A conversation about race
March 24th, 2008, 6:25 am · Post a Comment · posted by fsherman
Obama said he wanted to start a conversation about race. Unfortunately, a lot of the conversation is coming from the mouths of bigots.
Consider, for example, this post from the Instapunk blog about Obama: “You see, you’ve just given life to the suspicion that black people in America are, and have long been, a fifth column — unanimously hating the very country that has afforded the highest standard of living ever achieved by black people in human history. We’re teetering at the edge of believing that you’re a secret society, a massive collection of sleeper cells just waiting for your chance to do serious harm to the rest of us. You’ve made it possible for us to believe that. Because you’re never outraged by what the worst black people do. Because you continue to make excuses for what should be inexcusable to everyone.”
Sleeper cells? Not sharing Instapunks attitude toward African Americans equates to a terrorist network?
And as Glenn Reynolds points out, white candidates aren’t required to express outrage on white behaviour: Nobody requires Bush to specifically say he despises Timothy McVeigh or to offer an opinion on white teens wearing their pants too low, but journalist Tim Russert finds it perfectly logical, apparently, to ask Obama (and in an earlier interview, Colin Powell), to criticize singer Harry Belafonte for making negative comments about Bush (no white interviewees have been asked that question.)
The post also makes an argument that I’ve heard before and always annoys me: “Here’s the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE [n-word—and yes, he actually used the word]. Black people know it. White people know it.”
If the blogger had said that some black people are obnoxious, annoying, inconsiderate or vile, fair enough: Every category of human beings—white, Catholic, Republican, Democrat, atheist, black, Greek, Baptist—contains obnoxious, annoying, inconsiderate and vile people.
But the n-word isn’t short-hand for “You are not a good human being.” In this kind of discussion, used by a self-confessed “old white guy” it’s an insult and a racist smear (and yes, I’m aware some African Americans use it in conversation, but that doesn’t change my opinion any). While Instapunk says he doesn’t want it in general use, he also applies it not only to public figures he despises—Jeremiah Wright, OJ Simpson—but to teens with baggy pants, spinning rims on their car wheels, listening to rap music.
