Racism

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

by Nanette

I think I am fighting off the flu or something. Anyway, didn’t get to my series and since it’s already Wednesday, think I’ll put that one off til next week ;)

Here’s a few links to interesting (or hopeful or dreadful) things I’ve come across. If you have any (or have anything else to say) make sure to leave them in comments.

First, a dreadful: It’s possible that NYPost cartoonist Sean Delonas has a good explanation for this... but I doubt it. Even if the intention wasn’t to be racist - it’s astonishing this made it past the editors, even if it IS the NYPost - there is the matter of appearing to threaten either Obama or other public officials with harm. It has generated controversy and probably brought lots of traffic, and maybe that was the point anyway, but still…

A hopeful: Invisible People TV via a Pitch Engine release, which says:

InvisiblePeople.tv is the brainchild of Mark Horvath. 14 years ago Horvath was homeless on the streets of Hollywood, Calif. Today, he is dedicated to capturing the stories of the homeless on his vlog. His goal: for homeless people to no longer remain invisible. Each week, Horvath shares the story of a homeless person he meets on the streets. The stories are told by real people in their own very real words. They’re raw, uncensored and unedited.

Sounds like an interesting and worthwhile project - not only do the stories need to be told but it’s helpful when one can see others as individuals instead of one big mass of “homeless people”.

Interesting: BBC production, The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu. You can only see the video if you live in the UK (nationists!) but anyone can listen to the audio of the radio shows.

Good site to just putter through daily, and learn all sorts of helpful stuff about - what else? - changing the world: WorldChanging - worldchanging was founded on the idea that real solutions already exist for building the future we want. it’s just a matter of grabbing hold and getting moving.

Also, right here on our HB community blog, Varela Gaby, a volunteer teacher, has a post on simple ways to end poverty. Welcome, Varela!

Y’all have a good day.

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

What Century Are We In Again? Open Thread

by Nanette

Although, technically, all threads are pretty much open.

Anyway, I agree with P6... this really is pathetic:

Burial Exposes Racial Rift in Texas

The corpse of a white woman whose 2007 killing barely made headlines is now at the center of a peculiar racial conflict over the desegregation of the cemeteries in a rural Texas county.

Black leaders in Waller County, northwest of Houston, say white county authorities deliberately sabotaged their efforts to have the woman’s unidentified body buried in one of two public black cemeteries. Judge Owen Ralston, the county’s top elected official and the man who decided where the woman would be interred, denies the accusation, insisting that cost - not race - led to her burial on Monday in a white cemetery.

whteblack_cemetery

“I had no idea what color the lady was and didn’t care,” Judge Ralston said. “There’ve been some bad racial situations in this county, but I’ve tried to be right about it. I’m not a racially motivated person.”

Upon learning Wednesday night that the burial had taken place without his knowledge, a county justice of the peace, DeWayne Charleston, who is black, said, “I’m going to have that body exhumed.”

[....]

Judge Ralston denied that he was biased, and insisted that until reading the news release he did not know the victim was white. He had assumed, he said, that she was black because her body was to have been handled by Mr. Singleton’s funeral home. Judge Ralston pointed out that he had not been troubled that in ordering the body handled by the Canon Funeral Home, he was, had his assumption been correct, effectively directing the integration of a white cemetery. And he questioned his critics’ motives.

[....]

But Judge Charleston vowed to fight to have the body moved and, he said, to have something positive emerge from a senseless death.

“Here’s a woman who nobody knows, and maybe, if nothing else, the Lord sent her to be laid to rest in Texas for this purpose, for a milestone,” he said. “She can help heal the racial divide in our community.”

Sigh.

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Monday, June 23, 2008

This And That: How’s Your Handbasket? Comfy? edition

by Nanette

I can’t seem to get my act together enough to write anything substantive but, luckily, others are not having that problem! So, to dip my toes back into the blogging water, I’ll just point out a few things that have caught my eye over the past few days. Besides the great things my co-bloggers have been writing, of course!

So, in no particular order and not really all there yet, I’ll keep updating as I find interesting things, (cuz if I wait til the post is "finished" it’ll be next week before it’s posted… yes, my unblogginess is that bad), here’s some stuff:

painting by Tim Leura Japaljarri via

I was shocked when I found out that Aborigines were officially considered part of the "flora and fauna" in Australia until the late 60s… 1960s -

MARK COLVIN: If you weren’t around for the 1967 referendum on Aborigines, or you can’t remember why it mattered, think about this.
Before that vote, Aboriginal people weren’t counted as people, they came under the Flora and Fauna Act.

- but after learning about that, I don’t find this at all surprising, considering:

Recently, the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an apology to the Aboriginal Australians for the Stolen Generations, which puts Australia ahead of America for sure, but many people thought, "That’s nice but what will be done on a concrete level to fix the disaster caused by this?"
The answer seems to be, not much really:

Meanwhile, a retired federal court judge said the legislation [The Northern Territory Aboriginal Intervention] was constitutionally valid but "extremely discriminatory".
"Well I think it’s constitutionally valid but it’s extremely discriminatory legislation," Murray Wilcox said on radio today. "That is actually acknowledged by the legislation because it specifically excludes the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act and the Anti-discrimination Act in the NT. "In other words the Government is saying this is racially discriminatory legislation but nonetheless it is to be regarded as valid."

Part of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Intervention is to quarantine 50% of the income of Aboriginal Australians to "ensure that it is being properly spent" regardless of whether or not it is actually being spent appropriately. This does not apply to white Australians in any way. There is some talk of rolling out that policy on a national basis despite it being an unqualified disaster in terms of health and delivery of appropriate services as well as on human rights.

The latest in this utterly mind-bogglingly racist legislation is to determine the "viability" of various Aboriginal communities and, for those who do not meet this vague viability, to deny them services. That isn’t referring to services like parks. It is referring to basic human rights like health clinics, schools, adequate housing, stores and a police station.

[....]

You get a choice: either send your child away to a school that may be hundreds of miles from your home voluntarily or have your income reduced by half, therefore making it impossible to feed said child and the government takes your child and sends him/her to a school hundreds of miles from your home.

Shaker Christina and Shaker Trinity at Shakesville

Lots more there, on this and other issues facing Aborigines in Australia in 2008.

Joan Kelly is troubled by Tim Wise’s recent article and asks a few questions: (via ilyka)

But - this much-linked-to article by Tim Wise left me uncomfortable. First, because I don’t agree that not-voting for Obama is the same as voting for McCain (I have heard actually several people talk about discomfort with Obama for reasons that have nothing to do with Clinton or spite - and, as several of them are radical men and women of color, not exactly in line with racist white feminists - and everything to do with discomfort with Obama.) (I personally am rather excited about voting for him, and about him winning.)

Second, because at one point he writes “Sister please,” which left me feeling like he was assuming what he thought was a “black woman’s” voice scolding white women, which felt stereotyping to me and rather inexplicably out of place in an article that so vociferously claims to confront racism.

And thirdly, because I am trying to find instances where Clinton supporters - feminist, women, white, or all or none of the above - threatened to vote for McCain if Clinton did not get the nomination. And so far I have found one article, that quoted two people - one man, one woman - and this article claimed they were speaking for “many” Clinton supporters, but having my own experience with journalists, I have to say I am always suspicious of how they phrase things.

I was offline for most of the primary season and so missed much of the madness (thank the goddes), but even surfing around since I’ve been back, I keep getting the feeling that we (many of us, no doubt not all) are asking the wrong questions and not quite having the conversations we should be. Mostly I find it all pretty depressing. Oh, and I like the idea of Tim Wise, but the few times I’ve heard him speak (maybe twice), it seemed to me that he was affecting a "Black" accent and that made me uncomfortable. Then again, maybe that’s just how he talks.

Still, though, I’ve come across more than a few former Clinton supporters (online) who either say that they are going to vote for McCain or that they at least think that 4 years of McCain won’t be so bad. And then Hillary can come riding in to the rescue in 2012 and so on. Which in itself is silly - if the Dems lose the White House this year, with all the increased enthusiasm and interest in the election, I’m pretty sure it’s lost for at least the next 12 years, if not beyond.

A note: when I got back online I was dreading having to go through the hundreds of emails that were no doubt awaiting me only… when I signed on to get them, I had not a one. Zero. Zippo. Nada. Apparently when I tried to switch the to go to gmail so that I could maybe access them somewhere on a borrowed computer I messed up something. Nothing in gmail, nothing on the server, nothing anywhere. All this to say… if you emailed me over the past month or so… :(

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Monday, December 17, 2007

This’n That - Newsy Bits In No Particular Order

by Nanette

Just things I've come across over the past few days but have not written about, and might never do so. Still, some are interesting or informative or even, sometimes, important.

Hopefully, the beginning of a trend. New Jersey abolishes the death penalty:

TRENTON — Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed into law a measure repealing New Jersey’s death penalty on Monday, making the state the first in a generation to abolish capital punishment. Mr. Corzine also issued an order commuting the sentences of the eight men on New Jersey’ death row to life in prison with no possibility of parole, ensuring that they will stay behind bars for the rest of their lives. In an extended and often passionate speech from his office at the state capitol, Mr. Corzine declared an end to what he called “state-endorsed killing,” and said that New Jersey could serve as a model for other states. “Today New Jersey is truly evolving,” he said. “I believe society first must determine if its endorsement of violence begets violence, and if violence undermines our commitment to the sanctity of life. To these questions, I answer yes.” New Jersey has not executed anyone since 1963, when Ralph Hudson was put to death in the electric chair for stabbing of his estranged wife.

It's the states that kill the most people who will be the last ones to end this barbaric practice, I'm pretty sure.

The stench of racism emanating from the Clinton campaign has not gone unnoticed:

Hillary Clinton can kiss my Black vote goodbye

I will not vote for Hillary Clinton for anything ever. I don’t care if she gets the Democratic nomination. A vote for Clinton is a vote to perpetuate my own disenfranchisement as an African-American. A vote for Hillary Clinton rewards race baiting and sends the signal to all politicians that even in this day and age when your polls are down, inflaming people’s bigotry is just another campaign tool. I have voted Democratic my entire 38 years because capitalizing on racist stereo types that damage the fabric of our pluralistic society and cause real damage to living people is what the Republicans do. Since Hillary Clinton has chosen to use racism as a tool to advance her career she is a Democrat in name only as far as I am concerned.

Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose about Obama - ' Who does he think he is?'

Bill Clinton took to the airwaves on The Charlie Rose Show. Basically, it was an attack fest on Barack Obama, with more than a little subtext of ' Who does he think he is, running for President?'

I don't actually agree with the poster on some stuff, related to Hillary Clinton's experience, and so on. Such as the intimation that her entire professional life is due to who she is married to. This may be true of her political life (although, no matter how or why first elected, she has definitely worked hard in her Senate career), but not her professional one.

A roundup of a few roundups:

Sylvia has a couple:

¡Orale! - A Blogging Round-Up

Clever Title (For a News Round-Up)

And Kai:

Roundup — A Global Racket Demands A Global Justice Movement

Also via Kai:

The Story of Stuff -

Having been made aware of my own privilege, due to this comment at feministe, I will now attempt to describe the youtube video! But the Story of Stuff site also gives much written information.

Basically... who pays for the stuff we buy? It's not us - the prices we pay for many items barely cover the rent of the shelf space they are on, let alone all the other costs (salaries, so on). So, who does wind up paying for our (Western, I guess) cheap goods? Er... The Story of Stuff.

added - I almost forgot Free Rice! Excellent game where you can waste time and help feed the world all at once! I played it daily for a bit, but then got bored - it got too easy to make it to 50 and stay there (repetition will do that for you). I've been playing it every couple of days again now, though, just so I can donate some rice. I wish someone would do this for bicycles and other things as well.

Try it, it's fun!

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Monday, December 03, 2007

Stephen Metcalf Tries To Salvage Slate’s Reputation

by Nanette

Too late.

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Republicans In (Hurricane Ravaged) Mississippi Say: “The Rich Come First”

by Nanette

And this comes as a surprise to anyone? I think not. I don’t see how anyone could even pretend anymore. Though they no doubt will try….

“Who cares if the affluent get the lion’s share of help!? Class warfare! The poor have bootstraps, what more do they want? HANDOUTS!?”

NYTIMES -
GULFPORT, Miss., Nov. 14 — Like the other Gulf Coast states battered by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi was required by Congress to spend half of its billions in federal grant money to help low-income citizens trying to recover from the storm.

But so far, the state has spent $1.7 billion in federal money on programs that have mostly benefited relatively affluent residents and big businesses. The money has gone to compensate many middle- and upper-income homeowners who lost their houses to flooding, to aid utility companies whose equipment was damaged and to prop up the state’s insurance system.
Just $167 million, or about 10 percent of the federal money, has been spent on programs dedicated to helping the poor, mostly through a smaller grant program for lower-income homeowners.
And while that total will certainly increase, Mississippi has set aside just 23 percent of its $5.5 billion grant money — $1.25 billion — for these programs. About 37 percent of the residents of the state’s coast are low income, according to federal figures.
Mississippi is the only state for which the Bush administration has waived the rule that 50 percent of its Community Development Block Grants be spent on low-income programs, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers the grant program. It is also the only state to ask for such waivers.
[....] State officials, from Gov. Haley Barbour on down, insist that just as the storm hurt both rich and poor, the state does not discriminate by race or income when it hands out aid.
The state’s spending plan “moves business to the forefront and forgets about the people on the ground,” said Anthony Thompson, pastor at Tabernacle of Faith Ministries, whose spotless church (rebuilt by volunteers) is next to a moldering subsidized housing project that he says has not been touched since the storm.
In his mostly black neighborhood in west Gulfport, Mr. Thompson said, “I see a lot of people waiting on help; I see a lot of houses still damaged.”
[....]
To be eligible, families had to have carried homeowners’ insurance, so that, as the governor said when he was selling the plan to Congress, “we’re not bailing out irresponsible people.”
But advocates for the poor said that requirement barred many of the least affluent, especially retirees and the disabled, who live on fixed incomes. “The fact is, people who have no money choose food and medicine, and not insurance,” said Ashley Tsongas, a policy adviser for the aid group Oxfam America. “That moral superiority doesn’t recognize the reality people face.”

I've always loved the word "advocate". I know it has a few meanings... or rather, that it does not always apply to good things, but still. "Advocates for the poor". For justice. For a fair shake. It has a nice ring to it. The people affected by Katrina (and other disasters) and ignored by city, state and local governments need all the advocates they can get.

At the same time, I hate the word and the need for it.

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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Are Black Spiritual Advisers To “N Word” Spewing Celebs…

by Nanette

... A new cottage industry? Where did they all come from? Is there special spiritual adviser to bigots (who get caught) training?

At the rate they are being needed they may as well set up a “1-800 I R RACIST—But I really didn’t mean it!” hotline and just roll whatever advice it is they give these folks off assembly line style.

When I got to this paragraph of the apology, I just had to laugh.

Chapman said he is meeting with his spiritual adviser, Rev. Tim Storey, who is black, and hope to meet with other black leaders, “so they can see who I really am and teach me the right thing to do to make things right, again.”

via Shake’s Sis.

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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Myths, Monsters and Contradictions

by Nanette

An assortment of things I’ve read over the past few months have come together - somewhat - in my mind to form related, if still rather disconnected and contradictory, thoughts. I hope that by the time I’ve finished laying out the parts I’ll have figured out how to fit all the pieces together. Or you will have, at any rate.

This is likely to be a bit long. Brace yourselves.

Via Alas, a Blog comes this fascinating children's book review at American Indians in Children's Literature. We are allowed a peek at what is normally a closely held and secret sacred Cherokee story - which, even now I am sure we are only getting a small flavor of. From what I can tell, this review of Gail Haley's Two Bad Boys is written by Gayle Ross. Here are a few highlights:

Let me first say two things. I don’t tell this story publicly. It’s part of the long creation story that is told in ceremony every year at Green Corn time. An elder once told me that the Earth needs to hear these stories, but how, when and to whom they are told must be respected.

The second thing is that, in order to tell a good story, you have to know that the story is alive. You have to make it comfortable in your interior landscape. Most Native stories that find themselves wandering around in the psyches of non-Native storytellers and writers would be in a place as foreign to them as Mars would be to the average Earth-dweller. That’s where you’d find something like Two Bad Boys.

Gail Haley’s retelling of our sacred story about Kanati and Selu mirrors the Christian myth about Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and how work came into the world.

[...]

But Two Bad Boys is not, in any way, at all, “a very old Cherokee tale,” nor is it, in any way, at all, what our story is about. There are layers and layers of meaning in this most sacred story that are contained in essential elements that Haley did away with in order to make it a “children’s story.” The entire process of eliminating what makes the story sacred is what makes Haley’s version a desecration. Two Bad Boys is the cultural equivalent of retelling the Easter Story and leaving out the crucifixion. It’s that insensitive.

[ed: read the rest of the review for the Ms. Ross' version of the actual story.]

I'm sure Ms. Haley is a wonderful storyteller. She appears to have won a few awards and lots of acclaim ... I have nothing bad or good to say about her, having never heard of her before this, so any stray thoughts I have as a result of reading this review are not really about her or her work - or Ms. Ross, for that matter.

For some reason, though, this telling brings to mind a favorite saying of mine: a line from ebogjonson in reference to something completely unrelated to this - or is it? - about "dangerously wild and crafty memes that have been laughing at intent and virtue for over 140 years [...] that tend to slip out of a user's grasp almost immediately, so deliberately handling them constitutes a form of willful recklessness."

--------

I hadn't heard of La Vendida before reading about her at brownfemipower's a few months ago. As she says, the story around La Vendida is a bit complicated, and "to discuss La Vendida, you have to start with La Malinche". So she does:

La Malinche (known as Malinche, Malintzin, or Dona Marina), refers to a native woman in Mexico during the time of colonization. As the story goes, she slept with Cortez eventually acting as an extremely effective interpreter and it is rumored she even went into battle with Cortez, her knowledge of the various tribes serving as an essential tool in Cortez’s victories.

Because of her role during colonization, Malinche has come to represent very negative qualities. There is no written recored of what type of sexual relationship Cortez and Malinche engaged in. She started off as a slave to Cortez (thus implying her sexual submissiveness), but eventually was partnered with him (some say they were married, others say she was a mistress) and bore him a son (thus implying her sexual autonomy).

Lots, lots more there, where she delves deeply into the significance of La Malinche and La Vendida to present day Mexico and those of Mexican descent, nationalism, feminism, machismo and much more. A wonderful article, well worth reading - but it's actually a conversation in the comments of this post that calls out to me to be included in whatever picture I am attempting to paint here.

My question to brownfemipower (bfp):

Continue Reading Myths, Monsters and Contradictions

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Friday, August 24, 2007

The Benefit of the Doubt

by Nanette

From The Free Dictionary:

give someone the benefit of the doubt
to believe something good about someone, rather than something bad, when you have the possibility of doing either.

I’m afraid this is going to be more ‘stream of consciousness’ typing, taking the thoughts as they come - which is what I am actually more comfortable with - rather than something that has a specific beginning, middle and ending. Or point. I did have something else planned, having to do with the question “Why is this a feminist issue?” but, you know… I think I’ll just leave that one for another place and time. Heh.

I, as always, speak only for myself and my experiences and not as a spokesperson for any particular group of people.

So, this is an off the top of my head topic, mostly because I’ve been seeing that phrase (the benefit of the doubt) used lately and it does sometimes seem to me that different people have different ideas of what that means - depending on which side they are looking at it from, I suppose. I know, shocker. It often comes up (in one way or another) during discussions of race on and off the blogs, especially when it’s an issue of someone - usually, but not always, a person of color - saying to a person - usually, but not always, White - “hey… you know, that’s a racist saying, picture, way of thinking”.

Needless to say, this is not always greeted with cries of joy, thankfulness and relief. More often with defensiveness, pushback, argument, hard feelings, hurt feelings, discussion and then - if we’re lucky - some sort of resolution. And in there somewhere, sometimes, wails about being given the benefit of the doubt. And that’s when I wonder… what is it people think the benefit of the doubt actually is? Whatever their interpretation is of it, it’s far different from mine, I guess.

I have a favorite blogger, a White guy, that I came across through a link from another site - most of the time, with those, I go, look at whatever it was that was linked, and then forget to go back again, but with this one I was so impressed with the quality of writing, as well as the sense of humor and heart of the writer that I put it on my daily reading rotation. Almost as much fun as his writing is seeing the pictures that he finds to go along with the posts - some of them are just brilliant. Old timey, retro stuff a lot of them - really fun and neat. He doesn’t write much on race (that’s not what I visit his site for), but when he does it’s with a level of understanding - including knowing that there are some things he can’t understand - of righteous rage (especially about Katrina) and a talent for getting to the heart of the matter. I knew that this was someone who “gets it” and I felt comfortable there.

So, imagine my… well, surprise, surely, but mostly shock and um… gut kicked feeling when one day I click on the site and there is this really dreadful, racist picture there, illustrating a post. Oh man - I knew what it was about, from the post… it was being used to illustrate some sort of racist thing right wingers were doing or saying regarding Black people and he was ripping them a new one. Still…

I had a dilemma. I was a fairly new commenter and, I’m pretty sure, either the only or one of the few commenters who was Black or of color and I felt I could do one of a few things.

1.) I could just say “oh well, I know what he’s doing and that he’s not racist himself” and just let it pass and keep commenting there as if nothing had bothered me.

2.) I could just scratch the site off my rotation and move on to somewhere else.

3.) I could mention that, while I understood the intent, that the picture was worse (to me) than whatever it was he was writing about or against, and that it made me extremely uncomfortable.

#3 is the one that is most fraught, for me, as a person of color. So many things can (and often do) happen when one chooses that option. And, the thing is, you never know which reaction you’ll be hit with, even if you are dealing with the nicest, most aware, most “I get it” (usually) White person that you know, especially if it’s someone you like and who you believe likes you. Anywhere from an outright denial of the racism to “well, reasonable people can see that sometimes things, when used like this, aren’t racist” (which, of course, puts you right away in the “unreasonable” category), to - as someone recently pointed out - if they are selling something, other (usually) White commenters coming to the defense of the original writer, declaring that of course it’s not racist, whatever it is you are selling I am going to buy 10 and give them to all my friends and family, to eventual grudging acceptance that, okay maybe it’s racist, but you’re a jerk for pointing out, to oh okay, sorry, i didn’t think of that, thanks for pointing it out.

Me, I dithered a lot, all the time with this huge pain in my stomach because if I got the “wrong” reaction, I would have just been so disappointed, I love the site so maybe it’s better to say nothing, but if I don’t say anything how can I then continue to enjoy the site, knowing that I don’t trust this person enough to speak, and if I don’t trust this person enough to speak and don’t trust him and his reactions enough to believe that he’ll do the right thing, or if I don’t trust this person enough to believe he’s not going to turn into someone else and start spewing accusations and vitriol at me for speaking up… well then, what the heck am I doing here? Do I trust this person or not? Okay, yes, I do.

So, I went into the comments of the post and said something to the effect that, while I usually love all your pictures, I do not love this one. It’s racist. And his reaction was to change the picture immediately and then to comment on why he had used it, and what he was trying to accomplish, but that he definitely could make the same point with a different picture.

Or something like that, this was a while ago.

In making the decision to not just shake my head and move on, or to stay silent and probably seethe or to roll my eyes and think “oh well, par for the course” but deciding instead to bring this to his attention, come what may, and to believe (or at least hope) there would be no blowback from it… I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

When people’s commenters (friends, co-workers, so on) choose forms of options 1 and 2 and opt not to mention that something is, even if unintentionally, racist (or wrong in some other fashion), it may be quieter and less painful for the original poster and less uncomfortable for those that like and support them, but that person is not necessarily being given the benefit of the doubt, in my opinion.

They’ve already lost it.

Added 10/12/07 - Rachelena, of Life in Lenaville, in response to a few things going on in her orbit, has written what I consider to be a perfect companion piece to this. Well worth reading and absorbing.

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Friday, June 15, 2007

TFTD - A Different Order of Reality

by Nanette

It’s really too hot here to do much of anything, but in accordance with my “write something every day” thingy, here is today’s Thought for the Day.

“Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.” Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe, considered by some to be the father of African literature (that is written in English) won the prestigious Man Booker award this year, in honor of his literary career. I’ve not actually read any of his work (except for small excerpts here and there), but someday I’d like to. His “Things Fall Apart”, written in 1958 - I think this was his first published book - analyzes the effects of colonialization on Igbo society in Nigeria, and has been translated into over 50 languages. Hmmm. That was the year I was born. I definitely need to get that then, if only to see how things have changed - or not - since he wrote it.

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Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Yes, Virginia, the “R-Word” is as offensive as the “N-Word” and the “C-Word”

by Nanette

Now, we all know that society is loath to give up its epithets and racial slurs… but it can be done. We’ve almost extracted n****r, ch*nk, sp*c, k*ke and w*p from “polite” conversation… we can do it with r*dsk*n too, if we put our minds to it.

I've taken that title straight from Wampum, where MB Williams reminds us,

...." in the wake of the "misogynist language" dust up: It's not only about women and African-Americans."

[....]

Just one time, I love to see Progressives of all ethnicities develop a knee-jerk response to "Redskin" and object to it's gratuitous use. Where to start? Well, Technorati lists 7,527 instances of the use of the word; Google News,12,300 instances; Google blog search, 116,203 instances.

There is a lot more there, in between the ellipses, so read it all.

Not too long ago, in the course of two different conversations about language... probably a couple of months or so apart, two separate (white) people told me:

"You know, at one time the "N" word wasn't considered offensive."

The first time I heard that, I said, "Of course it was", and the reply... "No, sorry, it wasn't". Before I could continue, someone else jumped in with another word to discuss and we moved on, and I pretty much forgot about the incident. The next conversation was conducted on a major "liberal" blog - the topic being profanities, obscenities... and a racial slur. Well, that's not what the title of the piece was, but it may as well have been. I pointed out to the author that one of these was not like the other... that while some were good old "Anglo-Saxon curse words", and others derogatory terms for the body parts of women, or certain taboo activities between close family members, only one was a specific racial epithet against a specific group of people. And, to the best of my memory, that's when he stated...

"You know, at one time the "N" word wasn't considered offensive."

This time I was able to stop a minute and consider... what is he talking about? And when I realized, it was just too depressing. I didn't even continue the conversation.

See, what he meant was, at one time the use of the "N" word wasn't offensive to the majority population. And that's true... it was not at all an offensive word to most of them. It was used in casual conversation, in "polite society", whether one was speaking of (or to) a black person on the street, or one you were getting ready to string up. That the person the word was being used against may have had some objection to the epithet (not to mention the often attendant actions) was not even a consideration. They were non-persons in those times, incapable of being offended or, if they were, certainly in no position to complain about it. And what these two well-intentioned, leftish people done was once again, in 2006, removed the personhood, the humanity from those same people who had lived and died as non-persons and/or subhuman, only having been granted retroactive humanity in the history books and society, as different countries come to terms with their pasts. Still, it is apparently only after the real people - "polite society" - deem a word offensive that it actually becomes so.

So... what then does that say about the continued, and very public, use of the "R" word? To me, it says that in the minds of the majority culture – which in this instance would include everyone who is not Native American - Native Americans have not yet achieved full "personhood". The fact that they might object to what is, to many of them, a horrendous racial epithet not only being used in "polite conversation", but screeched from the top of people's lungs as they cheer for the football team that wears that name is simply beyond the ability of some to grasp. The hoary old "being too sensitive" is tossed about, along with "Hey, I'm not PC" and "It's always been this way" - even if it has not and as if that means anything anyway. Then, there is the "But, this (verbal and visual epithet) is used respectfully and/or proudly" defense. Or, maybe it's the "We're using it in an ironic way, to highlight the racism of others" defense, that some who insist on using racist imagery claim.

I think not:

Why was the public allowed to watch a pig painted red and wearing an Indian ceremonial bonnet run around at the halftime of a Washington Redskin's football game without comment from the fans or press? If the pig had been painted black in order to honor the many black fans of the Washington football team, and an Afro wig had been attached to its head, would there have been a reaction by the media and the fans?

[from an editorial quoted in MB's article]

I'd be happy if someone could explain to me where the respect, pride or even irony can be found in something like this. Really, ... because the rhetorical contortions needed to show why something like this is not only considered perfectly acceptable, but not even worth a murmur of protest from those who saw it, would no doubt be a remarkable sight.

Now, we all know that polite society is loath to give up its epithets and racial slurs... but it can be done. We have, so far, almost extracted n****r, ch*nk, sp*c, k*ke, w*p, and probably others that I don't know or don't remember, from "polite" conversation, as each group was recognized for at least semi-personhood. We can do it with r*dsk*n too, if we really are determined to do so.

It's easy to do, you know, on a personal and political basis... all it takes is acknowledging that Native Americans are full, living, complete, complex, breathing, thinking persons in their own right, with individual cultures, opinions, religions and identities - and not just pictures in a history book. That each one has the right to not only not have racial epithets hurled at them across the airwaves, in newspaper print, from street corners and on blogs, but to also determine what is their preferred method of address. And it just may differ from person to person, as there is no monolithic "Indian" or anything, but that's okay. I'm pretty sure most of us can hold more than one thought or word in our minds at one time.

Possibly the most effective method is also just saying, "no more".

Once people can wrap their minds around these apparently astonishing concepts, the rest is cake.

[Edited for clarity. Hopefully.]

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