Race Card Recursion: A Game of Social (In-)Justice

07 Monday Aug 2017

Tags

Cards, discrimination, Equity, Ethnicity, Race, Race card, Racism, Social Justice, Social Justice Warriors

What is the race card?

Or is that obvious?

Okay, I don’t guess there is much mystery as to the meaning of the phrase ‘race card’. It’s consistently employed as an accusation that someone has used the prospect of racism cynically to their own advantage. Maybe they have accused someone of discrimination who didn’t deserve it, or maybe they are just complaining about some general sense of inequity when (so the thinking goes) they ought to stop playing the victim and do what it takes to succeed in life. Either way, to say that someone has played the ‘race card’ means that they’ve raised the prospective of racial disparity on spurious grounds. It’s as if someone has raised the issue simply because they can.

…a bit like playing a card simply because it’s in your hand.

Okay, so I can certainly think of some times when I believe people have raised the accusation of racial injustice without just cause. I can think of instances in which people I’ve known in real life (or famous people I’ve known about from various media) seem to field the accusation without substantial cause. Of course, it is entirely possible that I may have missed a few things. Being a white guy, raised in lily-white neighborhoods, I lack the immediate personal experience to see a lot of this without reflection (or a patient person willing to explain it to me). Still I can’t help thinking, at least some of the accusations of racism leveled at various parties are indeed unwarranted, More than that, I suspect at least some of them have been made in bad faith, not merely as an error, but a lie.

I reckon this phrase ‘race card’ is as good a way to call attention to that sort of problem as any, at least any that willy fit into a 140 character tweet, (or at least 140 character mind).

Okay…

But if there is a race card, so to speak, then there is also a race card

…card.

Hell, the race card card works as easily as the race card. The mere existence of a body of concerns about race is enough to empower the race card. Recourse to the accusation of racism is enough to give that card all sorts of power. It’s enough to help shameless people exploit the topic. The race card card is no less convenient or easy to use. So long as people have concerns about the credibility of other people’s concerns about racism, cynical abuse of those meta-concerns will always carry a degree of weight And of course the existence of a short-hand phrase to communicate the message makes it all that much easier.

Indeed, a quick trip around the net reveals a number of people who believe (or at least maintain) that the subject of racism can be reduced entirely to cynical use of the race card. The mere mention of the word ‘race card’ seems, to some anyway, sufficient to answer a history of slavery, Indian removal, Chinese exclusion, manifest destiny, segregation, and countless comparable institutions and practices. Whether we are to believe, these things were never really about racism to begin with, or that all this history has been neatly contained somewhere in the past varies from source to source, but the theme is ubiquitous. Countless cultural conservatives would love us to believe that the subject of racism is (now at any rate) simply a liberal contrivance.

If I can agree that people sometimes use the prospect of racial discrimination to gain unwarranted advantages, then I must also insist that people sometimes use the prospect of such a ploy to dismiss legitimate concerns about racial disparities out of hand. You can use the race card to make people think you have been treated unfairly on account of your race, even if you haven’t. But you can also use the prospect of a ‘race card’ to to dismiss perfectly serious concerns about real social inequities. Both ploys seem to work. They seem to work best for different audiences, to be sure, but under the right circumstances, each can be a very effective means of getting undue leverage over others.

So, what sort of card game is this anyway? It ain’t poker! Honestly, I don’t think it’s any game you would play with a conventional deck of cards. I can’t help thinking this is a collectable card game of sorts. I can just imagine the race card saying something like: “+1 versus liberal sympathies. Triggers outrage checks versus conservatives.” As to the race card card, it probably just says it will counter the race card, “but only when used in combination with white privilege.”

The white privilege card doesn’t say anything.

It doesn’t have to.

It goes without saying that similar cards and counter cards exist for gender, religion, sexual preference, and …well, for gender again, and again. Similar cards should probably exist for class and geographical region, but we rarely see them. The ‘Class warfare’ card is a definite exception. It’s perfectly suited to eliminate any defense against assaults by the upper classes. Just put the class warfare card on the table, and you can screw the middle and working classes without any scrutiny, or even to torment the unemployed with a free conscience.

I don’t reckon there is much hope of getting rid of spurious political card games. None of these gambits are going away any time soon. In any event, people talk about the ‘race card’ a lot. By ‘people’ I of course mean ‘social conservatives’. People don’t talk much about the race card card.

I think they should.

Islam is not a Race! …Or an Apple, or a Hacksaw. It’s Not Even a Loud or a Sour.

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Distinction, Donald Trump, Islam, Islamophobia, prejudice, Race, Racism, Richard Dawkins, Terrorism

One of Donald Trump’s fans

Prejudice Paints in broad strokes, but its defense is typically written in fine print. So very often the same person who begins with broad generalizations will find all manner of fine-tuned distinctions to make in support of them. Hatred of Muslims gives us not just one but two of these games. In the first, people worry over whether or not Islamophobia is a word. In the second they reassure us that Islam is not a race.

By people, I suppose I mean Richard Dawkins.

I also mean a lot of other people too, but we’ll start with Dawkins. He just happens to have given us a couple of good examples of the sort of games people play on this subject. The first occurred in a discussion of Ahmed Mohamed (the Muslim boy who’s clock earned him national attention awhile back. Accused of Islamophobia in his comments on the subject, Dawkins dismissed this as a non-word. The second appears on his Twitter stream on December 8th:

DawkinsCropped

What both of these examples have in common is a flippant response to concerns about hatred and fear of Islam and/or Muslims. The issue is far from limited to Dawkins or his critics. Trump and his fans have provided countless examples of these games over the last few months. Let’s take each of these issues in turn.

***

Is Islamophobia a word? Yes, it is. Whether or not that word can be used to communicate something useful is a more serious question. We’ll pursue that one here.

I’ve spoken with some folks who oppose the use of the word to describe attacks on Muslims.They interpret the word as applying only to attacks on Islam itself which ought in their view to be fair game for reasonable criticism (as opposed to attacks on actual Muslims). It’s an interesting distinction to make, but there are at least 2 problems with it, no 3.

1) While it may be true (and I certainly think it is) that there are perfectly reasonable criticisms of Islam itself, it is also true that there are unreasonable and highly biased criticisms of Islam. So, restricting our concerns about unfair criticism to actual people doesn’t do much to ensure responsible dialogue.

2) Actual prejudice simply isn’t limited to such neat distinctions. Unreasonable and biased criticism of Islam itself is indeed one of the many ways that someone seeking to spread hatred of Muslims may communicate his or her prejudice.

3) There are serious questions about the social footing in which even a sound rational criticism of Islam will take place today. Sure, we can put a reasonable Muslim in a room with a reasonable critic and ask them to hold a reasonable debate, but in the present political climate, the comments flying back and forth across various media bleed far too much into other topics such as terrorism, war, and national policy. Whn issues such as misogyny and homophobia are used, as they often are to explain what is wrong with Islam, it becomes that much easier to justify military action against Islamic countries. But bombs fall on women and those of homosexual orientation, just as they do straight men. And the poetic injustice reaches its final flourish when women and children in flight from ISIS are denied refuge because so many in the west can imagine Islam only in context of its horrors. In this context, it’s at least a little difficult to take the notion of reasonable criticism at face value.

As another way of putting this last point, I would say that a reasonable criticism is not simply one rooted in sound reasoning; it is one made in a context wherein constructive dialogue may actually take place. When that context is not present, many arguments that mihght at face value seem quite reasonable can often do more to spread hatred than to address real problems in a rational way.

This doesn’t resolve every question about Islamophobia, to be sure. The term may be directed at those with legitimate concerns about Islam or its adherents. Then again, words don’t come with guarantees about their own usage. Excessive and irresponsible criticisms of Islam and its adherents do happen, and concerns about such issues ought not to be dismissed with a quip about voicabulary.

***

For my own part, I shall continue to use the word, Islamophobia. I shall use it to describe what I take to be irrational prejudice against Islam, Muslims, or Muslim entities (Mosques, charitable organizations, states, etc.). I will distinguish it from criticisms that I do regard to be rational. I’m open to debate as to which is which, but I shall regard preemptive dismissal (such as that of Dawkins) as a sign of bad faith.

***

The notion that Islamophobia is a form of racism is itself interesting on a number of levels. To be sure, there are times when I am tempted to say that some other term might be more appropriate than ‘racism’, but when someone points out a prejudice, a discussion of whether or not that prejudice is about race, religion, nationality, or some other category can be pretty damned underwhelming. It’s well enough to dot your Is and cross your Ts, but that sort of quest shouldn’t be used to obscure the larger point that some form of prejudice is at stake in the issue.

As to the specific notion that critics of Islamophobia think Islam is a race, well it’s tough to decide whether or not that ‘s a straw man or a red herring. Perhaps it’s a straw herring.

I imagine someone out there may well think that Islam is a race, though I have yet to encounter the fellow. The vast majority of those asserting that Islamophobia is a form of racism are not, however, asserting any such thing. The notion that Islamophobia is a form of racism can be argued in a variety of ways:

1) In some cases the argument is essentially analogical reasoning. Islamophobia shares enough of the traits of racism that some feel justified in using the term on that basis alone. Some may not find this particularly convincing, but even so the denial just leaves us in search of a different word for the prejudice, and in no case does it involve mythical ideas of a Muslim race.

Trump’s milkshake brings all the White Supremacists to the yard!

2) Others emphasize the role of racial motivation in support for attacks against Islam. White Supremacists can and do criticize Islam as a way of attacking other ethnic groups. Because Islam is associated with specific demographic populations, criticism of Islam is an effective way of criticizing those groups. You can see this for example in the white racist memes often posted as replies in support of Trump these days. You can also see this in the number of crimes and attacks on others such as Sikhs commonly mistaken for Muslim, or in criticisms that oddly take practices from one Islamic region as arguments against people from another one (see my last post). When folks describe Syrian refugees in mass as terrorists, then no, this is not a criticism of any religion, and no, specific security concerns about the possibility that terrorists COULD come into the country as refugees do nothing to justify the sweeping generalizations often made against these refugees. In these and countless other ways, the religious nature of Islam is confounded with issues of ethnic identity and nationality.

…which is incidentally just what one would normally expect from racists.

Simply put, the question here is not whether those serving as the object of purportedly racist attacks really constitute a race (as if ‘race’ were real to begin with); it’s whether or not racism plays a role in the motivations of those launching the attacks.

3) Perhaps the most substantial argument in favor of the notion that Islamophobia is a form of aracism lies in the notion that attacks on Islam actually serve to re-enforce some of the same institutional inequalities once promoted through racism. Where previous generations may have justified colonialism and discrimination in the name of the ‘white man’s burden’, we now bomb Islamic nations with disturbing regularity and debate whether or not to take in their refugees through reference to Islam and Islamism. In effect, one might suggest that Islam is just the latest label used to perpetuate regional aggression as well as individual acts of discrimination. The vocabulary of racism may have changed, but it’s not terribly precise to begin with, and its effects remain largely the same.

***

Whatever the basis for describing Islamophobia as a form of racism, the notion that Islam is literally a race simply isn’t among them. That is little more than a flippant excuse for dismissing serious concerns. That’s definitely not helpful.

The Mating Calls of Violent Men!

20 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Politics, Religion

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Ann Coulter, Genocide, Islam, Muslims, Native Americans, prejudice, Racism, Right Wing Politics, Syria

Please accept my apologies for posting this piece of filth

So this morning I’m surfing the hashtags on Twitter, cause I have plenty better to do of course, but anyway…

…and I come across the image to your left. It’s just one of many memes produced every day by the right wing hate machine. This one in particular happens to have been retweeted by professional bigot Ann Coulter.

I look at this image and I can’t help but think of the words ‘nits make lice.’ the saying is popularly attributed to Colonel John Chivington, another of history’s great war-mongers who didn’t care to distinguish children from enemies. Ostensibly charged with protecting the people of Colorado from Cheyenne and Arapaho, Chivington wasn’t much good at fighting real warriors, but he sure knew how to kill women and children, and on November 29th, 1864, he knew exactly where to find a band of Cheyenne who weren’t going anywhere. They weren’t going anywhere, because they’d already been placed under the protection of the army at Fort Lyon. Chivington didn’t care.

Neither do people who produce images like this.

Sadly such folk are not such a fringe group in America, or in other parts of the western world. Today the net is also abuzz with talk of plans from Narcissa Trump to force Muslims to register all across the nation so we can keep track of them. We’re still hearing the echoes of a Jeb Bush plan to admit only Christian refugees to America. And of course calls abound to reject all Syrian refugees out of some generalized fears about terrorism. Some are concerned about the possibility of terrorists inserting themselves into the refugee population. Many more simply refuse to think of any Muslims, or those coming from Muslim regions, as anything but terrorists.

Because of course what some Afghans do is the best argument against helping Syrians in distress

I find myself waxing nostalgic for the days after 9-11 when President Bush carefully made it clear that our nation is not at war with Islam. I’ve never been a fan of Bush, but in this regard he at least held the rising tide of right wing malice to within certain degrees of sanity. In the intervening years, pseudo-conservative culture warriors have been working damned hard to overcome that limitation, and they have made great progress. They want a general war between the west (and Christendom) and Islam itself. Sometimes folks will qualify this by saying we are at war with ‘radical Islam’ as if ‘radical’ were ever enough to clarify the difference. These people want desperately for America to commit to general war against proponents of Islam all over the world.

And in this respect, they want very much the same thing that terrorists want. It’s as fascinating as it is disturbing to the dance of dangerous men and their couch-bound cheerleaders. Nothing brings the bigots out from under the rocks that hide them in America quite like events such as Paris. They find in terrorist acts a real source of empowerment, and they use that empowerment as much to attack moderates here in the west as any radicals abroad.

What is the worst thing about Isis? To so many right wingers, that would be Obama.

…or liberals in general.

What these war-mongers want doesn’t have much to do with ending terrorism or defeating actual terrorists, but they will make life miserable for those who happen to live near terrorists, who happen to look like terrorists, or (in the case of Syrian refugees) who happen to have already been hurt themselves by such terrorists. They would have been right at home with Chivington and the Colorado 3rd.

Each act of terrorism is an opportunity for right wingers to push aside the rest of us, to finally defeat their own domestic enemies and set the nation and the world at large on a violent course. They see in Paris and every act by the terrorists proof positive that their own violent worldview is the correct one, and that our nations must ever more place warfare at the center of public policy. That our own war efforts may have similar effects in far regions of the world could hardly be an objection to such a mind-set. It is synergy in action, the benefits of an ever escalating rhetoric of violence. As much as these people hate each other, they hate the rest of us more.

Its tough not to see a measure of alliance between terrorists and those who would reduce of American policy to a war against them, and against all of Islam. In some cases, this connection would be concrete, because you can bet the KKK and everyone at Storm Front are among the voices flooding social media this last week. In other cases the connection takes more thought. But each act of violence brings both forth cries for more of the same. These messages come ostensibly from enemies, and yet they coalesce into an odd sort of harmony.

The mating calls of violent men!

These violent men only have eyes for each other. And if they have their way, the world at large will soon be nothing but a battle ground between such people.

It will also be a dance hall for the morbidly obsessed.

Ask Not What the Alibi Buddy Says About You!

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Philosophy, Politics

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Bigotry, Excuses, Homophobia, Politics, prejudice, Racism, Rhetoric, Sexism

possible sighting?

We’ve all heard about the alibi buddy. He’s that gay guy whose best friends with the man telling you he’s against gay rights. He’s also the black guy who hangs out with the fellow bashing African-Americans. He’s the Muslim who totally agrees with all of someone’s generalizations about Muslims, Arabs, and even Sikhs, cause that’s close enough, right? And of course he’s the Mexican drinking buddy to the guy telling you all about those damned immigrants, …er illegal immigrants, just the illegal ones, I mean. Cause we all know that people who bash immigrants are very precise about their concerns, and they never-ever cap on legal immigrants in any way! (Alibi buddy would probably tell us that if he were here.)

Does anybody else have any questions about this buddy, the one we never seem to meet? For that, matter, does anyone have questions for him? Who is he? Where does he live? Or does he really exist when the conversation is over? He might just be a kind of Berkleyian presence, only there when you’re in the room. I can’t be the only person to question if his reality outlives the moment. You gotta wonder if his friend even remembers him when the conversation is over and he doesn’t need an alibi anymore.

But it’s worse than that, I reckon, cause the alibi buddy ain’t there when you’re in the room either. So, this alibi guy is really weird, you know. He is and he ain’t, but he’s both of these (and neither) only when you’re in the room talking to the guy who has something bad to say about some group which totally includes the alibi buddy.

Which is confusing, I know.

Is or ain’t though, I’m convinced the alibi buddy is a singularity. I know, I know, the empirical evidence doesn’t say one way or another. It could be that all these people are talking about a whole bunch of different guys. It could even be that each community has its own ur-alibi, so to speak, a kind of minority spirit-keeper. There could be just that one guy who is friends with all the people capping on African-Americans, another one for Asians, and of course one sinister bastard for all the left-handed people. I mean it could well be that each disenfranchised group has its own alibi spirit who exists for the sole purpose of licensing friends to talk bad about them. On the face of it, this is at least possible.

…as is the existence of vast hoards of minorities living somewhere else, all of whom sent their trusted friends to say bad things about them.

…in good faith.

Still, the alibi buddy is just too perfect isn’t he? Always friends with someone who needs him, but never really there to answer any serious questions. Can that kind of perfection really be divisible. I think not. So, I really do think there is just one alibi-buddy for all the trash-talking not-really-bigots out there. You know it makes sense. There is just one alibi-buddy, one gay-Jewish-Afro-Asiatic Mexi-black man with a lisp. The alibi-buddy is is no Doubt a number of other things besides that, but really, he can only not be in the room for just so many reasons. So, we can probably rule out a few things. Alibi buddy isn’t white; I think we can all agree on that. He also isn’t straight. I would say that he isn’t a guy, but I can’t help thinking a woman would have the good sense to show up to set us straight.

The alibi buddy never does that, does he? No.

There is just one alibi buddy for all the people talking about him, and he is never really here to tell us how he feels about the issues. Evidently, he has a number of friends and they are all strikingly adversarial to the poor alibi buddy and his kin, but apparently he loves them anyway. Alibi buddy must be a very patient guy.

I say that, but I don’t really know for certain, which is frustrating, because I really would like to ask him something. I’d like to ask him if he knows how his friends are talking about him? Does he know that his friend wants to make sure he can’t get married? Does he know his other friend wants him to go home (and I don’t mean Ohio)? That his drinking buddy thinks he’s unqualified and terrible at his job? I mean seriously, if his friends are any measure of alibi-buddy’s life, that poor guy doesn’t need anymore enemies!

Now I ask you; is this anyway to treat a singular entity capable of such miraculous patience? His friends always seem to want us to care about what alibi buddy thinks, …of them anyway. Just once, I wish someone would think of him and his feelings. As much as I’d like to know what he really has to say about all this, the question has always really been just what do his friends say about him.

…and the answer to that question is never all that pretty.

Guest Post – On the Anniversary of the Murrieta Protests

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Childhood, Politics

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

California, Children, Immigration, Justice, Murrieta, Politics, Race, Racism, Social Justice

Note: My friend Monica had some experience with the children bused in at Murrieta California. I asked her to write something about the events as she remembered them, and thankfully she sent the following. I’ve edited it a bit, but for the most part I’ve tried to preserve the tone of her own writing. I think she has a very interesting story to tell.

I hope you agree.

* * * * *

It’s been a year since America, and the rest of the world, got to know Murrieta, CA. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

In the months prior, the United States had been overwhelmed with a tide of Central American children and minors entering illegally. Parents desperate enough were sending their children alone to the US in the hopes they would be granted asylum. Encouraged by false promises from smugglers who painted these amazing stories of how in North America they keep the kids and help them build a better life.

There is a glitch in America’s immigration system that makes staying in the USA rather easy. Smugglers knew about it. When the United States gets Mexican immigrants trying to cross the border illegally, they get deported almost immediately. The same can not be done with Central American immigrants who get detained, processed and eventually released in the US, sometimes with family members, friends, etc. After that, they get a month notice to appear at an immigration office. This almost never actually happens and immigrants simply start a living without documents in the US. This is the source of the chaos we all saw last year.

Most of these little immigrants were detained in Texas, but their facilities were just overloaded. Texas needed help from other states in processing the rising number of minors. One of the States that were willing to help was California and the kids were sent in buses to different counties to be processed.

Enter Murrieta.

Word got out that kids were being transported there and a group of people started organizing to make sure “illegal aliens” were turned away. Sadly, the whole world got to know Murrieta through the protests. When the buses arrived, the protesters blocked the way screaming at the buses full of kids who didn’t quite understand what was going on. People held nasty signs and kept screaming at the kids. I got to watch all of this on TV, I could see the kids’ faces full of terror, and crying and it broke my heart. I can’t understand how people can be that vile to children. When some of the protesters were interviewed, it was clear to me that they didn’t really understand why the kids were there. They wanted them out of town.

I went to bed that night and all I could think of was the kids’ faces looking through the window at the people shouting; “DEPORT, DEPORT !” Some of the protesters kept screaming that they wanted an America without people coming over and take away their rights. It wasn’t clear to me which rights they were referring to, or how children were taking them. These kids just needed to be processed and, sadly, send back to their crime ridden country.

The next morning I woke up and I started searching for more news about this. The buses had been turned around and redirected to different places. I went to work and while I was driving, I kept thinking how the kids must feel. They were alone, their parents had left them by themselves and I was sure they were scared. When I got to work, the news kept showing the confrontation between angry protesters and pro-immigration activists. Ironically, by blocking the entrance to the town, the protesters effectively delayed the deportation process and obstructed law enforcement (a crime in itself).

I found out some of these kids had been abused by drug criminals/thugs in their own country. Most of these crimes never get reported for the fear of retaliation. I found out the majority of these kids were from Honduras, a country that has the world’s highest murder rate. Others were from some of the poorer rural areas of Guatemala and El Salvador.

Their story touched me.

I have been living in the USA for 27 yrs but I haven’t lost my accent, so I have encountered racism quite a few times. I imagined how the kids must have felt after seeing people shout and spit at them (people were spitting at the buses).

Local municipalities and churches sent word requesting the public’s help. Families that could host some of these kids for a few days while they were being processed, mostly seeking bilingual people so that it could help the kids feel at ease. I called the place where they had a group of these kids in Fontana, CA. and offered my house to a couple of children. They took my number down and they called me the next day. They had 3 siblings from Honduras who they didn’t want to separate and wanted to see if we were willing to take them. I said yes immediately. Even though I wasn’t sure if I was able to afford it, I thought since my family is big as it is 3 little kids wouldn’t make much of a difference.

The next day, my son and I went to pick up the children. When I saw the kids I broke down crying. They look exhausted, hungry, and scared. At first they were hesitant when I started talking to them, so we stayed around the place a little longer until they seemed a bit more comfortable with us. We have a spare room, so they were going to be able to sleep together. The kids’ ages were 4, 6 and 7. The little girl was the oldest.

That day we got home, we fed them and showered them. The next day we took them to the park where they, being kids, enjoyed running up and down a little hill. The 4 yr old kept asking me when he was going to see his mom. You could see his little face getting sad every time he talked about her. I told him; “soon.” Then he hugged me with a very tight embrace. It was so hard for me to hold back my tears. I didn’t want him to see me cry. I watched them in awe holding hands, the little girl acting protective with their younger siblings. When we got home, she began to feel more comfortable with us, so she started sharing stories of her town. She talked about how at night, they are supposed to lock all the windows with a big pole, so no one is able to open them from the outside. She also talked about food. She kept telling us how she felt so full now and that sometimes the 4 year old is the only one who eats a second meal a day because he needs it, so he can grow tall and strong. You could see the 4 year old’s face blushing as if feeling ashamed he has to eat a bit more than his siblings.

The 6 year old wasn’t talking as much as his sister. Out of the 3, he looked more frail. I knew he needed more time to feel comfortable at my house. I spared them from any type of images on the TV about the nasty confrontations still going on between activists and protesters.

That night, I asked the kids if they wanted to do something in particular, since I had to take a week off from work I was able to spend more time with them. The 7 year old looked at me and with the reddest face possible she asked if we could drive by Disneyland, they wanted to find out how it looked. That comment touched me so deeply. I knew even though she was so young, she was aware that it would cost money they didn’t have. So she was settling for just the option to look at Disneyland from the outside. I told them we could, as long as they were able to go to bed earlier. The 6 year old jumped and went straight to my son and hugged him so hard and said; “thank you.” It was hard to keep our eyes dry in front of them.

The next morning the subtle noises from their bedroom woke me up, it was only 7am and the 7 y/o had already made their bed and was trying to comb her little brother’s hair. I just didn’t know how to react, I’m not used to kids being that independent at such a young age, so I told her I would finish it. The 6 year old was particularly chatty this time, and he was telling us he is used to get up at 5am every day to go with his dad to get fresh made bread so his mom can prepare some sort of sandwiches that she sells in the corner. And by the time they get back, it’s time for them to go school.

I just didn’t know what to say. I finished combing his brother’s hair and I asked them if I could hug the 3 of them and they answered me with a big hug. I was able to score tickets for them for Disneyland and they were laughing in excitement. I would never forget the look on their little faces as they were handed their entry ticket. Needless to say it was a long day for me, but the perfect day for them. We exited the park around 10 pm, and we had to make a short walk to the car. My son took us through a short cut across the parking lot, and I noticed the 7 year old stopped cold. I asked what was wrong and she pointed at some tourist buses parked in the front. She asked me if I was going to leave them there. I assured her we were not and they looked at me and smile and held my hand tighter.

On our way back, the 3 of them were trying to sing different Disney songs and kept talking about every single thing they got to see. I only kept thinking how difficult it would be for them the day they had to leave. That thought almost made me regret having signed up for this.

The next day the children woke up later than usual and went down to have breakfast. I just kept admiring that little 7 year old acting like a little mother to her 4 year old brother. It’s difficult to imagine all the things they have seen in their short lives. As breakfast progressed, they kept getting more and more comfortable, so much so that the 6 year old started talking about the day they were in the bus. He told us people kept hitting the bus and throwing things at it. One of the officers inside told them to sing songs, but his little brother at some point got so scared that he peed on his pants. The 4 year old got really offended and started to cry out of embarrassment. I told him it was normal to be scared once in a while and hugged him. The 7 year old kept quiet but got up to hug his little brother. I asked her if she had been scared too and she said that they were sitting down resting their heads on their laps, but the shouting and the hitting on the bus made most of them cry. The 6 year old told us that when they got down from the bus, they had to cover their heads with a little blanket so the mean people would not see them. The 4 year old kept hugging me but started asking for his mom. I promised him they would see her soon. In the meantime, I was trying my best not to cry with them.

I tried to change the subject because I wanted them to just be happy at the moment and forget about the atrocities going on, but the 6 year old kept talking. He was telling me that a friend of the family had this magazine with him one day, and that is where they saw pictures of Disneyland. He said that when the friend left the magazine unattended, he ripped the page that featured the Castle and placed it under one of the beds in their little house. The 7 year old interrupted him saying that it was that day when they went outside to play ball in front of the house, when a car pulled over across he street. Their parents had taught them to come inside the house or to hide under a parked car when they thought something bad was happening. So when they saw the car coming to a screeching halt, they instinctively dropped to the ground and moved to the nearest parked car for cover. She said she was holding the 4 year old’s hand but she decided to cover his eyes instead. A guy jumped from the car holding some sort of a rifle and went inside the little house, it didn’t take long when he came out dragging a young man, who according to the 7 year old, was about 17/18 years old. Outside they kept shouting at each other while the siblings were moving underneath the car, when all of a sudden the teen tried to run away and the guy with the rifle just shot him. the shooter went to say something to him and started to kick him. Then, he just got into his car and drove away leaving the young man there dying. Neighbors started gathering and called an ambulance, but she says they sometimes don’t even come and people have to ask around for help. Their mother had already run outside looking for them and when she saw them, she took them inside the house. She told me that while they were hiding, all that she could think about was the magazine with the pictures of the Castle and people smiling. That is why when their parents told them they were gonna send them to America, they thought about Disneyland.

My son asked if the children knew if any of their friends had been sent to America as well, and the 6 year old said that he didn’t think so, because in order to come you have to work really hard to save money. The 7 year old said she used to help cleaning a house for some lady who owns a store next to the school. I asked her about her house-cleaning duties because I couldn’t think of a 7 year old working as a maid. It was just too much. She said that she had to sweep the whole house, make the beds and gather all the dirty clothes and put them inside a tub with soapy water. But that was only after school, because before school she helps her mom making the sandwiches she sells in the corner.

I just had to ask them how was the trip coming to America. They said they took a bus for days, and that a lady had been with them all the way until they arrived to Mexico. Once they got to Mexico, the smugglers moved them to a van with another group of people and left them at a warehouse for a few days. The 4 year old was quick to point out he didn’t like that, the warehouse had roaches that would crawled on top of them at night and also, they forgot to bring food one whole day so they decided to sleep most of the day instead. The 7 year old said she felt like crying most of the time, but she didn’t want to make her siblings cry more, because they were scared.

All I could think of was the people from Murrieta, how deplorable that adults would willingly scare these little kids that have been through enough, they’ve suffered enough trauma.

The smuggler came back the next morning and took one group to a van and they had to wait a little bit for him to come back for them, when he came back he had sandwiches and juices, he gave them to them and told them to be ready because they were the next group to leave. They devoured the sandwiches and grabbed the bag with clothes, then walked with the smuggler to the van.

In the van, the smuggler kept giving them instructions. He told them that once they crossed to America, a border patrol would find them and they would help them. The 6 year old kept complaining with his sister about being warm, they had to wear two layers of clothing because they weren’t allowed to carry much inside their bags.

The smuggler took them to the edge of a river (which I’m assuming is the Rio Grande) and told them he had a raft hidden there that would take them across. So they got into the raft and in no time were across the river where another guy helped them get out and told them which path to follow. He said they shouldn’t worry because the border patrol would look for them and help them. The children told me they walked quite a bit until a border patrol saw them and the kids ran towards it. They said it was much better after the patrol took them to the building because they weren’t cold or hungry. They were able to take a shower and change clothes. The next day the officials explained they would load the children into a bus because they were going to California (Murrieta).

I asked the kids if they had any family here because I found it more troublesome that their parents would just send them without any adults waiting for them. They said they had an uncle here, but they don’t remember his address. They only had his phone number, which the border patrol took away. The patrol assured the kids they were contacting him.

After this, I decided to take the children to a park, that whole conversation had left me flabbergasted. I got to keep them for 2 more days before I had to report back with them, it was extremely difficult saying goodbye to them. They all cried while we were hugging.

I wasn’t allowed to keep any personal information from them, so after I left them there, I had no way to contact them again. I’d like to think that they made it to his uncle and that they are receiving all the help they desperately need.

All this situation is disgraceful. These are tiny people who depend on us, adults, to take care of them. It’s unbelievable to think that people would turn their backs on the children and also intimidate them so much. Kids don’t understand about borders laws; deportation. All they know is that they are going to a safer place where they don’t have to worry about being hurt. Apathy is going to hurt us more than we think.

About a month after they left, I read about a group of kids being murdered after they had been sent back to Honduras. My heart sunk. I just wish we’d lived in a world where kids didn’t have to suffer like this.

So, Adam Sandler, Yeah…

27 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Music, Native American Issues

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Adam sandler, American Indians, Film, Humor, Indians, Movies, Racism, Satire, Westerns

By now the story is pretty well known. A number of Native Americans recently walked off the set of an Adam Sandler movie (The Ridiculous Six) citing offensive jokes as the deal-breaker triggering their decision to leave. Most had been cast as extras, but the group also includes a cultural consultant hired for the film. Other sources have detailed the story better than I could, but let’s just get a few of their objections on the table so we all know what we’re talking about:

– The Indians in the movie are supposed to be Apache, but their outfits and material culture generally represented in the film would seem better suited to Comanche (and that not too accurately there either).

– The movie used offensive names for female characters. “No Bra” and “Beaver Breath” come to mind. “Sits-On-Face” was apparently in the script at one point.

– Come to think of it, the movie gives men offensive names too, “Five hairy Moles,” and “One Eyebrow,” for example.

– In the movie a woman is supposed to squat to pee at some point while smoking a peace pipe.

– The extras found a feather arrangement on a teepee inappropriate.

– In the movie, Adam Sandler is supposed to utter the line; “Say honey: how bout after this, we go someplace and I put my pee-pee in your teepee?”

…you get the idea.

I certainly hope that I don’t have to explain why any of this would be offensive. The question is of course what to make of that offense? Someone is almost always the butt of a joke, and so it sometimes seems arbitrary when a particular set of jokes like this one draws a vehement response. Those with little or no connection to the offended group are often that much more mystified, because they simply don’t understand all the implications, and it can be damned tempting to pass the whole thing off as political correctness.

The notion that these extras (and those who support them) are just being too damned sensitive about the whole thing is rolling rather predictably out in various tweets and blog posts. A spokesman for netflicks reportedly characterized the film as ‘broad satire’. Breitbart News carried that theme even further, denying that satire could be disrespect in any context and congratulating the film crew for standing their ground in the face of an overly sensitive group of extras. Sandler’s camp appears to have adopted the stance that his movie is meant to be all in good fun, and that it’s full of low-brow humor to begin with. One of the cast, Vanilla Ice, for example assured us that Sandler is not trying to make something on par with Dances With Wolves. So, it seems we in the public are supposed to give Sandler a pass, because he is just joking.

I’m usually pretty open to raunchy humor, but I find it very hard to imagine a context in which the jokes mentioned above would be anything other than toilet humor fit for a five year old.

…and let’s be clear. there is another context to consider here. For those of us who haven’t seen the film, it’s difficult to assess the context behind the jokes, but for those of us who haven’t lived lives as Native Americans, it’s hard to say what the overall context of life is for determining how these jokes must feel.

Context is a two-way street.

No, actually, it’s more like a giant roundabout with a lot of busy traffic.

The question here is just what makes these jokes funny to begin with (at least for those that find them funny)? It’s easy enough to say that a name like “Beaver Breath” is just a joke, but is there really any reason to suppose that joke doesn’t turn on a point of prejudice? These names don’t appear to be an in-joke, and they don’t turn any non-native prejudice on its head. They reflect little other than the sensibility of a child snickering at someone different. These jokes turn that difference into an object of brutal and straight-foreword mockery. and there is simply nothing in the accounts given so far to suggest that the target of this humor is anything other than Native American naming practices themselves. If this is satire, it is indistinguishable from racist propoganda.

That the jokes in question may be delivered with a congenial smile doesn’t change the fact that this humor is at face value quite demeaning. Some people don’t even seem to know when they are insulting others; either that or they simply assume the right to do so without being called to account for it.

This is why the claim that The Ridiculous Six is all just satire fails. Oh yes, the movie may well be a satire, but whatever it’s satirizing, there is no reason to believe these jokes aren’t actually directed at the Native American community.

There is nothing in these jokes that suggests familiarity with their own subject matter, much less appreciation for the people close to it. This is why the costumes matter, not because the movie was meant to be historically accurate, but because knowing the difference between Apache dress and Comanche dress might have communicated at the trace of a capacity to give a damn. When such things become too much to ask, the benefit of the doubt slips out the door. And when those who raise the issue, as these extras did, are told by a producer they are being overly sensitive and they should leave, well that pretty well slams the door shut altogether. If there was any chance this humor could have reflected anything other than outright prejudice, the treatment these extras received on the set would appear to have set that prospect to rest.

…which puts the claim that no offense had been intended in this script in an awkward light. It would appear to mean little other than that Native Americans themselves are not supposed to take offense at such things. Sandler and company have produced a highly offensive script, and when called on it, they have done little other than to beg others not to see the plain point of their own jokes. In effect, they have put the responsibility for the insult on those that have called attention to it (which is an awful lot like the strategy taken by Dan Snyder and the Washington football team). in effect, they blame those they insult for knowing they have been insulted. Does that rhetoric sound familiar? It should. This is of course precisely why conservative culture warriors are beginning to weigh in. It isn’t that they don’t know the movie is offensive; the folks at Breitbart for example are defending it precisely because they know that it is.

It’s easy to dismiss Sandler himself. He has often (almost always) presented himself in a rather juvenile manner. His characters are often simpletons, and the humor they produce is accordingly full of foolishness. When this fails, as it often does, Sandler leaves behind more than a trace of disappointment in the jokes. He also leaves us with that slightly creepy feeling that we’ve seen too much of someone’s personal baggage. Still, the man is capable of outstanding humor, often using this very approach. I do recall some brilliant moments in Sandler’s career; Lunch Counter Lady and The Hanakka Song come to mind. I don’t exactly pine for new examples of his work, but I can honestly say that he has brightened my day once or twice over the years. I say this, not because I feel like defending the man at the moment, but because I think it’s important to note that he is at least capable of doing something better than this.

Unfortunately, the man is also capable of turning out utter trash. Case in point, putting a peepee in a woman’s teepee. Try as I might, I cannot find any context in which that line reflects anything but the crudest sensibilities of a petulant child. Reading about this, I can’t help thinking Sandler has gotten entirely too comfortable passing the naughtiest jokes of the playground off as professional comedy. I for one hope that he will take a lesson from his extras, and try once again to produce comedy worth watching.

***

Postscript: I noticed an interesting pattern in this video showing the conversation, the film-makers continually insist that the movie is sympathetic to the Native American characters. Why? Because Adam Sandler’s character loves them.

Speaking of Dances With Wolves…

Suffice to say the notion that respect for Native American characters rests on little other than the values of a non-Native character would be ironic at best.

Actually ‘perverse’ is more like it.

RedskinsFacts Does the Meta-Hypocrisy Shuffle

15 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by danielwalldammit in Native American Issues, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Football, Frank Baum, Glenn Beck, Hypocrisy, Oneida, Propaganda, Racism, Recursion, Washington redskins

(Click to Embiggen)

The accusation of hypocrisy can be a very effective means of facilitating the same. Case in point? This little gem from Redskinsfacts.com. I hesitate to post it, because the link will take you to Blaze TV, which is Glenn Beck’s little neck of the net, but well… professional bigots must at times be answered, even if it means giving petulant children more attention than they deserve.

Glenn Beck is in rare form in that video, trying to turn “What’s up my Cracker?” into a thing. It is neither clever nor insightful, though I suppose he thinks it some sort of social commentary. What his use of the phrase does do is help us understand that some folks never outgrow the adolescent desire to piss off the adults in the room, and that those people frequently find their way into the heart’s and minds of those addicted to right wing political porn. You can also hear some bizarre comments about Hitler’s non-existent children in that video along with something about an alleged apology for his actions. There is nothing in the clip to suggest that Beck and company know this little trip through Godwin’s Law is utter bullshit. Rather, they appear to figure this narrative is true, because, well that’s what must have happened, right?

…which is pretty much how history works in the world of Glenn Beck.

All that aside, Beck’s main point (to the extent that he has one) is that the Oneida Nation of New York is building a casino to be named after The Wizard of Oz. What makes this disturbing is its author’s history of racism. L. Frank Baum advocated the complete annihilation of Native Americans. yes he did. They are right about that. Beck and Company find it absurd that a tribe which has been critical of Washington’s football team would honor the work of a racist. In fact, they find it quite hypocritical.

As you can see above, so do the folks at Redskinsfacts.com.

It pains me to say this, but they do have a point. Whatever the merits of The Wizard of Oz in literature, cinema, or simply marketing strategies, it’s difficult to explain why any Native American community would want to be associated with Baum’s work. We could debate the exact equivalent of naming a casino after a work done by an author whose also expressed racist views and the use of a name that directly perpetuates racist stereotypes with every mention made of it throughout the entire football season, but some might think that was splitting hairs (or giant redwood trees, …whatever!). At the end of the day, they do have a point; this is a problem.

Of course the problem doesn’t end there. Inconsistencies abound in politics, and one can hardly point at the second face of someone else without raising questions about his own self-presentation. Beck and company aren’t really trying to get the tribe to drop its plans for a casino named after Baum’s work, and they are certainly uninterested in spreading the word about Baum’s racism. No, this is an opportunistic moment for them, a chance to seize on a misstep by those who threaten their world in some tiny way. Beck and company are defending the name of the Washington football team, and that team is thoroughly invested in racism at every level of its organization. The Oneida Nation of New York could easily reconsider its pans (and let us hope they do), but a change of the Washington team’s name would require re-branding on a scale unimaginable to some folks. If this is a tale of two racisms it is a tale in which one of them is a Hell of a lot more important than the other. Beck and company know this, and they are hoping their audience doesn’t. As explained by one of Beck’s talking heads, the name of the team has always been used to honor Native Americans.

…he is of course lying.

It’s interesting to watch Beck and company run through the motions of pretending to discuss the issue as one of his talking heads plays good cop to the other guy’s bad cop. His sole effort in defense of the Oneida is to remind us of Washington Team’s name and to add that they are playing football. That’s it. That’s what Beck and company offer to speak for the case against the Washington team’s name. And of course they move on to suggest that the Oneida must be trying to accomplish something secret in attacking the team name. Bad cop can’t quite tell us what that is, and of course he’s somehow forgotten all the other Native Americans who also oppose the team name, but he can probably rely on most of Beck’s audience to forget this as well. Ultimately, the bottom line in this segment is a clear defense of the Washington Team by mans of a simple tu quoque fallacy.

If Beck and company say “what about you” loud enough, they hope everyone will forget about their own politics and those they hope to support through segments like this.

This is of course also the only reason the folks at Redskins Facts bring it up as well. They too are not the least bit interested in saving any indigenous people from exposure to the racist views of L. Frank Baum. They merely hope to embarrass a political enemy by pointing out the inconsistency of linking themselves to the work of a racist while opposing their own team name. They are right to the extent that there is an inconsistency in this, but that inconsistency stands like a mirror reflection of their own agenda. They hope to deflect attention from the racism saturating their own politics by calling attention to the hypocrisy of one of their principle critics. In doing so, they themselves become hypocrites themselves, and their sole hope is that no-one will notice the reflexive nature of the problem.

We can well ask if the Oneida should be building this casino while opposing the name of the Washington football team. We can also ask if RedskinsFacts.com, Glenn Beck, and all his talking heads ought to be complaining about what an Indian tribe chooses to name its casino while defending a sports team with an explicitly racist name?

I’m guessing the better answer is ‘no’ on both counts, but then again, we all know we won’t be getting that kind of answer from the folks pushing this story any time soon.

It’s the Disinformation Charlie Brown

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by danielwalldammit in Irritation Meditation, Politics

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Democrats, Ethnicity, GOP, History, Peanuts, Race, Racism, Red Herring, Whitsplaining

I came across this D-Nuts bit last night. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, but what the Hell? This time I thought I’d take a moment to bloggetize a comment or two on the matter. What’s interesting about this piece, you may ask?

We could start with the most obvious game that’s being played here. On one level it is simply a red herring. A claim about the present-day Republican Party has been answered with a series of claims about the history of the GOP and the Democrats, thus substituting a question about what each HAS BEEN for an argument about what each IS today.

Taken at face value, this red herring contains another problem, a seriously convenient omission of historical information, namely the shift in voting patterns over the 20th century culminating in the famous “southern strategy” of Richard Nixon. Simply put, an awful lot of southern conservatives switched parties over the years since the founding of the GOP and of the KKK. It’s tempting to say that a number of them did so precisely because they saw the modern GOP as a better vehicle for their own racist agenda. In any event, the shift has left both parties flip-flopped on civil rights and the proper balance of federal and state authority. There are some other factors besides race at work here to be sure, but a number of GOP leaders have made conscious appeals to racist sentiments over the years and the results have been quite striking.

So, is it fair to say that the GOP is racist?

I could see reasonable arguments against an affirmative answer. Those arguments do not rest on a conveniently incomplete account of history.

Even still, I can’t help thinking the best (worst) part about this cartoon is just how well its content fits with its intended purpose. Here we have Charlie Brown whitesplaining the topic of racism to Franklin, the one black character in Peanuts. Franklin is clueless in comparison to Charlie’s wisdom. The cartoonist has him reacting with a stubborn inarticulate refusal to see Charlie’s point or even to engage the argument in any meaningful way. He just sticks to his position as if incapable of grasping the issues at hand. He is in effect simply playing the so called race card without any substantive reasons for doing so. The GOP isn’t racist, so the cartoon would have us believe, but apparently it takes a white person to understand that.

…a message which would probably come as no surprise to Franklin.

A Troubled Tale of Two Racisms and the Floundering Efforts to Oppose Them

12 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by danielwalldammit in Justice, Native American Issues

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

discrimination, Frybread, Power, prejudice, Privilege, Racism, Reverse Racism, Rhetoric, Social Constructivism

This wasn’t the first time I felt unwelcome at the mutton stand. In fact, it was the second time this server had ignored me while serving other customers. Just like the first instance, I initially assumed it was an accident, or at least that she had some other reasons for avoiding me, but slowly I started to wonder if it was my color. White people were not entirely foreign to these markets, but the vast majority of folks frequenting these stands were certainly Navajo. And it was beginning to look increasingly like this particular woman had no intention of doing business with me at all.

…which really sucked, because these guys made the best roast mutton in Window Rock!

What to do about it? In my younger days, my social tool kit was long on hammers and short on other options. I had enough sense to realize vocal complaints about unfair treatment of a bilagáana might go down poorly, but not enough subtlety to think of alternative ways to address the matter. As it happens, I didn’t need to think of anything to say. The other customers did it for me. A chorus of “He’s next!” greeted the woman’s next efforts to pass me by, some of their voices tinged with a sense of real irritation. I got my roast mutton that day. More than that, I felt a sense of reassurance. Although resentment of whites could be found in many varieties out on the Navajo Nation, so could a certain sense of fairness. On this day that sense of fairness won out and I got my mutton.

***

Let me start by admitting up front that I could have been wrong about the motivations of the woman who didn’t seem to want to serve me. Perhaps I read the whole thing wrong, and maybe my own behavior had somehow triggered her actions. Hell, maybe I really shouldn’t have been eating there in the first place. All this is quite possible, but I am going to ask you, dear reader, to accept for purposes of argument, that this was an instance of a Navajo woman treating me different (a little bit badly) because of my ethnicity. I think it is also an instance in which the members of her own community found this to be unacceptable behavior.

So here is the question, did I experience racism?

No, that’s not the question.

My real question is how do you go about answering that first question?

It seems to me that at least two radically different approaches to answering that question have become rather common these days, and it is getting more and more difficult for people using these different approaches to talk to each other about the matter. One way of going about it, which I will call the conventional approach (perhaps for no better reason than that it is the approach I grew up with) would be to raise questions about the motives and attitude of the woman who didn’t seem to want to serve me. Granting a certain range of answers about what she had in mind, someone taking this approach would say ‘yes’ I had been subject to racism. Another approach (let’s call it the social constructivist approach) is more common these days in academia and left wing politics in general. From this standpoint, it is best to inquire into the social power of the parties involved and then see how they use that power in respect of one another. Those adopting this approach might also want to expand consideration beyond the mutton stand to the larger patterns of history and contemporary politics. In most cases this approach would lead to an answer of ‘no’ to my first question, or even a ‘hell no’, perhaps with an additional lecture on the privilege of living in a world where slow service at a mutton stand is a moral outrage worthy of remembering nearly two decades later.

***

Okay, so let’s do this…

In the conventional approach, racism is a question of personal judgement and motivation. Racism consists in treating someone different on account of their race, and since all manner of people can do this, anyone can clearly be racist. The possibility of ‘reverse racism’ as it is commonly called is obvious enough with the only real questions being about whether or not this or that particular event illustrates some variety of reverse discrimination. Using this approach (and assuming I wasn’t missing something important), it is quite possible to affirm that I was subjected to racism on that day.

On it’s face, the conventional approach seems a perfectly reasonable take on the subject. People often use it to advance a genuine sense of moral obligation regarding how one ought to treat others, and by people here I do mean all kinds of people. Folks from all sorts of different backgrounds can and do frequently advance the notion that one ought not to treat people differently (or at least badly) on account of their race. This does strike me as a good thing, but the question is whether or not this is an adequate response to the problem of racism.

First and I think foremost, the problem with this approach is that it flattens the significance of discriminatory behavior, putting the denial of a mutton sandwich in much the same boat with minstrel shows, segregated schools, legacy contracts, Japanese internment, involuntary sterilization, lynching. and even the Holocaust. Hell, I felt a little nausea myself putting my mutton-stand story in the same sentence with all those things, but the absurdity of that comparison is precisely my point. Addressing racism as an issue of personal motivation doesn’t do much to help us understand the difference between petty gestures and genuine atrocities. It isn’t that people can’t understand that there is a difference, but this approach to countering racism creates a fashion of speaking about them which tends to put them all on equal footing, at least for a moment. If we then want to talk about the differences between a simple affront and something that genuinely oppresses whole groups of people, then that talk falls somewhere over and above the problem of racism.

Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that large numbers of people never get out of that fashion of speaking about racism, that large numbers of people never really get the difference between a lynching and an expression of petty personal bias. Indeed, some folks seem prepared to recognize racism only if it is first prefaced with ‘reverse’. Time and again, advocates of social justice find their concerns drowned out by talk of reverse racism and stories in which the under-privileged prove themselves ironically capable of being the bad guys too.

…and in the ultimate poetic injustice, being discriminated against too, becomes the exclusive cultural capital of the privileged.

Don’t laugh. A few pundits have become filthy rich working that very angle.

It is no wonder that persons of color and their political allies often want to do away with this fashion of speaking about racism altogether. The conventional approach to racism is, as many seem to suggest, a well far too poisoned with all this talk of reverse discrimination to be of any real use for understanding the larger issues of oppression and injustice in the world today. So, many of those interested in such issues have chosen to define racism as something that requires not merely prejudice but the social capital to put that prejudice into play with real and devastating consequences. Racism is from this point of view an expression of power, not merely an individual act, whatever its motivation. This is what I mean by a Social Constructivist approach. It’s a clunky phrase, and a grad-school cliché, but what the hell!?! It works.

It isn’t that people advocating the social constructivist approach don’t think minorities can be jerks; but they don’t see the myriad stories minority jerkitry as a meaningful part of the story of racism. From this standpoint, my mutton-stand story is simple a non-starter. The problem isn’t just the scale of harm (or the lack thereof); such stories are from this point of view a genuine distraction from the central issues of oppression that should be the focus of concerns about racism. It’s easy enough to get the problem with such stories in this kind of loose narrative; the problem comes in when people start trying to explain why such stories are as a matter of principle unimportant to the issue of racism.

Often folks taking the constructivist approach will say something to the effect that racism is about power and since minorities don’t have the power, they can’t be racist. This has always struck me as a terrible oversimplification, and I could only wish it were a straw man, or that its use were limited to less educated circles. But it isn’t.

To me, the core problem here is that the argument uses an awfully ham-handed sense of social power. We can talk of people having more or less power, but the notion that whites have all the power and minorities absolutely none of it is bordering caricature. For one thing, it doesn’t take a lot of power to hurt someone, and it is one of the perversities of racism that it may from time to time offer those whom it keeps from real opportunity the consolation of petty revenge against some unlucky fellow. Whether it is a personal punch in the mouth, a petty decision by a boss, or a politician playing to his own base, there are plenty of persons of color quite capable of harming those of another ethnicity. One must also consider the possibilities of scape-goating other minorities, or even minority groups within their own community. And finally, there is no reason to expect that racism must always mean hurting those belonging to the race that someone hates. Often as not resentments directed at whole groups of other people precedes a shot to one’s own foot, so to speak. The kind of social power which makes racism a problem simply doesn’t rest only at one end of the spectrum, even if acknowledging that fact let’s an unwelcome foot in the door. Acknowledging the possibility that someone other than a white person might have the means to hurt people on the basis of race should not be difficult, but in short-hand politics, it seems many are happy to simply discount that possibility.

…which is definitely taking liberties with the facts.

It isn’t that an emphasis on social power means abrogation of minority responsibility to others, and I don’t think many people mean to suggest that; it’s that one of the aims of an emphasis on the social construction of power is to put harm to the underprivileged back in the center-spot of opposition to racism.

***

All of this leaves us with one very big problem as I see it. Speaking of racism as something that is by definition an expression of the privileged cuts so far against conventional approaches to the subject that it amounts to quitting the field in a sense, abandoning the larger public discourse. Unless I am underestimating the extent to which social construction has reached the popular consciousness, that approach (with its complete disclaimer of the possibilities of minority racism) is a bit too foreign for most people to comprehend. The reasons for such an approach are well known in academia, and in many circles of left-wing politics, but they aren’t sufficiently well known to guide public perceptions. So while those adopting a social constructivist approach can talk in limited circles as though only the ignorant or malicious would even think of describing racism as something a minority could do, large parts of the public take it for granted that it most certainly is, and that lunacy or at least dishonesty are the only reasons anyone would deny it.

The notion that minorities simply cannot be racist leaves a silence in the space where one would normally raise questions about rude, cruel, or even genuinely harmful actions by minorities. Often, advocates of the social constructivist approach will concede that sundry examples of such behavior are terrible; they might even suggest alternative words to describe them. I hear it time and again, the notion that racism just isn’t the right word for it, but what that word would be isn’t so clear. So, the more reasonable folks taking the social constructivist approach are not really trying to insulate minorities from criticism, but they are working hard to ensure that criticism is divorced from an important source of moral value, opposition to racism. Arguably, what is lost in this approach is simply too valuable, and like it or not, there are legitimate reasons for addressing questions about racially motivated behavior by minorities, reasons that cannot be reduced to the effort to drown pro-minority politics in a deluge of petty complaints by the well privileged.

In the end, denying the possibility of minority racism does not just silence those milking the reverse-racism angle for more than its worth, it also silences people with real concerns and sincere questions about ethnic relations. All too often, the right wing pundits are happy to fill that silence with the suggestion that lefties are just bigots in their on right and that this whole fashion of speaking is just another attack on white people. That may seem a cop-out to many advocates of the constructivist approach, but unfortunately the cop-out is mutual. An awful lot of folks are finding more and more ways to avoid talk to each other about this subject, and even to find ways of speaking really loudly while not really talking to each other about it.

It is extremely important to make a strong case for the significance of social power in the history and politics of racism, but that case poorly served by word games. As certain voices work very hard to ensure the public can’t tell the difference between affirmative action and Jim Crow, a large part of the public is unsure what to make of the issues. The difference must be explained, and yes, perhaps explained again, because those working reverse-racism molehills into great mountains will go right on doing so. They aren’t the least bit phased to find that lefty scholars have adopted a way of speaking about the issue that side-steps their own gambit.

Far from it.

***

So, was I exposed to racism on that day so many years ago? Meh, …who cares? My real point is that I hear and read people talking about such questions in two very different ways, and more and more I meet people who seem completely incapable of bridging the gap between those ways of speaking.

It’s a problem.

***

Roast Mutton provided by a review of Sacred Hogan.

It’s Been a Good Week for Whitesplaining, Thank you Cliven Bundy and Dan Snyder!

26 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by danielwalldammit in Politics

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Bundy Ranch, Cliven Bundy, Dan Snyder, Nevada, Privilege, Racism, Redskins, Right Wing Echo Chamber, Whitesplaining

I love the smell of Whitesplaining in the morning. Smells like, …privilege!

So, it’s been a good week for me, or at least for my guilty pleasures. One of the greatest joys of the week has been watching my usual qualms about lefty crit-speak vanish in a puff of “Oh yeah, that’s what that means!” See, I have to admit, I’m not always down with the use of ‘whitesplaining’, ‘privilege’, ‘objectification’ in critical commentary. Some might suggest my hesitation is just what you’d expect from a middle-class white guy, but I can’t help thinking these get a little overused at times.

But then Dan Snyder made a true believer out of me.

This miracle of clarity came on Tuesday a charity event in which he answered a few questions, …badly. According to the Associated Press, Snyder simply declared that the team name is “not an issue” and that people need to “focus on reality.” And lo! The matter was settled. If you are like me, you might be thinking that’s a neat trick. When people keep telling you they have a problem with something you’re doing, you just declare it isn’t an issue, and like magic, it simply isn’t. Teenagers everywhere should try that with their parents and teachers.

…or maybe not.

Of course Dan Snyder isn’t a teenager; he isn’t challenging authority. Given his wealth and his power, and that his primary critics here seem to be an underprivileged demographic, the man is speaking down the social scale in some sense, delivering a pronouncement from on-high, one that others will struggle to challenge. If Snyder’s ex cathedra pronouncement seems to work, it is precisely because he has the power to make the story stick, and that power does not come from the clarity of his personal insight or the cogency of his arguments.

This isn’t someone speaking truth to power; it’s someone speaking power in the face of truth.

But of course Snyder isn’t just playing privilege, he also has an argument. That argument has something to do with addressing real issues affecting the lives of Native Americans rather than the symbolic issues associated with mascot politics. As Snyder says; “The real issues are real-life issues, real-life needs, and I think it’s time that people focus on reality.”

Now this little gambit almost has promise. You could make a plausible argument out of prioritizing material needs over symbolic politics, at least some people could under some circumstances. So, this argument seems like it might have some legs. Of course those legs might take his cause further if Snyder weren’t busy laying down a hundred thousand dollars to help a high school team change their football field to field turf, this after bragging up some coats and part of a backhoe given to Native Americans. Those legs stop walking altogether when one considers that any effort to actually help people in their real lives does nothing at all to answer questions about the name of the team. As Keith Olberman pointed out, it is quite possible to do both. And those legs sit down and kick up their feet for a smoke break when one considers just how outrageous it is for a non-native to simply declare that he knows what the actual issues for Native Americans really are in direct opposition to the stated position of so many of them. Mind you, the man isn’t making a suggestion, fielding a question, or even respectfully submitting any thoughts for folks to consider. He simply declares his own command of the issues once and for all. …adding that he and his folks have done their homework, “unlike a lot of people.”

I wonder who Dan Snyder thinks those other people who haven’t done their homework would be? Could it possibly be the people whose lives he pretend to want to help? Could it be the very people he is talking about? So, yep. Dan Snyder thinks he can simply tell the world what the real problems are in Indian Country, all the while ignoring the input, comments, criticism, and vocal outrage from indigenous voices all over the country, not the least of them appearing on the pages of Indian Country Today.

If I had to give an example of whitesplaining, I think this might just be the first one that came to mind.

But of course Dan Snyder had competition this week from rural Nevada where rancher and Tea Party hero Cliven Bundy opted to tell us a thing or two about the ‘negro’. …yep. Of course some folks might not be surprised to find a man with odd thoughts about federal authority (and the lack thereof) also had odd thoughts about minorities, but I prefer to give folks the benefit of the doubt.

…at least while there is doubt.

Here’s the quick and dirty version:

Now some folks seem to feel this shortened version of Bundy’s remarks reflects an unfair edit, so they present a larger version of the clip showing a bit more of Bundy’s thoughts on different people. Here it is:

If you watch this longer version of Bundy’s remarks, you can see quite clearly that he is not trying to spread hatred of or prejudice against anybody. No, he just believes a lot of terrible things about African Americans, at least, and he doesn’t seam to see that those beliefs are offensive and harmful to the people he claims not to hate. Bundy’s comments reflect common stereotypes about African-Americans and somewhat less common musings about the potentially benign effects of slavery. They may not reflect the kind of strident racism one would expect of the KKK (though we might have our suspicions about a few of Bundy’s supporters), but Bundy’s remarks do reflect a casual racism that tends to show up in some circles a couple beers into a good BBQ.

What seems most striking about this to me is the role that minorities play here as an object of contemplation for Bundy and his many defenders. Minorities present to Bundy and casual racists everywhere a source of material, so to speak, one tailor-made for commentary about where this damned world is going and where it really oughtta be. It’s a tired litany in which the real problems of the world can be found in the privileges of those with the least and with whoever is responsible for creating those imaginary privileges. Black folk aren’t the real evil of Bundy’s remarks. No, they are simply dupes of the Fed, fellow victims of big government who must be saved from it’s diabolical schemes. All the problems of the African-American community are thus subsumed under the interests of Bundy’s states’ rights agenda. They are simply one more reason to oppose big government, all for their benefit as well as his own.

The notion that the modern welfare state is just another form of slavery has been a favorite talking point of right wingers in recent years. It’s just one of the many ways in which the critique of welfare has long since jumped the shark in the echo chambers of America’s pseudo-conservatives and free market fundamentalists. So, I suppose it shouldn’t come as any real surprise to find Bundy reproducing this little yarn. It is a little bit of a surprise, I think, to find that people could be so thoughtless and so clueless about the realities of either slavery or social programs. The problem here is not malice (I will give Bundy supporters that much anyway); it’s ignorance, but it’s ignorance taken to 11.

One of the manifestations of that ignorance is a complete inability to conceive of minorities as anything but an object of casual consideration. Bundy’s past experiences are simply grist for the mill, anecdotes in a narrative about big government. The concerns, thoughts, and ideas of any actual minorities are quite absent from that narrative. So yet again, the key to minority problems turns out to rest in the hands of a random white guy whose principle concerns have little to do with them, who isn’t listening to them, and who has no real concerns for their welfare.

Like I said it’s been a good week for whitesplaining.

…and for nausea.

northierthanthou

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It’s Been a Good Week for Whitesplaining, Thank you Cliven Bundy and Dan Snyder!

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