Some clarifying back-and-forth
This started with a comment reply I posted in a closed group on FaceBook. The thread had some very vicious back-and-forth about the displayed intelligence of Bobama versus the stereotyped perception of George W.’s smarts.
I jumped in with “Can you say corpseman?” regarding a thrice-repeated faux pas by Bobama, who is regarded as a “brilliant intellectual” by his acolytes, but apparently can’t read a teleprompter, or as Commander in Chief, doesn’t know how to pronounce “Marine Corps.” I ended with the following:
“Bobama has almost undone almost 50 years of anti-racist thinking that was counter-intuitive to my upbringing. When a casual conversation with a near-stranger the other day erupted into an amazing outpouring of invective about ‘this is what happens when you let niggers run something!’ all I could do was nod numbly. Al Gore said ‘we won that conversation,’ but watching a geezer older than me explode with rage left me speechless.
“Incompetence is not a racial attribute, and I ain’t playing that card, but hearing that diatribe in the moment left me unable to even shake my head in denial. Shortly thereafter, I realized that my reaction to those remarks about Bobama was a result of unraveling principles that I thought were ironclad. I couldn’t formulate a moderate response, because there is no middle ground left.
“Like a kid telling a dirty joke, I take some amusement away from somebody else’s observation that after Bobama leaves the White House, the only black people who will be allowed inside for the next hundred years will be the janitorial staff.”
I speak and write very cryptically at times, in the mistaken assumption that people are reading my mind, reading between the lines, and somehow mystically know what’s in my heart.
This time, I was out of my element. I was called a racist, and told that “generations need to die before racism becomes a thing of the past.” This was my reply:
“I can't deny who I am, or my upbringing during the worst days of the 1950s & '60s South. I can't deny my grandmother slapping my face for drinking out of the "colored" water fountain in City Hall and setting me to wondering about the status quo, any more than I can deny the black teammate who saved my life in Nam. I can't deny the War I veteran named Dozier who was a sharecropper on my grandparents' farm and taught me about horses and agriculture, nor can I deny hearing the grown-ups quietly saying "Dojah's a good nigger." I can't deny asking the only black girl in the Cherokee High School marching band to the homecoming sock hop, nor can I deny the vandalism to my car that we discovered when we left the dance. I can't deny the explosive hallway fight that erupted the following Monday when a redneck bully came on with taunts of "nigger lover!"
“If you're not old enough to have lived through these times, take my word for it; they tore people apart internally. Children knew there was something inherently wrong, but the adults behaved as though everything was perfectly normal; Ozzie & Harriet as it should be.
“I was raised to be a racist, hence my use of the words ‘counter-intuitive’ in the initial comment above. That defining slap at the water fountain at age 8 was the beginning of my judgment of right and wrong, and I knew the ‘colored’ sign was wrong for reasons I couldn't define as a child. ‘Rosie’ hauling me away from a regiment of NVA 14 years later was the apotheosis of that gut instinct. We called him ‘Rosie’ because he was a dead-ringer for Roosevelt Greer, who you might recall cradled a dying Bobby Kennedy's head that awful day.
“I've been called everything from ‘redneck’ to ‘white trash’ to ‘Grand Dragon,’ and as we say down here, it don't make no nevermind. I've also been called ‘nigger lover’ and ‘race traitor.’ That don't make no nevermind, neither. My three college degrees don't hang on walls in my house, but my membership certificate in Sons of Confederate Veterans does. My family never owned slaves, and were pioneers in instituting the sharecropper system in antebellum South Carolina, which was a dangerous stance to take at the time. I am a product of my upbringing, but no amount of familial or cultural indoctrination has ever affected my ability to think rationally.
“My family has fought in every war from the Revolution—with Francis Marion—through the Civil War with John S. Mosby—through the world wars and every ‘police action’ in between. My war wasn't much, but it was all we had; a nasty piece of work initiated by corrupt politicians for inscrutable ends. [Sound familiar?]
“When that geezer unloaded on Bobama recently, I flinched inwardly. I tried to rationalize that what he was spouting was just another way of expressing disgust with incompetence, idiocy, and hidebound ideology. Normally, I try to chill folks like that out, and change the subject. This time, I just nodded, and realized in the aftermath that my own principles of equality were becoming unraveled because of my personal loathing for the failure of leadership that this—coincidentally—black man has brought to the highest office of the country that generations of my ancestors fought and died for.
“As a Georgia native who refuses to be uprooted, I'll carry both the pride and ‘shame’ of my heritage. I refuse all guilt others may assign for either, and I think my ambivalence on racial issues has earned me the right to make a racial comment once in a while. As a culturally-indoctrinated racist, I saw some smirking humor in the comment about Bobama and the White House janitorial staff; as a rationally functioning human being, I also saw a wider truth in it. Whatever institutional racism still exists in America is going to blow back on every future black candidate who might present for the presidency, regardless of party affiliation or intellectual orientation. Failure is its own reward.”
The individual who called me “a racist” indicated he “liked” that remark. I take that to mean I made myself adequately understood about the fear and loathing I harbor for the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Racial politics aren’t in play here, but the worst failure of leadership in American history certainly is.
And, the social network is simply marvelous!
I jumped in with “Can you say corpseman?” regarding a thrice-repeated faux pas by Bobama, who is regarded as a “brilliant intellectual” by his acolytes, but apparently can’t read a teleprompter, or as Commander in Chief, doesn’t know how to pronounce “Marine Corps.” I ended with the following:
“Bobama has almost undone almost 50 years of anti-racist thinking that was counter-intuitive to my upbringing. When a casual conversation with a near-stranger the other day erupted into an amazing outpouring of invective about ‘this is what happens when you let niggers run something!’ all I could do was nod numbly. Al Gore said ‘we won that conversation,’ but watching a geezer older than me explode with rage left me speechless.
“Incompetence is not a racial attribute, and I ain’t playing that card, but hearing that diatribe in the moment left me unable to even shake my head in denial. Shortly thereafter, I realized that my reaction to those remarks about Bobama was a result of unraveling principles that I thought were ironclad. I couldn’t formulate a moderate response, because there is no middle ground left.
“Like a kid telling a dirty joke, I take some amusement away from somebody else’s observation that after Bobama leaves the White House, the only black people who will be allowed inside for the next hundred years will be the janitorial staff.”
I speak and write very cryptically at times, in the mistaken assumption that people are reading my mind, reading between the lines, and somehow mystically know what’s in my heart.
This time, I was out of my element. I was called a racist, and told that “generations need to die before racism becomes a thing of the past.” This was my reply:
“I can't deny who I am, or my upbringing during the worst days of the 1950s & '60s South. I can't deny my grandmother slapping my face for drinking out of the "colored" water fountain in City Hall and setting me to wondering about the status quo, any more than I can deny the black teammate who saved my life in Nam. I can't deny the War I veteran named Dozier who was a sharecropper on my grandparents' farm and taught me about horses and agriculture, nor can I deny hearing the grown-ups quietly saying "Dojah's a good nigger." I can't deny asking the only black girl in the Cherokee High School marching band to the homecoming sock hop, nor can I deny the vandalism to my car that we discovered when we left the dance. I can't deny the explosive hallway fight that erupted the following Monday when a redneck bully came on with taunts of "nigger lover!"
“If you're not old enough to have lived through these times, take my word for it; they tore people apart internally. Children knew there was something inherently wrong, but the adults behaved as though everything was perfectly normal; Ozzie & Harriet as it should be.
“I was raised to be a racist, hence my use of the words ‘counter-intuitive’ in the initial comment above. That defining slap at the water fountain at age 8 was the beginning of my judgment of right and wrong, and I knew the ‘colored’ sign was wrong for reasons I couldn't define as a child. ‘Rosie’ hauling me away from a regiment of NVA 14 years later was the apotheosis of that gut instinct. We called him ‘Rosie’ because he was a dead-ringer for Roosevelt Greer, who you might recall cradled a dying Bobby Kennedy's head that awful day.
“I've been called everything from ‘redneck’ to ‘white trash’ to ‘Grand Dragon,’ and as we say down here, it don't make no nevermind. I've also been called ‘nigger lover’ and ‘race traitor.’ That don't make no nevermind, neither. My three college degrees don't hang on walls in my house, but my membership certificate in Sons of Confederate Veterans does. My family never owned slaves, and were pioneers in instituting the sharecropper system in antebellum South Carolina, which was a dangerous stance to take at the time. I am a product of my upbringing, but no amount of familial or cultural indoctrination has ever affected my ability to think rationally.
“My family has fought in every war from the Revolution—with Francis Marion—through the Civil War with John S. Mosby—through the world wars and every ‘police action’ in between. My war wasn't much, but it was all we had; a nasty piece of work initiated by corrupt politicians for inscrutable ends. [Sound familiar?]
“When that geezer unloaded on Bobama recently, I flinched inwardly. I tried to rationalize that what he was spouting was just another way of expressing disgust with incompetence, idiocy, and hidebound ideology. Normally, I try to chill folks like that out, and change the subject. This time, I just nodded, and realized in the aftermath that my own principles of equality were becoming unraveled because of my personal loathing for the failure of leadership that this—coincidentally—black man has brought to the highest office of the country that generations of my ancestors fought and died for.
“As a Georgia native who refuses to be uprooted, I'll carry both the pride and ‘shame’ of my heritage. I refuse all guilt others may assign for either, and I think my ambivalence on racial issues has earned me the right to make a racial comment once in a while. As a culturally-indoctrinated racist, I saw some smirking humor in the comment about Bobama and the White House janitorial staff; as a rationally functioning human being, I also saw a wider truth in it. Whatever institutional racism still exists in America is going to blow back on every future black candidate who might present for the presidency, regardless of party affiliation or intellectual orientation. Failure is its own reward.”
The individual who called me “a racist” indicated he “liked” that remark. I take that to mean I made myself adequately understood about the fear and loathing I harbor for the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Racial politics aren’t in play here, but the worst failure of leadership in American history certainly is.
And, the social network is simply marvelous!
posted by Robert at 10:40 PM
4 Comments:
When rational arguments are lacking, people fall back on name calling, which is why any opposition to our "historic" president is mindlessly derided as racism...
Labels never tell the story do they?
Thanks for sharing!
When I hear people use the "N" word and use language that is obviously racist, I too cringe. My gut reaction is that the speaker is "uneducated" and prejudiced. When I hear such language, I tend to think of myself as an intellectual superior. [NOTE: On reflection, I no doubt experience this feeling of superiority because of the progressive school teachers that trained me, and who taught me to feel this way... just as they do.]
However, I must admit that I do find some of the racial jokes humorous, and can't keep from laughing. But then I find some of the Polish jokes funny too... and I'm of Polish ancestry. I'm not laughing at the race, I'm laughing at the joke.
Throughout my career, I have sought to be as "non-racist" as I possibly could be. I am convinced that at one medium-sized company I worked for, I had the best EOE record of any manager in the firm. I hired nearly a dozen black men, a Philippino, a Russian immigrant woman, a hearing-impaired man, and my secretary was a black woman. [Oh yeah, and I even hired a few older white guys too (now becoming a minority that is discriminated against in the Obama-nation.)]
So, I must admit that I was a just a bit proud when one of my black male employees described me saying: "He doesn't have biased bone in his body". But I'm afraid my friend Charles was not completely correct in that regard. Like you Possum, I too was raised by racists. Not the overt kind who throw the "N" word around left and right, but the "private" kind... those liberals who "know" that they are superior, but are too politically correct to admit it in polite company.
My mother was like Obama's white grandmother: "a typical white person who, uh, if she sees somebody [black] on the street that she doesn't know -- there's a reaction that's been been bred into our experiences that don't [sic] go away..." I first noticed it an early age after having moved from a suburb of Chicago to a suburb near Elizabeth, NJ. When my Mom took me into an establishment that was populated ONLY by black people, she nearly freaked out. At least she didn't run out of the place screaming, but I knew that something was "wrong". And that was my first experience of race relations... lots of tension.
I must admit that as I've grown up over the years, I have had a bad habit of "stereotyping" blacks. Whenever I hear stories about blacks as criminals, or blacks as Democrat stooges, or blacks as corrupt politicians, or blacks as reverse-racist, or blacks as saying dumb things, or blacks as doing dumb things, my first reaction is to think... "It figures."
But then my second reaction is for the "guilt mode" to kick in. I know that there are good black people who aren't criminals. I know that there are black conservatives and Republicans. I know that there are smart black people like Condi Rice and Colin Powell and Thomas Sowell and Joe Hicks and Herman Cain and Bill Cosby. I've met good black men who are dedicated to their wives and to raising their children.
I guess it's just that there are so many examples of black role models who go bad, of black politicians who are found to be corrupt, of black people who say and do dumb things, that I find it hard to NOT stereotype. I find myself fighting myself all the time. My natural self points the accusing finger. My Christian self says "STOP... THINK".
In my heart of hearts, I hope that there are others who find themselves in the same predicament. I would hate to think that I am alone in wrestling with such demons.
Best regards...
As Sigmund Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
We like people for who they are, not what they are. I'll take a chance in assumption, and assume you hired those people based on personal merit, not because some government agent stood behind you with a gun to your head and said you must hire "those who are different" simply because they were different in some superficial aspect.
When the public pools in Atlanta were integrated, my mother and grandma told me if a black kid jumped in, I should jump out and come home. Driving me to the pool, my dad chilled me out and said to forget all that stuff. He'd worked at the Post Office for many years, had that family background in SC I mentioned, and was a War II vet. His brief talk that day was a defining moment in my acceptance of humanity for what it is.
The person who called me "racist" relented enough to admit being a native of Chicago with exposure to the Nazis that skulk there. I still remember the Klan burning crosses at Stone Mountain and picketing Rich's department store because they alllowed "the coloreds" to eat in the cafeteria over Forsythe St. in Atlanta. I attended the "Funtown" amusement park referred to in Dr. King's historical speech on the mall in DC.
I really don't know what to say about racism, ethnic bigotry, and the rest of it. It's never been an issue; as I bumble through life, I bump into people who ain't like me. In this PC age, though, if I disapprove of idiocy or bad behavior, and the person acting stupidly is slightly different in some aspect, I'm supposed to assume the position and utter endless mea culpas for criticizing a protected class. There should be no protected classes; there are Americans, and then there is everyone else.
The whole thing was a tempest in a teapot, but a good metaphor for the immediate state of mind of the country. After my check-up today, where my blood pressure was 110/73, I'm ready to move on to something else.
Take my word for it, you have nothing to apologize for. I know all the Polish jokes, the Irish jokes, and the Negro jokes. They are funny, and I offer no apologies when I tell them. I think the people who go off with great offense and high dudgeon owe me an apology for lacking a sense of humor and a grounded sense of identity. Thanks for your input.
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