The recent scandal involving Michael Richards' rant at the Laugh Factory comedy club, and the resulting discussion about whether or not he is a racist again makes me wonder what makes some people want to deny the obvious. When a person is up on stage yelling "Look, there's a n*****! There's a n*****!" Or "Fifty years ago we'd have had a f****** fork up your a**!" Those aren't just angry words. Those are words stemming from racial hatred.
What was also very telling was that during his rambling apology on "The David Letterman Show", he used the term "Afro-Americans", a term for African-Americans that has not been used since the 1970's. There were giggles from the audience when he used the term, which he addressed and made a comment that perhaps the Letterman Show wasn't the proper forum for his apology. He is clearly clueless about just how uneducated and stupid he sounded when he used that term.
My favorite columnist, Leonard Pitts, Jr., of The Miami Herald, wrote an excellent column today about the Michael Richards debacle and some of his thoughts. It's an excellent commentary on just what racism is.
Richards' rant leaves no doubt he's a racist
By Leonard Pitts, Jr.
You'd think one of the first things a stand-up comic learns is how to deal with hecklers. One recalls Richard Pryor's jab at some fool who blew a whistle during his monologue. ''This ain't Kool and the Gang, motherfornicator!'' Except, he didn't say motherfornicator.
Apparently, Michael Richards was absent from Comedy 101 the day they studied Heckler Management. Hence, his epic, headline-making meltdown. It happened last week after Richards was razzed -- benignly, by most accounts -- by some black folks in the crowd.
As a result, a pointed question is now being debated: Is Michael Richards a racist? Let me save us all a lot of time: Yes. It seems obvious that Seinfeld's Kramer, his claims to the contrary notwithstanding, has no use for, as he put it in his rambling, disjointed, and painful-to-watch apology on Letterman, ``Afro Americans.''
I have a reader who would disagree on that. She sent an e-mail hoping to preempt my calling Richards racist. She asked that I consider the possibility he's no bigot but simply a man who, in anger, reached instinctively for the most hurtful language he could find. We've all been there, right?
HE MEANT IT
Well, no. Richards' rant, according to the video of it online, lasted a good 2 ½ minutes. You might angrily snap that somebody is a ''fat so-and-so'' without really meaning it. You don't spend 2 ½ minutes calling them fat unless fat is exactly what you mean.
What bothers me most about my reader's explanation is that she felt compelled to postulate an alternate reason for Richards' behavior. Evidently she found the likeliest reason too hard to accept.
Nor is she alone. TMZ.com, the website that obtained the video, polled its users with this question: Is Richards a racist? Forty percent of the respondents said no.
Granted, the survey is not scientific, but it is instructive. And no, it makes no difference to me that some black people freely use the same word Richards did. I consider them just as hateful as I do him, except with them, it's hatred of self.
But frankly, Richards is not the point here. He's just a TV used-to-be who has likely immolated what remains of his career. So be it.
BLATANT AND UNMISTAKABLE
But if so many of my white countrymen refuse to recognize racism when it is this blatant and unmistakable, what expectation can we have that they will do so when it is subtle and covert? In other words, when it is what it usually is.
Modern bigotry usually isn't some nitwit screaming the N-word. It is jobs you don't get and loans you don't get and apartments you don't get and healthcare you don't get and justice you don't get, for reasons you get all too clearly, even though no one ever quite speaks them. Or needs to. It is smiles in your face and knives in your back. And it is, yes, a sitcom -- like Seinfeld -- that presents New York City, of all places, as a black-free zone.
These are complaints African Americans have sought for years to drive home only to be met largely by indifference, the defensive apathy of those who are free to ignore or diminish any claim on conscience that makes them uncomfortable. At the risk of metaphor abuse, the response to this debacle makes clear that you can't explain Advanced Racism to those who haven't passed Racism 101.
And, with all due respect to my correspondent, that need to make excuses gets old. The man spent 2 ½ minutes screaming racial insults. You say that's not racism?
Then, pray tell, what is?
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The Anniversary of Katrina
It has been a year since Hurricane Katrina and there have been numerous stories about the lack of progress in New Orleans, particularly in the Lower Ninth Ward. Most of the people who lived in this predominantly black, lower-income neighborhood have been displaced, and are living in other parts of the country or in FEMA trailers. They had no flood insurance. Contrast this with the wealthier neighborhoods in New Orleans, where residents are busy rebuilding, using their insurance money to rebuild their homes.
There have been many lessons learned from Katrina, and many ugly truths revealed by Katrina. This morning I read the top story in the Seattle Times about a 13-year-old girl who had been raped by a caregiver who had been employed by YouthCare, a non-profit organization that was supposed to provide a safe haven for runaway adolescents. The Seattle Times has been opening up court cases that have been closed from the public for various reasons, presumably because they would cause people or organizations involved in the case much embarrassment. This was no exception, and I bring it up because it reminds me of the privilege and oppression that divide the haves and the have nots--the ulgy truth that was revealed by Katrina.
In the rape case, it was a clear case of rape; however, because YouthCare was well-connected with important people on the board, a decision was made to blame the 13-year-old, saying she was partially responsible, even though the caregiver had a criminal background which had never been checked, and the evidence showed it was not consensual. The whole thing was a travesty, and I can't help but think that if this had happened to a rich, pretty white girl, it first of all would have been all over the newspapers, and second of all, the lawsuit would have been for millions. Clearly, our society values certain people over others.
Here is an excellent article entitled "What Katrina Teaches Us About Racism"
http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Gilman/
There have been many lessons learned from Katrina, and many ugly truths revealed by Katrina. This morning I read the top story in the Seattle Times about a 13-year-old girl who had been raped by a caregiver who had been employed by YouthCare, a non-profit organization that was supposed to provide a safe haven for runaway adolescents. The Seattle Times has been opening up court cases that have been closed from the public for various reasons, presumably because they would cause people or organizations involved in the case much embarrassment. This was no exception, and I bring it up because it reminds me of the privilege and oppression that divide the haves and the have nots--the ulgy truth that was revealed by Katrina.
In the rape case, it was a clear case of rape; however, because YouthCare was well-connected with important people on the board, a decision was made to blame the 13-year-old, saying she was partially responsible, even though the caregiver had a criminal background which had never been checked, and the evidence showed it was not consensual. The whole thing was a travesty, and I can't help but think that if this had happened to a rich, pretty white girl, it first of all would have been all over the newspapers, and second of all, the lawsuit would have been for millions. Clearly, our society values certain people over others.
Here is an excellent article entitled "What Katrina Teaches Us About Racism"
http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Gilman/
Monday, July 24, 2006
A wonderful weekend in Minneapolis
I just spent a wonderful weekend with great people in Minneapolis. All of us were in the diversity field--some of us seasoned diversity consultants and others less experienced but eager to learn more.
Being in Minneapolis with like-minded, creative people reconfirmed for me that I'm doing what I was always meant to do. Like one of the people said, "We're so lucky that we GET to do this work!" Amen to that!
Being in Minneapolis with like-minded, creative people reconfirmed for me that I'm doing what I was always meant to do. Like one of the people said, "We're so lucky that we GET to do this work!" Amen to that!
Friday, May 05, 2006
Asian Pacific Islander Community Leadership Foundation
On May 25th, I will be facilitating a workshop on Communication and Conflict Resolution for the Asian Pacific Islander Community Leadership Foundation (ACLF). ACLF was organized in 1998 in response to a growing concern about the need to identify, train, and mentor community members for future leadership. They provide an environment that fosters the development of individual leadership, community strength and inter-community unity to promote issues critical to Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs). They accomplish this through leadership training, community service, and mentorship.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Comments on so-called "Reverse Racism"
I received an email containing an article which comments about Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, and accusations that were leveled at him regarding his recent description of New Orleans as a "Chocolate City." This article really points out the disparity in perspective on race between whites and people of color.
Chocolate City?
By Tim Wise
ZNet Commentary, January 30, 2006
If you're looking to understand why discussions between blacks and whites about racism are often so difficult in this country, you need only know this: when the subject is race and racism, whites and blacks are often not talking about the same thing. To white folks, racism is seen mostly as individual and interpersonal--as with the uttering of a prejudicial remark or bigoted slur. For blacks, it is that too, but typically more: namely, it is the pattern and practice of policies and social institutions, which have the effect of perpetuating deeply embedded structural inequalities between people on the basis of race. To blacks, and most folks of color, racism is systemic. To whites, it is purely personal.
These differences in perception make sense, of course. After all, whites have not been the targets of systemic racism in this country, so it is much easier for us to view the matter in personal terms. If we have ever been targeted for our race, it has been only on that individual, albeit regrettable, level.
But for people of color, racism has long been experienced as an institutional phenomenon. It is the experience of systematized discrimination in housing, employment, schools or the justice system. It is the knowledge that one's entire group is under suspicion, at risk of being treated negatively because of stereotypes held by persons with the power to act on the basis of those beliefs (and the incentive to do so, as a way to retain their own disproportionate share of that power and authority).
The differences in white and black perceptions of the issue were on full display recently, when whites accused New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin of racism for saying that New Orleans should be and would be a "chocolate city" again, after blacks dislocated by Katrina had a chance to return. To one commentator after the other -- most of them white, but a few blacks as well -- the remark was by definition racist, since it seemed to imply that whites weren't wanted, or at least not if it meant changing the demographics of the city from mostly African American (which it was before the storm) to mostly white, which it is now, pending the return of black folks.
To prove how racist the comment was, critics offered an analogy. What would we call it, they asked, if a white politician announced that their town would or should be a "vanilla" city, meaning that it was going to retain its white majority? Since we would most certainly call such a remark racist in the case of the white pol, consistency requires that we call Nagin's remark racist as well.
Seems logical enough, only it's not. And the reason it's not goes to the very heart of what racism is and what it isn't--and the way in which the different perceptions between whites and blacks on the matter continue to thwart rational conversations on the subject.
Before dealing with the white politician/vanilla city analogy, let's quickly examine a few simple reasons why Nagin's remarks fail the test of racism. First, there is nothing to suggest that his comment about New Orleans retaining its black majority portended a dislike of whites, let alone plans to keep them out. In fact, if we simply examine Nagin's own personal history -- which has been obscured by many on the right since Katrina who have tried to charge him with being a liberal black Democrat -- we would immediately recognize the absurdity of the charge. Nagin owes his political career not to New Orleans' blacks, but New Orleans' white folks. It was whites who voted for him, at a rate of nearly ninety percent, while blacks only supported him at a rate of forty-two percent, preferring instead the city's chief of police (which itself says something: black folks in a city with a history of police brutality preferring the cop to this guy).
Nagin has always been, in the eyes of most black New Orleanians, pretty vanilla: he was a corporate vice-President, a supporter of President Bush, and a lifelong Republican prior to changing parties right before the Mayoral race.
Secondly, given the ways in which displaced blacks especially have been struggling to return -- getting the run-around with insurance payments, or dealing with landlords seeking to evict them (or jacking up rents to a point where they can't afford to return) -- one can safely intuit that all Nagin was doing was trying to reassure folks that they were wanted back and wouldn't be prevented from re-entering the city.
And finally, Nagin's remarks were less about demography per se, than an attempt to speak to the cultural heritage of the town, and the desire to retain the African and Afro-Caribbean flavor of one of the world's most celebrated cities. Fact is, culturally speaking, New Orleans is what New Orleans is, because of the chocolate to which Nagin referred. True enough, many others have contributed to the unique gumbo that is New Orleans, but can anyone seriously doubt that the predominant flavor in that gumbo has been that inspired by the city's black community? If so, then you've never lived there or spent much time in the city (and no, pissing on the street during Mardi Gras or drinking a badly-made Hurricane at Pat O'Brian's doesn't count).
If the city loses its black cultural core (which is not out of the question if the black majority doesn't or is unable to return), then indeed New Orleans itself will cease to exist, as we know it. That is surely what Nagin was saying, and it is simply impossible to think that mentioning the black cultural core of the city and demanding that it will and should be retained is racist: doing so fits no definition of racism anywhere, in any dictionary, on the planet.
As for the analogy with a white leader demanding the retention of a vanilla majority in his town, the two scenarios are not even remotely similar, precisely because of how racism has operated, historically, and today, to determine who lives where and who doesn't. For a white politician to demand that his or her city was going to remain, in effect, white, would be quite different, and far worse than what Nagin said. After all, when cities, suburbs or towns are overwhelmingly white, there are reasons (both historic and contemporary) having to do with discrimination and unequal access for people of color. Restrictive covenants, redlining by banks, racially-restrictive homesteading rights, and even policies prohibiting people of color from living in an area altogether -- four things that whites have never experienced anywhere in this nation (as whites) -- were commonly deployed against black and brown folks throughout our history. James Loewen's newest book, Sundown Towns, tells the story of hundreds of these efforts in communities across the nation, and makes clear that vanilla suburbs and towns have become so deliberately.
On the other hand, chocolate cities have not developed because whites have been barred or even discouraged from entry (indeed, cities often bend over backwards to encourage whites to move to the cities in the name of economic revival), but rather, because whites long ago fled in order to get away from black people. In fact, this white flight was directly subsidized by the government, which spent billions of dollars on highway construction (which helped whites get from work in the cities to homes in the 'burbs) and low-cost loans, essentially available only to whites in those newly developing residential spaces. The blackness of the cities increased as a direct result of the institutionally racist policies of the government, in concert with private sector discrimination, which kept folks of color locked in crowded urban spaces, even as whites could come and go as they pleased.
So for a politician to suggest that a previously brown city should remain majority "chocolate" is merely to demand that those who had always been willing to stay and make the town their home, should be able to remain there and not be run off in the name of gentrification, commercial development or urban renewal. It is to demand the eradication of barriers for those blacks who otherwise might have a hard time returning, not to call for the erection of barriers to whites--barriers that have never existed in the first place, and which there would be no power to impose in any event (quite unlike the barriers that have been set up to block access for the black and brown).
In short, to call for a vanilla majority is to call for the perpetuation of obstacles to persons of color, while to call for a chocolate majority in a place such as New Orleans is to call merely for the continuation of access and the opportunity for black folks to live there. Is that too much to ask?
Funny how Nagin's comments simply calling for the retention of a chocolate New Orleans bring down calls of racism upon his head, while the very real and active planning of the city's white elite -- people like Joe Cannizaro and Jimmy Reiss -- to actually change it to a majority white town, elicits no attention or condemnation whatsoever from white folks. In other words, talking about blacks being able to come back and make up the majority is racist, while actually engaging in ethnic cleansing -- by demolishing black neighborhoods like the lower ninth ward, the Treme, or New Orleans East as many want to do -- is seen as legitimate economic development policy.
It's also interesting that whites chose the "chocolate city" part of Nagin's speech, delivered on MLK day, as the portion deserving condemnation as racist, rather than the next part--the part in which Nagin said that Katrina was God's wrath, brought on by the sinful ways of black folks, what with their crime rates, out-of-wedlock childbirths and general wickedness.
In other words, if Nagin casts aspersions upon blacks as a group -- truth be told, the textbook definition of racism -- whites have no problem with that. Hell, most whites agree with those kinds of anti-black views, according to polling and survey data. But if Nagin suggests that those same blacks -- including, presumably the "wicked" ones -- be allowed to come back and live in New Orleans, thereby maintaining a black majority, that becomes the problem for whites, for reasons that are as self-evident as they are (and will remain) undiscussed.
Until white folks get as upset about racism actually limiting the life choices and chances of people of color, as we do about black folks hurting our feelings, it's unlikely things will get much better. In the end, it's hard to take seriously those who fume against this so-called reverse racism, so petty is the complaint, and so thin the ivory skin of those who issue it.
Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull, 2005) and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge, 2005). He can be reached at timjwise@msn.com
Chocolate City?
By Tim Wise
ZNet Commentary, January 30, 2006
If you're looking to understand why discussions between blacks and whites about racism are often so difficult in this country, you need only know this: when the subject is race and racism, whites and blacks are often not talking about the same thing. To white folks, racism is seen mostly as individual and interpersonal--as with the uttering of a prejudicial remark or bigoted slur. For blacks, it is that too, but typically more: namely, it is the pattern and practice of policies and social institutions, which have the effect of perpetuating deeply embedded structural inequalities between people on the basis of race. To blacks, and most folks of color, racism is systemic. To whites, it is purely personal.
These differences in perception make sense, of course. After all, whites have not been the targets of systemic racism in this country, so it is much easier for us to view the matter in personal terms. If we have ever been targeted for our race, it has been only on that individual, albeit regrettable, level.
But for people of color, racism has long been experienced as an institutional phenomenon. It is the experience of systematized discrimination in housing, employment, schools or the justice system. It is the knowledge that one's entire group is under suspicion, at risk of being treated negatively because of stereotypes held by persons with the power to act on the basis of those beliefs (and the incentive to do so, as a way to retain their own disproportionate share of that power and authority).
The differences in white and black perceptions of the issue were on full display recently, when whites accused New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin of racism for saying that New Orleans should be and would be a "chocolate city" again, after blacks dislocated by Katrina had a chance to return. To one commentator after the other -- most of them white, but a few blacks as well -- the remark was by definition racist, since it seemed to imply that whites weren't wanted, or at least not if it meant changing the demographics of the city from mostly African American (which it was before the storm) to mostly white, which it is now, pending the return of black folks.
To prove how racist the comment was, critics offered an analogy. What would we call it, they asked, if a white politician announced that their town would or should be a "vanilla" city, meaning that it was going to retain its white majority? Since we would most certainly call such a remark racist in the case of the white pol, consistency requires that we call Nagin's remark racist as well.
Seems logical enough, only it's not. And the reason it's not goes to the very heart of what racism is and what it isn't--and the way in which the different perceptions between whites and blacks on the matter continue to thwart rational conversations on the subject.
Before dealing with the white politician/vanilla city analogy, let's quickly examine a few simple reasons why Nagin's remarks fail the test of racism. First, there is nothing to suggest that his comment about New Orleans retaining its black majority portended a dislike of whites, let alone plans to keep them out. In fact, if we simply examine Nagin's own personal history -- which has been obscured by many on the right since Katrina who have tried to charge him with being a liberal black Democrat -- we would immediately recognize the absurdity of the charge. Nagin owes his political career not to New Orleans' blacks, but New Orleans' white folks. It was whites who voted for him, at a rate of nearly ninety percent, while blacks only supported him at a rate of forty-two percent, preferring instead the city's chief of police (which itself says something: black folks in a city with a history of police brutality preferring the cop to this guy).
Nagin has always been, in the eyes of most black New Orleanians, pretty vanilla: he was a corporate vice-President, a supporter of President Bush, and a lifelong Republican prior to changing parties right before the Mayoral race.
Secondly, given the ways in which displaced blacks especially have been struggling to return -- getting the run-around with insurance payments, or dealing with landlords seeking to evict them (or jacking up rents to a point where they can't afford to return) -- one can safely intuit that all Nagin was doing was trying to reassure folks that they were wanted back and wouldn't be prevented from re-entering the city.
And finally, Nagin's remarks were less about demography per se, than an attempt to speak to the cultural heritage of the town, and the desire to retain the African and Afro-Caribbean flavor of one of the world's most celebrated cities. Fact is, culturally speaking, New Orleans is what New Orleans is, because of the chocolate to which Nagin referred. True enough, many others have contributed to the unique gumbo that is New Orleans, but can anyone seriously doubt that the predominant flavor in that gumbo has been that inspired by the city's black community? If so, then you've never lived there or spent much time in the city (and no, pissing on the street during Mardi Gras or drinking a badly-made Hurricane at Pat O'Brian's doesn't count).
If the city loses its black cultural core (which is not out of the question if the black majority doesn't or is unable to return), then indeed New Orleans itself will cease to exist, as we know it. That is surely what Nagin was saying, and it is simply impossible to think that mentioning the black cultural core of the city and demanding that it will and should be retained is racist: doing so fits no definition of racism anywhere, in any dictionary, on the planet.
As for the analogy with a white leader demanding the retention of a vanilla majority in his town, the two scenarios are not even remotely similar, precisely because of how racism has operated, historically, and today, to determine who lives where and who doesn't. For a white politician to demand that his or her city was going to remain, in effect, white, would be quite different, and far worse than what Nagin said. After all, when cities, suburbs or towns are overwhelmingly white, there are reasons (both historic and contemporary) having to do with discrimination and unequal access for people of color. Restrictive covenants, redlining by banks, racially-restrictive homesteading rights, and even policies prohibiting people of color from living in an area altogether -- four things that whites have never experienced anywhere in this nation (as whites) -- were commonly deployed against black and brown folks throughout our history. James Loewen's newest book, Sundown Towns, tells the story of hundreds of these efforts in communities across the nation, and makes clear that vanilla suburbs and towns have become so deliberately.
On the other hand, chocolate cities have not developed because whites have been barred or even discouraged from entry (indeed, cities often bend over backwards to encourage whites to move to the cities in the name of economic revival), but rather, because whites long ago fled in order to get away from black people. In fact, this white flight was directly subsidized by the government, which spent billions of dollars on highway construction (which helped whites get from work in the cities to homes in the 'burbs) and low-cost loans, essentially available only to whites in those newly developing residential spaces. The blackness of the cities increased as a direct result of the institutionally racist policies of the government, in concert with private sector discrimination, which kept folks of color locked in crowded urban spaces, even as whites could come and go as they pleased.
So for a politician to suggest that a previously brown city should remain majority "chocolate" is merely to demand that those who had always been willing to stay and make the town their home, should be able to remain there and not be run off in the name of gentrification, commercial development or urban renewal. It is to demand the eradication of barriers for those blacks who otherwise might have a hard time returning, not to call for the erection of barriers to whites--barriers that have never existed in the first place, and which there would be no power to impose in any event (quite unlike the barriers that have been set up to block access for the black and brown).
In short, to call for a vanilla majority is to call for the perpetuation of obstacles to persons of color, while to call for a chocolate majority in a place such as New Orleans is to call merely for the continuation of access and the opportunity for black folks to live there. Is that too much to ask?
Funny how Nagin's comments simply calling for the retention of a chocolate New Orleans bring down calls of racism upon his head, while the very real and active planning of the city's white elite -- people like Joe Cannizaro and Jimmy Reiss -- to actually change it to a majority white town, elicits no attention or condemnation whatsoever from white folks. In other words, talking about blacks being able to come back and make up the majority is racist, while actually engaging in ethnic cleansing -- by demolishing black neighborhoods like the lower ninth ward, the Treme, or New Orleans East as many want to do -- is seen as legitimate economic development policy.
It's also interesting that whites chose the "chocolate city" part of Nagin's speech, delivered on MLK day, as the portion deserving condemnation as racist, rather than the next part--the part in which Nagin said that Katrina was God's wrath, brought on by the sinful ways of black folks, what with their crime rates, out-of-wedlock childbirths and general wickedness.
In other words, if Nagin casts aspersions upon blacks as a group -- truth be told, the textbook definition of racism -- whites have no problem with that. Hell, most whites agree with those kinds of anti-black views, according to polling and survey data. But if Nagin suggests that those same blacks -- including, presumably the "wicked" ones -- be allowed to come back and live in New Orleans, thereby maintaining a black majority, that becomes the problem for whites, for reasons that are as self-evident as they are (and will remain) undiscussed.
Until white folks get as upset about racism actually limiting the life choices and chances of people of color, as we do about black folks hurting our feelings, it's unlikely things will get much better. In the end, it's hard to take seriously those who fume against this so-called reverse racism, so petty is the complaint, and so thin the ivory skin of those who issue it.
Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull, 2005) and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge, 2005). He can be reached at timjwise@msn.com
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