on it, Mac Diva (like now) simply attacks and refuses to back up.
Mac Diva then began trolling my site in the comments sections:
http://www.rjwest.com/mtarchives/politics/000843.html
http://www.rjwest.com/mtarchives/personal/000844.html
http://www.rjwest.com/mtarchives/sports/000846.html
You got dropped like a bad habit when folks like Dwight Meredith, Lisa English and Jim Capalooza saw your mean-spiritedness, lies and deceptions - much like you're putting forth here, where you attack Jesse Taylor
and Greg Greene. Now, you make up a world where I follow you (goodness) after you trolled my site and that your designation as blog-leper is because you're the victim.
Please.
People tired of your usual tactics, self-linking (top 100 my ass, you cross linked and you got caught) and deceptions. Your "blogfather" deleted your link mucho-pronto after reading what you'd done around the
web. I don't know Al Barger from a tree, but he seems to follow the usual theme - he wins an argument against you & becomes the latest cyber-target.
I'll let you mire in your own mud, as it appears you've found a new audience who is unaware of your past.
46 - Ricky
P.S., don't forget to tell everyone how you complained elsewhere when I posted pictures of my children, Mac.
My CHILDREN!.
So sweet.
47 - Mac Diva
And, the troll trolls on. Ten months of taking breaks from Ku Klux Klan meetings to follow me around. Will he never tire?
48 - Joe
Mac Denial-
That's sweet, he followed you to his own site to troll you. Amazing.
49 - Mac Diva
And Joe the Troll aids Lil' Dick the Troll. Let's call it troll solidarity.
Smacking Lil' Dick around can be fun, but I have seldom had time to do it. Three links in which he says I hit back in ten months. I wish I had had time to thump him more often.
50 - Joe
Mac Deluded-
I'm not sure if you're hinting at your true identity there, but let's try to keep it clean, eh?
51 - RW
Since your IP was banned, your "hitting back" ended rather quickly:here
However, I noticed as I browsed the web that you continued to attack me personally and lie about my positions. It really caused me pause when you criticized postings of pictures of my kids. As seen here, you've got quite the nasty temper.
Not that it kept you away from going to my site (I wished that I could say that I read you, but alas, I don't - although a quick google search shows my name is mentioned on your site in several instances.....are we obsessed?) although, your latest pseudonym (JadeGold) fooled absolutely no one. When you "get time", address this link link where you
attack Sharshanky's wife's race, or this Link where Richard Poe notices that you're quite the troll, or this
Link where John Cole can't believe how you attack peoples' humanity. Or this link, where your viciousness and trolling are outed. Or this link, where you're trolling Jesse's site (gee, he was 'okay', then) and smear me by saying that I'd set him up for getting spam-hammered. Or this link, where Del Harris nails your efforts to cross-link (while you're on that one, Mac Diva/JG/J/JadeGold, I'm still waiting for the name of *one* site that has banned me, much less "from all the major mainstream blogs", as you claimed in the comments section. Just one will do. Has anyone noticed a recurring theme of dishonesty from Mac Diva?), after you called him a racist (as most people who disagree with you end up being called). Then again, that was the link that officially 'outed' your deceptions pertaining to cross-linking, right?
Sorry to take this off in a different direction, folks, I'll retire from here and let things go back to normal (yes, I know I'll be attacked, but I won't read it. It's quite easy to ignore stuff that doesn't deserve recognition and what is amazing is that I've been able to provide all these links w/o trying to find stuff, they're from browsing the blogosphere). I just wanted the *truth* to be put out there for all to see.
Make your own determinations, but I strongly suggest that you read the links I've provided --- but especially the comments therein. They're all quite illuminating (and help show why so many people disassociate themselves from Mac Diva). Have a nice day, Mac!
52 - Anon
"The Atrios thing, for example. I had no idea how many folks were jealous about that until I was attacked by them. How dare Atrios choose some too smart for her own good colored girl as his confidante and sidekick instead of one of them? Ready! Aim! Fire! Anyway, if you want to know more, I can send you a short, rough draft. Be forewarned, it does not cast much of the liberal blogosphere in a favorable light."
Oh please. The reason you were shunned was because of your ad hominem, libelous attacks on your blogging peers, on both the Left and Right, not due to any jealousy on the part of more established, and frankly, more successful, bloggers. Some of those bloggers who dropped you like a hot (or rotten) potato are people of color, so why again are we to believe they were attacking you due to your purported ethnicity?
53 - Mac Diva
'Joe' and 'Anon.' The troll is really attracting support.
54 - raj
Bell's Rules have analogs in regards homophobes' comments regarding gay people. I've seen it in action at the NYTimes Gay Pride forum as well as on FreeRepublic.com
55 - Mac Diva
Raj,
Can you write more about this? I believe it is worth an entry on your blog. I for one, would link.
Let me know if you do an entry.
56 - John Isbell
Thoughtful post, with a personal attack on Jesse Taylor that has no factual basis whatever offered. I've been reading Jesse for a few months, as I read Oliver Willis, and Jesse spends far more time than Oliver condemning bigotry of every sort. As you note, Oliver (one of my favorite bloggers, as his threads show) says almost nothing about race. Jesse did just call Rod Paige an incompetent liar. Perhaps this is what you object to, or perhaps there is a personal story here I missed.
I spend my time in Olivers's threads attacking the conservatives. Check it out.
57 - Mac Diva
When my blog was under attack, Jesse Taylor went from blog to blog assailing me and getting patted on his head for it. And, no, there was no basis for his behavior. I have never been anything but kind to the despicable little Uncle Tom. It was behavior right out of Bell's Rules -- the black person who volunteers to dog another person of color to please white folks, so I used him as an example. BTW, out of at least a dozen African-American bloggers I know, Taylor was the ONLY one I am acquainted with to have behaved that way.
Since the chronically clueless John Isbell was on most of those threads attacking me along with Taylor, I suspect he already know this, though.
58 - Umm. . .
Mac Diva:
What is wrong with you???
59 - Tacitus
Advantage: Ricky West.
It seems that Mac Diva's stock in trade is paranoia-fueled personal attacks. A loathesome practice.
60 - michael
gotta say, mac, that for a lawyer you offer prescious little actual evidence for any of your ad hominem attacks or persecution complexes. So Jesse is a "despicable Uncle Tom" because...he said something mean about you? From the evidence, I'm with PLA: it's really just all about you.
61 - Al Barger
Obviously you all are part of The Conspiracy Against Mac Diva. Everyone knows that she is a genius hero of the civil rights movement.
Why don't you quit Uncle Tomming Al Barger, and stop your oligarchical racist neo-confederate slavering against Her overwhelming moral superiority?
See, you HAVE to have a law degree to come up with shit this intimidating, even if it's only off the back of a box of Count Chocula.
62 - Mac Diva
Snap! "Build it . . . and they will come." You guys keep posting and I will keep snapping. You are proving something, but not what you are foolish enough to think you are.
63 - softdog
As someone blissfully ignorant of interblog sniping in comments sections, I find much of the above posts nearly incoherent.
MDiva's I'd like to hear your opinions on a few things:
Uno: Brian Flemming's post about the difference between pointing out and condemnation, and his account about how pointing out an unfair dynamic helped improve it.
Dos: I know this site is called blogcritics, but the level of intercine bitterness is mystifying. Both you and your critics judge each other based on comments sections and things too obscure for the non-blogger. As someone who usually just reads the front blog, this seems either misplaced, irrelevant or meanspirited.
Tres: In light of dos, the essay about Bell's Rules (which are new to me) was interesting, and your links explained who Al Barger is, but the attacks on the other people you mention are mystifying. You called some Uncle Toms, but didn't cite examples or evidence. It wasn't until halfway through the comments that you explained your hostility towards Mr. Taylor. Don't you think your essay would have stood on its own better with some explanation?
I know I might seem like someone who shows up late for a film and then asks his neighbor to explain the story, but your assertions would be far more persuasive if they were as carefully explained as Bell's are.
64 - Mac Diva
Soft, if you understood the overall entry then you get the point: How Bell's Rules are applied in various settings. Jesse Taylor is a wee bit of the essay, just one of several examples used. The trolls who piled on to the thread are incapable of grasping Bell's Rules, so they have simply done what they do best -- scream, shout and try to shut any substantive discussion out. You can understand the entry fine without recourse to the peanut gallery at all.
If you want to know more about the Critical Legal Studies Movement, which developed Bell's Rules and other contemporary analyses of group interactions, I've posted references to several books and a follow-up entry on Bell's Rules.
I am not saying the trolls' comments aren't useful. I will use some of them as examples of Bell's Rules in action in the narrative I am writing about an experience I had (and, as yo can see, am still having) with racially based harassment in the blogosphere. However, as is usually the case with obscure people resentful of those brighter and more talented they are, they have nothing substantive to say.
65 - jbwally
Great post--learned some new ways to look at race issues. Several things, first I want to list out the subtle racial prejudices (racial standings) I have witnessed.
1. My wife and I were driving from Ohio back to Minnesota and decided to stop for the night in Madison, Wisconsin. I waited behind a young black man who was registering for a room. He handed the clerk cash for the room--she then asked him for his driver's license and then proceeded to make a photocopy of it!! The young black man (probably due to wariness and racial standing) did not complain. When it was my turn to register for a room for the night, I used my credit card. I had pulled out my driver's license with the expectation that the clerk would want to look at it and make a photocopy. She did neither and did not even check to see if my signature on the registration matched that on my credit card! My standing, a middle aged white man.
2. One night my wife and I were downtown Minneapolis and had just finished a movie. It was a Friday night about 9 PM. We decided to walk up to a cafe for some dinner. At a stop light there were several black youth. As there were no cars coming in either direction, the youth and me and my wife crossed the street against the red light. When we reached the other side of the street, two young and white police officers (and what I observe as hostile), approach the young men and gave them warnings and told them that they were breaking the law. My wife and I were not stopped, approached, or in any manner told that we had broken the law by jay-walking.
3. We have a young friend who is a single parent with two young boys. She had worked hard to get through training to become a licensed Nursing Assistant with the hopes of becoming a Nurse in the future. She started a Nursing Assistant job with a local and large hospital, working nights, while taking care of her young boys and attending her last year of high school. Within two weeks of staring this job she was fired. The hospital claimed that she was not suited for the work. Our friend asked me if I thought that her firing was racially motivated. It was my belief (and this is what I told her) that yes it was likely. That because she was black, young, and a single parent, instead of working with her to bring her skills up to par they decided to fire her. That is if her racial standing was different, the hospital would have taken the extra step and time to improve her skills and keep her hired.
I have given race (not in the genetic/biological sense, but in the bizzare sense used in America)a lot of thought. I have come to some conclusions: that if you are born white and live in America you will grow up to be whitey.
You see the concept of whitey is a psychological one, a personality trait that can be a disorder that is prevelant in America and might be prevelant throughout Western society. Let me explain:
Freud had conceptualized the personality in three parts: the ego, super-ego, and the id. The super-ego was the morale aspect of ones personality; the id, the wickedness, the evil; and the ego the mediator between the two. Hence the ego was the presentation of self and tried to balance between the conflicting and ongoing battle between the super-ego (goodness)and the id (wickedness).
But Freud had it wrong. The Western personality is made up of whitey, MLK, and liberalism. Whitey is entitlement and a denial of human rights, MLK is inclusive and human rights, and liberalism the mediator between the two.
Hence, white people grow up in America being taught racism that creates the whitey aspect of the personality. In some cases whitey is small, almost non-existent, but after years of indoctrination, it still is there and, like the well known Freudian slip, even the most tiniest of whitey seeps out. In other case whitey is very large to the point of being dangerous.
But ironically, the MLK part of the personality is created by actual concepts and ideas of human rights and being human. Granted most of the Western thought is only viable in the abstract (like freedom and liberty for all). However, individuals who are not white have taken these profound concepts and have turned them into meaningful and purposeful realities. If it wasn't for the MLK part of whitey's personality, we would be marching to Hitler's drum beat.
Now the liberal part of whitey's personality is fairly self evident. That is why some liberal politician can be as racist as conservatives (and some conservatives appear to be liberal). The problem with the liberal part of the personality is that it is only a presentation of self to others. Underneath it the true personality, whether more whitey or more MLK lies.
66 - Mac Diva
An excellent anaylysis, J.B. So perceptive that I am going to be reprinting it so more people can read it.
Good friends, my ex-husband and longterm fiance among them, have made observations like yours. In fact, white people who have nonwhites in the family or as close friends often learn their own ways of grasping and getting around Bell's Rules. For example, my ex quickly discovered he, the handsome, charming white med student, should look for apartments and later a house -- not me. Even in a city as racially mixed as Philadelphia, steering of people of color away from 'white' areas occurred. I believe a lot more white people than will admit it know analyses such as Bell's Rules are true. They, including many who deem themselves liberals, are just too mired in their own bigotry to support real change in race relations. It is easier to lie, conspire and trot out nonwhite useful idiots than to change themselves.
67 - Eric Olsen
Okay, I'm ready for real change in race relations: what's next?
68 - Phillip Winn
jbwally (#65) - On your first point, I would not be surprised to learn of a Wisconsin law requiring photocopies of ID in cases of cash payment for a hotel room, though I couldn't find any with a cursory Google search. Honestly, I'm more surprised that they didn't copy your ID as well, as I've had that happen here in Texas even with a credit card.
Your second example reminds me of an incident I witnessed one evening at a Wal-Mart. I was standing and waiting for my wife, so I watched the "greeter" at the door as she hassled nearly every person with skin darker than mine on the way out the door. I had previously noticed isolated incidents and thought that maybe there might be criteria I was missing, like items not in bags, or large items, or something like that that wasthe trigger for a cart search. But no, I stood there for a while this time and the pattern was quite clear. I ran down the list of every single idea I could think of and ran out as they were dismissed one by one. White-skinned people with items not in bags were fine, white-skinned people with large items were fine, and so on. How well-dressed or poorly-groomed the people were made no difference at all. The shaggy unkempt light-skinned teens drift out unmolested, while the darker-skinned guy obviously stopping off from his shirt-and-tie job to pick up diapers (diapers!) was stopped and checked. I got good and annoyed about it, actually, and when I finally did leave, I stopped and handed her my receipt without being asked. She barely even glanced at my cart before handing back the receipt and waving me on. I'm not sure if I was more bugged by the fact that the Wal-mart "greeter" was actually a brown-skinned woman herself, or just the policy in general. Was it that woman's policy? A store policy? Chain-wide? I'm not sure. I think I can dismiss the last one because I've watched at other Wal-Marts and not seen anything like the same behavior, but I don't know if it was that store's manager or just that particular woman doing the racial profiling.
Your third example is a harder one for me to have any comment. At my office, we currently employ no people with skin darker than my own. It's a small office, less than a dozen people. We've employed dark-skinned people before, so there is no skin-color bar to employment, but unfortunately, circumstances have conspired so that the three most recent darker-skinned employees we've had have turned out to be incompetent, lazy or dishonest people, usually some combination of all three. I've repeatedly stated that this has more to do with the pay scale here than anything skin-color-related, but I have the minority view, since of the last three similar hires that had lighter skin, only one of the three shared the imcompetent/lazy/dishonest characteristics. As one of the people in the office has pointed out more than once, a 66% chance is better than a 0% chance. I've pointed out that we also have a light-skinned alcoholic who is still employed, a light-skinned coke head who quit, and a light-skinned high-level technical person who "works from home," which is a euphemism for the fact that he puts in something like 10 hours a week and collects a hefty paycheck, and they aren't figured into the equation. I've pointed out a lot of things, but some impressions are hard to shake, and the facts haven't done a good job of dispelling myth in this particular case. Would a dark-skinned person get the same treatment as a light-skinned person here, given circumstances like the ones you lay out? Maybe, but only because the light-skinned person would be summarily dumped on his or her butt just as quickly.
Venturing off, I note that I attend a church that is quite possibly the most racially diverse church in North America. Various national news organizations have come to Carrollton, TX, to try to figure out how it is that the church is the way it is. And yet. And yet I note that despite the fact that we've sought out a racially-mixed church in which to raise our kids, and a racially-mixed small home group, and we live in a racially-mixed neighborhood replete with people who are "black" and "white" and "Indian" and "South American" and so on, when we throw parties and invite all of our friends, mostly the people whose skin color matches our own show up and stick around, while many others either don't show, or show up and leave quickly.
There are exceptions, of course. There always are. One of my best friends and I go out and shoot pool regularly, and he and his family are always at our parties. A woman whose heritage is Japanese always comes with her husband. A close friend of my wife's whose kids are multi-racial is always here (her husband is deceased). But when I consider the spectrum of people I consider friends, I think darker skin colors are under-represented in certain social situations.
I wonder why that is. Is it something I'm doing, or a cultural thing? If people had come and left quickly and not returned, I'd blame myself, but many of these people have never given my parties a chance, so I wonder what I could do to change things.
I've actually got some serious problems with "Bell's Rules," but there is no legitimacy in my mind in denying that there is plenty of work to be done by everyone to truly eliminate skin color as a factor when dealing with people. While it certainly doesn't affect every interaction between people, I think it affects more than many people acknowledge, and that works in both directions. My church worked hard to be multi-racial, and continues to do so. I've worked hard to ensure my family understands and respects other cultures, just as my parents worked hard to overcome their own prejudical upbringing.
To deny skin-color bias still exists is incredibly naive. To see skin-color bias in every single human interaction, especially online interaction in which skin color is never seen, strikes me as very strange and probably counter-productive.
People's attitudes toward "race" are very complex, regardless of the color of their own skin. Frequent attempts to tie those attitudes to political bias strike me as ridiculous as well, since I've seen widespread example of skin-color bigotry scattered around the political spectrum.
People who hate people because of the color of their skin are easy to spot and worthless to engage. The various "white power" groups are a lunatic fringe. Most people, however, don't hate people who don't look like themselves, but they do think about them differently, often without even realizing it. I've known people of various skin colors who deny having a racist bone in their body, and yet I can see from how they treat different people or talk about different people that their attitudes are subtly shaped by skin-color stereotypes. Are they lying bigots? Or self-deceived? Usually the latter, and accusing them of being lying racists tends to be counter-productive. Engaging them in a discussion about why they chose to say or do X in this situation tends to be very education for both parties. I've learned a lot from both darker-skinned and lighter-skinned people about what has shaped their biases, and some of them have recognized those biases for maybe the first time as we spoke.
I guess I'm trying to say that as long as this discussion is "Us vs Them," the problem will never be solved. If people can put away the anger and try to examine the reasons for attitudes, one might actually make a difference.
Of course, to do that, you'll have to hear some pretty offensive things without responding harshly, and that doesn't seem to be an easy thing online, where offense is just begging to be taken. I've heard some pretty outrageous statements that I'd be inclined to label "malicious lies" from dark-skinned people, and I'll be the first to admit that I've heard statements that undoubtedly outraged many dark-skinned people just as much from light-skinned people. Getting upset and labeling the speakers doesn't solve anything. Putting the speakers into a box out of which they can find no reasonable escape (as Bell's Rules seem to do from my perspective) doesn't solve anything either.
Only calm and reasoned conversation can do that, and the more people are willing to learn, the better the results.
Thanks for reading. :-)
69 - Whatever
I can't figure out why you keep calling Lisa English a white liberal. She's not even white.
70 - andy
Phillip, I've noticed the same thing at our Walmart. The one near the city doesn't do it as much, as the staff is multi-racial, but the one out in farm country certainly does.
71 - GoHah
Wow, codified victimization--let me find a pencil . . .
72 - Jan Green
Individuals with RACE ISSUES are twofold. Inside [self-esteem] outside [leader or follower]. How is it possible to "be yourself" and "be credible"?
Action speaks louder than words. What defiles an individual is what is said and done.
Ones word is ones BOND!
Anyone can perform "word pollution"
How many really appreciate the ONE who encourages to live and let live?
How do you TREAT that FAVORITE PERSON in YOUR LIFE?
Self-examination and correction beats "finger pointing".
My action --> Visit Jaz Live Cash Culture
My WORD: Gettin' Better by the Tic' Toc'