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The Schott Foundation for Public Education is an organization whose mission is “To develop and strengthen a broad-based and representative movement to achieve fully resourced, quality pre-K-12 public education,” recently published some heart-rending findings on the state of Black males in public education. The report, Yes We Can: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males 2010 reveals states, districts, and public schools that are statistically making academic gains toward closing the achievement gap (i.e., graduation rates and scores on state standardized examinations) between Black males and their counterparts. For example, the report affirms that the top ten best performing states in regard to decreasing the graduation gap between Black and White males are Maine, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Iowa respectively. The ten best performing districts in this regard are Newark (NJ), Fort Bend (IN), Baltimore County (MD), Montgomery County (MD), Gwinnett County (GA), Prince George’s County (MD), Cumberland County (NC), East Baton Rouge Parish (LA), and Guilford County (NC). In my opinion, the report would make a stronger argument and cause readers to give a heavy pause when looking at the data when it was combined with an explanation as to why these states and districts are showing an improvement in the graduation rates.
On the other hand, the report announces that the ten worst performing states for Black males in regard to decreasing the graduation gap between them and White males are respectively Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, District of Columbia, Ohio, Nebraska, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and New York. Moreover, the ten worst performing districts are Jefferson Parish (LA), New York (NY), Dade County (FL), Cleveland (OH), Detroit (MI), Buffalo (NY), Charleston County (SC), Duval County (FL), Palm Beach County (FL), and Pinellas County (FL). Within the document, it was noted that out of the 48 states that reported Black males are likely to graduate reasonably from only 15 of the states. In addition, Black males were seen to be more prone to severe punishment for school infractions than their White peers and have less opportunity to gain access to higher-level academic classes. Finally, by the time these students reach 8th grade in middle school, many were seen not be proficient readers and thus lose academic grounding as they proceed to high school.
In terms of these districts, what the report does not state is that for example, places like Jefferson Parish have recently been found to have to have high unemployment rates and a “drug incarceration rate of 186 per 100,000 people in 2002, ranking it seventh out of 198 counties or parishes with populations greater than 250,000.” Poverty in the United States, published by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2002, stated that Cleveland, Ohio has the highest poverty rate. Specifically, in 2004, children were indicated to be half of those living in poverty in Cleveland. Poverty has been shown in numerous studies to affect the academic and social outcomes of children. I have always said that if economic or social plights are affecting Whites heavily, these same concerns are being felt threefold by people of color. So, it is no surprise to me that the ten worst states and districts have high numbers of Black males not graduating or excelling on standardized examinations.
What the report does not state is the psychological trauma this failure has on the students. Many of them become disenchanted with their apparent lack of skills and at times begin to act out in disruptive manners. Teachers begin to label them “special education, emotionally disturbed, difficult,” etc. All of these labels and perceptions of the students’ potential fuel the need to isolate them within alternative educational facilities that are many times encased with frustrated White teachers who do not have the experience or knowledge of Black culture–or have their own racial biases toward people of color. In my own experiences within public schools, the curricula within these settings are sub-par and filled with worksheet after worksheet that presents nothing academically substantial to the students. In fact, their designated work is simply a tactic to occupy a population many have given up on or refuse to hear due to their inability to voice the futility of their situation. Many of these Black males end up dropping out and having some association with the criminal justice system.
The schools that do seem to work outside of the traditional paradigm and attempt to meet the academic and social needs of Black males are few and in between. Sometimes these programs are taken to task and/or dismantled due to outside pressures and perception that specific programs tailored for boys is not necessary or warranted. For example, in Prince George County (MD), a system that serves mostly Blacks, an initiative was started to help in regards to meeting the academic and social needs of Black males within the area. A year after showing promise, the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights felt it discriminated against females and was dismantled. In 1996, the city of New York proclaimed the success of the establishment of the East Harlem Young Women’s Leadership School that catered to mostly Black females. When the New York Times urged school administrators to start a school similar for boys, the School Chancellor said in response, “This is a case where the existence of the all-girls school makes an important statement about the viable education of girls…Presumably the statement would lose its force and point if an all-boys school were allowed to exist alongside (page. 39.” These are just a few of the anti-boy climates that exist within public education.
Who shall carry the cross and burden of the plight of Black males? The current plight could only be directed at Blacks, right? We have a Black president for God sake. Cosby was correct when he pointed that Jell-O pudding-pop-encrusted finger at the Black community, right?
In contrast to the historic racial barriers that are evident within the history of the United States in regards to economic and social growth of people of color, specifically Black males, President Barrack Obama is a beacon; a symbol that the Black male have the potential to break through the proverbal glass ceiling to the highest position afforded to an U.S. citizen. A large number of people here and aboard have joined in the celebration of his election as an end to the historic caste system that has hindered the progress of Blacks since the beginning of the nation.
In fact this celebration is nothing but a distraction that serves as a curtain to hide the underlying racial realities that affect Blacks, particularity Black males within the lower SES brackets. The gains that many discuss are in fact by primarily middle and upper class Blacks. The racial caste system that has been rooted since the founding of the country is still in full operation and witnessed within the workings of public schools. Since Blacks were first forced into slavery, regardless of the efforts of many in within the civil rights and equal rights legislation struggles, they have never moved from a caste system that deems them as inferior and treated as such within all facets of the country. In fact, being a part of the minority caste comes with it a negative ideology that dictates a set of behavior, actions, procedures, and policies directed by non-Blacks to Blacks within the major institutions; such as public and higher education setting. The modes of oppression and control that are imprinted within the foundation of education are incited into the psyche of Black American children in public schools in overt and covert fashions. The attempts to oppress and control are nothing but a continuation of the targeting seen within the early U.S. colonies with the institutionalization of the White racial frame. Therefore, I would argue that public schools are an equal partner in the plight of Black males. Therefore, the effects of systemic institutional racism and the existence of a caste system that are witnessed in the treatment of these children increase the likelihood of their internalizing the oppressive conditions and controlling the state of their environment through socialization, which in turn leads them to view themselves as unworthy in comparisons to their counterparts. The system within public education is not totally equal for females of color. But, simply, Black males have it worse. Many may be upset with this statement, but I am aligned with scholars such as bell hooks who states, that, “[d]espite all the advances in civil rights in our nation, feminist movement, sexual liberation, when the spotlight is on black males the message is usually that they have managed to stay stuck, that as a group they have not evolved with the times” (ix). Many scholars like hooks (2004), and often Black men themselves, believe that society is “fearful to acknowledge the truth – America has no compassion for black males” (p. Ix).
It will be virtually impossible for this country to meet the President’s mission to place the U.S. as a global leader in “post-credential attainment” if this trend continues. Schools are currently not moving beyond the paradigm of seeing the problem existing within the child–and are at the same time discounting other contributing factors within the school setting, such as the teacher to student relationship, and assumptions teachers have in terms of race and cultural differences. In my current position, I have many interactions with schools that implement the latest and greatest academic programs, instruments, and curriculum to combat graduation and standardized examination gaps. They also have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars by introducing new social and behavioral modification techniques that have warm, but empowering titles that claim to decrease behavioral issues among “difficult” students (code for Black and Latino) while enabling the entire school to simultaneously sing “Kum Bah Yah” as they march toward academic excellence. I have seen administrators shell out ten thousands of dollars for a motivational speaker (usually they are Black and have come from some difficult situations to preach to teachers that if they can do it, so can the students) to come for one-shot deals that leave fleeting positive words and emotions. Schools need to stop creating or looking for the holy grail that will help them elevate Black scores and graduation rates and learn that what is needed for females is not necessarily the same thing needed for males. Due to the fact that Black females are graduating at a higher rate and entering into college and graduate school more than Black males, schools are in need of analyzing the plight of Black males while separating from all others. What schools refuse to acknowledge is that you can dress up a pig, but it’ll still be a pig. No amount of money will transform a system that is meant to oppress a group while propelling another until the system is revamped, thus a revolution is needed. Until we realize the depths of the White racial frame and the existence of an operating caste system, I may one day look to up from the struggle for justice and see that I am alone.
David Brion Davis on Slavery and Abolition: Impact on US Wealth
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Here is a very good 2009 video lecture (at Emory U.) by a leading scholar of slavery and its economic impact, as well as the resistance to it–Dr. David Brion Davis, of Yale University.
This one is called “American and British Slave Trade Abolition in Perspective.” This would be very good for use in a course on U.S. history, and/or racism/slavery. It is in six parts, and here are the summaries:
The historical contexts of African slavery in the Americas and the relationship with free market forces and the “New World” global economy.
The connections between enslaved African labor, trans-Atlantic trade, and the increasing availability of luxury goods for mass market consumption. How did anti-slavery movements arise in this growing market context?
Three major factors led to the U.S. and British decisions to abolish the trade of enslaved Africans: revolutionary changes in moral perceptions of slavery, Anglo American antipathy towards a growing African American population, and the population growth rate of enslaved African Americans in North America.
The North American “moral luxury” of condemning the trade of enslaved Africans while supporting domestic slavery; the increasing political enthusiasm for white immigration over black enslaved labor; the impacts of the French and Haitian Revolutions on trade abolition developments.
The political and moral debates between delegates from northern states and southern slaveholding states after the Revolutionary War that led to U.S. abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808.
A comparison of the impacts of the U.S. and British decisions to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the debates over what to do with the “contraband” of enslaved Africans intercepted in the newly illegal trade.
Highly recommended.
Which Voters Had the Most Impact?: The Election of President Obama
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I ran across an interesting, if now old, account on MSNBC about the 2008 exit polling that makes a point I have not seen elsewhere. Since the 2008 election numerous analytical (media and otherwise) accounts have argued that Barack Obama won mainly or only because of younger voters, or because of new Latino voters, or because of certain other “XYZ” voters.
However, Ana-Maria Arumi, head of polling analysis for NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo did some study of the 2008 election exit-poll data:
On a state-by-state level, when she re-ran the numbers as if there were no voters under 30, the only states that would switch to Republican presidential candidate John McCain are Indiana and North Carolina.
Thus, Obama would still have won the 270+ electoral votes necessary without these young voters and these two states. She also analyzed the Latino voters’ impact:
In a counter-factual world in which there were no Latino voters, both New Mexico and Indiana would have switched into the McCain column.
Again, he would have had enough electoral votes to win if there had been no Latino voters. Then she calculated the biggest factor of all:
… in the make-believe world where no African-Americans voted, while Obama still would have won most of the states that he won, McCain would have been able to take the hotly contested states of Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Without these African American voters, and their presence in key states with 107 electoral votes, Obama would have lost the election to John McCain.
I may have missed it, but I do not remember anyone inside or outside the Democratic Party assertively giving the most central credit to African American voters for President Obama’s election. Or any discussion of this critical reality today in regard to the election of Democratic Party members of Congress in 2010 or 2012, or the reelection of President Obama in 2012.
Indeed, without African American voters no Democratic Party candidate would have won the presidency (Carter, Clinton, Obama) since the passage of the critical Voting Rights Act in 1965.
This, of course, does not mean that these other voters were not important in the election coalition that brought Carter, Clinton, or Obama to office.
It does mean that African American voters, and activists, often need to be credited with great expansions of American freedoms, past and present.
Indeed, African Americans and their activism, votes, and/or issues and goals relating to them, have been central—if sometimes invisible–in most U.S. elections since they got the vote in the 15th Amendment. This amendment was brought to the United States, ironically enough, by “Radical Republicans” in 1870. For a brief time, less than a decade, those white Radical Republicans fought to expand the rights and freedoms of African Americans. They soon lost out to a resurgent white Democratic party, substantially in the South, and to fearful, more conservative white Republicans in the North and the South. One has to wonder what the United States would be like today if this freedom-expansion agenda had been allowed to continue in the 1870s-1880s period.
Faking Democracy: More Evidence of Racist Barriers in US Voting
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Cord Jefferson at TheRoot has a good piece on the 1965 Voting Rights Act now 45 years later. There are still many barriers to black voting, both as a result of disenfranchisement because of (often nonviolent) crimes and very direct discriminatory blocking of voters of color:
Currently, 10 states — including Florida, Virginia, Arizona and Kentucky — permanently disenfranchise at least some convicted felons, and 20 more require criminals to complete prison, parole and probation before being allowed to vote again. … An estimated 5.3 million Americans, 4 million of whom are out of prison, are denied the right to vote based on their felony convictions. About a third of them are black, including 13 percent of all African-American men.
Much of this disenfranchisement, as Michelle Alexander has shown in her fine book, The New Jim Crow, comes from being imprisoned for drug crimes that whites, who do much of the drug crime, rarely get imprisoned for.
There is also the issue the substantial discrimination against black voters and other voters of color that still is carried out by white conservative forces, including Republican operatives. As I pointed out recently in Racist America (second edition, 2010):
Researchers have identified an array of blocking strategies used by white officials to reduce black representation: gerrymandering political districts, changing elective offices into appointive offices, adding new qualifications for office, purging voter-registration rolls, suddenly changing the location of polling places, creating difficult registration procedures, and using numerous other strategies to dilute the black vote. One dilution strategy consists of intentionally setting up or continuing at-large electoral systems, instead of utilizing elections by smaller districts. The purpose is to enable white voters, who dominate the larger political unit, to determine who will be the political representatives in that unit. Research data on local and state elections indicate that, taken together, these strategies have significantly reduced black political power in many areas.
Jefferson also notes that legislators have been slow to do anything about these mostly white-generated anti-voter felonies:
For five years now, lawmakers have attempted to push through the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, to no avail. That means it’s still not a federal crime to knowingly lie to voters in order to keep them from the polls, even during a federal election. Maryland Senator Ben Cardin spoke to the Deceptive Practices Act’s importance in 2007, citing a false flyer that had been handed out in black communities in Milwaukee during the 2004 presidential election.
The flyer made phony, sometimes wild claims–such as that a traffic ticket disqualified you from voting. Still no protective law has been passed. Could it be that the U.S. is still far from being a real democracy?
James Baldwin’s Birthday
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The Smithsonian noted that this is the birthday of James Baldwin, one of the greatest analysts of U.S. racism, and much more about humanity and life in the US, ever:
Essayist, novelist and playwright James Baldwin in Harlem in New York City. After stints as a preacher and railroad worker, Baldwin turns to writing. In 1948 he moves to Paris where he produces, among other works, his famous essay collection on race in America and Europe, Notes of a Native Son (1955). He dies in France in 1987 at age 63.
Racist-Right Radio Commentary Perpetuates Old White-Racist Frame
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A recent article by Casey Gane-McCalla at Nation’s NewsOne blog provides a list of the racist comments and commentaries of Rush Limbaugh. Because he is a major propagandistic shaper of the opinions of many Americans, most especially white (and disproportionately white male) Americans, these racist opinions are powerful in perpetuating the four centuries old white-racist framing of this society (with is racist stereotypes, ideologies, images, narratives, emotions, inclinations to oppress materially), as well as the systemic racism of which that framing is only part:
“Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
“Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
“The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
This idea of black criminality is very old, and here Limbaugh is parroting the modern version of the white racial framing of African Americans as criminal, which I have shown thorough actually dates back to at least the 1600s. Elite whites say this type of thing century after century so that what is a racist and highly stereotyped and BS imagery comes to be accepted by many people “truth.”
[To an African American female caller to his program]: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
This imagery of African Americans as savage and uncivilized also dates back to the 1500s and 1600s, and was originally (and ironically) created by slaveholding, and highly savage, Europeans.
A bit later these were added to the NewsOne list:
Limbaugh Says Steinbrenner Was A “Cracker Who Made African-Americans Millionaires”
Limbaugh: Obama & Oprah Are Only Successful Because They’re Black
Limbaugh Calls Gov. Paterson A “Massa”
There are also many negative comments full of highly stereotyped white-racial framing of African Americans aimed at President Obama:
‘Limbaugh has called Obama a ‘halfrican American’ has said that Obama was not Black but Arab because Kenya is an Arab region, even though Arabs are less than one percent of Kenya. . . . . Despite the fact Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law school, Limbaugh has called him an ‘affirmative action candidate.’ Limbaugh even has repeatedly played a song on his radio show ‘Barack the Magic Negro’ using an antiquated Jim Crow era term…’
These and many other racist comments from Limbaugh regularly suggest and reinforce old racist images of African Americans, or variations on four centuries old racist stuff. White-racist commentaries are amazingly un-original and parrot-like. Conformity to past racist imaging is essential to contemporary racist thinking.
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky argue that much U.S. opinion is shaped by the organized propaganda that comes out of the capitalistic mass media of the United States. This mainstream media propaganda model shows
how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are propagandized and how consent for various economic, social and political policies are “manufactured” in the public mind.
Radical-right talk show host like Limbaugh, with their millions of listeners, play a central role in this propagandizing and keeping the United States are foundationally and fundamentally racist society.
Large-scale and organized action to create alternative media networks of equal power are essential if this huge propaganda process is ever to be effectively countered.
Shirley Sherrod: On the Vilification of Black Women (Updated)
Posted by: | CommentsThe intense political firestorm around Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA worker, has once again put racism at the center of many of the mainstream news shows. Few have done a better job in talking about this than political commentator and Princeton University professor of political science, Melissa Harris Lacewell. Appearing on MSNBC’s Countdown, she notes that the Sherrod case highlights the way that black women have been vilified in American politics (5:00):
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In this short clip, Harris Lacewell points out that the vilification of black women has been a feature of both the left and the right, both Republicans and Democrats (Bill Clinton, Sister Soulja, anyone?) in this country. My favorite part of her comments come toward the end when she likens the attacks on Sherrod to that film of a few years ago, “Crash.” Here’s the transcript of this part of her interview:
It reminds me very much of the Academy-award-winning of 2004, “Crash.” I heard this story breaking, and I thought, this sounds like that film to me. If you remember that film, the first act of really horrifying racism occurs when the white police officer puts his hand up an African American woman’s dress, a sexual assault on her. But – in a scene right after that – we see a black woman bureaucrat refusing government services to this police officer’s aging father. The idea in that film, that the movie made …and we embraced it as a country and felt good about awarding the Oscar … is that the police officer and the low-level bureaucrat are the same, all prejudice is equal, this is the thing the NAACP is moved to do, it’s to explain that it is structural racism matters, not just momentary lapses of prejudice. Even if that tape had been true, it would not have been the equivalency of Jim Crow, to slavery, to institutional racism.
While many of the mainstream news outlets will blame this on Fox News, or a conservative blogger, or the White House’s “race to judgment,” the fact is that the vilification of Shirley Sherrod is indicative of a larger pattern of systemic racism in the U.S., and the particular way that black women get vilified in this culture.
UPDATED: For further context on the real racism happening at the USDA, check this link about the systematic pattern of racism at the agency, whose own Commission on Small Farms admitted in 1998 that “the history of discrimination at the U.S. Department of Agriculture … is well-documented” — not against white farmers, but African-American, Native American and other minorities who were pushed off their land by decades of racially-biased laws and practices.
White Reaction to Being Called Out on Racism: Jane Hill’s Research
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The reaction of Tea Party defenders, including Sarah Palin, to the NAACP’s calling out some Tea Party members and leaders for their racism calls to mind a fine book by Jane Hill, The Everyday Language of White Racism. She has many insights in the book – which I highly recommend to you – but one that fits this calling out of racism by Black Americans at the NAACP is this one on how whites often react to being called out with a line of reasoning about white innocence like this:
I am a good and normal mainstream sort of White person. I am not a racist, because racists are bad and marginal people. Therefore, if you understood my words to be racist, you must be mistaken. I may have used language that would be racist in the mouth of a racist person, but if I did so, I was joking. If you understood my meaning to be racist, not only do you insult me, but you lack a sense of humor, and you are oversensitive.
Hill adds that this “chain of reasoning makes the speaker the sole authority” over what her or his racist commentaries actually mean. Not surprisingly, many whites are today unwilling to listen to the views of those Americans who are regularly targeted by white racism–even to views about the reality and pain of that everyday racism. I also deal with these important listening and empathy issues in the newsecond edition of my Racist America book.
Racism and the LeBron James Story
Posted by: | CommentsThis blog post requires a few disclaimers for clarity. I have been a basketball fan for 25 years, and I do mean fan as in fanatic. I truly love that game. LeBron James is not my favorite basketball player. I do not particularly care for him as a person, or for how he handles himself. There is much to criticize about LeBron’s conduct and I have spent some time on sports blogs doing that. However, it is impossible to ignore the system within which this is all occurring and the invisibility of the wealthy white actors in this drama.
With that out of the way, the systemic racism blatantly evidenced in reactions to LeBron James conduct is appalling even to one as accustomed to being appalled by both racism and sports as myself.
If you have somehow escaped the coverage of LeBron James decision and actions in the recent NBA free agency period, I applaud you and you can get up to speed here. Briefly, James, a black man and Ohio native who has played for the home team Cleveland Cavaliers for the past 7 years, recently decided at the end of his contract to join the Miami Heat and play with 2 friends and fellow superstars for less money. Less money is a relative term here since he will be making in excess of $100 million in the next 6 years. James announced this decision on an hour long special on ESPN called The Decision.
In the wake of the announcement James was vilified in Cleveland and around the sports world for breaking the hearts of Cleveland fans, being a narcissistic immature villain and various other less complimentary charges. His fellow black star Dwyane Wade, who has been with the Heat since he was drafted, has also been vilified for defending him against these accusations. The Cleveland owner, Dan Gilbert, wrote a scathing letterwhich is entirely indicative of the sort of plantation mentality evident in sports owners. This system is eloquently described in the book “Forty Million Dollar Slaves.”. Gilbert calls James a “coward”, a “quitter”, a “traitor”, and makes other unsavory accusations. His jerseys were burned in effigy in Cleveland and the film of it ran nonstop on sports news and continues to grace the front pages of sports sites days later.
Rev. Jesse Jackson attempted to shine the spotlight on the systemic nature of the racism weaving through so many of these discussions and decisions pointing out that Gilbert’s letter showed a plantation mentality and endangered LeBron’s safety in Ohio. This set off an entirely new set of sports discussion on James, Gilbert and Jackson. This video clip shows two white commentators deriding Jackson and James while a black commentator tries to get anyone to focus on the safety issue that Jackson raises. The NBA fined Gilbert $100,000 dollars for his comments, however Commissioner Stern is clear in his objections to Rev. Jackson’s injection of race into the debate. These white commentators appear entirely clueless as to the widespread nature and systemic operation of racism in sports.
This saga continues to imprint the embedded nature of good white billionaires and selfish black athletes in a next generation. Kids in Cleveland are selling lemonade to pay Gilbert’s fine because he is a “good man.” In this piece, Kelly Dwyer has an interesting rebuttal chronicling the business interests of Gilbert which include loan foreclosure businesses and casinos as the money sourcing which enabled him to purchase a sports team. James’ motives and methods have been endlessly debated while Gilbert’s motives and methods in his profession are rarely mentioned. He is the wronged billionaire who may have gotten a bit out of hand.
In all of this debate, the reasons stated by the 3 stars for signing in one place becomes lost, friendship and winning. Athletes are regularly taken to task for going for the money; owners who pay it are regularly bailed out by league policies. These athletes chose winning and friendship over money and they are somehow wrong and immature for doing so. What appears to infuriate many is that the athletes took the process and power into their own hands to decide their fate. Because they did not take the biggest money route, they gained power over their lives and their situation and took vicious criticism for not behaving to stereotype. The reactions to this are eerily familiar to any woman or minority, see Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, etc.
What is missing in this endless round of coverage on “the decision” and its aftermath is an analysis of the white actors in this drama. While Gilbert has come under some fire for his inappropriate remarks in equal measure with defense of his actions, there has been nothing but praise for Heat president Pat Riley who engineered the move. The players have been criticized for their decisions and their legacy has been debated. Riley has insured his legacy with this move. Riley personifies the invisible white actor in this drama. The black athletes take the hit and the heat, Riley gets the praise and the payday. The white owners of the Miami heat are also completely blameless while accruing vast monetary benefit.
James will be booed, Riley will be canonized, and the Heat owners will smile all the way to the bank. Whiteness wins again, because the system is inherently fixed for that outcome.
Limbaugh’s Racist Fantasies: Obama is Destroying the US to Get Even for Racism
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Laura Bassett has a brief piece over at Huffington Post on Limbaugh’s latest racist rant accusing Obama of destroying the U.S. polity and economy (wasn’t Bush in charge when the economy tanked?). She has quotes from Limbaugh:
Who is Obama? Why is he doing this? … I think we face something we’ve never faced before in the country — and that is, we’re now governed by people who do not like the country, who do not have the same reverence for it that we do. . . . So in this interview with J. Christian Adams yesterday talking about [how] he and his line attorneys were told to just drop the case against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation in Philadelphia, he said that there were people in the office, DOJ, who said, “Well, you know, those people suffered the indignity of slavery, discrimination, segregation and so forth.” He said somebody else said, “This is payback,” meaning, “All right, look. We don’t care if it’s the New Black Panthers or whoever it is. Black people in this country have never, ever had a fair shake…. it is exactly how I think Obama looks at the country: It’s payback time… There’s no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily.”
So, Limbaugh has lost touch with reality, once again. Obama is said to be getting even for centuries of racial oppression. That is how the extreme version of white-racist framing works today. And this particular case of the New Black Panthers has been investigated at Media Matters, which has knocked down the Adams accusations. It was the Bush administration that first dropped the Panthers’ case.
One commentator at DailyKos argues that this is the
the death rattle of racism. The racists feel it. Their way of life is ending. White privilege is going away. It may take time and there still are many examples of institutionalized racism … but the direction is clear.
While I agree that there does seem to be a trend right now against some of the goals of the Republican Right, which is mostly white, such “death rattle of racism” views are rather premature at best, as the data-based accounts of racial oppression and inequality on this site regularly show.
