Notorious unsolved civil rights murder case resurfaces
On June 29, 1964, the FBI began distributing these pictures of civil rights workers, from left, Michael Schwerner, 24, of New York, James Chaney, 21, from Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman, 20, of New York, who disappeared near Philadelphia, Miss., June 21, 1964. The three civil rights workers, part of the 'Freedom Summer' program, were abducted, killed and buried in an earthen dam in rural Neshoba County. (AP Photo/FBI)
One of the most heinous crimes during the civil rights movement happened the year after I was born, 1964. It's still unsolved, but an anonymous donor is offering $100K reward for information leading to murder charges. (AP):
The reward will be administered by an interfaith organization as the state renews efforts to bring charges in the killings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.
"There are people who have been harboring some of this information for a long time. There was a lot of common knowledge about this," said the Rev. James White, treasurer of the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference, which is overseeing the reward money.
In 1964, the three volunteers helping to register black voters were murdered on a lonely dirt road as they drove to a church to investigate a fire. They were allegedly stopped by Klansmen, beaten and shot to death. Several weeks later, their bodies were found buried in a dam a few miles from the church.
Nineteen men, many of them Klansmen, were indicted. Seven were convicted of federal civil rights violations and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years.
But the state never brought murder charges and none of the men convicted served more than six years.
Of those indicted, only seven are still alive, said Jacob Ray, a spokesman for Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, who has reopened an investigation of the slayings.
It's sad and enraging that the kind of blind prejudice, hatred and violence at the root of these murders existed within my lifetime, and in fact, still exists today. It was only 1998 when James Byrd was dragged to his death in Texas by sadistic thugs that watched as his limbs were torn from his body. It was that same year that Matthew Shepard was violently beaten to a pulp and tied to a fence and left to die (oh wait, ABC said it wasn't a hate crime). It's not just about the South or rural Texas either. The brutal 1982 murder of transit worker Willie Turks by a "wilding" gang of Bensonhurst thugs in NYC (Turks made the "mistake" of walking through "the wrong neighborhood") proves that hate knows no geographic boundaries.
The kind of venom and bigotry we hear from the Right about gays today is a sad repeat of ignorance from the past, no matter how the wingnuts try to spin it. It has to stop. There are countless hate crimes that go unnoticed by the media. We cannot let the moral lesson of crimes like the Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney murders go untaught -- we have come so far, and have so much more yet to learn about the most base impulses of human nature.
13 Comments:
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Pam, I think this is a great post, and I'm curious to get your opinion on something....
By Shakespeare's Sister, at 5:10 PM
While doing some research before I wrote a recent post, I read several recent articles by writers saying that the Gay Rights Movement should in no way be equated with the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't the first time I'd come across such a position, and I find it confounding.
Being a straight white girl, I have to admit I feel a bit like I don't have a right to have an opinion about it, but the truth is, I do. I think it's bullshit, quite frankly, to try to delineate oppression and play a game of 'my victimization is worse than yours.' But then again, maybe I'm missing something.
So I'm curious about your opinion on the subject, because you probably have a unique perspective on the issue, being the American female ethnically diverse lesbian :-) that you are, and I respect your opinions. -
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By Pam, at 7:04 PM -
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
By Pam, at 7:05 PM -
Your blog post on the subject was very thoughtful. You most certainly are entitled to an opinion on the subject; what wisdom you share from your perspective informs everyone, even if you are not from the group in question. I certainly pontificate on the military and have not been in it. I do read what those in the military have said on all sides of issues, and state my opinions. I consider it important that if I don't have first-hand experience I do have an obligation to research things before spouting off.
By Pam, at 7:12 PM
All that said, and back to the subject at hand. Thanks for writing! As both a person of color (I normally check black or Af-Am when forced into the box on forms) and a lesbian seeing this increasingly hostile reception gay rights is receiving in the Civil Rights Movement™ is odd. My reference there by using the ™ is obviously making a point. I do think that the black community has co-opted this term to mean "black civil rights," since the movement itself is still a living memory for those that experienced Jim Crow.
There is no comparison to slavery and the impact that it has had on this country for good (the economic power and wealth of this country was built on the backs of the slaves) or ill (the fact these human beings were bought and sold and treated like animals).
I see two distinct groups in the black community that seem to be angry about gay rights, with some people in both camps...
1) The Civil Rights Movement™ people: These folks only see things in terms of what I described above -- that the black/slavery struggle is unique and that gays have no business trying to appropriate the frame of that movement. Gays were never slaves, imported from another continent, etc. Gays, they believe, can pass and choose not to reveal their identity (those that are transgendered are usually overlooked in this argument). Skin color is immutable. I think these folks can be won over with persuasive framing of constitutionality and human rights with the issue. They can be shown that this not a zero-sum game. Gays seeking the right to not be fired in a job or to marry because of who they love does not diminish the struggle of the Rights Movement™ of the 1950s/60s.
2)the Hellfire-Brimstone religious blacks: these folks, like the Woodson/Upper Room homophobes, just see gays as sinful and undeserving of any rights at all. These people cannot be reasoned with, and are, in fact, dangerous to the black community. This is the crowd that scares black men, in particular, who are gay, into going on the DL, secretly sleeping with men on the sly and maintaining sexual/marital relationships with women, potentially spreading HIV. As far as these church folks are concerned, being gay is a white thing. If you're black, religious (in the traditional church) and gay, it's extremely hard to come out to family and church members without fear of reprisal and isolation from the community. I think these people represent fertile ground for recruitment by the Right.
An interesting fact about the religious black community -- it is so conservative that you will find that this is the group of people that give women a really hard time for going natural (hair). The status quo is to straighten your hair; this is clearly an internalized self-loathing and assimilationist mindset that is poisonous. Women are chastized by family and significant others not to 1) cut their hair or 2) let it be kinky. It's a sickness. Thank god I don't have a family like that -- they all had straightish hair anyway, I was the anomoly. But I have seen on the natural hair care YahooGroups some of the most hateful and strident flame wars
over the subject of hair. And most of the proponents of hair straightening were of the conservative bent. So strange. Read this this essay on the politics of hair. Amazing.
Anyway, I got off topic -- I hope this is helpful. Would love to hear your feedback on this. -
Blogger was whacking out, so I had to remove dupe posts. Sorry about that.
By Pam, at 7:15 PM -
Hiya, Pam. Thanks for your response. I read the essay on the politics of hair (thanks for providing the link to that) - very interesting stuff. A couple of things struck me:
By Shakespeare's Sister, at 1:14 PM
- It's interesting that black girls felt that they were emulating white girls in general, when, of course, all of us white girls were chasing the same image of perfection. I'm a short, chubby, brunette who's actually quite content to be a short, chubby, brunette, but that's certainly not the rule. My short, chubby, brunette friends want to be tall, skinny, blondes. My tall, skinny, blonde friends want to be taller, skinnier, blonder, have straighter hair, bigger boobs, bluer eyes and on and on and on. And the pressre comes from the same places - media images, friends, family. Everyone seems to hate themselves for not being that ideal. And every girl on earth hates her own hair. I don't mention that in an attempt to minimize the historical implications of a black girl who feels compelled to approximate a white girl in any way, but just to acknowledge the overarching problem with body politics in this country, of which we are all victims to one degree or another, and that we're all pretty fucked in terms of what's required of us as women to be considered acceptable by others, including other women. The extremes people go to (the increasingly popular eye-rounding surgery among Asian women comes to mind) to attain the ideal is shocking, especially when no one ever seems happy, no matter how close to that ideal they may appear to others.
- The issue of overt racism vs. concealed racism is a very interesting one. If you know people are hiding their biases, then everyone becomes suspect, don't they? And that just turns everyone into a racist. A assume B are racists who are just hiding their racist tendencies, which is itself a racist assumption; B then assume A think that all members of B are covert racists, which is in itself also a racist assumption; and so on goes the snake eating its tail, which doesn't even take into consideration the actual real, hateful, old-school racists who still exist. And you can insert any race into either slot A or B quite easily. We're all subject to the same paranoia about each other. It's a terrible problem, and I don't think we know how to begin to solve it.
And getting back to the Civil Rights/Gay Rights discussion.... You said: "There is no comparison to slavery and the impact that it has had on this country for good (the economic power and wealth of this country was built on the backs of the slaves) or ill (the fact these human beings were bought and sold and treated like animals)." I agree. My admittedly rather flippant, "it's bullshit, quite frankly, to try to delineate oppression and play a game of 'my victimization is worse than yours'" was sort of a stupidly shorthanded way of saying that I sort of feel that ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, Jews, women, the physically impaired - basically anyone who has had to have legislation passed to get equal rights in this country - would do well to acknowledge we're all up against the same opponent, and maybe it would be wiser to look forward as a team instead of distracting ourselves with in-fighting. Because that's what they want. We can bicker later, once we've solved all the problems of the world. (Ha.) Of course, I know that's easy for me to say when slavery is not part of my history (in this country), and I cannot comprehend what affect (or how or why) that has on a black person in today's world.
I liked your breakdown of the two groups in the black community that tend to have a problem with gay rights. I think your assessment is spot-on. And your comment "I think these people represent fertile ground for recruitment by the Right" is of course what my entire post was about.
Thanks so much for your input. Would love to hear your feedback as well. This is truly the greatest thing about the internet - that I get to share the thoughts of someone smart and interesting and, you know, just generally cool who I otherwise would probably have never met. :-) -
Yes, it's great we can shoot the breeze on these weighty subjects with people that we don't know. :)
By Pam, at 2:06 PM
Women and self-image: yes, the issue transcends race and ethnicity. No woman is really happy with their looks. We've reached a new low with that reality show "The Swan". I happened upon the final episode where they chose the winner. More shocking than her transformation was the fact that all the finalists had the same, plastic "look" about them. Same hair, makeup, relative body shape, even facial features and smile. It was like looking at a Stepford Wife factory. Is this the American Dream for women? God I hope not. I know I didn't want to look like that. Yeah, I'm short, overweight and have kinky hair, but I've given up on #1 and #3. I exercise regularly and have to watch what I eat anyway, but weight's always going to be a struggle when you have PCOS and insulin-dependent diabetes. Bad endo combination that makes it hard to lose.
The hair thing for black women reflects a level of self-loathing that seems more pathological for some reason. It's clear from the time you are very very young that there is "good hair" and "bad hair" and you're never told why this is. That hot comb or kiddie relaxer is used on 3 and 4 year olds without a second thought.
By the time a young girl is school age, she doesn't even know what her natural hair texture feels like. That's why you see so many adult black women seeking out information on how to style natural hair (locs, twists, twist-outs, etc.). The styling implements (combs, brushes, conditioners, etc.) used in the dominant culture just cannot be used on kinky hair without often breaking or damaging it. Their mothers have no idea how to handle natural hair other than to "tame" it. You get messages like "you won't get a man if your hair isn't straight" or "you'll shame the family with that bushy head". Crazy crap like that. It's as if kinky hair is some dreaded leprosy or hairy mole you want to hide. Oh, and it's reinforced in the media. Surf over to BET rap videos, and you'll see the 'hos dancing around with straight, processed hair (or it's a weave). Black men have been conditioned to dislike kinky hair on women as well. Anyway, I'm glad I stopped using that relaxer crap on my head years ago. So toxic.
* overt racism vs. concealed racism. It's a chicken and egg thing. It doesn't make sense, and I don't have any good answers for it either. I haven't experienced too many overt incidents, but the ones I have I will never forget. Like not being able to hail a cab in NYC in the 80s. My friend Carole (she's black) and her husband Dave (he's white) and I would play this game where Carole and I would step out and watch cab after cab go by, not stopping. He would then step out and BOOM. One would pull right over. Then we'd all hop in. So sick. Or the white peer of mine at college asking me if I could get a tan. As in would my skin tan -- she was serious. She was Italian (from Brooklyn), and as dark/fair as I was. Unbelievably dumb.
* "'my victimization is worse than yours'". I think it is stupid to count notches on whose group has suffered most at this point. As you said, "anyone who has had to have legislation passed to get equal rights in this country - would do well to acknowledge we're all up against the same opponent." That's right. It's about being able to ensure rights through legislation. The black community that fails to see gay rights as a civil rights fight doesn't want to remember that you cannot put civil rights on a ballot -- it will lose EVERY time. The "people" are afraid of any change in the status quo, even if it means the oppression of a sub group among them. Advancement and protection of civil rights unfortunately only seem to be granted through the courts. -
It's so funny you mention The Swan, because I almost mentioned that in my last post. That show is seriously appalling. All the women look like drag queens at the end, and while I know some gorgeous drag queens, I don't think I'd want to look like one permanently.
By Shakespeare's Sister, at 11:03 AM
Re: PCOS - I was just diagnosed with that recently. My OB/GYN suggested hormone treatment, but I'm feeling a bit nervous about that, as I know it can increase risk for breast cancer. Are you doing any kind of therapy for it? Any words of wisdom for me?
The hair thing for black women is really sad. I certainly didn't understand the intensity of the pressure to straighten it. And the effects of the chemicals mentioned in that essay - just horrible. What a loss; natural black hair is lovely. I've never really thought about it until now, but I seem to have a (formerly subconscious) association between really feisty, independent-thinking, strong black women and natural hair. All the black professors I had had natural hair, and when I picture favorite black authors, they all seem to have natural hair. I suppose it makes sense that women in creative/non-corporate fields tend to buck that convention of the black community. Come to think of it, those are the same (and only) places you'll see white women with long, gray or white hair, too. I think we need to start a Down-With-Hair-Facism! movement. :-)
Re: overt vs concealed racism - The cab thing is incredible. I found myself on the receiving end of, "You'd better get the cab" on multiple occasions, and for, unfortunately, good reason. When I lived in Chicago, I used to hop a cab home from work pretty often, and I always liked talking to the drivers, many of whom were African immigrants. And they were some of the most prejudiced people I'd ever met - so many of them hated/distrusted black Americans. Not the only community in which I've experienced that, either. I used to work for a Jewish man who, as a child, had been interned in a concentration camp during WWII. When I was buying a condo, the construction manager was an Orthodox Jew. When my boss found out, he let loose on a litany of complaints about Orthodox Jews - they were terrible to work with, difficult to get along with, untrustworthy, shady, etc. I told him he was sort of blowing my mind, and he said, "Don't you know that Jews are the the biggest anti-Semites you'll ever know?" Uh, no - I didn't! Every time I think I start to understand the world, something like that happens, and I feel like a child again.
And as for unbelievably dumb questions - I think sometimes people aren't being racist when they ask dumb questions (or don't realize they're coming across as racist); they're just too dumb to know how dumb they actually are. When my mom moved from New York City to Indiana, someone asked her if she'd ever seen a tree before! And the amount of dumb questions my Scottish-immigrant husband has been asked is totally ridiculous. He's been asked if he speaks/reads English (what language do you THINK they speak in Scotland?!), if Scotland is part of the United States, if Scotland is as big as the United States, if Scotland is a Communist country, if there are any black people in Scotland, why Scotland doesn't have terrorists like Ireland, and on and on and on. Basically, it seems like most Americans are just completely and unrelentingly ignorant of anything that isn't a part of their immediate surroundings, and they're too dumb to know that it's poor form to be so narrow-minded.
It's no wonder we've got King Dumbass as President. -
Re: PCOS - I was just diagnosed with that recently. My OB/GYN suggested hormone treatment, but I'm feeling a bit nervous about that, as I know it can increase risk for breast cancer. Are you doing any kind of therapy for it? Any words of wisdom for me?10% of women have PCOS, many don't know it. I've had it since about 15. I was lucky enough to get diagnosed. Since I have horrible insulin resistance, it's hard on my diabetes, which was diagnosed at 18. I would strongly recommend seeing an endocrinologist as well, but if you have an OB/GYN that understands PCOS well and has many patients, then you're lucky. I take provera 4x a year (one pill for 10 days, then bleed) to generate a menstrual cycle. I prefer this to the Pill, which bombards your system all month long with hormones. Over 70% of women with PCOS have weight issues as well, and most that want to get pregnant have a lot of trouble doing so. Many women find that taking Glucophage helps them control their resistance to become pregnant. Since PCOS is a syndrome, a constellation of symptoms, there's no cure. You just live with it.
By Pam, at 1:52 PM
There are quite a number of good web sites on PCOS; just Google.
think we need to start a Down-With-Hair-Facism! movement. I agree here. You will find more natural hair in the arts/creative/academic communities. Natural hair is making inroads, but it's nowhere where it needs to be.
African immigrants. And they were some of the most prejudiced people I'd ever met - so many of them hated/distrusted black Americans.That and the story about the Orthodox Jews/prejudice is true. Having lived in NYC for a long time, you see all kinds of ethnic infighting that looks odd from the proverbial middle America. My grandfather was West Indian (from Barbados), and though I never heard him slag African Americans, I know a good number of folks I've encountered from the Caribbean do. Of course, if these folks headed down south, they might not feel any different than your average Af-Am when they get called the N word.
Basically, it seems like most Americans are just completely and unrelentingly ignorant of anything that isn't a part of their immediate surroundings.
How true. The irony is that most black people are extremely well-versed in the dominant culture, whereas most white folks have little exposure to, and cultural quirks of, minority communities. It's the one thing I loved about living in NY; I got to make friends with and learn a lot about many ethnic cultures. And my wife Kate has taught me quite a bit about Lebanese culture. Interesting. -
Thanks for the recommendations about PCOS. My sister also has it, and she hasn't had a period in years. I still have regular periods, and I got pregnant last year without much effort (though it ended in miscarriage). I haven't tried since then, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm pretty asymptomatic, apparently; my GP only suggested I get it checked out because he thought I had too much facial hair. Always something a girl is thrilled to hear!
By Shakespeare's Sister, at 3:38 PM
Re: in-fighting - it is a weird phenomenon. As I mentioned, my mom grew up in NYC - Queens, actually - and every street was so clearly delineated...Scotch-Irish on this block, Germans on this block, Italians on this block, Jews on this block.... It was starting to change when I was a teenager, but you could tell which street had been which by all the old ladies out on the front porches. :-)
"The irony is that most black people are extremely well-versed in the dominant culture, whereas most white folks have little exposure to, and cultural quirks of, minority communities." - Do you think that's true? It's a very interesting thought. I've been sitting here thinking about what my reaction to that statement is for a bit, and I'm sure the latter part is true, without question. But I'm not sure about the first part. Well, that's not totally true. I'm sure you're right that most black people are extremely well-versed in the dominant culture; I'm just not sure that the dominant culture is as representative of most white people as blacks might assume that it is. Does that make any sense? I mean, when black people talk about the lack of "real" black people in the media, I think most white people feel the same. If an alien came down and tried to discern white culture from what they saw on TV and in the movies, they'd look at Jerry Springer, the Bachelor, Friends, etc. and not have much of an insight into a normal white person's existence. I don't think that whites are misportayed nearly to the same extent as blacks, but I'm not sure that a familiarity with the dominant culture makes a black person clued in to the realities of white people's lives any more than BET could serve as an effective anthropological study of black people's lives.
In my experience, black people tend to hold as many misperceptions about white people as vice versa. I've never had a discussion about slavery with a black person where it wasn't mentioned that I would have been a slave-owner. But the truth is, my family clan was tortured and slaughtered by another, and those who were left were made slaves for generations. My family came to America recently, and the one branch that was here during the time of slavery were Native Americans. I'm not approximating my family's history to black history; my point is just that I have had the sense that many black people see all whites as an indistinguishable mass with a common history (in the same way whites often make no distinction between blacks of African heritage versus Carribean heritage, etc.).
I think there is also a specific corporate culture that is often misidentified as "white" culture, when it is really about class even more than it is about race. I once had a conversation with a former coworker (a black gay man) who was complaining about how black people have to change the way they speak and dress to get a job. I said, "Do I speak or dress the same way at work as I do when we're hanging out?" He looked at me blankly for a minute and then burst out laughing. "Fair enough." I love moments like that - moments when we realize we're all in the same boat - because I think it's only after we find common ground that we can then truly appreciate, understand, and value our differences.
At least those of us, across all races, who care to, because there are far too many people content to remain ignorant. It's a sad sign about our curiosity that only something like 15% of American have a passport. And I think it's sometimes a no-win situation for people who are curious about other cultures. If you ask a question about another community, you reveal your ignorance, and are often accused of racism, which as I said in my previous post isn't necessarily a reflection of racism at all, espcially when someone is actually trying to learn something about a race (or culture, or sexuality, or gender...) other than their own. But if you don't ask questions, and rely on media images or stereotypes, you really will remain ignorant, and possibly prejudiced.
I've come across as just another racist white idiot to people before for asking questions that seemed dim (as you might have noticed - LOL); I have to do it, though, because the only way I can find things out is by asking - it's the way we find out about our own cultural histories, too, after all. But I can understand people who aren't willing to try to engage people after having that experience. It's hard to be accused of being a racist when you're doing something to try to educate yourself out of racist assumptions.
I don't know. We're all too touchy to be frank, it seems--and with good reason, looknig at the dreadful history (and often, present) of race relations in this country. As always, I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts with me. -
familiarity with the dominant culture makes a black person clued in to the realities of white people's lives any more than BET could serve as an effective anthropological study of black people's lives.
By Pam, at 5:21 PM
I agree with you on this. I think I may not have been as clear about what I was referring to with my statement. What I meant is that my personal experience (and that of many of my black geek Stuyvesant HS friends) is that for our generation in particular (I'm 41), it was an interesting time to grow up. It's funny -- we all grew up seeped in dominant culture, completely oblivious to race in many ways (I watched all the popular TV shows as a kid -- the Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Addams Family, etc.), and listened to Top 40 radio. The latter, I might add was much more cross cultural than music today (I listened to WABC-AM in NYC). You got to hear Motown, the Stones, Beatles, Philly Soul, Linda Rondstadt, James Taylor, Three Dog Night -- you get the idea -- all on one station. We all didn't think about genre or color -- it seems weird now. It's also why I'm an ace at Trivial Pursuit. My head is full of all kinds of dominant culture trivia. To me it's American culture, for good or ill -- it was a common thread for my ethnically and racially diverse of NY friends -- we embraced that as much as our own various heritages. It seems very different now, there is a cultural segregation, seemingly self-imposed, focus-grouped and narrow-casted. It's fractured our culture in ways that make me sad. The lack of cross-cultural curiousity by both whites and blacks on a level other than the most superficial has hurt us all.
There are definitely misperceptions on both sides, but it's not necessary for white people to learn about minority cultures to make their way in the world (though it's desirable). It is, however, absolutely essential for minorities to learn the dominant culture to get by. Think about what we learn in school about history. It's generally taught from a European perspective; the study of the dark side of the country's history is often skimmed over. I'll be kind and say possibly this isn't on purpose, but at the very least it reflects the basic ignorance and lack of input of other perspectives.
The main problem with the whole "Acting White" slur phenomenon is a direct response to this, and it's crippling. The link is to a DKos diary I posted.
Ideally, cross pollination strengthens all our cultures.
I don't believe in automatically .abeling a person that asks a "dumb question" racist. That's not useful. My reaction is more "how can someone be that sheltered and illogical"? My response to the girl that asked about me tanning received a genuine education on melanin and how people tan. I saw no point in being mad at her; she really didn't know. I fumed at her ignorance later; it made me madder that anyone could make it all the way to college and not know something so basic -- our educational system is not working. Lack of curiosity is dangerous; I would never discourage any attempt at cross-cultural understanding -- too many of need to band together to fight off the larger issues -- like a government sending people off to die in a needless war, or pollution of the environment, or drugs abuse. People need to wake up and stop stewing in their own sh*t.
--off soapbox, lol -- -
I know what you mean about growing up oblivious to race. I'm 30, and I grew up in a small town in NW Indiana. It's literally one town apart from Gary (which during my formative years was the murder capital of the country per capita), and although the town is primarily awash in middle class and poor whites, there were poor and middle class black, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and Middle Easterners, too. It seems that it wasn't until I was in college and living in Chicago that I became aware of race at all. Growing up, kids were cliquish as all kids are, but the cliques were never delineated by race. If a kid was sort of categorically disliked, it was because they were unlikeable for some reason, but I never knew of a kid who had no friends because of his/her race. In a weird way, I wasn't even aware of racial differences. I knew racism existed, but it seemed like it was ancient history or something - I almost can't explain it. The first time I was aware there was active racism was when I was 15, and my boyfriend was Hispanic. One of my girlfriends said that her mom would never have let her date a Hispanic, and it was like I'd been struck. "Huh?!" It seemed so...archaic!
By Shakespeare's Sister, at 7:11 PM
"There are definitely misperceptions on both sides, but it's not necessary for white people to learn about minority cultures to make their way in the world (though it's desirable)." - Yes, I remember a friend suggesting, "You can get through your whole life never having to speak to a black person; I can't get through a day without having to speak to a white person." Depressingly plausible, but, as you say, not very desirable.
"Think about what we learn in school about history. It's generally taught from a European perspective; the study of the dark side of the country's history is often skimmed over." - Yes, one of my all-time favorites is about how Columbus "discovered" America. Really, it was so fortunate of him to discover land upon which multiple peoples and cultures were already living quite effectively.
Your "acting white" post was really interesting. It's a phenomenon that I admit is completely inexplicable to me, for seemingly endless reasons, the main one being that white people don't have the market cornered on intelligence. In fact, there are like billions of them that are incredibly fucking stupid, so how educating oneself is considered "acting white," is by definition very strange to me.
Frankly, I think that trying to rise above the bad elements in one's culture shouldn't be called anything but sensible, regardless of what culture one comes from.
I thought the backlash against Cosby was shocking. People were acting as if he'd lost his marbles. But I think he was just giving voice to a thought lots of people had already had. And I thought it was a good thing for the black community to have it said by a liberal, as opposed to someone like Larry Elder, for example. But my thinking was not borne out. There seemed to be more articles about what was wrong with what he said than supporting the sentiment. Very odd.
In reading through the comments thread on your DailyKos post, one thing you said in particular struck me: "We have way too many people playing political football with this problem, from the Right, which wants to wish racism away be simply saying it doesn't exist, and the Left which has a problem saying that blacks have a role and responsibility to play in helping eradicating racism." That's a very interesting sentiment. I believe there is a huge problem on the Left with whites who refuse to acknowledge the reality of racism, lest they offend a black person. There is definitely a phenomenon which I've heard referred to as "white guilt," that, in effect, causes whites to act as enablers for the continuation of problems like anti-intellectualism in the black community. I think "white guilt" is really political correctness gone haywire, to the point where it circles around back into regular old racism. Lowering standards and expectations because "It's not their fault," has ultimately the same damaging effect as lowering standards and expectations because "It's their own damn fault." You can't address racism by becoming so meek as to wholly own responsibility for another race's ills. Somewhere there's a middle ground, where whites get their shit together and address their own ignorance, and blacks get their shit together and address their own ignorance.
I believe as someone else once wisely said, "People need to wake up and stop stewing in their own sh*t."
LOL.
Merry Christmas Eve, btw. :-) -
As your childhood suggests it is possible (and desireable) to be oblivious to race. The negative aspects of race consciousness are taught (irrational fear of "other"), and the positive aspects of it (curiosity about our differences) seem to be innate. I don't quite understand why the latter seems to be stifled in so many people these days.
By Pam, at 11:55 PM
For more interesting comments on the "Acting White" issue, go over to Oliver Willis and his thread on it. You'll actually see people defending "Ebonics" and enabling the fallacy that black urban slang and bad grammar rate as a dialect. This, to me and OW, is complete bullsh*t. My mom would be rolling over in her grave if I ever became a proponent of that.
My brother, who is a professor (English) at U of DE, thinks that the reason Cosby got slagged was that he told only half the story. If he had chastised the dominant culture for its responsibility (legacy of slavery, devaluation of black perspective) as well as blacks to return to striving for excellence in academic achievement, it might have blunted things a bit.
It's seven minutes to a Merry Christmas!
Pam :: permalink
