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Racist Mocking of First Lady Michelle Obama: Ape Imagery Yet Again
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The Nashville Scene has a long account of the racist email sent out by Walt Baker, influential head of the powerful Tennessee Hospitality Association (motels, hotels, etc.). He sent out this email with a photo of the chimp Cheeta 
(see here too, Cheeta the chimpanzee) next to one of First Lady Michelle Obama:
From: Walt Baker Date: March 4, 2010 9:18:29 PM CST
Quoting Larry the Cable Guy…I don’t care who you are, this is funny…I was at the store yesterday, and I ran into Tarzan! I asked him how it was going and if he was into anymore movies. He told me that he could no longer make any more movies as he had severe arthritis in both shoulders and could no longer swing from vine to tree.
I asked how Jane was doing, he told me she was in bad shape, in a nursing home, has Alzheimer’s and no longer recognizes anyone, how sad. I asked about Boy, and he told me that Boy had gone to the big city, got hooked up with bad women, drugs, alcohol, and the only time he heard from him was if he was in trouble or needed something.
I asked about Cheeta, he beamed and said she was doing good, had married a Lawyer and now lived in the White House!!!
You can see both photos at this link.
Baker says he forwarded this email, which had been sent to him, to 12 prominent Nashvillians, including an aide to the mayor. Once outed, Baker indicated he was not racist, meant no offense, and had only sent it to “a select group of friends.” That is, he apparently meant for it to stay private and expected none of his friends to protest it. There was apparently little initial protest from most whites who first received it. This is yet another example of backstage racism where a white person felt safe doing this racist stuff with his friends. Baker commented later:
“It was done in the spirit of having some fun with some close friends. It was something that was forwarded to me, and I forwarded it to a couple of people that, quite honestly, I thought might find some humor in it like I did.”
He said that he thought it was good “political humor.” Not only did few whites openly protest and condemn this email as long as it was in the backstage, but according to Baker doing racist stuff is often about having “fun with some close friends.” There is a lot of evidence, like in the Two Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage book Leslie Picca and I did that whites not only do racist stuff in the backstage but really seem to “Have fun” doing such racist action.
Several days after it came out Baker sent a one word email to the recipients (“sorry”) and was fired by the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau, which apologized much more openly for Baker’s actions and seemed to catch the irony of the head of a “hospitality” organization acting in such an inhospitable way. Baker’s company also lost at least one marketing contract.
Wikipedia has an article laying out the anti-Michelle-Obama “humor,” yet has no such article on anti-Laura Bush humor. The intensity and level of attacks on the Obamas in such a short period to time seem to be about the most extreme in recent political memory.
We might note once again that this racist framing of African Americans as ape-like is very old in the dominant white racial frame, and Thomas Jefferson was an open advocate of such vicious stereotyping and imagery–as he makes clear in the first major book by a secular American intellectual, his Notes on the State of Virginia (Section 14).
As we see here the still dominant white racial frame (see my new book here) includes not only the ape-like stereotyping (verbal-cognitive) but also 
visual racist imagery and mocking emotions set in a “humor” framework. Note too just how white-centered such activity is, with its assumption of white superiority and virtue. None of the whites involved, so far as I can tell yet, has used this example of racist humor as a public way of calling out the white racial frame and calling for group instruction in extensive Racism 101 workshops in the city. Instead, like whites elsewhere, most there seem to see it as an isolated incident. Indeed, the white actors who do this sort of stuff usually do claim they are still white-virtuous, that is they did not “mean it” and are “not racist.”
Campus Racism: The “Other” African American Students
Posted by: | CommentsMustafa Jumale, a Somali American student at the University of Minnesota, has been blogging on experiences there and in South Africa. Here is what he just sent me about some of his own experiences and insights about the experiences of other African-origin students:
The experiences of Black South African and African American students at historically white universities and predominantly white universities are both problematic and unique. South Africa has had a black democratic government since the fall of the Apartheid government. However, incidents at the University of the Orange Free State University, in which a few “white” South African students asked university housing employees to participate in a game. The students asked the employees to eat food, which contained urine. Moreover, these [white] students video recorded the game and entered it in a competition that was facilitated by students that were employed by the university as resident assistants; furthermore, these students won the best documentary for their video. In the United States, ever year we hear about white students participating in parities with racial themes in Black History Month, like the recent incident at University of California-San Diego.
After the elections of former President Nelson Mandela and President Barack Obama, media outlets enabled a discourse, in which these countries were referred to as “post-racial.” As a Somali American at a predominately white university in the Midwest, I understand the struggles of being black and Muslim. My senior honors thesis is entitled “Post-Racial” Societies: A comparative study of South Africa and the United States. I argue that “post-raciality” is in and within itself problematic. I used ethnographic methods and qualitative approaches to examine the “Black” South African experience and “African American” experience at historically white universities and predominantly white universities in South Africa and the United States. Moreover, I opened the discourse to students at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and the University of the Western Cape by using a blog and facebook to generate discussion and to collect narratives of the experiences of students.
Here is an excerpt from an article from the Mshale (local African community) newspaper cited on his blog on some Somali Americans’ experiences in Minnesota:
“‘Minnesota nice’ at this university is covert racism,” Jumale said . . . just outside the university’s West Bank campus. Jumale’s sentiments stem from observation and interviews he conducted of least a dozen students for a research paper he wrote about the experiences of “Somali College Students at a Predominantly White Institution.” In his research, Jumale heard from a Somali honor student who majored in English Literature but was told by a professor on the first day of class that the course was “too advanced.” Then there was another student who told him he received a D in a term paper because, according to the professor, “the words in your essay are not words you would be able to understand.” But no grievance was more common than alleged harassment by the university’s police. Jumale heard complaints about police officers randomly searching Somali students’ supposedly looking for stolen property. Others complained about being asked to provide IDs while white students walked by uninterrupted. … It wasn’t until last October, when a police officer detained three Somali students for robbery, that Jumale and his fellow students realized that these were no trivial issues. …. Shafii Osman, a 19-year-old sophomore majoring in Biology, said he and two of his friends were walking from the university gym to a nearby MacDonald when an undercover police officer stopped them and asked for their IDs. . . . After looking at their IDs and searching their pockets, the officer allegedly said they “fit the description” of “East African males” who had just robbed Subway…. Osman said the officer ordered them into the car and took them to Subway.….. Despite the Subway employees’ failure to identify the men who had committed the crime a few minutes earlier, the officer allegedly asked Osman and his friends to pay for the sandwiches or risk criminal charges. They chose the latter. … With the help of an attorney, the three students were able to get their cases dismissed. But for one of Osman’s co-defendants, who did not want to be identified, the whole ordeal was so damaging that said he is still struggling to understand it. “It caused me a so much stress,” the friend said. “I was approaching exams with the possibility of being sent to jail.”
This is a common experience for native-born African American college students, as reported in research studies by social scientists on historically white campuses. And such academic and policing incidents are now becoming more commonplace for the “other African Americans” as they are sometimes called. They too are often viewed by many whites from the same white racial framing that has long negatively portrayed those African Americans whose ancestry goes back generations in the United States. BTW, Social scientists Yoku Shaw-Taylor and Steven Tuch have a very good edited book with chapters on various subgroups within this increasingly diverse group, titled The Other African Americans: Contemporary African and Caribbean Families in the United States.
Whites Discussing Racial Matters: Some Debate
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One of our blogger-readers (Sara Libby) has blogged recently on the question, “When Exactly ARE White People Allowed to Talk About Race?” She critically assesses another blog post by Elie Mystal, who recently wrote too under the title of “White People: If You’re Not Bill Maher, Please Shut Up About Race.” Mystal has a long and interesting post on whites trying to speak on racial matters, and among his points he makes these:
Over a year into the first presidency by a black man in the history of the United States, we’ve learned one thing about race in America: Bill Maher is the only white man in the country that can make a quality racial joke without sounding racist. I don’t know how we got here, maybe white people who listen to Rush Limbaugh honestly don’t know the difference between edgy commentary and racism Limbaugh spews on a daily basis? Maybe conservative media outlets have convinced white people that talking about race respectfully means the terrorists win? . . . . [Maher is] seemingly the only one that can find the humor in having a black President (the same way he saw the humor in having a retarded President) without actually offending people with a basic sense of humor. In fact, he’s the only white person that can find the humor of having black people and white people live together (as they do here and no where else on Earth) without offending people.
He continues:
But after watching general white people (talking heads, journalists, celebrities, average people on the street) stumble through racial humor for a year, I now live in fear that some untalented white comedian (think: Dane Cook) will try to get on the trail Maher blazed and inadvertently start a full scale race war.
He then suggests that Maher might well take on the task of teaching the racist white activists, our “best educated” young whites (as we have blogged about several times recently) about racist joking and racist framing, as well as hate crimes:
If Bill Maher had a “ghetto-themed” cookout, it’d be funny. I don’t know how exactly, maybe Chris Rock would show up asking for “just one rib,” Maher would go as a predatory lender, Cornell West would come to drop some knowledge, and everybody would leave high on what we all assume is Maher’s top notch horticultural products? Somehow, he’d would make it work. . . . Clearly, we need to educate white people on the difference between funny and offensive. I understand that the line must seem blurred to many white people — especially the ones that are themselves racist but think they are not because they don’t wear pointy hats. It must be hard for some of them to balance the desire to hide their personal racial animus with their desire to sound lively and interesting at cocktail parties.
Libby comments on this post with her own questions, thus:
Clearly, we need to educate white people on the difference between funny and offensive. I understand that the line must seem blurred to many white people — especially the ones that are themselves racist but think they are not because they don’t wear pointy hats.. I hesitated to write this post, lest it be seen merely as an attempt to have people pat me on the back and tell me that no, Elie couldn’t possibly have been talking about me! . . . Your insights are precisely the kind of dialogue we need to see more of from aspiring white-girl pundits. . . . There is something to be said, though, of the fact that condescending to people who truly try to understand, dissect and move the ball forward on racial discourse without having dark skin themselves will only assure that the people who do speak out about race are the ones who don’t care how offensive they’re being.
She continues with a bit from her own background:
I came from a lily-white community (and state), and was raised by conservative parents who sometimes make vaguely racist statements; and yet I’ve tried to eek out a career discussing race in a thoughtful and measured way, without having much of a personal stake in it . . . , other than wanting to live in a world where people are judged individually and by “the content of their character,” as Dr. King has said. … I care more passionately and deeply about racism than probably every other issue facing our society right now. . . . Have I personally experienced racism before? Hell no – I’ve got blond hair and blue eyes. But how else will we ever get to a point where we can have an honest and intelligent dialogue on race if people like me don’t at least try to grapple with it? … if non-black people are constantly being told that they shouldn’t even attempt to broach the issue, since they’ll inevitably reveal how racist they are, then progress is impossible. . . . Two of the incidents he addressed in his “Bill Maher” post – John Mayer and the “Compton Cookout” party at UC San Diego – are ones I’ve also tackled on my blog, and roundly critiqued for their racial insensitivity. . . . Perhaps I’m getting worked up over nothing, because … Elie and I basically agree about the racial issues we both end up covering – and YES, there is an enormous amount of offensive, derogatory, hateful, shameful stuff out there being spewed by white people. If there weren’t, my writing career would quickly grind to a halt. And I can’t imagine how horrible it feels to experience even the most subtle types of racial discrimination. But I can attest that being told you can’t possibly conjure a valuable contribution to a public discourse on race just because you’re white doesn’t feel great, either.
I think Sara may be, as she suggests, overreacting a bit to Mystal’s post. Apart from his flamboyant title, Mystal is really pressing for whites to develop at least the racial sensitivity of Maher if they are going to presume to converse seriously on racial matters, and especially if they plan to make humorous comments. He is clearly not saying whites who are grappling with and critically assessing the racist hierarchy and white racial frame should keep quiet. In my view such whites certainly need to continue with serious searches for antiracist understandings and actions, and speak out especially to other whites, even as they make mistakes in that process. IMHO, speaking out as critically as one can on the dominant white racism is the obligation of all ethical human beings. Why do you think?
Are the Racist Incidents on Campus Done by “Outliers”?
Posted by: | CommentsA yahoo news piece summarizes the many racist incidents in and around our “liberal” California campuses—and student reactions to them–this way:
At UC Irvine, about 250 people gathered for a “student solidarity speakout” to condemn the recent spate of racist incidents at UC San Diego that targeted black students and another incident last month at UC Davis, which targeted a Jewish student with a swastika carved on her door . . . . The protests came on the same day UC San Diego announced the discovery of a white pillowcase fashioned into a KKK-style hood — the third racist incident around the campus in as many weeks — and a day after UC Santa Cruz officials found an image of a noose scribbled on the inside of a bathroom door.
There was also a noose found on the San Diego campus, for which a student of color (not black) apologized anonymously in a letter in the campus newspaper. We have blogged on these in some detail recently. Other campuses have had their racist incidents in recent years too:
Although UCLA students said no racial incidents had occurred recently on their campus, in 2007, a fraternity held a “Tijuana Sunrise” party that mocked Mexican-Americans with stereotyped images, they said.
Sadly, the story and a scholar seem to want to view these incidents as the work of a few oddball racists and “outliers”:
The incidents are disturbing and most likely the work of “outliers” using offensive and outrageous behavior to gain notoriety, said Brian Levin, director of California State University’s Center for Study of Hate and Extremism in San Bernardino. He said surveys show young people are less prejudiced than ever, but “these things touch a nerve, and these folks know it.”
If this is a correct quote, then even experts like this fellow seem uninformed on the substantial field data showing that our white college students are not the paragons of white virtue such statements indicate. Do not they realize that in this social correctness era that many whites lie to survey researchers and pollsters? That they still operate frequently and in large numbers out of the white racial framing of Americans of color? That there are an estimated billion or so racist incidents participated in or observed just by white college students in their everyday lives each year?
The article goes on to say a few campuses are considering requiring an ethnic studies course, some mentoring, an African American Resource Center, and more funds for university diversity offices. Too little and too late, as the old cliche goes. And this very tepid and far from adequate reaction is indeed in the year 2010, some 50 years now after the civil rights revolution.
Racist Attacks on President Obama: Early and Often
Posted by: | CommentsA blogger over at DailyKos (blackwaterdog) has raised a question I have been thinking about for nearly a year now. How is President Obama being treated differently than other presidents and leading white politicians?
He first notes the differential treatment by the mass media in regard to President Obama’s intense and innovative meeting this week with Republicans:
With anyone else, CNN wouldn’t dare go to commercials every time the president speaks, like they did during that summit on Thursday. They wouldn’t dare counting how many minutes George Bush or Bill Clinton were talking. Chris Mathews wouldn’t dare making an issue out of Ronald Regan calling members of congress by their first name. . . .They fully cooperate with the Right-Wing smear machine when it comes to president Obama’s national security performance – even if almost every independent and military expert actually thinks that he’s a terrific Commander in Chief.
photo credit: Embajada de Estados Unidos en Bolivia
Not just the white supremacists and extreme rightists have constantly quibbled about or directly disrespected our President:
On Thursday, almost every Republican had no trouble interrupting him in the middle of a sentence. They looked like they’re going to vomit every time they had to say “Mr. president”
Much has been made in various media about Obama being “professorish” and/or “arrogant,” but clearly this is a stereotyped way of putting down his distinctive intelligence and grasp of the facts on many issues, including health care. Many folks accuse him too of being
elitist (because he uses big words that they don’t understand). He is weak on national security (because he actually thinks about the consequences). He divides the country (well, he did that the day he had the audacity to win the election). Worst of all, he actually thinks that he’s the president.
The racist imaging has obviously come from the far right wing and white supremacists, but some criticism is also coming from the white left, which can be seen in the left political blogs:
. . . there’s also some hidden and maybe subconscious and disturbing underline tone behind some of the things . . . throughout the Left blogosphere…. “He’s weak, he’s spineless, he’s got no balls, primary him in 2012.”
Adia and I predicted some of this attack in our Yes We Can? Book, but it is already clear that we need to add a chapter to that book on how quickly and severe these attacks have become, and not much more than a year into his pathbreaking Presidency. What do you make of the many attacks on President Obama so far?
Racism and Anti-Racist Protests at U. of California, San Diego
Posted by: | CommentsTo update Joe’s February 17 entry on racial tensions at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), stemming from a “Compton Cookout” party, students from the UCSD Black Student Union have issued a racial “state of emergency.” About 200 students met with UCSD administrators to present 32 points of demand
As a reaction to the outrage of the racially-themed party, a student organization aired a live segment on closed-circuit television, Koala TV, supporting the “ghetto-themed” party:
After Kris Gregorian, editor in chief of humor newspaper the Koala, said that protestors of last week’s controversial “Compton Cookout” party were “ungrateful niggers” on Channel 18, the Black Student Union declared a “State of Emergency” and issued a six-page list of demands to the university.
According to SignOnSanDiego.com:
Brewing tensions were made worse yesterday morning, when students searching for a copy of the videotape found a piece of cardboard in the student-run television studio with the words “Compton lynching” written on it — an apparent reference to the party, which was billed as the “Compton Cookout.” The discovery was publicized in the middle of the emotional meeting between students and administrators. It prompted tears and repeated outcries from black students, who said they do not feel safe or welcome on campus. African-Americans make up less than 2 percent of undergraduates, a level that has been unchanged for a decade, despite recruitment efforts.
Much of the commentary to these events is focused on “Free Speech”:
Sixth College senior Mike Randazzo is hosting a “Compton Cookout Part Deux: Equal Rights” party on March 4. He is requesting that guests come dressed as their favorite stereotype to promote free speech and show that the intentions of the original Compton Cookout were innocent. Currently, 120 people have RSVPed as attending. “I created this event to get people to understand that the creators meant no ill will,” Randazzo said. “It’s wrong that people are getting outraged and I want to help people come together and put an end to the hatred to show tht [sic] UCSD is not a racist place.”
Apparently this student believes that equal opportunity stereotyping is the solution to racial problems; he obviously has no comprehension of the legacy of and contemporary consequences of the racial hierarchy.
One student from the Black Student Union stated:
“I’m not saying that they don’t have the right to freedom of speech, but where’s my right to be protected from that?” …“I am a student in your class, and I have to sit next to these racist kids. What kind of college is this?”
Unfortunately, this is a question that needs to be addressed on many college campuses.
Domestic Terrorism: Racial, Gender, and Class Angles (UPDATED)
Posted by: | CommentsAs you probably know by now, a white software engineer crashed his plane into an office building in Austin and killed himself and at least one other person. David Neiwert has a probing article at Crooks-and-Liars,” with a video from Fox News that moves strongly away from calling this an “act of terrorism.” They describe the act as like someone who wildly attacks with a gun at their workplace. The Obama administration’s press secretary and the Department of Homeland Security are also saying it probably was not an act of terrorism. A newsperson at Fox concluded:
Our Homeland Security contacts telling us, this does not appear to be terrorism in any way that that word is conventionally understood. We understand from officials that this is a sole, isolated act.
Neiwert notes that
Well, this is true only if the conventional understanding of the word “terrorism” has now been narrowed down to mean only international terrorism and to preclude domestic terrorism altogether. Since when, after all, is attempting to blow up a federal office as a protest against federal policies NOT an act of domestic terrorism? You know, Timothy McVeigh used a “dangerous instrument” to kill 168 people in Oklahoma City. He too was angry at the federal government, and was converted to the belief that acts of violence was the only means possible to prevent the government from overwhelming our freedom and replacing it with tyranny.
He was also not brown or black. That seems to have something to do with the way these events are reported and described as “not terrorism” by media and government officials. Indeed, I see no one at the mainstream media outlets analyzing that the likely suicide attacker was white, or even much analysis of his note below.
The very long letter from the apparent suicide attacker was left by him on the web, and reads in part:
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” …. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. ..While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. . . . Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand.
A major thrust of his suicide note is an attack on taxation, and this is what the media has played up. This is similar to the anti-government motivation for the kind of domestic terrorism engaged in my Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City. Very few in the mainstream media have so far explored his strong critique of the business world:
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies.
He continues with a discussion of his efforts as an engineer and rails against people losing their pensions to corrupt management executives, unions, and officials. After much economic difficulty, he moved to Austin, which gets a bad review:
So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work.
He then had more economic troubles, and blames the IRS for this problems:
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes. . . . I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. . . .I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough. . . . Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the /only/ answer. . . . Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well. *The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.* *The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.* Joe Stack (1956-2010)
We get here a close look at the mind of a suicide attacker, and probably should read it closely. His rationale for violence is carefully presented. This event and its reporting have important racial and class angles.
There is also a major gender violence angle here. MSNBC reported some domestic dispute between the attacker and his wife before the incident, and he appears to have set to light his house on fire, and the fire department had to rescue his wife and daughter. Gender gets downplayed often in these cases. This man first terrorized his wife and daughter, then engaged in an act of domestic terrorism against the government. His wife and daughter are now homeless.
White anger and violence directed at the government is not usually reported as terrorism. White, heterosexual, Christian men infrequently get called out as such and generalizations developed on the basis of these demographics. If these recent incidents by white men had been committed by Muslim men or others of color it is quite likely those demographics would be foregrounded. @GuerrillaMama has put it eloquently (via Twitter):
Suppose two men committed separate acts of extremist murder in the United States within a month. Suppose the gunmen attacked a church and a national landmark, motivated by politics and religious prejudice, targeting a nationally controversial figure and innocent civilians. Suppose there was a history of attacks by similarly motivated men in America, ranging from individual shootings and bombings to an act of spectacular violence that destroyed a federal office building. Suppose two Muslim men had done this. Is there even a question that we would be using a particular term to describe this behavior? Might reporters and news anchors be terming these horrible acts, say, “terrorism”?
Still, Matt Yglesias cautions about an overreaction to this event:
But instead of complaining about the hypocrisy involved in not trying to whip people into a fit of terror and madness about this incident, I think it makes more sense to congratulate everyone on handling this in a calm and sensible manner. . . . Simply put, the odds of “death by disgruntled anti-tax activist flying an airplane into your office” are extremely small and it’s extremely difficult to think of cost-effective and efficacious methods of ensuring that this never happens again. Off the top of my head, this looks to me like a demonstration of the desirability of better mental health services in the United States, but that’s something that I would think was true one way or the other.
In my view, this is a good time for much careful reflection and action about the underlying, stressful, oppressive class, racial, gender conditions of this society. For example, the society’s structural conditions, mentioned in the suicide note, that sometimes play a role in driving people of any background to such extreme violence are also rarely examined in the mainstream media. One can and should examine these contextual conditions of suicide attackers closely without excusing such violence. They often tell us something about our societies. Clearly, the economic depression we are now in is likely part of his story. So, it seems to me, is the violent rhetoric of many in the “tea bag” movement and on white supremacist websites. This extremely violent talk and discussion probably makes violence seem “normal” to people like this suicide attacker. Why is there no mainstream media discussion of the broader racial and class and gender implications of this story, and the biased ways it is being handled?
UPDATE: MEMBER OFCONGRESS EMPATHIZES WITH WHITE DOMESTIC TERRORIST (VIA TPM)
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told a crowd at CPAC on Saturday that he could “empathize” with the suicide bomber who last week attacked an IRS office in Austin, and encouraged his listeners to “implode” other IRS offices, according to a witness. King’s comments weren’t recorded, but a staffer for Media Matters, who heard the comments, provided TPMmuckraker with an account. The staffer, who requested anonymity because she’s not a communications specialist, said that King, an extreme right-winger with a reputation for eyebrow-raising rhetoric, appeared as a surprise guest speaker on an immigration panel at the conservative conference.
We should note too that the only person this white domestic terrorist killed was a black veteran of Vietnam.
Children Learning Racism
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The Intelligence Report has a very interesting article on how and where children learn racist ideas, with a focus on children of white supremacists. The report quotes a number of scholars on this how and where issue:
“Overall, there’s not a lot of evidence that, at least in the long term, kids get their prejudice from their parents,” said Charles Stangor, who runs the Laboratory for the Study of Social Stereotyping and Prejudice at the University of Maryland. “I would call it more of a community effect than a parental effect. The community fosters tolerance or prejudice.”
What is this “community”? The article cites another researcher:
That community includes peers and other adults, such as teachers, coaches and clergy, said Frances Aboud, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who studies the development of racial prejudice in children. “There are so many other influences in a child’s life [besides parents], particularly once they start kindergarten.”
The account only mentions peers in passing, but research that Debi Van Ausdale did for 11 months in a multiracial daycare center showed clearly that children learn a great deal about racial matters from other children. That they form important peer groups and learn much from each other is a key finding of this study, yet these children’s groups still do not get enough attention in social science research on racial learning and systems of racial oppression. 
Children, as young as three years old, teach each other the basics of the white racial frame and the dominant racial hierarchy.
There is much else to the lives of children and racism that does not get enough attention. Teachers are quite important, and some research does focus on them and the curriculum.
And then there are the children of the supremacists. The fears and stresses of children of white supremacists are explored a bit in the Intelligence Report article:
Children of racial extremists may have to contend with other effects of their parents’ bigotry, Aboud said. “I think [they] probably become sensitive to that type of adult; other kids might not be aware that there’s that kind of extreme emotional hate toward people,” she said. “[Children of racial extremists] might have lived with more fear. They might have felt vulnerable themselves to that kind of hate: What if I cross my parents in some way — am I going to get that hate directed at me?”
This is yet another seriously under-researched area.
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.
Are We Becoming More of a Police State, For Americans of Color?
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Bob Herbert at the Times has some very revealing statistics on police harassment and malpractice in New York City:
Statistics will be out shortly about the total number of people who were stopped and frisked by the police in 2009. We already have the data for the first three-quarters of the year, and they are staggering. During that period, more than 450,000 people were stopped by the cops, an increase of 13 percent over the same period in 2008.
Likely more than half a million in one year. He adds:
An overwhelming 84 percent of the stops in the first three-quarters of 2009 were of black or Hispanic New Yorkers. It is incredible how few of the stops yielded any law enforcement benefit. Contraband, which usually means drugs, was found in only 1.6 percent of the stops of black New Yorkers. For Hispanics, it was just 1.5 percent. For whites, who are stopped far less frequently, contraband was found 2.2 percent of the time.
Racial discrimination and little open protest or concern with extreme police malpractice. Welcome to lockdown America? And much of this is also a waste of police time:
The percentages of stops that yielded weapons were even smaller. Weapons were found on just 1.1 percent of the blacks stopped, 1.4 percent of the Hispanics, and 1.7 percent of the whites. Only about 6 percent of stops result in an arrest for any reason.
Notice too that whites were the more likely to carry weapons and have drugs. I wonder why that does not get news headlines? Why don’t they stop more whites, as there would be more payoff?
As I have mentioned here before police brutality and other malpractice is a severe problem nationally:
Lest some think that we are ignoring lots of white victims of police brutality here, we might note that one social science study back in the 1990s analyzed 130 police-brutality accounts in several cities across the country. In that reviews of cases, criminologist Kim Lersch discovered that the targets of this type of police malpractice are almost always black or Latino. The latter made up 97 percent of the victims of police brutality, while the overwhelming majority (93 percent) of officers involved were white. Police brutality overwhelmingly involves white-on-black or other white-on-minority violence. (See full discussion in Chapter 5 here.)
