Looking for Republican leadership to talk about racism

Recently there have been a series of disturbing incidents that have come to light at some McCain-Palin rallies around the country. In a Washington Post article, Dana Milbank chronicles someone shouting "Kill Obama" as Palin pumped up the crowd, and then you have this incident:

Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

And over at OpEdNews, documented incidents of racism, threats to Obama, and really disturbing footage at rallies in which people say that Obama is a terrorist, a muslim, an Arab--and one in which a man holds a Monkey with an Obama sticker on it--this is all just too, too troubling:



[IMPORTANT ASIDE: What is VERY disturbing and under-reported in all of these accounts is the assumption people are making between Arab/Muslim = terrorist. First of all, if Obama was a practicing Muslim or Arab American, that would be FINE. Arab and Muslim Americans are NOT un-American and they are certainly NOT terrorists and it is a function of post-9/11 racism that makes the link between people of Arab descent and Muslim beliefs to terrorism. After all, white supremacist groups like the KKK have been engaged in domestic acts of terrorism during much of the 20th century, and have done so under the umbrella of Christianity. Yet we do NOT assume all Christian Americans are a legacy of this heritage of white racism and white supremacy nor do we assume that if one grew up an Evangelical Christian in the Southern region of the U.S. that one is automatically linked to domestic terrorism. I find the links between Arab descent and Islamic religion with terrorism or being "un-American" patently offensive.]

To his credit, John McCain has tried to address some of this ugliness. A New York Times article discusses how McCain tells his supporters that they shouldn't "fear" an Obama presidency and when another woman says she is afraid of Obama because he is an Arab, McCain shakes his head, says no, and tells this woman and the crowd at this Minnesota rally that Obama is a decent family man. And I appreciate that McCain is trying to calm down his crowd and be respectful towards his fellow running-mate, but in a lot of ways, this is reaping what you sow. In other words, certain members of the Republican party have been clamoring to have McCain and especially Palin attack Obama's character and trying to link him to "terrorists"--of course what they are doing is old-fashioned rabble-rousing, with the added element of institutional and historic (and recent) racism on their side.

So this is what I want to know. Where is the Republican leadership? I'm not just talking about John McCain and Sarah Palin and their campaign. I'm talking about others, like the primary candidates, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and the Bush administration. Where are THEY on calling on all Americans but especially McCain supporters (especially members of the Republican party perhaps since I'm assuming this is the demographics at these rallies) to be better than this rhetoric of hate and fear and prejudice. One Republican representative from Illinois has called on Palin to stop attacking Obama, saying that this campaign should be "better" than these tactics. But where are other leaders and politicians saying that McCain supporters, especially white McCain supporters (because honestly, (A) That's the majority caught on tape making these remarks (B) That seems to be the majority demographic at McCain/Palin rallies) should be at the forefront of talking about racism and prejudice and denouncing these acts.

Finally, here's a 13 plus minute MSNBC clip analyzing these ugly elements from recent days:



[Final Note: I'm not saying that all Republican or John McCain supporters are racist or more prone to racist tendencies. Obviously with the recent discussions of independent voters and die-hard Democrats struggling with their own internalized racism, we know this isn't the case--even with Obama's supporters of all hues, there's bound to be a fair amount of internalized racism. But as someone who has been to two different Obama rallies in the last year and a half, I have to tell you that I have not witnessed the kind of animosity and hatred that seems to be bubbling up in these clips. And at a rally during the primary that was held at Southern U., when Obama talked about John McCain and people booed, he told them that John McCain was a good man--and that he wanted his campaign not to devolve into the typical character assassination--for us to concentrate on the future and on a positive message of hope and change. And I think, for the most part, that has been the tenor of his campaign.

Also, this just in (4:57pm EST): an Op-Ed piece by Frank Rich in The New York Times that essentially echoes many of the things I've written above, except that I'd disagree with Rich about McCain being someone who is a stranger to racism.]

Wednesday morning unanswerable question

So I've got a question for the blogosphere:

Why don't we call more things instances of racism?

Want more?

This is what I mean. Someone recently left a comment for me on my Hancock/Hellboy movie review post and in the comment noted that Hollywood had once again failed to note the obvious racism that was a plot pivot in the film Hancock.

[Spoiler alert: if you want to read the Hancock post and subsequent comments, click here, but I talk about the film's ending and the big "AHA!" element of the film]

And there are other moments too--for example, recently a Georgia Congressional member called Senator Obama "uppity" -- coded language used for centuries against African Americans in The South (and elsewhere). This is veiled racist language--it's intent is to disparage Obama racially.

I'm sure everyone can think of other instances of things that happen of a racist nature that aren't called out as such. And I have some ideas about why this happens--because I do think that we have to be careful in applying the term "racism" as accurately as possible. And I'm not talking about calling someone a racist. There are a lot of reasons not to do this, even if someone is blatantly being racist or saying racist things--again, I'm going to plug Jay Smooth for the third time in this blog because he really breaks down in a concise and eloquent way, why it's best to not call people a racist and instead address the racism.

[For more on definitions of racism, click here to a previous post]

But I am curious--what do you think? Why don't we say that "such and such" was an example of racism? Or used racist language? Or that this "thing" was an example of the legacy of racism in this country?

Signs that racism is not a U.S. phenomenon

[Spanish Men's basketball team]



[Spanish Women's basketball team]



[Spanish tennis team]



[Argentinian soccer team]

Tip of the hat to Angry Asian Man. Words fail me. I think these images speak for themselves, but for anyone who thinks this is all just good fun and games, I'll provide some analysis and break down the racism tomorrow.

Over-sensitive & In-sensitive about Race

I wanted to continue a thread of discussion begun in my March 12 (Wed) post "When a cigar is just a cigar." The comments that followed my post raised some excellent points about reading into race--why we do it, what the consequences are, the intentions behind mis-hearing and mis-interpreting actions, our subconscious biases and unintentional actions that become interpreted and racially inflected depending on the actors involved, and larger issues of the difficulty of trying to name all of this accurately and respectfully--to insist that we have a right to talk about race and racism without charges that we are being "oversensitive" about race or that others are "insensitive" to racial issues.

Let me flesh out the restaurant example I used in my March 12 post even fuller for you. It was 12:15pm when I was seated, and I seemed to be the only person eating alone (there were about 30 customers and a dozen staff, all white), and this restaurant had a bar/pub area and then a table area where a majority of the patrons were seated. I elected to sit in the less crowded area--in fact, I was the first person to sit in the bar section (there are about half a dozen elevated tables/chairs and then your usual barstools around the bar). Two white men next followed, and their order was taken before mine (at this point I had been waiting about 8-10 minutes). There was another white couple seated behind me, and the hostess noticed me looking around. I then saw her say something to two of the wait staff--a male waiter who had taken the table's order ahead of mine (and who took the order of the couple who just entered) and a female waiter. It was the female waiter who came and took my order--and, really, she was busy covering the tables at the non-bar end of the restaurant. She was very pleasant--apologized immediately--and I had very good service from her. The male waiter was also fine--he didn't "vibe" me for lack of a better word. Perhaps he thought I was waiting for someone to come, although that shouldn't have excused him not coming to my table and asking if I needed anything or was waiting for someone.

It is impossible to know why he didn't "see" me--why I was overlooked. And let me also underscore something important: THIS IS MINOR. I am not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, not when there are real racist incidents, like the example of the reporter being attacked (see March 13 post)--but I am trying to make a larger point about the ways I, and others, try to figure out our racial difference from others--and to figure out whether our discomfort is racially inflected or coming from a different source (like the minor irritation of waiting an extra 5 minutes for someone to take your order, which, again, in the bigger picture of important things to worry about, is very low on that list--and yet, putting this incident into the context of others is important in trying to figure out how to read circumstances, racially, not just for yourself but for others. And if this restaurant HAD been discriminating people on the basis of race, well, that's something important to figure out because from a social-justice point-of-view you would want them to be held accountable for this behavior, which I think almost all of us would agree is discriminatory, wrong, and actually criminal).

Again, I'll let the comments from the previous post (which you should read--they are very thoughtful) stand for any of my own analysis of this incident. The fact is, I want to be able to talk about this. Not to cry out "RACISM! RACISM!" or to shrug this off as me being "oversensitive" or "over-determining" issues of race. But to say that while I shouldn't rush to judgment about the motives behind the male waiter (for example, I could speculate that he hates Asian women--that his former girlfriend was Japanese American and he now harbors animosity towards Asian American women), the fact that it enters my head that this *might* be racially inflected is in part my own current way of "seeing" and interpreting the world, and because "it" HAS happened to me in the past--I have received poor service and was made to feel uncomfortable at a restaurant because I (and my dining mate) were the only people of color in an all white eatery.

[Aside: Of course, any idiot could tell you that showing up on a Sunday afternoon at a small diner in Columbia, South Carolina where most of the white patrons look like they came straight from church--and to enter with your Asian American male friend and sit down in the back of the diner--when both of you are dressed in shorts and tee-shirts--is to almost invite the steely stares of white octogenarians--seriously, there were two in particular who COULD NOT STOP LOOKING AT US. Most people tried to be discreet about it--glancing at us sideways or looking and then looking down. But these two just kept staring straight at us, like paramecium under a microscope. Not a comfortable feeling]

Am I oversensitive about issues of race? Perhaps--although the way I'd phrase it is that I have an interest in issues of race/racism so my radar is tuned to a high frequency where these issues are concerned. I'm much less righteous about it than in my younger, wilder days. But I am aware of the biases that we carry around--and the privileges too. And it's the privileges that makes us forget what its like for others who don't share the same benefits--that those of us who either look like the majority of the people around us, whose class background or educational background makes us comfortable walking into any store in a large mall or dining in any restaurant, and, in my own quasi-examined hetero-privilege (I don't presume to say that I always scrutinize my straight privilege--I try to--but I know I slip up and, most importantly, I don't know what it's like to be queer because I'm not queer identified and have not had the same experiences as my queer friends--so while I can be friendly to those issues, it seems arrogant and inaccurate for me to say that I know what it's like, because I don't), where I don't have to think twice about holding hands with my partner in public or kissing him.

Let me turn the question on its head: Can we be oversensitive to issues of race? What does that, exactly, mean? That people are tired of being reminded that racism exists? That they don't want to hear about my musings about whether my treatment in a restaurant was racially inflected? That I worry too much about race, and rather than do this kind of worrying I should just go about and live my life? And what are the consequences for not being sensitive to issues of race?

It's a false binary, but I'd rather be over-sensitive rather than in-sensitive about race. It hasn't stopped me from living my life or moving about in all-white spaces or talking about race when I want to or not talking about race (because I also don't want to be overdetermined, by others, to always talk about race--sometimes I just want to talk about a great song I heard or being moved to tears by a passage in a novel). But I think the point I'm driving at is that we should try to be more comfortable muddling through with this issue and shouldn't shut down dialogue on topics of race--getting out of one's comfort zone isn't a good feeling, but it is where change can occur.

Racism not Paranoia

Yesterday I wrote about racial overdetermination--reading into race. This morning I read this CNN article and saw footage of an African American news reporter being attacked by a group of white people in South Carolina for doing her job: reporting.

For more on this attack and the racial slurs against this reporter, click on this link for the CNN article (and you can also click on a video link for footage captured by a white film crew also in the area).

Basically, two African American reporters, a cameraman and a newscaster, were reporting on a homicide in a South Carolina neighborhood. Another news team, comprised of a white newscaster and a white cameraman, stood by and watched while the African American newscaster was attacked--filmed the whole thing.

Four people have been charged in the assault. They cannot be prosecuted for a hate crime because SOUTH CAROLINA HAS NO LAWS PROSECUTING FOR HATE CRIMES. And the two white news reporters will not be arrested for standing by and doing nothing (although I suppose we should all be thankful that this was captured on tape--maybe the white newscaster was the white man helping to hold back one of the women trying to attack the black newscaster? Or maybe he was just watching from the sidelines. Hard to tell).

If only we could take it back...

People make dumb comments a lot. We all do it--things we say and the minute it comes out of our mouths we realize that we sound like an ass or can be misconstrued to sound like an ass. Or we say things in the heat of the moment or in our younger, wilder, more ignorant days. Or, in some cases, we are coldly calculating and we mean to sound like an ass to be manipulative.

I start in this more humanist, universal way to remind myself that when I get righteous about the dumb things that people say, particularly about the racist (or racially coded and therefore implicated in a racial and racist hierarchy) things that people say, that I, too, have said things that have offended and hurt and shamed others.

But then again, I'm not a public figure (or I suppose as a professor, even an anonymous professor of Southern U I'm semi-public).

Recently there was a really IDIOTIC thing that got said about Tiger Woods by Kelly Tilghman (Golf Network anchor). Tilghman was bantering with another ex-pro golfer, Nick Faldo, at a golf tournament about Tiger Woods' dominance on the PGA tour and what younger golfers would need to do to beat Tiger (who has been for all intents and purposes, unbeatable, indominatable, untouchable). Faldo said that the young golfers would have to gang up on Tiger, and Tilghman made a remark that I'm sure she (and the rest of us) is regretting ever crossed her lips:

"Yeah, lynch him in a back alley"

Yes, a white female former pro-golfer, born and raised in South Carolina, who attended Duke University on a golf scholarship, and who has been on friendly terms with Tiger for a dozen years, made a stupid racist remark. On the face of it, some are saying it isn't racist because there wasn't malicious intent. In other words, Tilghman clearly wasn't suggesting that anyone should seriously try to string Woods up from a tree. Others are trying to claim that the word "lynch" doesn't really carry a particular racial connotation--that one can lynch people of any race.

But I mean, c'mon...really? A young woman born and raised in the South, whose parents owned a golf course in South Carolina, who attended Duke University in Durham, NC, she wouldn't be aware of how charged that word is, and she wouldn't be aware that making that comment about Woods, whom almost everyone sees as an African American golfer (the exceptions being those who try to recognize Tiger's bi-raciality or "cablinasian-ness" and the even fewer people who claim him as a member of the Asian American tribe), would be seen as violent and racist and just NOT FUNNY (some people are saying that because she was laughing when she made the remark it proves she didn't mean any harm). So making the suggestion, even in jest, even about a friend, that he should be "lynched," of course seems like a racist remark, because the whole act of lynching is steeped in racism. And even if we regard it as a thing of the "past," it's still not funny. And really, it's not a thing of the past. Lets look at some contemporaneous examples of lynching, and here it does cross racial lines because in 1982 there was a Chinese American girl in Chapel Hill, NC who was strung up to a tree and in 1998 Matthew Shepard, a gay white man, was tied to fence posts and left for dead and also in 1998 James Byrd, an African American man, was dragged behind a pick-up truck to his death (yes, technically both Shepard and Byrd were not tied to a tree, but I think their deaths--a result of extreme hatred due to their minoritized status (gay in one instance, black in another) are in the same vein as lynching.

So does that make Tilghman a racist and are her remarks just as damaging as Don Imus'? I bring up Imus because Al Sharpton used him as an example, claiming that Tilghman's remarks were just as bad as Imus and that like Imus she should be fired.

I don't know if Tilghman is more or less of a racist than Imus or more or less of a racist than anyone else. But I don't think that Tilghman's comments are the same as Imus'. Imus made racist and sexist comments about a group of college women. Tilghman made a racist remark about a multimillionaire golf champion. And Tilghman had a much smaller audience--the world of people who pay attention to golf is much smaller than Imus's audience. And Tilghman is a young woman, and I believe this is her first gaff, whereas Imus had been known for making regularly racist and offensive remarks.

I am contextualizing all of this, not because I'm trying to give Tilghman a "pass" or to say her remark was OK--it wasn't. And the Golf Channel has suspended her for two weeks as a result. She has apologized to her audience and apologized to Tiger Woods in person. And Tigers' "people" (his agent) has said that he holds no ill feelings towards Tilghman and has put the matter past him. And I don't think that just because Tiger is not upset that means other people shouldn't be upset. But I think I'm making all of these qualifications for this simple reason:

I wasn't even going to blog about this--mostly because I felt like other blogs had taken care of this issue (most notably Angry Asian Man). It wasn't until a reader of this blog emailed me and told me to check it out that I started to dig into the story. And when I read that people thought Tilghman should be fired for the same reason Imus was fired, I just felt like it wasn't the same--it didn't feel the same to me.

None of us wants to rank oppression--or rather, I don't. I don't want to say that one racist incident was worse than another or that one group experiences racism in a worse way than another. On the other hand, I have to say that in my experience, I do not have racist things said to me in, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the same way as my African American peers. I simply don't know what it's like to experience racism as an African American person. And I will go out on a limb and say that the instances of "Orientalizing" that I do experience (people asking me where I'm from or what language I speak) is minor in comparison to incidents that my African American friends have shared with me (for instance, to the best of my knowledge I've never been pulled over for driving for any random reason, I don't have people follow me in a department store, people don't assume I got into college through affirmative action, etc...).

But I don't know...I had this whole response typed out and then started talking to my white Southern boyfriend about all of this and he is OUTRAGED that Tilghman said this (and believes that with her background, she must have a fair degree of racism since he believes many white Southerners have internalized a fair amount of racism against black Americans and I guess he should know) and according to him "there's an undercurrent of racism in the South" that people just know about--and that especially someone like Tilghman should know better and should NEVER joke about lynching because it's extremely pointed, extremely racist, and should never be joked about, ever.

So I guess now I'm curious, should Tilghman be fired for what she said and is it as bad as/worse than Don Imus's remarks? Because I guess I'm contextualizing--looking at Tilghman's career versus Imus's career, and to me, there's no excuse for Imus and no real desire on his part to learn and be truly sorry and to educate himself. Whereas with Tilghman, well maybe there's hope. Maybe she will realize how wrong and how potentially damaging her remarks are. But am I also justifying her comments because I think it was a "first offense," because she's friendly with Tiger, because golf seems like such a smaller sphere, because I don't know what it's like to experience racism as an African American and didn't grow up in the South? How blind am I being to my own internalized racism and prejudices (which I hate to admit, and part of me was thinking of even deleting this whole post, because it's hard to admit your own blind spots, but I figure I should lay it all out here because if I can't be honest with myself about my internalized stuff, who can I be honest with? And I should let my blog readers call me on my bs as well).

I suppose I'll just end by asking anyone out there in the blogosphere to chime in with your thoughts and opinions, and perhaps the greater question: why does this all matter? I think it does, and I have my own opinions on this, but I'd like to know what anyone else has to say (and I may pick up this thread when I start to talk about "benign Orientalism," so be on the lookout.

Do we have to choose between racism and sexism?

The spin post-New Hampshire primaries has been interesting, to say the least, as well as the hype leading up to them. Of particular note is Gloria Steinem's editorial in The New York Times, "Women Are Never Frontrunners" (January 8, 2008) where she actually makes a claim for sexism being more oppressive than racism (or perhaps to put it in a different way, where she seems to be arguing for gender being the greater liability than race in achieving equity in the U.S.).

I was thinking of either writing to The New York Times or writing a blog post in response to Steinam's op-ed, but then I saw that Tami at "What Tami Said" has already said everything I would have said (and said it better). In her post, "Dear Steinem: Ain't I a Woman too?" (January 9, 2008) Tami lays out all the problems with Steinem's (il)logic in continuing to rank oppression, most especially, the notion that African American men became eligible to vote 50 years ahead of women. Here's Tami:

"Steinem separates the race issue from the gender issue as if there are not some of us affected by society's views of both. Ain't I a woman, too?

[Steinem]:'That's why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).'

I assume that at 18, Gloria Steinem cast her first presidential vote in the 1952 election. Certainly society did not prevent her from doing so. My paternal grandfather was a 53-year-old black man living in Mississippi that year. He was not afforded that freedom. Do we really want to go here? Apparently not."

Read the entire post--it's smart and totally on point. And it reminds us all that ranking oppression or separating sexism from racism is truly a losing proposition for us all. Choosing between Obama and Clinton is not choosing to support sexism over racism. Both are historic candidates. But they are also, fundamentally, politicians and presidential candidates who have platforms and who want to serve in public office and have a sense of civic responsibility. I know the inner-cynic in me reads all of this very differently, but as an Obama supporter and a die-hard Democrat, let me take the higher road and say that all of these candidates, and I'm going to be extra magnanimus and include the Republicans (*take deep inner breath*), want to be President of the United States because they feel they want to make the United States a better place. We may feel like one candidate has a better plan and better vision than the other, but (and now I'm going to focus on the 3 Democratic front-runners) at the end of the day, what we want (as Democrats--so I'm speaking to my fellow-travelers now) is to have a viable Democratic candidate we can support. We don't want to start telling people that if they vote for Edwards they hate black people and women. Or that supporting Obama is against our best interests as women or to be a Clinton champion means supporting racism.

What we want is a win in November 2008 and an end to racism & sexism because they are oppressive systems that actually work well together and you really can't end one without the other.

But listen, don't take my word for it. Read Tami's post--because she really says it best.

Race and Politics -- Part III

I'm going to steal this idea from Rachel's Tavern, where she posted a serious question for everyone:

Who are you planning to support in the upcoming Presidential primary/election?

And I don't necessarily mean who do you plan to vote for (there were some slightly snarky comments that pointed out that her question was meant only for those eligible to vote in the upcoming elections), I really mean regardless of whether you are eligible or plan to vote (although let me put in a plug for the civic process and say if you are eligible, please REGISTER TO VOTE--PLEASE VOTE IN THE PRIMARIES AND THE UPCOMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION--SERIOUSLY, IT'S THE ONE TIME I DO GET VERY NATIONALISTIC/PATRIOTIC AND BELIEVE THAT IT'S INCUMBENT ON ANYONE WHO CAN VOTE TO VOTE. ONE ONLY HAS TO LOOK AT THE 2000 GORE/BUSH ELECTION TO UNDERSTAND THAT TRULY EVERY VOTE COUNTS.)

Where was I?

Oh yes, I am curious what you think about the upcoming Presidential race (even if you only clicked on accidentally, for example, if you typed in "I love Asian women" hoping to find something salacious and instead found my post about anti-Orientalism and castigating people for sexualizing Asian women--no joke, that post gets a lot of hits and I'm not sure it's by people who are Project Runway fan).

There were some at Rachel's Tavern (click here for her original question) who really felt that it didn't matter who was President, at least they seemed to insinuate this by their lumping of the 3 Democratic frontrunners together (and the largely dismissive nature of the entire Republican pool) and by a few folks saying they were supporting Green Party candidates (although, again, we see what happened in Florida and Ohio in 2000 and while I like the Green Party I really don't want to see a repeat of what happened in 2000 happen in 2008 because I (and I'm sure millions if not billions of people around the world) want an end to the madness).

Actually, I am very curious for people who are living in the U.S. and who are unable to vote (like my many academic colleagues who are from China, Canada, Britain, Jamaica, among other places) or for those of you few readers outside the U.S. who have a much different take on U.S. politics--how much do you care, in France, in Brazil, in Malaysia who the next President of the United States is?

And because this is a blog about Mixed Race America--for those of you who care about this topic, how important is the next president for a mixed-race America? Clearly Obama embodies the essence of a mixed race America in his biography, but that's not the reason I'm supporting him. (I did talk about why I finally threw my support behind him after doing some research and you can read about it in some May blog posts if anyone is curious enough to dig them up).

I had the father of one of my friends castigate a group of us (we were all women) for not supporting Hillary Clinton and chiding us that we were voting against our own self-interest by not supporting a woman to be the next president. He said that if we were really feminists we would vote for her. This kind of argument drives me crazy! It's like saying I have to be friends with the only other Asian American person in my classroom or that I must support all Chinese Americans running for public office because of our shared ethnicity. So just because Obama is black doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to be the best anti-racist president (interestingly enough there was a study done about the racial diversity of the staffs of the top 3 candidates in each party and Hillary Clinton had, by far, the most diverse staff--in fact, she was the only one who had less than 50% white staffers and she had the most representation among all racial groups, including a perceptible Native American staff presence).

OK, I meant to make this brief but again got carried away. So really, what I'm curious about is: who would you like to see in the White House in 2009 and why and if you want to share your thoughts about how the candidates line up under issues of race/anti-racism, I'd love to hear your perspectives as well.

Race and Politics -- Part II

For those of you just tuning in, I started to talk about race and politics in yesterday's post ("Race and Politics -- Part I"), and I left off with those provocative questions--especially whether, as Southern Dem believes, all Republicans are racist.

So how did we get on this topic? The upcoming caucus & primary of course. And most especially, who is more electable: Clinton or Obama. Part of me hates to even bring this up because it starts to feel like the game of ranking oppression--what is worse in this country right now, sexism or racism? But it does seem like it's the question that is out there, even if people aren't always phrasing it in such bald terms.

Southern Dem believes that Obama is not electable because of so many racist Republicans. He says we haven't seen the really bad racist stuff come out, yet, but that he's sure Karl Rove and Co. are already planning a nasty and underground negative and racist campaign against Obama playing off of everyone's fears of black men and combining it, in Obama's case, with his name (which conveniently rhymes with Osama) and his background (he lived in Indonesia for a time and did attend a Muslim school). Southern Dem did not seem overly worried about the rampant sexism in the Republican party--and perhaps more disturbing, the sheer vitriol directed at Hillary Clinton for just being Hillary Clinton. Southern Dem just really believes that as nasty as things may get for Clinton, it will be a game of dirty politics that will bring up stuff about Bill Clinton and his infidelity. And that while people may publicly acknowledge their hatred for Hillary based on gender, the simmering hatred of racism that people feel for Obama has gone undetected because it's underground and it will only take the sleeping giant of the racist Republican National Committee to awaken the masses of racist Republicans against Obama. In other words, we may not like Hillary Clinton, but she's still a white woman and still has a chance to be the President of the United States. But this country just isn't ready for an African American head of state.

And all I kept thinking about was the answer I gave to one gentleman who asked me this question when I was passing out "Obama for America" literature back in June (yes, that's right, I went campaigning for Obama, and I even blogged about it in "Walk for Barak," June 12, 2007). I was asked whether the country was ready to elect a black president. And I said that I had to believe that we were. That I have to believe in and envision the country I want rather than the country I suspect I have. That I didn't want to be naive about race, but that the country I want to live in and support is a country that will elect an African American for President of the United States. And if I can help make that happen, I will.

Getting rid of race

I am a true academic geek (wait, isn't that just being repetitive? Aren't all academics GEEKS, otherwise how did we end up studying a narrow subject for so long and so intensely) because I had my final meeting of the Paul Gilroy reading group on Tuesday, and I was scrambling to finish the book, Postcolonial Melancholia, before the meeting not because I feared letting down my group members (it's the end of semester and most people were only able to get through the intro and to skim one of the chapters) but because I couldn't put it down. That's right--this dense piece of cultural criticism had me up late and up early because I thought it was a page turner.


And why? Because I was intrigued by Gilroy's central idea--the one that animates his entire work and, I would argue, that informs his other works as well:

Lets get rid of the category of race altogether and focus on anti-racism.

If you are saying, "Huh?" then let me try to break it down. It's sort've like a chicken or egg thing--which came first, race or racism? Gilroy says

"If the historical anomaly represented by archaic racial division does, contrary to expectations, remain legally or morally open, if it is still somewhere 'on hold' and therefore a muted part of the history of our present, the discomforting events to which these discussions refer are most likely to be recovered or remembered in the name of the same racial, ethnic, and national absolutes and particularities that I intend to call into question. 'Race' would then become an eternal caue of racism rather than what it is for me--its complex, unstable product" [emphasis mine] (14).

It's not race that causes racism--it's race that is a byproduct, an after-effect, of racism. We (especially Americans) are immersed, obsessed, disgusted by, proud of, distraught over race because we are living with the legacy of racism--because racism, the colonial, imperial, institutional forms of racism have undergirded the systems of power and philosophy that comprise our lives.

Although Gilroy's audience is mainly other academics (or any non-academics willing to slog through the jargon), and although he does not give concrete, practical examples about HOW we are to eliminate the category of race and to, instead, insist on a category of anti-racism, his work provokes thought and debate on this subject, and highlights what is for many counter-intuitive: race, while having a material effect, is nonethless a total fabrication--a social construct invented to dehumanize one group of people for the benefit of another group.

And it makes me giddy to think what we could do if we could shift the conversation from race to racism--or more specifically, if we could start to recognize the ways in which an anti-racist paradigm and philosophy would really benefit us ALL because we are ALL impacted/invested in a racist ideology that has constrained us into believing in race--into believing that we need to chop people up into categories and to hang values and judgments on people based on race.

Now, let me be clear, I recognize that we have lived with race for a long time and we will have this category around for quite a while. And I'm not about to stop teaching Asian American literature in favor of "American" literature or to stop talking about race and America and mixed-race America just because I agree with Gilroy's call to shift our focus.

But I do think that trying to have conversations about the history of race and about what an anti-racist praxis would look like is really key because racism is the key--it's the ideology that permeates so much of our lives and that is so pernicious that we take it for granted and we choose not to see the ways in which it has infected the ways we live our lives, and I'm not just talking about obvious stereotypes, I'm talking about the things you never think twice about like the mere fact that the land I own was cultivated as a result of the transatlantic slave trade and taken as a result of American Indian displacement. Sure, some people think of this all the time, but the majority of us never truly realize that these two signal events as the cornerstone of America's founding is also the reason (free and cheap labor and land that was taken) we were able to become a rich country and a powerful first-world nation and that there were other people--those whose skin tones and practices literally looked different from Europeans and were rendered inhuman by European thought that allowed this to happen. And we are living with the aftermath of this history. And if you think that this is something that happened in the past and doesn't impact our current lives, then you need to look at Jena 6 and the noose incidents and even the last post I wrote (which is nothing compared to these other two events) to understand that people still judge and discriminate based on race.

So what do we do? What does an anti-racist praxis look like? Well, to start with, it is about cross-ethnic/racial coalitions as well as paying attention to class/sexuality/gender intersections. It's like I wrote in a previous post--we need white allies to talk about racism and preach anti-racism, and to have straight folks stand up for queer rights and to have those of us in the middle-class advocate for working class and poverty stricken people--and not just to do this as a "cause" but to work WITH people who comprise these communities.

Typical encounter

SCENE: Contemporary art gallery in downtown Southern city

PLAYERS: white female artist, mid to late 60s, Asian American female professor, late 30s

Artist: (upon learning that Asian American female is affiliated with Southern University) "Oh, what are you studying at Southern U?"

Professor: "Well, actually I teach there."

Artist: "OH! In that case as someone interested in education let me teach you something about silver jewelry"

[long exposition about merits of 99.9% silver jewelry vs. sterling silver ensues, as well as insistence on holding various pieces that artist has made and the artist talking about Mitsubishi having a patent on the alloy for the 99.9% silver jewelry]

Artist: "Let me find the piece with the Japanese face. Are you Japanese?"

Professor: (taking internal deep breath and big sigh) "No"

Artist: "Oh, are you Chinese?"

Professor: "I'm Chinese American"

Artist: "Oh, that's OK. I have Chinese friends too. They're nice."

???????!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why does this always happen? Can't I go into an art gallery without being confronted with this weird Orientalism? And why didn't I have the chutzpah to say back to this woman, "Oh great! I have white friends, and they're nice too. Don't you love white people? Their traditions are so rich, and I love the way a fork feels in my hand. Such a lovely people!"

The BOGO light and "the Dark Continent"

After I wrote the post about the XO Laptop ("Making a Difference--PartII--November 16), a friend sent me an email describing a company that is making solar-powered flashlights, The BOGO light (click here to go to the company website). BOGO (or Buy One Give One) works on a similar principle--you buy one of their flashlights and they will send a flashlight to an organization of your choosing based on the sub-categories listed, which are: Education, Health, U.S. Military, Environmental, Faith-Based, Non-Profit Developing World.

Apparently the idea behind the lights was the CEO/Founder Mark Bent's work in "Africa" (particularly Ethiopia I believe) over the last twenty years. He really felt a compulsion to try to work on the energy needs of many African nations and came up with this idea of a cheap, safe, and renewable energy source--one that would be good for the environment.

So after doing a quick google search for BOGO light (because I wanted to see what kind of reviews it was getting--did it really work) I found this link to a Fox-News Houston affiliate and their interview with Mark Bent:



If you watch the newscast, you will undoubtedly note the way that the newscasters refer to "Africa" as some monolithic, primitive, pre-modern "Dark Continent" (in fact they pun off that very phrase--something to the effect that someone is trying to "light up the dark continent!!! UGH!!!). Bent, himself, seems more measured/informed about the various needs of various African nations.

So here are my pet peeves and knee-jerk prejudices after watching the news clip and looking at the various charities listed on the BOGO website:

1) Referring to "Africa" as a monolithic, primitive, pre-modern mass of underdeveloped people rather than recognizing the individual, modern, nation-states that comprise the continent of Africa. It's really a larger pet peeve of mine (and one that I sadly perpetuate in my own speech) whenever we refer to "Africa" and "Africans" rather than speaking of distinct countries and their needs in that geographic region--because the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as vast a place as that is, differ greatly by location, culture, language, history, whether they were a post-colonial power, whether they are on the coast or in-land. It's like continuously referring to the "U.S." and assuming that the history, culture, climate, demographics, and resources of Alaska are the same as Alabama because both are part of the U.S. and both are in North America (wait, people DO make this assumption all the time...). The way we tend to confuse the continent for a country speaks to the general ignorance that Americans (and I include myself here) have about the rest of the world, in general, and the continent of Africa, in particular. And it speaks (I fear) to a type of internalized (or not so internalized if you read the You Tube comments where I got this video link) racism that people in the U.S. have towards darker skinned people from the continent of Africa.

2) The plug that Fox News put in for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean when does Fox-News NOT put in a plug for the military??? And emphasizing that Bent is an ex-Marine which is why the military is listed as one of the charitable donations. And regardless of how any of us feels about our Middle-East Invasion and Occupation (ah, language--isn't it interesting the phrasing I've used), it's sad, sad, sad, that U.S. troops even need donations for something as basic as flashlights (let alone body armor).

3) Under "faith based" charities all appear to be of the Christian faith and many seem to be in the evangelical tradition. So why not just say "Christian based organizations?" Seems like it's more honest--but perhaps Bent didn't want to offend or was trying to employ "political correctness"? But it irks me that "faith" becomes synonymous with Christianity because there are many different types of "faith" (as in spiritual/religious) practices beyond Christian ones--and especially since Bent's impetus in creating the lights was to help various African nations, it seems as if linking up with a Muslim based organization, may go a long way to improving U.S.-African relations (there, see, I did it! Referred to "Africa" as a country when it's a continent!). Mali, Chad, Sudan, and Somalia are all African countries with a large concentration of Muslims and, with respect to Somalia, trying to improve U.S. relations there seems like a worthy endeavor.

4) Fox News. Fox News just irks me.

I'm done with my curmudgeonly old man bit, so I'll just end by saying, even after my list of prejudices and pet peeves, I think it is a great idea. It is environmentally sound. It is a cheap and safe renewable energy source. It will help people in developing nations have an affordable light source. And at $25 it's a small way that you can make a difference. And if you celebrate Christmas, it's just in time for the season of giving. So go BOGO.

Promoting more Asian American Artists

The New York Times has two articles prominently displaying two different Asian American artists involved in theater. Paul Chan, a video artist and political activist, recently staged performances of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in two different location in New Orleans--with a cast that came from a Harlem production of Godot that had made Hurricane Katrina and the breaking of the levees the central setting/theme of Beckett's work.

David Henry Hwang, most famously known for his play M. Butterfly, has a new production opening at The Public Theater called Yellowface, which blends fact and fiction in describing the central character D.H.H., a playwright who protests Jonathan Pryce's "yellowface" casting/performance as "The Engineer" in Miss Saigon and who struggles with the realization that, years after his Saigon protest, he has cast a white man as a lead in one of his Asian American plays because he believed the man was mixed-race.

For more on the Godot/Chan piece click here.

For more on the Yellowface/Hwang piece, click here.

It's an interesting coincidence that two Asian American artists are featured in the headlined sections of The New York Times and that both pieces discuss the intersections of race, politics, and art.

In particular, there is a quote in the Hwang piece that basically sums up the questions I've been struggling with lately regarding race and how to talk about race in my upcoming book project:

"[H]ow do you talk about the nuances of race, both the desire to get past race and the awareness that racism exists. How do you balance these two?"

How do you indeed...does anyone know?

The White Spokesperson

When I was in grad school I once told a white friend from Alabama (also a fellow grad student) that there were days when I felt tired just walking into the English Department at our New England University because I knew I'd be the only person of color I'd see the whole day (at the time we were in grad school there was one black Caribbean professor who taught Creative writing and one half-Japanese, half-Jewish professor who taught Literature--there were five students of color, all of whom were either Asian or Asian American, not all of whom were still in coursework and so may have been off-campus someplace finishing their dissertations). I was trying to express to my friend the loneliness and psychic drain of being one of less than eight people of color amidst a department and grad student population numbering over sixty to eighty (give or take the vagaries of MA and MFA acceptances each year).

My Alabama friend grew quite defensive, demanding to know if I had experienced bad treatment due to race, if I had ever been a victim of racist remarks, and, quite frankly, disputing how I could feel in any way, shape, or form uncomfortable, especially since I wasn't black, but Asian and an Asian American woman at that, which means that I was not only not reviled but revered in terms of being from a valued minority group.

You can imagine my anger and frustration and deep level of hurt. This was a close friend--someone I had had numerous conversations with about race--someone who expressed, or seemed to express, a real understanding of race and racial politics, especially black-white relations, especially in the South. We argued, at length, but it was only when another friend, a white male friend, rephrased my words and explained to the Alabama friend my feelings of alienation due to race, that the Alabama friend got it.

And that made me even angrier--that it took my white male friend to reinterpret for my white Alabama friend what I was saying--that only through having a white spokesperson was I understood.

I have been thinking about this lately as I've been immersed in reading books about racial passing--especially because this is something that Black Like Me (by John Howard Griffin) does. Griffin, a white man wanting to understand real race relations between blacks and whites in the South in the late 1950s, took a drug that turned his skin dark, tanned himself, and also added vegetable dye to his skin, and traveled throughout the deep South, passing as a black man. The book charts his growing evolution from being a participant-observer to understanding his own racism as a white liberal. And although the book/Griffin does act in this "spokesman" role, in the epilogue, Griffin is also aware of the role he is playing for other whites about a black experience:

"[I]t was my embarrassing task to sit in on meetings of whites and blacks, to serve one ridiculous but necessary function. I knew, and every black man there knew, that I, as a man now white again, could say the things that neeed saying but would be rejected if black men said them" (190-91).

Unfortunately, this still goes on today--sexism is taken more seriously when men talk about it; racism more seriously when whites discuss it; homophobia when straight people take on queer issues. And don't get me wrong--I think we all need allies--we need to stand up for one another as well as ourselves, or perhaps to see that gaybashing is a form of discrimination that hurts all people and sexism hurts men as much as women, and racism impacts all of us. But it'd also be nice not to need white spokespeople to interpret the very painful experiences of racism that people of color experience.

Making a Difference--Part I

Two weeks ago, at my uncle's memorial service, I got up to speak towards the end of the evening--to be one of the "family voices" to commemorate his life. I had actually been asked, by my eldest uncle, to represent the family, and even before he asked me to do this, I had been thinking about what I wanted to share about my uncle--things along the lines of what I wrote a few blog entries back when I first learned that he had died (my own on-line tribute to his life). I ended up being an incoherent mess, which is disappointing both because I tend to be fairly articulate (I do teach for a living) and don't have a problem speaking to large crowds, yet for some reason, this was entirely different--probably the emotional aspect. I also relied on reading the last 2 pages of a freshman composition essay I wrote about an Annie Dillard essay, "The Deer at Providencia" because my uncle features prominently in my essay, and I thought that given the message of Dillard's essay--to understand that there is suffering and pain in the world--to understand that life isn't fair but not to be blind to that unfairness--well, I believed it spoke to the end of my uncle's battle with cancer as well as his own attitude in life. Because in the freshmen composition essay I wrote about how he interrogated me about race at UC Santa Barbara (late 80s) and when I said I didn't think race was a problem (HA! How naiive my younger self was!) he told me that I was choosing not to see that racism existed and that things are far more complicated than their surfaces suggested.

I'm not sure that my remembrances and commemoration of my uncle were well received; in fact, one aunt actually asked me why I chose to talk about racism at the memorial--subtly suggesting (or am I being oversensitive...) that it was an inappropriate topic. But even if she hadn't said this, I could tell.

But here's the thing. Maybe this is not how people wanted to think about my uncle, but for me, he was someone who helped me to understand race and racism in the U.S. and, more importantly, he was someone who wanted to make a difference in the world. He was constantly seeing inequities and injustice and commenting on these issues. And in his own way, I think he also tried to act -- I certainly think he donated to causes and supported people he believed were working to make a difference.

And so, in that spirit, I wanted to invite everyone to think about how they can make a difference in the world. Although this blog is focused on issues of race, and more specifically "mixed race" (although I know I haven't written specifically about mixed race issues in a while, but don't worry--I'll return to this soon!) I also think this blog is about trying to make a difference. It sounds cliche and grandiose to say that I want to make the world a better place. But I think that's the reason my interests led me here. Although big gestures are important for big problems (and we have A TON of those), doing something as small as writing an email message to someone out of the blue to tell them that they are in your thoughts is also about making a difference. We hear so much bad news and feel so powerless to stop the evil of the world. But I think that when we can act, we should--even if it's just to send an email.

Individual Bigotry & Institutional Racism

The first time I remember hearing a formal definition for racism was in my freshman year black studies class, which was an introduction to race class. The professor was clear about defining racism (in the U.S.) in terms of a system of power--in terms of institutions. And that because the system of power (at least in the late 80s although really it is true to this day) was skewed towards white people (and more specifically straight white men), people of color could not be racist. They could exhibit internalized racism or individual acts of bigotry, but because, on the whole, people of color did not have access to systems of power and institutional influence (if you just look at the U.S. government, people of color are either absent or in extreme minority in every branch--executive, legislative, and judicial--and we haven't even talked about the scarcity of people of color who own Fortune 500 companies, major media outlets, or who act as presidents of universities), then they could not be racist.

Although I'm not sure I entirely agree with this definition now (things have *slightly* improved in 20 years, although depending on who you talk to, they may have gotten worse, but more importantly thinking and theorizing about race has also become more nuanced and tried to account for the complexity of race to acknowledge that there are some people of color who actually do wield some institutional influence and a measure of power in which they could act in a racist fashion--let alone hold racist beliefs--Omi & Winant (see list of favorite books to the right) are really great in terms of these issues).

I know I've written about these things before, but I suppose in a blog devoted to mixed race issues, it's not a bad thing to repeat, especially in light of the recent posts around judgment.

Because I think the central question that people have (or that gets debated) is whether people of color can be racist. And the funny thing is, I think for many people there is an automatic answer (either yes, ie: "I know lots of black people who hate white people and treat them badly" or no, ie: "black people may hate white people but they can't force them out of a job").

And we can go back and forth on this question, but the real issue is about history & power. Because history has a long reach and power is nebulous--it isn't just about who holds public office or runs Fortune 500 companies. It's about social and cultural beliefs related to race--and these are harder to overcome than just appointing an African American to be Secretary of State.

Yes, each person is able to discriminate on an individual basis--to perform individual acts of bigotry and hatred--to voice them and in some instances act on them. But racism--this is about the combination of history and power and the residue of that. It's about racial hierarchies and a belief in who fits into a norm or standard--it is about believing there IS a norm or standard to fit into--racially.

I think this post is already long enough so I'm going to save the rest (particularly some examples and why this is even an important topic to talk about) for Part II tomorrow. But as always, feel free to chime in with your comments.

Talking about race

Why is it so hard to talk about race? This may seem a naive/obvious/pointless question to ask, but I come back to it, again and again, when I find myself in situations where race is either the main issue or subtext or pretext of the issue at hand. And all of a sudden it's like there's the proverbial elephant in the room and no one wants to offend and everyone is well intentioned and no one wants to utter the "R" word (racist/racism) and so things get swept under the rug, or not, and people get tense and everyone wants to avoid the confrontation. And more likely than not, this discussion occurs among mixed groups of whites and non-whites, of people of color and non-people of color, and even among people of color and whites, points-of-view don't always adhere the way you think they will.

I'm thinking of a particular case-in-point, but professional courtesy as well as issues of confidentiality prevent me from giving particulars. Suffice it to say, the group in question are all highly educated, liberal minded, people, trained in critical thinking and dedicated in their respective activist causes. And yet, even in such a group of people there is a tendency to hide behind politeness and an unwillingness to probe further the real role of race and white privilege, in order not to offend or because people are well intentioned.

And I admit, I hold my tongue sometimes. Because tension is hard to deal with and everyone wants to be liked and respected and it's hard to be the sole person speaking truth to power, especially when there are things like pre-tenure review and politics of academia. But I also think that at heart, I sometimes hold my tongue, not only because I don't think it's an educational moment or because it's not politically expedient but because I don't want to offend--I am caught up in my gender role of compliant female, of quiet Asian American woman. And perhaps it's not gender or race, perhaps it really just is the desire not to be mired in conflict, not to create tension, to let sleeping dogs lie.

But in my classroom, I espouse and encourage my students to speak honestly about race, and I have made this my top pedagogical priority, because I think there are far too few places to speak honestly and openly about race, particularly in mixed-race settings.

I just feel discouraged over this particular professional incident, because it seems that if the best and brightest and most liberal in our midst can't come to the table to talk about race--if we continue to feel hemmed in by a need not to place blame or not to make people feel uncomfortable, how are we going to address the real issues of inequality, oppression, and racism?

North vs. South -- Part III

This is the last posting about why I prefer North Carolina to South Carolina, and I have to begin with a report I heard on NPR this afternoon that Raleigh, NC was listed as the third most desirable/livable city for African Americans, right behind Atlanta and Washington DC. And Charlotte was also in the Top Ten, with Greensboro, NC coming in at a close #11. Is this a reason for me to prefer North to South Carolina? Well, it certainly doesn't hurt.

Especially because of a comment that was made during a boat tour of the Sea Islands. The tour group was arranged as part of the post-conference ASLE trip to the Penn Center. I have to say that overall the trip was not what was I was expecting. There was a lack of leadership, for one, although I give credit to our guide, Steve, a Furman University professor, for trying to provide some cohesion and organization to our trip. However, the trip was really about the ecology of the area rather than the culture--and yet, it had been billed as a trip that would explore both the ecological and cultural aspects of the region, with an emphasis on educating us about the local Gullah people (made famous by Julie Dash's film Daughters of the Dust). Despite this billing, however, the Gullah portion was only about 2 hours worth of the whole trip.

But I digress.

We're on this 3 hour boat ride around the sea island wetlands/marshlands, and our tour guide and person driving the boat is giving us a local history of the area, the various plantations that were once a part of the landscape, and he mentions, casually, that they were occupied up until the time of the war of northern aggression. Wait, let me repeat that for you. In tones completely unironic and matter-of-fact he referred to the Civil War as THE WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION. And, for anyone who understands the meaning of making this comment in the 21st century to a boat load of liberal, environmentally minded literature professors, 5 of whom are African American, well, lets just say that at that point, if I could have jumped ship, I would. The guide continued on with the history as if he had said nothing out of the ordinary, and I whispered to my friend Sofia that I felt like singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but she cautioned me to stay quiet--this was not an educational moment and this comment was made in the first half hour of the trip. With over 2 hours left, we wanted to return to shore, in tact, and so I remained silent (although largely because I couldn't quite remember the lyrics--only the chorus, and even then I was spotty about whether the line was "The Truth Keeps Marching On"--can't quite remember).

This comment came a day after I was at a bar, on my way to the post-conference trip, trying to catch up on my Tiger Watch--Day 3 of the US Open. I was drinking an Arnold Palmer (half lemonade, half ice tea) and a white couple in their 60s was also watching golf at the bar. The wife was chatty and friendly and struck up a conversation with me, asking what I was doing. When I explained that I was in town for a conference on literature and the environment, her husband snorted derisively and said, "I'm a logger!" to which I said "Oh" and then the bartender, a friendly guy, Darryl, said, "Did you cut down a lot of those big trees?" And Mr. Logger said, "Well, I'm retired now, but I didn't cut down the trees. I carried a gun." "Why a gun?" asked Darryl. "To use against all those people hugging those damn trees!" said Mr. Retired Logger.

All of this was said without irony. Without laughter. To goad.

To which I kept my eye on the TV screen and rooted for Tiger (at this point he was tied for the lead at 3+).

So that's that. I mean, in the scheme of things, these comments could have happened anywhere, and probably do. I know that racism is not confined to single regions of the U.S. and that even the most liberal among us can still have biases and prejudices. And I know that rudeness (which the ex-logger's comments certainly were--rude and uncourteous) could also happen anywhere. But I have been lulled into believing the stereotypes about Southern hospitality and gentility. Guess I'll have to rethink them.

But, I'll say this: it may not be representative of North Carolina, but I like my liberal slice of heaven, and I'd rather take my stand here than anyplace else in "The South." And I don't plan to return to South Carolina anytime soon.

No Diploma for You!

There is a high school in Galesburg, IL (Galesburg High School--go figure) which denied five of their graduates their diplomas on graduate day because their friends and families "cheered" for them as they walked across stage. Apparently Galesburg has been having a problem with rowdy graduations--or more specifically, with people applauding, whistling, yelling, and blowing air horns so loudly that other friends and family can't hear the name of their beloved graduate as they walk across the stage. And so the administrators implemented a "no cheering" policy--and to enforce it, they threatened (and carried out) the punishment that the graduates would not receive their diplomas.

So let me break it down. Five students had their family members reported as cheering too loudly, too racously, too vociferously, during graduation--they upset the sense of dignity and decorum that the Galesburg High School administrators were seeking. They made these students sign contracts that their family members would hold applause until all graduates walked across the stage.

Now. Does it surprise anyone that the five graduates were all students of color? And I don't mean this as in, of course they have rowdy families but rather, of course they were the ones who got nailed--of course they were targeted. According to the article in the NY Times, the families (4 African American, 1 Latino) said that there were white families who cheered, but only they were singled out--only their students were denied their diplomas.

I'm not trying to say that it was a necessarily intentional act of racism. But I do think that people of color often stand out, especially when they are in the minority (not sure if that's the case, but it does seem like it may be). And therefore, these families stood out. And therefore they were singled out. Unintentional racism. Yet racism none-the-less.