2 Americas
Recently Liz at Los Angelista had a tongue-in-cheek kind of post about the media hysteria surrounding an impending "race war". Check it out:
"This race thing… it’s dicey." "We’re on the brink of a race war."
I heard these statements on MSNBC yesterday morning before I took my kids to school. I peered outside to check out whether folks were giving each other beat downs on the corner, because you know, out here in LA, we seemingly know how to do "race war" very well. As you know, we will burn this city up over, oh, little things like white cops getting acquitted for beating down a black man named Rodney King. So who knows what LA would do in a situation where a politician's playing games and making racially charged insinuations about another candidate, and then blaming that candidate for the whole thing. Only a very heightened sense of superiority would allow an individual to believe that we will follow the marching orders and act like what we heard said does not mean what we think it means. You know we're crazy out here, right? We're so psycho in LA that we might continue to misinterpret, misunderstand and take some quotes out of context. And then what might happen? We might burn down this entire city, which would definitely mean no Oscars. And then, what the heck! We might call up our friends who moved up the 15 Freeway to Las Vegas in search of affordable housing and tell them to go ahead and destroy Las Vegas too. I mean, we are having a race war so we do need to live up to the hype. Burn, baby, burn!" (Read it all right here)
The following is what I said in response to Liz's post:
"I find it comical that people believe that race doesn't matter just because they say so. Race was part of this whole process long before Clinton's remarks. To think otherwise is to engage in delusion. Also the so called race war was declared long ago it is simply asymmetrical. Predatory lending, discrimination in housing, employment, health care, the criminal justice system, and education, police brutality, the epidemic of stress related diseases, the mass medicating and tracking into "special education" of our children, discriminatory implementation of "zero tolerance" policies, nooses popping up all over the country. There's a race war alright, it's against people of color and people of color are losing big time. We have to wake up from this "we are the world" narcotized state and see what is really going on in our country. The politicians are clueless and don't offer an ounce of leadership regarding these issues, not one of them. The propaganda of the so called "post racial" America is a dangerous opiate. This brother refuses to fall asleep."
Strong words? You betcha. This Baha'i blogger ain't playin'.
I've come to the conclusion recently that there really are two Americas, to borrow a phrase from a certain not-to-be-named politician. In one America, racism is no longer a problem. The real problem is people like myself who insist on talking about race. If we would just stop talking about it, everything would be cool, we could all just go about participating in our consumption driven, materialistic culture with joy! In this America, people like myself are accused of being "race pimps" and playing the "race card". This America proudly proclaims itself as "post-racial" and views those primitive inhabitants of the other America with a mixture of compassion and contempt. In the other America, racism is still a problem and plays far too much of a role in the quality of life of way too many people. People in this America know racism is a problem because their daily experiences provide ample evidence. You could say that we have reached a moment in our history where the meaning of the color line has evolved. Today it is not so much about the division between whites and people of color but between those who believe that the color line still matters and those who believe it doesn't.
Between these two Americas there is a borderland for people who believe that racism and the problems it breeds still exist but that things are not as bad as they used to be. I'd say that Algernon Austin and John McWhorter are good examples of this view, though they approach it differently. A fair minded person must acknowledge progress has been made regarding race in America. I disagree with those "soldiers of negation" who claim that nothing has changed for blacks since slavery or that things are worse today than during the period before the Civil Right era. However, no amount of statistical data showing that there are fewer black people living in misery and oppression than in the past offers comfort to those who are living that way right now. Telling the black child who will go to bed hungry tonight that there are fewer kids like her this year than last year will not fill her belly with food. I'm not interested in engaging in intellectual debates about whether the glass of racial progress is half-full or half-empty. I want a full glass period. Anything else is unacceptable to me. It is towards a full glass that we must all strive if we are to achieve a truly "post-racial" America. Until then, the idea that we have already arrived is at best wishful thinking and at worst a deliberate attempt to avoid our moral responsibility.
"Justice is, in this day, bewailing its plight, and Equity groaneth beneath the yoke of oppression. The thick clouds of tyranny have darkened the face of the earth, and enveloped its peoples."
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 92)
25 comments:
Tell 'em what's really real Phillipe. Personally, I think of the divide as one between people who believe that racial problems are completely attitudinal and people who recognize that they are institutional. All the goodwill and positivity in the world can't overcome the racial divide as long as the actions and policies of our country's institutions continue to produce unjust outcomes, and particularly as long as Black communities lack the institutional capacity to resist assaults by the majority. That, in my view, is why the House of Justice wrote ". . .as the House of Justice has been trying to get the friends to understand for some time, the necessary precondition to translation of our community’s social vision into reality is a massive expansion in the number of committed, deepened believers who are well-grounded in the essentials of the Cause. Those who fail to comprehend the urgency assigned to the objective of achieving a large expansion have obviously failed to appreciate the moral imperative behind this aim."
--On behalf of the Universal House of Justice, to an individual believer, 1 April 1996
Conversely, no amount of personal racial animosity can have a lasting effect when racial justice and Black prosperity are established on a firm institutional basis in this country. This is an arena for folks who are ready to put in fieldwork in the trenches, whether it's in their local neighborhoods or in the highest institutions of the land, over many decades.
Brothaman Malik. Welcome back it has been a long time. I completely agree that much of the talk recently in the media has been entirely about racism as an attitude problem, rather than an institutional problem. This is a real trivializing of race that completely disregards or seeks to actively distract people from the continued disproportionate negative impact of institutionalized racism on black Americans dramatized most recently by the Jena 6 episode and more catastrophically by Hurricane Katrina (which people seem to have virtually forgotten). I agree that a focus on social and economic development would be more fruitful than the racial theater of jumping up and down because "maybe" someone made a racist remark here or there.
The hubbub over the remarks Don Imus made about those black female basketball players was a great example of this kind of thing. In addition, we need to focus on the psychospiritual healing of our people, and addressing real systemic discrimination when it occurs, such as the effort to change discriminatory sentencing laws regarding crack vs. powder cocaine.
Brothaman Malik. Welcome back it has been a long time. I completely agree that much of the talk recently in the media has been entirely about racism as an attitude problem, rather than an institutional problem. This is a real trivializing of race that completely disregards or seeks to actively distract people from the continued disproportionate negative impact of institutionalized racism on black Americans dramatized most recently by the Jena 6 episode and more catastrophically by Hurricane Katrina (which people seem to have virtually forgotten). I agree that a focus on social and economic development would be more fruitful than the racial theater of jumping up and down because "maybe" someone made a racist remark here or there.
The hubbub over the remarks Don Imus made about those black female basketball players was a great example of this kind of thing. In addition, we need to focus on the psychospiritual healing of our people, and addressing real systemic discrimination when it occurs, such as the effort to change discriminatory sentencing laws regarding crack vs. powder cocaine.
Not just socio-economic development, but institutional development, beginning with the family, and including our institutions of civil leadership.
Malik, an important distinction. Thanks for making it, it has refined my thinking on this issue. Keep it up my man.
Oh, any chance of seeing you at the ABS conference in August '08?
I'm going to be changing jobs soon, so I can't really say, but I'd love to come if I have the opportunity. I won't be able to make it to the Day Finders conference either because my community in Augusta is hosting the Baghdadi Conference (whose theme will be the most vital and challenging issue!), but I'll give you a shout out and send some love ya'lls way.
P.S. I shot you an e-mail at your yahoo account if you haven't already seen it.
Phillipe,
Between the blogs that you, Malik and Liz have been writing, I've been doing some serious praying and thinking. I'm not sure what it is exactly that I'm supposed to be doing right now concerning this so-called "race war" (it's been going on since our ancestors landed here, in one form or another), but I do know that no politician CAN speak openly and honestly about race relations in this country, neither Hillary or Brother Obama. That may be a "duh" statement but people out have been making some pretty outrageous statements concerning race relations as the result of this "race card" Democratic campaign mess. I just have to grit my teeth and say "Is There Any Remover of Difficulties Save God?" a couple hundred times whenever I read another irritating statement from either the politicians or the public at large. It seems that nonsense and sound bites are more important than substance, integrity and honesty.
It's up to us (us as in both blacks and whites, Baha'is and non-Baha'is) to keep the truth ball in play. I'm ready for whatever. Personally, I would like to see the day that my grandson (who's father is white) turns to me and says, "Nana, was there a time when the color of your skin made some people hate you?" And I want to be able to say to him, "Well, yes, but all that's behind us now, Xavier."
I said the same thing when my children were small. And I'm tired of talking.
Phillipe
For a reader, not in the USA, could you elaborate on "... and tracking into "special education" of our children ..."
Pauline
Angela, keep hope alive girl! I'm looking forward to my children's children living in the kind of America you envision. Folks have to understand that we will not get there with empty racial theatrics. It requires a revolution of consciousness and the radical reorganization of the social order which is exactly what the Baha'i Faith is all about.
Pauline, tracking into special education basically means teachers deciding that children, because of allegedly cognitive, emotional or behavioral issues cannot be in classes with the general population of kids and need to be in "special classes". In America, a disproportionate number of the kids sent to these classes are black. This has implications for their entire educational experience.
Dear Phillipe,
Once again I'm just floored with admiration and appreciation for your message. As someone with a very privileged upbringing, I can't say how many voices of "If you act like it's not there, then it won't be" have bombarded me throughout my life. No wonder so many of us who can afford it choose to indulge in materialistic distractions! The truth is hard to bear... but it's infinitely better than fanciful delusion. Thanks for bringing the clarity back. What can someone like me do to help keep the truth ball in play (in Angela's words)?
Many thanks and lots of love,
Dorri
Phillipe
Thank you for that clarification, so when someone moves from the mainstream class to a special class I guess they are stuck there. I can see why that is an issue. It would appear that special education is failing some of these students who have been failed by the mainstream. Isn't it the aim of the special classes to support these students to raise their skills so that they can return to the mainstream classes?
Pauline
Actually Pauline there are children who benefit from special education. My intent was not to bash the whole concept but to point out that sometimes decisions are made about who goes into these classes that impacts black children in ways that should raise concern.
I know this is a bit off track from the substance of the post, but here are some links to the educational tracking issue:
The inequalities that repeatedly show up in tracking programs have been analyzed in the education literature over the last few decades. Wikipedia's entry on tracking gives a decent introduction. These inequalities include both the quality of teachers assigned to different tracks, and the assumption that black children more often belong in special education tracks.
Jeannie Oakes' "Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality" is available from Yale University Press and Amazon.
The tendency to track black children into special education and remedial programs is closely related to completely false assumptions about skin color and intelligence. (See Brother Phillipe's Unintelligent Question post from 2007.) In Advent of Divine Justice, Shoghi Effendi states clearly the need for those of us in the U.S. of European descent to "abandon once for all [our] usually inherent and at times subconscious sense of superiority." These same subconscious behaviors might lead a teacher to say, "I can't teach these students (who just so happen to be black)," and shuttle them off to special education.
Lev, thanks for enriching the discussion by adding important information. It is right on track.
Let's keep this conversation going.
It has always angered me that a sixth-grader can be evaluated as either college-bound, or not college-bound. When I was a kid they called it "regents" and "non-regents" and guess who was the non-regents? Yep...
My personal experience in one public high school in upstate NY is a great example. The school's population of approx. 1200 students was about 50/50 white/black. When I transferred in I was given a test and based on my scores I was placed in AP classes for everything except math...So I spent most of the day in class with the white students...(there were maybe 5 or 6 black kids in the WHOLE SCHOOL who were considered AP students. I could name them all right now, 20 years later). But then for math it was like descending from the suburbs to the ghetto. It was outrageous. The teacher barely paid attention, had no expectations of any real work being done, and we all just talked, cracked jokes, acted a fool, had a fist fight every now and then and basically used the time to cultivate our social personas. Even as a 15-year old I knew there was something very wrong and that the kids in my math class were just as smart as the ones in the AP classes but there were clearly different rules in effect...it was definitely like two different schools and two different worlds operating under the same roof. Kind of like Phillipe's reflection about two Americas...
Liz W., tell it like it is girl. Check this out, though I was never in special education, I was also put on a different math track. Not because of my scores on the placement exam, but because the teacher that I would have had algebra with heard bad things about me from another math teacher. The algebra teacher actually was bold enough to tell me that she didn't want me in her class because I had a "bad attitude". Gee I wonder what she meant by that?
What's more Phillipe, as you and Liz can probably attest, being one of a handful of Black kids in a segregated academic track is no joke, especially in your formative years. I'm still trying to make sense of those experiences over twenty years later.
Malik, you went through that too huh?
I've been saying for years that someone has to do some research about black children being socialized in predominantly white environments. I think their stories need to be told.
Quite a discussion here! Sorry to be jumping in so late.
Clearly on the issue of education and tracking I get seriously amped up because there has only been one black male to graduate from high school in my mother's family in the last two generations. So I clearly know about the systematic, deliberate, institutionalized war on black people.
What I get tired of is that in this particular context, none of that gets addressed in the media. Even bringing up the fact that racism exists is seen as playing a "race card" And the whole specter of a "race war" is used as a scare tactic to build distrust, fear and suspicion in people's hearts. It also doesn't acknowledge the many individual initiatives and personal friendships that go on to build racial unity.
I felt a little annoyed when the crowd at the Obama South Carolina victory speech started chanting, "Race doesn't mattter!" because clearly, it does and chanting that doesn't change a thing. It doesn't change the fact that there are folks who consider my sons to be cute now but they're gonna be scared of them in 10 years. And that's both in and out of a Baha'i setting.
Count me in the group that has been socialized in predominately white environments. If anyone ever does any research on that subject, I would be more than happy to share my story.
I was labeled "math retarded". I'm re-doing all of the basic math classes now because I never learned it. In fact, I remember being yelled at over and over again because all of my math teachers lost patience with me. All it took was the first, "why can't you understand this?" and the pattern was set. I was put in remedial math classes from the first grade to high school.
The thing is, until I read your comments, I never associated any of this with the fact that I'm black. I honestly thought I was stupid in math. The thought has occurred to me that math isn't as hard as the teachers made it seem back in the day, but I didn't think my race had anything to do with it. I knew a lot of people who had trouble with math, many of them white. And I knew several brothers who excelled in math, although I knew only four black girls who excelled in math. My sister and one of my best friends were part of that group.
But when I look back at why my brain went blank in the first place, it was because my first grade teacher thought I was asking a "stupid question" about subtraction. That confused me, and I've been confused ever since. Did that teacher assume I was stupid because of the color of my skin? Is that why no one ever really bothered to explain the mysteries mathematics to me from that point forward? Did my abysmal math grades follow me all the way to junior high and high school, where I was stuck in the remedial track untilin the 11th grade I finally gave up my dream of going to UCLA ?
The implications of those questions are deeply disturbing to me, and they have had an enormous impact on my life. I wanted to go to UCLA, but I couldn't meet the UC system's math requirements. There have been numerous times when I couldn't move forward in my teaching career because I couldn't meet the math requirements.
Now I feel sick.
Nevin Jenkins is a young man from Cleveland. He's a math teacher in the schools there, and he works hard to ensure that all of his students feel like math is attainable for them. He's asked anyone interested to share their stories about challenges they faced in math class, and where they're at now. His students log on to Facebook and read the stories we post there. If you're a Facebook sort of person, you can join the group: Math Stories, or check out his webpages: Parent Information for Algebra.
Lev, I know Nevin and he is the man. Keep sharing helpful info with us my brother. We have much work to do yet.
Thanks, Lev. I'm not on Facebook, but I will check it out. It's important to me that young black people understand what could happen to them if they do not attain those very important basic skills.
I tutor English at a junior college, and every day I work with mostly ESL students. I have absolutely no issue with that because they need to learn how communicate effectively in a language whose grammar and usage is often very confusing.
At the same time, I see young black people on campus, and few of them ever come into the Library Resource Center for tutoring in writing, a skill that is as vital to their future success in life as math. I often wonder if they are as ashamed of their low academic performance in reading and writing as I was with math. I'm working on having the courage to initiate a conversation with some of them while they are gathered in the cafeteria. I hesitate because I remember being that age, and what I thought when an older black person approached me like that: "If this old man (or woman) don't get out my face!" And I would have gone back to whatever I was doing, which wasn't much.
According to the Los Rios Community College District placement test scores in basic reading and writing, African American students perform only slightly higher than ESL students in basic reading and writing. I refuse to believe that this is just arbitrary, or that African Americans are intellectually deficient, as the "tracking" practice has led some to believe. Institutional racism is a reality in this country, and far too many black students' educational needs are unmet by this system.
Thanks again Angela for reminding us all that the post-racial frenzy that many folks seem to be in simply does not reflect the complex realities of the moment in our country. What's most concerning is that many of the loudest voices in the "we're over race" crowd are people who should know better than that. It is truly a strange and potentially dangerous time we are living in.
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