I was going to write about the much maligned and misquoted Dorothy Parker today, one of my favorite women, but then realized that Women’s History Month is in March, and this is still Black History Month and I hadn’t given 12% of the calendar (or 12% of the US population) their due. I realize I’m only scratching the surface with this, but it’s waaay too big for one person and one blog. And a white blogger at that.
First, a story. Years ago, I was teaching an adult-ed class at Northeastern University in Boston. This was in the mid-eighties, during the Tawana Brawley incident. For those of you not living in New York (or were too young to remember those years), I’ll make an ugly chapter in Black History short: an African American teenager named Tawana Brawley was discovered in a condo complex in Wappingers Falls New York, naked in a black plastic bag and smeared with racial epithets written in feces, and said a group of white cops had attacked her and left her there. Al Sharpton descended and basically called the people who lived in Dutchess County (where I grew up, and as color-blind and educated a populace as I defy you to find outside of Manhattan) a bunch of racist honky crackers and demanded justice. Pete Seeger (who lives in the county) organized a protest. It was all over the news. Turned out the girl made the whole story up because she was out late misbehaving and didn’t want to get in trouble. Meanwhile Sharpton ruined DA Steven Pagones’s career, (Pagones sued for defamation and won; Sharpton claimed poverty and dragged his heels on producing payment), and cost the county millions of dollars in legal expenses and god knows how much in good will. Tawana quietly went away but I’m taking bets that one day you’ll see her on celebrity boxing facing off against Tanya Harding.
So. I was in the classroom packing up to go home, and one student was left, a middle-aged African-American woman. We started a conversation and began walking to the T stop. Somehow we got talking about Al Sharpton. “Well, that fool doesn’t represent me,” she said, standing up a little straighter.
Yet these are the representatives, the guys who are first to the microphones when any African American individual or interest is wronged. You get Al. You get Louis Farrakhan. You get Jesse Jackson. They speak eloquently and whip up the masses. But what are they whipping them up to do? Burn down their own communities? Continue hating white people? Continuing to believe that young African Americans have no future and no hope because the Big White Government won’t give them enough money or adequate opportunities? Because they haven’t yet been given their 40 acres and a mule? Cripes. Where are we going to find 40 acres for every African American man, woman and child in this country? How about an apology instead? (oh, right, Clinton did that) Well, then, how about a cat? Or some of Reagan’s leftover government cheese?
I never got my apology. I’m a left-handed agnostic female Unitarian Jew. Left-handed people and agnostics and women used to be burned at the stake. And what Hitler did to the Jews pales against the actions of Stalin or the former czars of Russia. God knows how many of my relatives were killed by marauding Cossacks. While they were praying in synagogue yet. Hell. They ought to give me Disneyland.
But seriously…where are the Martin Luther King’s of our time, demanding not just justice but reason? Where are the Ghandis?
Oh, right. Somebody shot them.
But Dr. King would be disgusted if he were alive today. By the healthy young black men selling coke on the streetcorners of the cities of the Hudson Valley, and elsewhere. By gang-bangers shooting each other up. By kids calling each other the "n" word. And he'd be heartbroken to see that nothing had been done about his dream. That this is a world not united but still divided, and worse, divided by choice.
Colleges have black fraternities and white fraternities, by choice.
Their dining halls have black tables and white tables, by choice.
Walk through the mall and black kids are over here and white kids are over there.
Studies were done years ago showing that girls learned better in an atmosphere free from boys. So all-girls schools were established. An African American woman in the Bronx extended the model and started an all-black-girls school in the Bronx. They almost lost their funding because they were accused of discrimination – not against whites but against boys.
Are we really back to the days of “separate but equal?” What will be next? Health clubs? Restaurants? TV networks? (all right, I think we have that already) But I seem to remember who was an advocate for separate but equal. Governor George Wallace. And someone shot him, too.
I hope to hell that this isn’t the truth, but perhaps the pendulum has to swing all the way around before we can see a glimmer of that dream again.
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4 comments:
It's always been interesting to me, noting how racial dynamics play. Al Sharpton claims that blacks cannot be racist, because racism is, by definition, a tool used by those in power to oppress the powerless. If you are powerless, you cannot be racist.
Many years ago, I was bemused when one of the actors on ER -- Alex Kingston, who plays the British chick doctor -- decided she did not want her character to date a black man on the show. She declared that this sent the wrong message to young white girls, telling them that they had to look outside their own culture and ethnicity to find happiness. She demanded that the producers of ER hire a Caucasian actor and create a part for this actor specifically to be her romantic interest.
Of course, the producers were horrified at this blatant racism, and they fired Kingston immediately. The press got hold of it and pilloried her as a hateful bigot, labeling her 'Ms. Anti-Miscegnation'. She was forced to change her name and move to the other side of the world, and will never work in show business again...
Oh, wait, I'm wrong. It was actually Eriq LaSalle who did all that, saying he felt it sent the wrong message to young black men for his character to be dating a white woman. He demanded that the producers hire a black actress to portray a new character who would be his True Love... and... um... well...
...they went right out and hired Michael whatshesrname from HOMICIDE, making up a role for her out of thin air, because, you know, when you're black and you're being a racist prick, claiming that it sets a terrible example to young children to see a happy interracial couple on the tube, why, you're not racist at all. You're just protecting the cultural and ethnic identity of a minority people.
Isn't that nice?
Everyone's just horrified at the thought of being called racist. Remember when some black writer railed against the Cosby show, saying that this wasn't a "real" black family. (meaning they weren't on welfare or dealing drugs, and they actually had some money they earned with professional jobs?)
You just can't win.
Ok, first off, what happened to all the fluff? Too much seriousness, not enough puppies.
That said, well, given that I basically wrote this blog entry years ago, saying that I agree with you is gilding the lily.
Racial relations in this country are so messed up it makes the Gordian knot look like a standard shoelace tie. I remember that Cosby show complaint, and I remember feeling that the person who made it should be taken out and shot. You have to wonder what the motivation is for people who want to destroy all positive role models for any given ethnic group.
If they're not of that ethnicity, well, it's pretty clear that they simply want to keep that group down. (Like Earl Lee Ray) But if they are of that group, and want to discourage positive role models for it, one can only assume that it means they don't want to be reminded of how lazy and ignorant they are being by being presented with an example of how much better their life could be if they were willing to put any effort into making it a good one. (Like the Black Panthers that shot Malcolm X)
I'm a white male, and I'm in my mid-30s. I am a member of the most hated demographic group in existence, the one perceived as having all the money and the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen. So it doesn't matter what my motivations are for anything I say, if I offer any criticism of any minority, I am labelled as racist, homophobic, sexist, etc... Hell, even if I just stand around and whistle the accusations will come. So, I really don't expect anyone to believe me, and nowadays I'm hard-pressed to even care if they do, when I say that I offer these criticisms, not to insult, or preen, or anything negative.
The truth is not an insult. The truth is not bragging. The truth is not oppression. Those who perceive it as such have problems they are unwilling to address, for whatever reasons, and therefore treat the truth as anathema, because it forces them to acknowledege that which they do not care to countenance: that sometimes, the source of their problems is not a convenient outside source to be blamed, but comes from within.
In the case of American blacks, I'll absolutely agree that their problems were created in the beginning by white men. Yes, absolutely, hell yes. But they are being perpetuated from within. How long would racist beliefs against blacks exist if none of them sold drugs, shot up neighborhoods, or whatever? Oh, sure, you'd have your holdouts, your Earl Lee Rays, your Thurman Thomases, but you wouldn't have this culture of fear that exists today.
I work at a university with lots of black employees, and every one of them I've met is a hard-working, dependable guy that has done nothing but impress me with his skills and dedication. But when it's late at night, and I'm alone on the street, and a group of young black men is coming down the walk toward me, I start praying, and hold my breath until they pass. Why? Because although every black man I've gotten to know has been dependable, hard-working, etc... all I ever read in the news is how some black guy killed someone, or shot someone, or raped someone, or whatever. All I see on MTV is young black men bragging on their drug sales and how many girls are expecting their kids and how many cops they've 'busted a cap in'.
Basically, the media is telling me I've just been lucky so far. And who are young black men emulating? Dr. Martin Luther King jr.? Malcolm X? George Washington Carver? Bill friggin' Cosby?
No. Their role models are very people that the media has taught us to fear: Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tenacious D, Notorious B.I.G., etc... Their role models are carreer criminals like Kobe Bryant, Mike Tyson, etc...
Anyone here know what the number one cause of death for young black men is? Anyone? Anyone?
The number one cause of death for young black men is young black men.
That's more of that truth stuff. Ok, well, I'm a white male, so everything I just said is a vicious lie, and proves that I'm racist as all hell, so, whatever.
Nate,
Some days I just have that "not-so-fluffy" feeling.
Well said.
Verification word: rhybg. Didn't they back up Ludakris at the Grammies?
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