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Still Racial Pawns: Blacks in Academia
Posted by: | CommentsI woke up that bright California morning my fingers were stretched in the lap of stiff and hardened sheets within the meager continental breakfast offering hotel. I had no idea that the night would end with me in this same room with clinched fists and a mind filled with questions layered in questions that were neatly folded between a strong measureable dose of pure fury. As I sit at the desk in my room writing this piece, it has dawned on me that the previous unexpected phone calls from the chair of the search committee were clues of what was to come. It struck me oddly as to why she called twice after offering me a chance to visit the campus as to rather I truly wanted to come to the campus. In her words, “Are you sure you want to come? You know you are not going to make a lot of money as an assistant professor in comparisons to your current job?” Was she kidding? I was a Ph.D. working on teacher contract in a public school system in the Midwest. I was not a CEO of a fortune 500 company; I knew exactly what I was getting into. Have you ever seen an old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs is fooled and made to look stupid and as he looks toward the viewers his face is replaced by a Jackass? Well that was me at that moment.
That morning I pressed my favorite blue suit and my second favorite “fancy pants” silk tie. I cleaned my Black stylish but conservative dress shoes. I sprayed on the only bottle of cologne I had at home that had less than three or five sprays that would allow me present a solid argument to the security at the airport when he/she would tell me the bottle was larger than the 3oz. allowed within carry-on luggage. Finally I looked into the bathroom mirror before exiting and said out loud, “If this is the place for you, this is your job. Go get it.” I walked out of my room, grabbed a banana at the continental breakfast area, and met the chair of the search committee outside where it was a beautiful 73 degree bright day. Beyond the standard conversation and basic tour of the campus, I saw nothing out of the norm. The campus was primarily Latino and White. When I did see a Black face, I got an interesting response. See, when Black people are in large numbers in many places, I have an amateurishly calculated a 30 to 70% chance of them acknowledging me when eye contact is made. There, the look in the two sets of eyes that I saw on campus reminded me of someone being pleasantly surprised. In fact, a look that said, “Help Me!” was evident.
Putting my observations aside, I was later introduced to the faculty. I decided to answer a question that had been on my mind since the interview was set up. Why was I asked to not worry about presenting a formal presentation on my research or teaching interests? They basically told me that they wanted to try something different this time with this position. A red alert glared off in my mind. As I talked and referenced my research, interests, and teaching philosophy, I noticed the questions that came from the peanut galley were questions that gave the impression that my CV was foreign to them. Have they read it? Of course, right? Out of two applicants that were brought to the campus, surely they know who I am and have an idea of my passions for social justice, right? What? You had no idea I wrote a book you say. Yes, my research is focused on the marginalized population of males of color. No I do not live currently in California. I am from Illinois. As they questions pilled on as we all walked to lunch, I became confused. I have rarely been at a loss for words, but this interview ushered in a new experience when the faculty began to talk about the active Aryan Nation and KKK groups in the town. What the hell? Confusion mounted when I told them all at lunch that I was committed to social justice and putting social work on the front line as a profession that as a whole does not do enough to attack racism and social justice for all. Then I performed a great magic trick. After my confession, I split the table into two with words only. One half never talked to me while the other discussed politics in California. I simply made my soup and salad last as long as possible.
After a few more hours of talking to people in more expensive suits than mine that I will soon forget, I was asked to answer questions from a night graduate class before my last free meal. I attempted to be me and the class laughed at the appropriate times and shook their heads when I was being serious and motivational. I was a hit! But as I talked, I noticed the two faculty members in the rear with unimpressed pale faces. At that moment, I knew I was not getting this gig. But I did not know I was probably set up until an ex-hippie lecturer who I really connected with told me in private that if I was serious about this position, I had competition. In my research one molded mind, I felt I had no competition. But then he sympathetically divulged with me that the other person was from the area and a graduate of the department. Was I a pawn in their pursuit to hire one of their own? Was I the token Black male in a predominately White female profession? Hey, we were able to interview one of them; it just so happens he was not the right fit? As I got on the plane to leave the sun for the cold, the only thing that could come out of my mouth was “Hee haw….. Hee haw!!”
Racist Campus Climates, Again in California
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The San Diego Union-Tribune has an article about a racist “ghetto” party by University of California (San Diego) students off campus:
An invitation to the “Compton Cookout” event urged participants to wear chains, don cheap clothes and speak very loudly, according to wording circulated by outraged students and verified by campus administrators. As a guide for girls attending the event, the invitation read, “For those of you who are unfamiliar with ghetto chicks — Ghetto chicks usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes. …”
White students at many colleges and universities have had these “ghetto fabulous” parties in recent years. Clearly, these white students are acting—likely regularly–out of a racist framing of whites as superior, and of African Americans and other Americans of color as odd and inferior. In this case their mocking images of African Americans seem to accent a modest range of rather old stereotypes, and include a reference to a black community in the Los Angeles area (Compton). Their emotions and narratives of superiority are on display here too.
Note too that “Outrage over UCSD Party Mocking Black Culture” is the title of the newspaper article, revealing a white racial framing by the newspaper writer or editors which appears similar to that of the white students. Gold teeth, fighting, cheap clothes seem to be their view too of “black culture.”
The university has so far responded like the racist performances are no big deal. The chancellor does not seem to be taking the racist partying very seriously since she only issued verbal statements saying “we were distressed” at the offensive party and strongly “condemn” it, but her administration has indicated that the university-recognized fraternity connected to the party will receive no sanctions of any kind for its hyper-racist activities. The meek university response includes a call for students and faculty to attend a teach-in in a few days “to explore how such incidents continue to occur today and to discuss the importance of mutual respect and civility.”
A bit slow and meely to the mark, since this is not the first such incident. University administrators seem uninterested in doing anything serious about their racist campuses, such as some required, term-length instruction in the basics of Stereotyping 101, Respect for Others 101, or Racism 101. One faculty member was also quoted in the Union-Tribune story noting there are few black faculty and students on campus, and that the university has had trouble recruiting them because “There’s something about the climate here that drives black students away.”
Indeed, “something” is not so vague, and it does drive the students away: large-scale white racism.
The article writer/editor also seems favorably inclined toward the fraternity since the article concludes by accenting (and quoting a student who graduated named Washom) that the fraternity
is known for having strong athletics, organizing philanthropic events and being diverse. “I never really found someone who wasn’t courteous or respectful of other people,” Washom said. “I couldn’t see someone doing anything deliberately racist.”
Well, I guess now he has seen it? And have the writer and editor?
Lessons in Anti-Racism
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When I was in graduate school, Tom Pettigrew used to remind us that many white Americans hold their racial prejudices and stereotypes at a rather superficial level, mainly as a way of conforming to whites and the white supremacist culture/society around them. (He suggested that a smaller proportion held these views very deeply, as a Freudian-type “crutch” that held their very troubled personalities together.) The clear lesson he was offering is that for many whites some significant change in racial views should not be difficult. The learning context matters.
Recently, one of my former graduate students, now a professor, sent me this comment about a new white student in her class:
I am beginning a new semester of my Race class. I decided to formally introduce your “white racial frame” concept the first week of the semester this time…My students journal free-form every other week or so, and here is the very first journal entry I read. I particularly love the last line of the first paragraph:
White Racial Frame: When first entering this course I never imagined that within the first class session my mindset would be changing about race and the role it has in the world today. The idea of the “white racial frame” is what immediately caught my attention. The idea that there is a term for a frame of mind I never knew existed struck me. I am the typical definition of a “white girl” and I know it. Blonde hair, blue eyes, sheltered lifestyle and never struggled a day in my life, I know I am a white girl. I just never considered that my frame of mind about the world is compromised because of it.
I always thought of my life as fair. I had the ideal mindset that the United States represents all that is fair; everyone has their own chance and makes their own choices from a totally level playing field. It is only now that I can see that things may be set up differently. My view was that my parents work hard for what we have and that anyone can do the same for their families. Maybe it is a naive frame of mind to believe the world to be fair, but it was nice that way. It is only in more recent years I can see the trends that lead me to believe that all is not fair and the world is a tough place. I believe that is partially due to my sheltered life that I grew up with and partially because of the “white racial frame” that I did not know I possessed.
Society prioritizes the white race and does not even realize it. I have done it and only now realize it. Everyday simple situations I find myself choosing someone who is white for a job, or maybe being more comfortable with a white person than anyone else. Even in my relationship preference I have only dated white men. Have had several opportunities to do otherwise, but simply never acted upon it. Before this class I never questioned that the president has always been a white male (until Obama obviously). I am realizing that the “white racial frame” expands into so many things in our lives. It can be as simple as daily life within my own home, and can expand all the way into politics in the world. I am excited to be in this course to help open my mind to more of these situations and to educate myself more on the role of race in society.
Things can change. Excellent teaching and teachers matter.
The Common Ground of Reid and Steele: From White Racial Framing to Hegemonic Whiteness
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There’s been a lot said about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nevada) comments in Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s new book Game Change, which hit bookstores yesterday.
The authors quote Reid as saying Obama, as a black candidate, is successful because of his “light-skinned” appearance alongside his speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Along these lines, I refer readers to Joe’s post from yesterday, which deals with the “white racial framing” of Reid’s remarks.
Yet, one of the most vociferous challenges to Reid’s comments comes from GOP chairman Michael Steele. On Sunday, Steele called for Reid to step down. The remarks, Steele stressed, were just as contemptuous as those made by former Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who once praised Strom Thurmond’s segregationist presidential candidacy.
As a former student of mine, Taylor Harris, wrote:
Forget Michael Steele’s inane comparison of Reid’s comments to Trent Lott’s in 2002. Lott endorsed a segregationist, Reid endorsed a fair-skinned Ivy-Leaguer. As national anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise posted on his Facebook page, “That’s like the difference between saying, on the one hand, ‘gee Tim, you don’t look Jewish,’ and ‘Wow, those Nazis were really on to something.’ One is insensitive and stupid, while the other is monstrous.
Whether Steele is right or wrong in demanding an apology and a resignation is moot. This is the same Michael Steele who recently remarked that African Americans should join the Republican Party because he was going to offer “fried chicken and potato salad,” or his very recent remarks in which he matter-of-factly dropped the phrase “Honest injun.” Here, both Reid and Steele are employing the same historically-embedded worldview—one of white racial framing.
Rather than examine how white supremacist invective invades the wordplay of both the left and the right, the debate remains hijacked by the familiar “culture war” saga of red v. blue and right v. left. Most discourse centers on whether the left only criticizes the right for racism and excuses it amidst its own ranks, or whether or not Steele (and the right) is engaging in hypocritical political opportunism as a way of jump-starting predicted Republican gains in the House and Senate come the next election cycle.
In either case Reid implicitly reproduces the notion that being “too black” is a political liability in our supposedly “post-racial” age, while Steele explicitly reproduces a virulent stereotype ripe from the text of Amos ‘n Andy, the bulk of the discourse misses that white supremacist discourse has been so normalized that is has become common-sensed or “hegemonic.” Such white supremacist logic knows no political boundaries and cannot be reduced to such.
My own sociological research bears this out. In a forthcoming article in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies (advance copy here), I present data from two politically-opposed racial organizations: a white nationalist group and a white antiracist group. I found that both often relied on similar “scripts,” if you will, to construct a robust understanding of white and non-white identity on a personal, interactive, micro-level.
In particular, both groups engaged in what I call an “Identity Politics of Hegemonic Whiteness”—they both possess analogous common-sensed “ideals” of white identity that function to guide their interactions in everyday life. These “scripts” serve as seemingly neutral yardsticks against which cultural behavior, norms, values, and expectations are measured. Hence, white identity is revealed as an ongoing process of formation in which (1) racist and reactionary scripts are used to demarcate white/non-white boundaries, and (2) performances of white racial identity that fail to adhere to those scripts are often marginalized and stigmatized, thereby creating intra-racial distinctions among whites. As just one example, and akin to Leslie and Joe’s book, I found that both groups reproduce overt and hostile racism in private settings whereby they feel more free to engage in language and actions deemed politically incorrect. For those whites that didn’t “go along with the crowd,” they often found themselves the brunt of jokes, marginalized within their respective organizations, and framed by others as somehow lacking in mental, physical, and/or cultural acuity.
Unless we can have a more robust public discussion of how white supremacist logic has invaded the dominant discourse of both the left and right, and intimately influences how many whites are encouraged to create a sense of their own racial selves, I’m afraid we may be missing the larger point.
Matthew W. Hughey, PhD is Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliate faculty member of African American Studies and Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. His research centers on racial identity formation, racialized organizations, and mass media representations of race. He can be reached at MHughey@soc.msstate.edu. His website is http://mwh163.sociology.msstate.edu
Senator Reid’s White Racial Framing: Obama as the “Exception to His Race”
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Well, I had several interviews yesterday on the Senator Reid story with CNN television and radio, so I thought I would jell my thoughts a bit more here. As the Associated Press story put it, summarizing some of the gossipyGame Change book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Reid said privately that Barack Obama
should seek – and could win – the White House because Obama was a “light skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
Reid is operating out of an older version of the white racist frame. The words “Negro dialect” suggest his age and background (senator from a pretty white state), but certainly does not excuse it. Reid seems to be accenting here the view that Obama is an “exception to his race,” an old racist notion in white America dating way back to slavery days. In this view Obama speaks well because he does not use the “Negro dialect,” and with his being light-skinned and other things, that makes him attractive to voters. He, of course, does not say, but means white voters since most black voters are unlikely to be put off by Reid’s supposedly “bad” qualities here.
The Reid comments, brief as they are, raise interesting questions that few in the media have raised. What, for example, does he mean by “Negro dialect”? He likely means a certain stereotyped way that many whites think, often erroneously, most black Americans speak. (The provocative “Field Negro” blog puts this point rather sharply here.) Of course, whites’ mocking of what they think is the “Negro dialect” is extensive in this country, and there are reportedly hundreds of websites that get into extensive mocking of what whites think and construct as “Negro dialect.” (No similar array for “white speech”?)
For example, on one site there is the mocking translation of a speech by Socrates: “How ya’ gots felt, O dudes o’ Athens, a hearin’ de speeches o’ mah accusers.” Such mocking of black speech is linked on many white-generated Internet sites to a broad range of racist stereotypes, jokes, and images. The site also listed events at a fictional “Ebonic Olympic Games”: the “torching of the Olympic City” and the “Gang Colors Parade.” Antiblack websites spread racist images globally. There is at least one antiblack site in Russian. (These examples are from the research of Margaret Ronkin and Helen Karn in Journal of Sociolinguistics).
Interestingly, commenting on Reid, Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell takes this language issue in a quite different direction:
Obama was not a viable contender until he learned to execute the cadences, rhythms, word choice and cultural references shared in many black communities. His stiff, wonkish approach in the 2000 congressional race led many African-Americans to be suspicious of his rootedness in black communities and his understanding of black community issues.
She thus contends that with some black voters (Reid seems to forget them in his comments) Obama had to accent certain cadences and other distinctive ways of speaking. This is a quite different language issue than what Reid had in mind.
Harris-Lacewell also questions whether lighter skin actually makes a difference with most white voters:
Some social science research finds that white voters demonstrate an unconscious preference for black faces with lighter skin and narrower facial features. It is likely that physical characteristics, like skin tone, may influence voters in this third group to view light-skin candidates as more “like them” and therefore “safer” to choose in an election. [However] These effects are negligible in determining election outcomes. Issue positions, partisan identification, assessment of electoral viability and previous elected office have far greater effects on vote choice.
I think she may be missing the main point here. Reid is considering skin color as just one characteristic along other features of Obama’s white-middle class orientation or “style,” not by itself. There is also the often unconsciously sensed danger-of-dark-skin motif in much white framing, as the cited research suggests. As Adia and I put it in our book on the Obama election and racism: Had Obama been a darker-skinned black man, he likely would have faced greater difficulty in escaping the “dangerous black man” characterizations that are part of the white racial frame. Some recent research is interesting on this point. For example, research on the impact of skin color and distinctive “black features” has shown that in court proceedings white judges tend to give harsher sentences to darker-skinned African Americans that lighter-skinned African Americans with similar records.
When Adia and I were researching our book we found several news stories that illustrate Reid was correct in some of his implications that numerous white voters would like Obama’s language, orientation, background, and/or style. Reportedly drawing on the canvassing approach of trying not to make voters mad, one white Obama campaign volunteer cited on a New York Times site made this comment to a potential voter: “One thing you have to remember is that Obama, he’s half white and he was raised by his white mother. So his views are more white than black really.” The volunteer thus assured the voter that Obama was acceptable because of his substantial white ancestry and white relatives’ socialization. Another white community volunteer reportedly spoke to fellow whites at a local church about how Senator Obama “doesn’t come from the African-American perspective – he’s not of that tradition. . . . He’s not a product of any ghetto.”
(Reid also has a track record on racial matters that makes one less likely to give him the benefit of the doubt in these matters. For example, he reportedly opposed some leading (and well-elected) black politicians in Illinois as unelectable replacements for President Obama.)
The white racial frame is so strong in white minds, even in relatively liberal white minds like Reid’s, that it is blurted out from time to time, and thus shows what many whites are really thinking–thinking they mostly try to hide in frontstage settings. We should take Reid’s commentary, and other such liberal-racist commentary, as a sign of what is really going on in the society. Reid’s commentary, and much more vulgar forms of it, were likely very commonplace across white America during the 2008 primaries and election. They still are. It is just that somehow this bit of the backstage got out without the cover of more socially “correct” language. One issue that has not come up much in the public controversy so far is the profound meaning of this backstage racist reality—the extensive blatant racism that goes on in the white backstage, something we have examined numerous times on this blog.
I should point out too that the book that generated the Reid controversy has even more dynamite quotes indicating the anti-Obama and hostile racialized views of Bill Clinton, such as those he made to and about Ted Kennedy endorsing Barack Obama. To Kennedy, Clinton reportedly said, “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” And Clinton also said, “the only reason you are endorsing him is because he’s black. Let’s just be clear.”
Anti-Asian Racism: Toby Keith and Mocking Asians
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According to news reports at a Nobel Peace Prize party in Oslo, the United States country singer Toby Keith used the standard physical gesture of eye stretching to mock Asians (”yellow”) during an impromptu singing performance. Numerous Asian American groups have condemned the brief performance. The Asian American Justice Center made this comment:
Toby Keith embarrassed himself and his country, denigrated the Nobel Peace Prize and offended Asians and Asian Americans by using a crude, racist hand gesture.
The Media Action Network for Asians made this comment:
By doing this, he is telling Asian fans, ‘You don’t matter, you’re not on my radar.’
The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the country’s oldest continuing Asian American civil rights group also issued a statement condemning the old racist gesture:
His behavior has drawn criticism from the Asian American community, yet Mr. Keith still has not acknowledged the offensive nature of his gesture nor issued an apology. As the nation’s oldest and largest Asian American civil rights organization, the Japanese American Citizens League joins other organizations in condemning Mr. Keith’s actions, and demands that he acknowledge and apologize for his racist behavior.
When he pulled back his eyes to symbolize “yellow,” Mr. Keith reduced Asians to a demeaning caricature that has long been used to alienate an entire race. Though the gesture lasted no more than a second, it evoked powerful and painful emotions in the Asian American community, a reminder of schoolyard taunts and childhood bullying. It was an immature and insensitive action that only served to humiliate Asian Americans through racial mockery.
Mr. Keith’s silence following the Asian American community’s response to this incident suggests that he does not take our community’s concerns seriously. By not issuing an apology even one week after the event, Mr. Keith has clearly chosen to compound his indifference towards the Asian Americancommunity. This type of attitude underlies a pervasive stereotype of Asian Americans, where physical differences imply a foreignness that hinders an acceptance of being considered as true “Americans.”
Keith has not yet apologized. Oddly enough some in his group made this comment:
“No one at the concert thought Toby was out of line,” his camp said. “Everyone was impressed with his rapping skills and that’s it . . . all of the artists liked each other, hung out, and it was a very friendly, genuine, and supportive atmosphere.”
I guess they do not think Asian folks watch rapping or country music? Or that some other folks might take offense at such racist stereotyping seriously too? At a minimum, we do not teach Stereotyping 101 (or even Human Manners 101?) and thus what racial framing is learned as children lasts a lifetime. Friendly racism?
Numerous social science studies have lately shown how widespread the facial mocking and language mocking and other stereotyping of Asians and Asian Americans are these days. Not to mention the racial discrimination that often flows out of such mocking framing. Such anti-Asian stereotyping/mocking has been part of the white racial framing of Asians since at least the 19th century, as the late Ronald Takaki, among others, has often shown.
Sick and Tired of You Carving My Image: A Black Man Speaks Out
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photo credit: Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan
Every Sunday I attempt to make an escape away from the realities of this world. Therefore every week I make a run for the movies. Nothing is more comforting than hot popcorn, butter finger bites, and a large container of half diet coke and half regular cherry coke. This week as I was in line preparing to buy my ticket, I notice a large amount of Black women in line and leaving the theater. Being a regular at the local theatre I know the trends and come to the conclusion a Black film must be showing.
As I look to see what is playing above on the posting, I see that Tyler Perry’s new movie, I Can Do Bad All by Myself has been released. The Internet Data Database notes that “Madea (Perry) delivers three young adults who tried to rob her home to their aunt (Henson), a hard-living nightclub singer who doesn’t want the responsibility of parenting the trio. Can Madea’s influence, coupled with the arrival a handsome, industrious new tenant (Rodriguez), help April turn a corner in her life?” For some reason my happy zin feeling that over takes me when I enter a theatre disappears while at the same time a sense of anger begins to boil to the top.
Now before you throw every counter argument and the kitchen sink at me, I ask you to first take a moment and understand my perspective as a Black man born and raised in these lands where we oppress and control while at the same time praising “the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.” First, I am very much aligned with the intended letter to Tyler Perry posted on NPR by Jamilah Lemieux. The letter reads:
September 11, 2009
Dear Mr. Perry,
I appreciate your commitment to giving black folks jobs in front of and behind the camera. Your films are known for their humor, and they also have positive messages about self-worth, love and respect. For all of that, I thank you.
However, my feelings about your work are conflicted. The images of black people we see in your movies and two TV shows, Meet The Browns and House Of Payne, are not always fair. Now, you are the only person who seems to be able to get black shows on TV. But both your shows are marked by old stereotypes of buffoonish, emasculated black men and crass, sassy black women. I’d like to support your work, I really would — because I’d like to see people who look like me on TV. But I can’t let advertisers and networks think that these stereotypes are acceptable.
Your most famous character, Medea, is a trash-talking, pistol-waving grandmother played by none other than you. Through her, the country has laughed at one of the most important members of the black community: Mother Dear, the beloved matriarch. . . . Mr. Perry, you are in a position now where, if you were willing, you could completely revolutionize the world of black film. You could singlehandedly develop the next crop of Tyler Perrys, Spike Lees and Julie Dashes if you want to. You have built an empire on a foundation of love and Christianity, Mr. Perry, but that is also mired with the worst black pathologies and stereotypes. I beg of you, stop dismissing the critics as haters and realize that black people need new stories and new storytellers.
Now we know that Mr. Perry has been criticized before for the content of his movies and television shows. He has said previously that Perry’s not immune to the flak. He once said, “Over the years, I have learned to ignore these people and keep doing what I feel that I am being led to do.” I would like to remind Mr. Perry, that President Bush too felt he was being led as well while in office. Now I believe Mr. Perry has a right to creative freedom. Every artist does in my mind.
But when one takes the national spotlight, they are responsible for the messages and images they are portraying to the world. I know he has employs mainly Black staff and does a lot of charity work. But I also personally know drug dealers who I grew up with donating cloths and toys during Christmas. We as a country suffered as people, especially Black people suffer for your work. I have seen his last two movies, but refused to see this particular film. The same feeling I left with after viewing them is the same emotion I felt in my heart after seeing How Stella Got her Groove Back, Waiting to Exhale, and The Color Purple. I can recall when I was dragged to see Waiting to Exhale by my mother the feeling of shame. The author, Terry McMillan has made a living in the fictional stereotyping of Black males for the world to see and rejoice within her depictions. This can be easily detracted from the beginning of “Waiting to Exhale.” The main character, Savannah begins to describe her family dynamics:
“Mama, who thinks she is an expert on everything, hasn’t had a whole man in her seventeen years, and if I knew where my daddy was, I’d probably kill him for making her such a bitter woman…One of my brothers is in prison for doing some stupid shit, passing counterfeit money…”
Seen here, Black males are seen as romantically absent, convicts, and unintelligent. Within the following section, a simple plotted stereotypical reference to a fear of Black male sexually is exhibited.
“‘I’m on my way, baby’” he said, and jabbed me worse than he had the first time…He went to work, and during this whole ordeal, not once did her kiss me…all of a sudden his face became monstrous and contorted, and the next thing I know, he started growling like a bear…he was gritting his teeth and his eyes looked like red lasers. “Grrrrrrrrrrr” he said again, and I thought his penis was going to come out through my chest. I was about to push him off, but I was scared, and he did it again, even louder and more piercing this time. “Grrrrrrrrrrr, he screeched, and then, thank God, collapsed. I lay there still as I possibly could, because I was terrified. I didn’t know what I was sleeping with: a man or a beast.”
Like McMillan, Tyler’s formula that targets Black women, strums the lonely heartstrings nationwide while at the same time standing on the necks of the true image of Black males. Others in the music industry follow this formula as well. When describing us to the world, Destiny’s Child (song-Solider) notes:
We like them boys that be in them ‘lacs leaning, leaning
Open they mouth they grill gleaming (gleaming)
Candy paint keep that wheel clean and (clean and)
They always be talking that country slang we like….
I love how he keep my body screaming (screaming)
A rude boy that’s good to me with street credibility…
If his status ain’t hood
I ain’t checking for him
Better be street if he looking at me
I need a soldier
That ain’t scared to stand up for me
Known to carry big things if you know what I mean
We are much more than this. I am much more than this. I keep asking myself, when will our true story going to be told. And if it is one day, who will care to listen for their minds will be truly polluted with the negative images planted beforehand
Terence D. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., M.S.W.
Red-Baiting and Racism: Socialism as the New Black Bogeyman
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Throughout the first six months of his administration, President Obama–perhaps one of the most politically cautious leaders in contemporary history–has been routinely portrayed as a radical by his opponents on the far-right. In particular, persons who have apparently never actually studied Marxism (or if they did, managed to somehow find therein support for such things as bailing out banks and elite corporations) contend that Obama is indeed a socialist. Reducing all government action other than warmaking to part of a larger socialist conspiracy, the right contends that health care reform is socialist, capping greenhouse gas emissions is socialist, even providing incentives for driving fuel efficient cars is socialist. That the right insists upon Obama’s radical-left credentials, even as they push an Obama=Hitler meme (something they apparently think is fair, since, after all the Nazis were National Socialists, albeit the kind who routinely murdered the genuine article) only speaks to the special brand of crazy currently in vogue among the nation’s reactionary forces.
As real socialists laugh at these clumsily made broadsides, and as scholars of actual socialist theory try and explain the absurdity of the analogies being drawn by conservative commentators, a key point seems to have been missed, and it is this point that best explains what the red-baiting is actually about.
It is not, and please make note of it, about socialism. Or capitalism. Or economics at all, per se. After all, President Bush was among the most profligate government spenders in recent memory, yet few ever referred to him in terms as derisive as those being hurled at Obama. Even when President Clinton proposed health care reform, those who opposed his efforts, though vociferous in their critique, rarely trotted out the dreaded s-word as part of their arsenal. They prattled on about “big government,” yes, but not socialism as such. Likewise, when Ronald Reagan helped craft the huge FICA tax hike in 1983, in a bipartisan attempt to save Social Security, few stalwart conservatives thought to call America’s cowboy-in-chief a closet communist. And many of the loudest voices at the recent town hall meetings–so many of which have been commandeered by angry minions ginned up by talk radio–are elderly folk whose own health care is government-provided, and whose first homes were purchased several decades ago with FHA and VA loans, underwritten by the government, for that matter. Many of them no doubt reaped the benefits of the GI Bill, either directly or indirectly through their own parents.
It is not, in other words, a simple belief in smaller government or lower taxes that animates the near-hysterical cries from the right about wanting “their country back,” from those who have presumably hijacked it: you know, those known lefties like Tim Geithner and Rahm Emanuel. No, what differentiates Obama from any of the other big spenders who have previously occupied the White House is principally one thing–his color. And it is his color that makes the bandying about of the “socialist” label especially effective and dangerous as a linguistic trope. Indeed, I would suggest that at the present moment, socialism is little more than racist code for the longstanding white fear that black folks will steal from them, and covet everything they have. The fact that the fear may now be of a black president, and not just some random black burglar hardly changes the fact that it is fear nonetheless: a deep, abiding suspicion that African American folk can’t wait to take whitey’s stuff, as payback, as reparations, as a way to balance the historic scales of injustice that have so long tilted in our favor. In short, the current round of red-baiting is based on implicit (and perhaps even explicit) appeals to white racial resentment. It is Mau-Mauing in the truest sense of the term, and especially since Obama’s father was from the former colonial Kenya! Unless this is understood, left-progressive responses to the tactic will likely fall flat. After all, pointing out the absurdity of calling Obama a socialist, given his real policy agenda, will mean little if the people issuing the charge were never using the term in the literal sense, but rather, as a symbol for something else entirely. Read More→
Racist Profiling: Why Do Mainstream Media and Officials Ignore the Data?
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One glaring aspect of the mainstream media’s treatment of the Gates incident is its general failure to discuss research data on racial profiling. Data-free opinions increasingly trump investigative reporting seeking empirical evidence. Racist profiling of African Americans and other Americans of color of color remains widespread. There is much empirical evidence.
One Gallup poll found that 83 percent of the black respondents thought that racial profiling was widespread, and in another recent poll some 20 percent of black respondents reported that they had faced such such racial profiling or other discrimination by police in the last 30 days.
A recent ACLU report has summarized racial-profiling research studies involving numerous police departments as showing
large differences in the rate of stops and searches for African Americans and Latinos, and often, Indians (Native Americans) and Asians, even though these groups are less likely to have contraband.
There have also been a number of recent court settlements. In 2008 the ACLU and other plaintiffs settled a class action lawsuit on racial profiling by Maryland State Police (MSP) officers in the Interstate 95 corridor. Studies over a long period showed motorists of color were disproportionately targeted and stopped and searched without good reason. An ACLU report notes that the settlement
agreement provides substantial damages to the individual plaintiffs, a requirement that the MSP retain an independent consultant to assess its progress towards eliminating the practice of racial profiling, and a joint statement by all parties involved in the lawsuit condemning racial profiling and highlighting the importance of taking preventative action against this practice in the future.
This profiling by police is not the only racial profiling that Americans of color face. Researchers Thomas Ainscough, Carol Motley, and Anne-Marie Harris, among others, have reported on audit and other studies that show discriminatory treatment of black and white customers in retail establishments, including poor service and various kinds of surveillance, searches, and neglect routines.
A recent Southern Poverty Law Center report Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South found too that in southern areas Latinos
are routinely cheated out of their earnings and denied basic health and safety protections. They are regularly subjected to racial profiling and harassment by law enforcement. . . . And they are frequently forced to prove themselves innocent of immigration violations, regardless of their legal status. (p. 4)
Numerous other studies (see here) show these patterns for many other walks of live, for African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Middle Eastern Americans. Many whites seem predisposed to see African Americans and other Americans of color as inherently deviant or criminal, a centuries-old idea in the white racial framing of this society. It is no wonder black men like Professor Gates often run into this problem. It probably happens millions of times a year in the United States.
One can think of a number of strategies against profiling. For several years, U.S. House member John Conyers and U.S. Senator Russ Feingold have introduced the End Racial Profiling Act, which prohibits racial profiling and requires law enforcement departments to collect stop-and-search data, to have effective complaint procedures, and to insure that those abused by police departments have a right to sue. This legislation has yet to be passed. (Guess why?) In May 2008 even the United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism called on the US Congress to pass the End Racial Profiling Act, as well as to set up an investigative commission to examine continuing racial discrimination.
Interestingly, there are modest educational steps that might help somewhat. Thus, in one psychological study Canadian researchers showed 264 photos of Chinese, black, and white male faces to 20 whites. After they had been trained these volunteers for hours on seeing subtle differences in these human faces, white volunteers were less likely to associate negative words and concepts with black faces than they were before the training. One researcher suggests that such training in seeing facial differences might reduce racial profiling by police and others. What do you think?
More Racist Attacks on President Obama
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President Obama seems to be setting records as a black elected official for the number of hyper-racist attacks on him that are spiraling around the web, including many racist photos and images. We have discussed several of these here before. Now there is one photoshopped photo circulating of him as a witch doctor, part of an attack on his health care reforms.
One of the weaknesses in most conventional social science analysis of racial matters in the United States is the neglect of the power of such visual racist images. The mainstream analytical concepts are racial stereotypes, biases, prejudices, and bigot-generated discrimination. These are useful but quite inadequate for getting at how broad and deep the dominant white racial framing actually is — a major reason I have been developing the concept of a broad white racial frame, which accents the importance of such elements as racist images, racist emotions, stereotypes of sounds, and myth-narratives of whiteness as well.
Visual images often capture much attention and get deeply imbeded in minds and brains, and thus they may well be harder to counter than other types of racist material that gets imbeded there. Over at Ronald Shone’s clinical website he discusses the power of images thus:
The most important thing about visual images is that they can influence the body. This does not apply to all images, but only to those images in which you are involved. The image, however, does not have to be about reality, it can be a totally imaginary (unreal) image. … A strongly formed image will lead to an emotional response or some other bodily response. . . . But it is not only the body that is influenced by images; images also influence behaviour…. A strong image leads to behaviour consistent with the image being formed in the mind’s eye. It does not matter whether the image is one of reality or unreality.
There is also discussion of the power of visual images here, in a scholarly paper by Claire Wright at judicialview.com.
TalkingPointsMemo has a story about a very vivid and very racist photoshopped image of President Obama as a supposed African “witch doctor” going around the web, one that was forwarded by, among others, a prominent Florida neurosurgeon and AMA Delegate, Dr. David McKalip, to a Google listserv with links to the Tea Party movement. The doctor wrote that he thought this image was “Funny stuff.” TPM comments on McKalip’s activism against health care reform:
McKalip founded the anti-reform group Doctors For Patient Freedom… Last month he joined GOP congressmen Tom Price and Phil Gingrey, among others, for a virtual town hall to warn about the coming “government takeover of medicine.”
TPM called and talked with him about this racist image:
Asked about the email in a brief phone interview with TPMmuckraker, McKalip said he believes that by depicting the president as an African witch doctor, the “artist” who created the image “was expressing concerns that the health-care proposals [made by President Obama] would make the quality of medical care worse in our country.” McKalip said he didn’t know who created it. But pressed on what was funny about an image that plays on racist stereotypes about Africans, McKalip declined to say, instead offering to talk about why he opposes Obama’s health-care proposals.
Actually the photo is built on a photo of a person in Papua New Guinea, not in Africa. TPM suggests that it was unlikely that
McKalip himself was aware of this when he forwarded the email. It was he who first used the term “witch doctor” in our phone interview, and he didn’t quibble with our suggestion that the image played on stereotypes of Africans.
The AMA responded to one blogger’s protests with a message condemning such racist stuff:
Delegates to the American Medical Association are selected through their individual state and specialty societies, and their individual views and actions do not, in any way, represent the official view of the AMA. We condemn any actions or comments that are racist, discriminatory or unprofessional.
Most recently McKalip apparently resigned as an elected official with the AMA. I wonder if the AMA will use this as a teaching moment as they say.
I might note that my one experience in giving a talk on racial issues at a major medical school, one that was having major problems with racist actions by white medical students, was that they cancelled my talk when two professors at the xerox machine saw my handout dealing candidly with white-racist thought and actions. I do not see much interest in historically white medical schools or in the AMA in dealing with racism in the medical profession. Maybe someone else has seen something I have missed?
