CLRJ:
Sorry for this late reply. Had to do some things that needed doing.
This 'old racism' has not decreased to the extent that my Black friend in Pittsburgh (a professor in Carnegie Mellon no less), can step out for an evening stroll without his ID. Once he was almost arrested and flogged for just being a 6' 4" black man in a certain gentrified part of town in the wrong hour of the day.
Typical case of confusing individual racism with institutional racism. In fact, even Obama confused it in Cambridge. He accused a white police officer of acting stupidly (in other words being a racist) when arresting a black man in the night. He didn't know or purposely forgot that the same white officer taught other officers how to be racially sensitive. Imagine that!!! Accusing an officer with impeccable racial record of being racist.
That's what happens. Your black friend encounters a racist white cop, who harasses him, and every one reaches a conclusion that racism is institutionalized in USA. No one bothers to find out that racial sensitivity is officially taught in every govt department and every big company. I have had many such trainings.
Let me give you a personal example. We have a huge multi-level parking in my office building. It is so huge that we need cops to direct traffic - cars coming in, going out; pedestrians walking from cars to office. Always, the cops stop the cars to let pedestrians cross the roads. In my case, I was walking across the parking lanes toward the office building, and a car was coming in to the parking area. I couldn't see the car because I was walking through other parked cars. As I walked into a lane in which that car was coming in, a black cop standing nearby signaled me to stop, let the car drive through and then signaled me to walk by. If I thought like a typical minority, I would have thought that the black cop was being racist and he deliberately stopped me and let the car go while the norm was that pedestrians got preference. That thought never crossed my mind. I just thought that the cop was doing his job.
Your friend was "once" "almost" arrested. Since you are using the qualifiers "once" and "almost", I can guess that your friend has not faced these situations often. This is a clear case of a bad apple. You can't say that the whole system is racist.
1. It began in its present during the early fifties, when Eisenhauer's great network of national highways allowed the white middle class to escape to the suburbs, paving the way for the ghettoization of Black inner city neighborhoods and the depletion of Black school districts.
This is great. I want to understand what exactly should happen in your opinion? If whites feel threatened by crime and want to move away from a place, you want them to stay there and suffer simply to show that they are not racist?
I don't understand the point here. You seem to be saying that because white moved away from the city, blacks suffered because the money moved away from the city too with whites. I mean, what do you want whites to do? Heck, I'm not white and I wouldn't want to live in the inner city. I'm sure even you wouldn't like to live in inner city unless it has a gated community and private school for your kids. No one likes crime.
About the Black School districts. I know that you know that public school all over US are funded by county taxes. It is a known fact that black majority counties have less tax receipts and therefore less money for public school. In such cases, they receive funds from state and federal govt. I will digress for a moment here and ask you one question:
Question - When a black person reaches a certain financial level, why does he himself move away from the black majority area where he was living? Why does he not stay there so that his tax dollar can be used (even if it is an iota) to uplift the area?
Blacks move away from the very area you are talking about - ghetto - when they improve their financial condition. Why?
Back to the point, counties receive state and federal funds for public schools. Now let me ask another question - D.C. Schools are ranked 50th in USA. D.C. public schools receive probably the highest dollar amount of funding. So, the question arises - Why are D.C. school ranked last in the nation when they receive probably the highest amount of funding?
Answer - It all goes back to the home. Blacks have the highest percentage of single parent families (more than 63%). Usually the single parent is either too drugged to keep track of the child or is working. In any case, it is a well known phenomenon that single parents can't take care of their kids effectively. As a result, the unmonitored child takes up wild activities from a young age. It is no surprise that his grade are at the bottom.
Racism is not always the cause of everything. Sometimes you have to do a little bit of soul searching too. Listen to Bill Cosby and you will understand what I am saying. He has been shouting for decades that blacks should stop blaming whites for all their ills and start owning up to their own actions and responsibilities. He has been shouting for decades that all this malaise starts at home. A broken home more often than not nurtures a broken child. There is statistic to prove this. A big majority of criminals come from single parent households. Why is it that the result of blacks abdicating their responsibility is blamed on racism?
Back to the escape theory, first we need to understand why whites "escaped" to suburbs. What were they escaping from?
Now, I ask you, would you go out for an evening stroll in an inner city neighborhood? If not, why not? Aren't you being a racist in being afraid even though you have not been attacked yet?
2. Ghettoization means of course, also the flight of 'respectable' businesses and jobs from entire neighborhoods, the 'gating' of respectable communities, and the intensification of violent policing and racial profiling in the 'suspect' areas. When there is such a 'virtual' segregation of the city, it is no wonder that with the flight of respectable businesses and jobs from certain quarters, the vacuum is filled up with crime and drugs. It is a system and the system works in a cycle.
You are listing symptoms here. You are not discussing the cause. Why do "respectable" businesses fly? Why do they move away? Since you are putting that as the starting point of ghettoization, you should also analyze why it happens? Why do people move away from inner city? For every cyclic system there is always a starting point. Let us discuss that. If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that ghettos wouldn't be there is respectable businesses and jobs didn't move away from the city? So, why do you think businesses and jobs move away?
3. Think about the underfunded schools in black neighborhoods. In the classic instances, a Black male child has basically four big scenarios around him: grossly overpopulated, underfunded schools that give you a very low quality education, a neighborhood basketball court, a nightclub where you can do stand-up comedy or sing, and sex, drugs, plus pistols. From the first you have a nominal Black middle class (demographic numbers in Queens NYC for example bolstered hugely by successful immigrants from West Indies and some African countries) that emerge from an uneven playing field, from the second and third you have exceptional 'poster-child' freaks like Michael Jordan or Eddie Murphy, and from the fourth you have the huge disposable population of Blacks that populate US prisons in numbers strangely disproportionate to their demographic percentages.
First of all I take issue with the notion you are presenting here, specially the part where Jordan and Murphy are put up as "freaks" or exceptions, rather than expected. Which race is ruling NFL or NBA today? Answer - Blacks. Sports has become a realistic profession for blacks. Not just the highest level Pro sports but they find lot of regular jobs in sports too.
Having said that, the issue that I have is that you are trying to present a scenario that nearly all of the black kids are having to study in overpopulated and underfunded schools, and as a result they find it difficult to find job and have a regular life. Well, let me tell you something. Unemployment in blacks is about 15%. This means that 85% of blacks of working age blacks do study and are able to find jobs. Does this FACT align with the scenario you are presenting in any way, shape, or form? Just read again, what you have written above. You are presenting such a gloomy picture that makes it sound as if 90-95% of blacks are sitting at home doing nothing. Reality is opposite.
It seems like you are standing in today's time and painting a picture that represents time of 40 years ago.
No one is saying that school in black area are never underfunded or overpopulated. They are, and so are many schools in many white areas too. Whose fault is it that these schools are underfunded? As I said above, schooled get their funds from county tax receipts, then get state and federal funds on top of that. So, if schools of black areas are underfunded, it is not because of institutionalized racism, but because of less tax receipts by the county. That is so because of unemployment. Unemployment is not there because of racism, I think we would agree on that.
And let us talk about this black male child, or even black female child. No child is a born criminal. So, let me ask you, does this child come from a regular home or a single parent home? If single parent, then who is monitoring him in his growing years? Ultimately, who is responsible for this child? The parent(s) or someone else? When a child looses his way, it is the parents who have to bear the blame of the child losing his way. It is the parents who are responsible for him, no one else. Parents should never expect someone else to come and mentor the child (although there are big brother, big sister mentor programs running). Financial hardship cannot be used as an excuse for the child becoming a criminal. Back in India, the maid who used to come to my house had 3 kids. She was house maid in few houses and her husband drove a rickshaw. Her kids used to come with her once in a while, I am telling you they were extremely well behaved kids. I would be surprised to see how good they were. This lady would send them to govt school without fail. Govt school was a footpath school with one teacher. Slowly, she put them in a regular govt school. Few years ago, while chatting on yahoo, my mom told me that maid's daughter got married and one thing led to another and she told me that all 3 of her kids had passed college and were working. This, from a maid in India, a 3rd world country without making use of affirmative action protections or anything.
As I said, if the parents have it in their heart, that they want the best for their kids, then they will get it done. My parents got it done, your parents got it done, you are doing it, I am doing it. Blacks in USA are no different. All they need to do is to not cry racism but actually get it done; and there are a hell lot of blacks who actually get it done. If the depressing scenario that you described above was really true in all cases, then we would not be have 15% unemployment in blacks. It would 85% unemployment.
4. The system is about what, in classical political and juridical philosophy, is called nominalism. That is, the act of artificially imparting a name or a face to a projected improvement. Ergo, all is fine because we have successful, mega rich individual 'blacks' like Will Smith or Tiger Woods, just as we have a low caste Mayavati on the rampage in India. But what these faces and poster-children hide in our celebrity obsessed, media driven society, is the overall picture. Perceptions can indeed be very tricky. One of my colleagues is a media sociologist. What his research establishes is very funny: pretend that you spend five years watching every television show and movie coming out of Hollywood. Next, pick a 'respectable' high-end profession (Black Doctor or Black Police Commissioner) and count the number (in terms of percentages and frequency) of such figures you have seen in all these shows and films. Next, spend five years visiting the pertinent offices (Police Stations or Hospitals as the case may be) across the country in real life. You will realize that you are likely yo encounter a black doctor on TV almost twice as much and twice as frequently as you would in real life.
I Don't see the relevance here. Movies show a lot of black cops and I do see lot of black cops in real life. I also find it interesting that you friend spent 5 years visiting different offices. Did he really do that or was he just making an assumption?
I understand that what you are saying is that now Hollywood too has a role to play in discrimination, in the sense that they portray blacks in respectable jobs and common man thinks that if blacks are well-to-do on TV then they must be well-to-do in real life too!! So, common man also thinks that because Hollywood shows mostly blacks as crooks, so most blacks must be crooks. Interesting. I'm sure that what we see does have some effect on our subconscious, but this much? Really?
I think the deduction your friend is reaching, that Hollywood images affect the subconscious of people, may work on people coming to USA from other countries. They don't have not seen USA before. The only image they have is that of what they see in English movies. That's true, but we are not talking about them. We are talking about people born here, living here. I don't think what is shown in movies affect them so much that they start believing it to be true. I don't think people living in US are so dumb. That's my opinion.
5. Once again, this 'institutionalization' works largely on impersonal registers. Stupid racists are stupid racists, the dregs of this earth, but it is important to understand how such social conditions create 'self images' for black people themselves along with creating stereotypes for others. Precisely because it is systemic and does not work on a person-to-person basis, and because the great reforms of the sixties is just over a generation old (I take the usual rule of counting 40 years for a demographic generation), to this day Blacks inherit negative self images about their own selves. Many of them, growing up in despondent conditions, do believe that rap, basketball, comedy, or crime are their only routes to either fame or notoriety. My aforementioned friend had a slightly different background because his father was from Grenada. But what was striking is that after he started school in an ivy league, there was an almost automatic distance that grew between him, his cousins, and his extended family at large. This prompted a hostile reaction from his grandmother, who summarily declared that being book smart was a white thing.
Stereotypes are powerful things. They not only affect racists and non-racists in different degrees, but also the victims. They effect me when I am driving. It has been my experience that black people jaywalk with a majestic swagger a lot of time. Much more than people from other races. When I am driving, especially in Chicago, I instinctively become extra careful when I see young black men roadside. Often I have to brake when they cross the street with a lot of flourish and devil may care attitude. This is how I look at it: it is a habitual gesture to confront a system that has screwed them. It is perhaps a way to assert their identity, their being, and their very presence in a world where they are otherwise invisible. It is a systemic psychological condition, both on my part and his. I do not take it personally. I suspect he does not either.
How does all this fit into racism being institutionalized? Whole discussion has been about racism being institutionalized in USA. I have made a point that racism is illegal in USA. If it is illegal, how can it be institutionalized? You have civil rights amendments, you have affirmative action. How can racism still be institutionalized?
You have a grandma who is angry at her grandson because he became educated. Wow!! You have a jay walker who has a swagger because he thinks system screwed him, so he must screw the system. Now, I ask again, is the system really screwing him? Did the system screw him or did his father screw him by abandoning him before his birth and as a result him growing up without a father figure to look up to, without any one to monitor him, correct him at the right time, and as a result him following the wrong path, and then looking at others prosper and him in the dumps, and blaming the system.
Does any black person ever has any personal responsibility or not? As I said before, it all starts at home. Why is the grandma angry? Why is she acting like a moron and reprimanding her grandson for being successful rather than putting him up as a symbol of success to others in the family? It is this moron-ness that gives birth to the swagger that the jay walker has. Who tells the jay walker that the system screwed him? His mom? His dad? What lesson are they giving him? He isn't a born rule breaker. He got his teachings at home. There are many successful black people today. What was different in their childhood and this jay walker's childhood? Has anyone tried to analyze that?
Everything starts at home. I am a minority in USA. I can start telling my son the same thing that this jay walker hears at home. I too can tell my son that he should be aware of the "crackers" as they will try to screw him at every opportunity. I can tell him that he needn't work hard for success, he should demand it as it is his birth right. I don't do that. I take great pains to not let such thoughts seep in his mind.
You can say it is easy for me to do it because I have a job and some money, but most blacks don't. My question - So what are they doing about it except screaming racism? Why do they let their kids get out of hand? Why do they have more broken homes than any other group?
Blacks aren't the only ones who go in crime. Every ethnic race does. Blacks aren't the only ones who are poor, every ethnic race has poor.
You think wrong my friend. Why are such hyphenated identities reserved only for people of color? Now do not bring in the Irish or the Italians. They were not considered much better than 'niggers' (recall 'Blazing Saddles' or "The Godfather"). Do we have terms like British-American or French-American or German-American in common usage? No. Why? Because they are first amongst equals. Have you ever heard of a more ridiculous term than Native-American? What does that automatically mean? That the core 'American' identity is reserved for the Anglo-Germanic white races.
Actually, there are German-Americans. That is indeed a term that exists.
Anyway, As I have said, I too don't like these terms, but you do know that USA did not start off as a country of indigenous people. It started off as a country of immigrants. I am talking from the time settlers came here to stay. Other European countries have been countries of indigenous people. With that as background, USA is one country where people have tried to maintain their identity from their heritage. Since everyone was an immigrant, they wanted to keep their heritage alive. Since majority of people here, post colonies settling, were white, that culture became the "American" culture. Native American is a different debate, let us skip that here. So, the land of USA was ruled by whites, hence their culture became the American culture, since they were the majority. I, as a minority, don't resent that. I live by the fact that majority rules, and it is up to the minority to assimilate. I maintain my Indian culture without any problem, but I prefer calling myself as American (after getting citizenship), rather than Indian American.
You ask why hyphenated identities are reserved only for people of color. First, that is not so. Many white communities have their hyphenated identities. Second, since majority of people in this land are whites, it is obvious that they will consider themselves to be "americans" (even though historically they too are migrants). What I say here is that the hyphenated identities were not forced on people of color. They adopted it to identify themselves since the time African American identity was adopted by blacks. That's my understanding.
Factually wrong. Blacks did not begin to call themselves African-Americans. I know hardly any black people who use the term positively, unless they are professionally compelled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American#The_term_.22African_American.22Excerpts:In this same period, a smaller number of people favored Afro-American. In the 1980s the term African American was advanced on the model of, for example, German-American or Irish-American to give descendents of American slaves and other American blacks who lived through the slavery-era a heritage and a cultural base.[124] The term was popularized in black communities around the country via word of mouth and ultimately received mainstream use after Jesse Jackson publicly used the term in front of a national audience, subsequently major media outlets adopted its use.[124]
Many blacks in America expressed a preference for the term, as it was formed in the same way as names for others of the many ethnic groups in the nation. Some argued further that, because of the historical circumstances surrounding the capture, enslavement and systematic attempts to de-Africanize blacks in the United States under chattel slavery, most African Americans are unable to trace their ancestry to a specific African nation; hence, the entire continent serves as a geographic marker.
For many, African American is more than a name expressive of cultural and historical roots. The term expresses pride in Africa and a sense of kinship and solidarity with others of the African diaspora—an embrace of pan-Africanism as earlier enunciated by prominent African thinkers such as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois and George Padmore.
This is the strangest thing I have ever heard. The term 'nigger' is used among blacks flippantly, ironically, self-deprecatingly. That is precisely why they will not tolerate it from anyone else: historically it has been a category of abuse that they have had to withstand for centuries. I wonder why you find that so surprising. Historically disenfranchised groups often teasingly bandy terms between themselves that they will not accept from the mouth of any other person. Why 'nigger'? There are hundred such examples. Highly educated, well to do women often call each other 'b***hes' when they get together with old school friends and catch up on the evil gossip. How do you think they would react if you or I addressed them as such?
I find it quite unbelievable that you are falling for this fantasy peddled by the likes of Sharpton and Jackson.
Let me say, if I slap my wife, it is okay; if you slap my wife, I will shoot you. Is there anything wrong in this sentence?
Yes, highly educated women may call their other friends 'b***hes'. So? If a white woman is friends with two black women, they meet after some time, and in their friendly talk black women call each other 'b**ch' and in the same vein the white woman too addresses them using the same word, is the word spoken by the white woman offensive but the same word spoken by black women isn't? How do you come to a conclusion that the white woman is not saying that word in a friendly manner, but saying it to degrade black women?
Should there be a rule that white can never ever use certain words with blacks, even when they use it in the same friendly manner that blacks do? Why? If the use of the word is bad, then it is bad. It cannot be bad for me and okay for you. There can not be different standards for the same thing.
In India, many people refer to Muslims degradingly by the word 'Katua'. The word has sex organ connotations. It is bad, and even Muslims don't address each other by this word. So, it's usage is bad for anyone and everyone.
Read the link provided by adhunikbarbarian. That's view of one black person on why he wouldn't want to be called the N-word by
anyone.
AuthorTopic: Where is the justice? (Read 1572 times)
November 12, 2006, 10:38:44 AM