As the Presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama heats up, race and gender have come to the forefront of the discussion. I have heard many people suggest that we stop talking about race and gender and “get back to the real issues.” While I agree that most race and gender based personal attacks do not address real political issues, we should not forget that racial and gender issues are real issues. We should not forget that racism and sexism are still fundamental problems in the US.

Let’s think about it…

The race and gender gaps in earnings are real issues.

The mass incarceration of black men is a real issue.

Violence against women is a real issue.

Racially motivated hate crimes are a real issue.

Gender and race based job discrimination are real issues.

Race and gender disparities in health care delivery are real issues.

Affirmative action is a real issue.

Stereotyping is a real issue.

The list could go on and on.

I know many Americans are uncomfortable openly discussing how race and gender influence our political system, but this doesn’t mean that these issues are not “real.” Denial won’t erase social inequality. It’s a shame that many people would rather purge discussion of racism and sexism from the public discourse than actually work to give people an equal shot.

In 2006, inspired by Racialicous, I put up a post of the top trends in race and racism for 2006. Given the popularity of that post, and the general enjoyment I get from discussing folks’ perceptions of trends, I figured I would make a list again this year. Here is the list in no particular order:

1. Return of the Noose and Lynching Metaphors–Nooses were everywhere this year. Some think the Jena 6 Case brought the noose as a hate symbol back to the forefront. In reality, it’s hard to know if there actually were more hate crimes this involving the brandishing of nooses, since there are not concrete statistics kept on this. Diversity Inc., which attempted to keep track of noose incidents across the US, notes 67 noose incidents across the US¹. Whether or not the rates of noose related hate crimes were up, discussions of the noose and it’s connection to lynching were everywhere even CNN had a special called “The Noose An American Nightmare.

2. Rise of Black Bloggers as a Political Force– While I have noticed a big increase in the number of African American blogs since I started blogging in 2005, this was the first year black bloggers seemed to coalesce as a social force. Group blogs like the Afro Spear and What About Our Daughters helped focus debate on cases such as the Jena 6 and Dunbar Village. Now to be fair these were just two groups of bloggers, several more independent bloggers² also helped shed light on stories that were generally ignored in the mainstream media. In some cases like Jena 6, blogs were created specifically for the issue at hand, and those blogs helped organize thousands of people to write, march, and speak out. Thanks to the organizing power of black bloggers thousands of protesters turned out in Jena, LA and this was just the most widely known social movement fueled by black blogs.

3. Anti-Chinese Rhetoric–You’d think there was a vast Chinese conspiracy to poison American children and pets if you watched one media outlet after another report on product recalls. The problem with most of these stories is what they didn’t tell you. For example, most toys sold in the US are from China, so it should come as no surprise that most of they toys being recalled are from China. For a good comparison, checkout recalled food products, since most foods eaten in the US are grown in the US, you will see a list with many US based growers and companies. Does this mean we should not eat food made in the US? What reporters also didn’t tell us is that most toys were recalled for design problems not manufacturing problems, and guess what? The toys weren’t designed in China. Furthermore, only a tiny portion of Chinese made toys were actually recalled. The vast majority of Chinese made toys were safe! I think the popularity of Chinese toy phobia, is related to some of our general stereotypes of Chinese people in particular and Asians in general. It reminds me a little of the 1980s when similar comments were made about Japanese products. It seems that every time an Asian country starts to become a strong economic competitor these stories emerge. I’m not disputing that there are problems in China’s labor and safety standards, and I think the plethora of stories on rampant pollution in China are accurate, but the primary people harmed by these social problems are the Chinese people. Furthermore, the American news media’s rhetoric greatly exaggerated the extent and significance of these problems. I can help thinking that the smear campaign is also related to the upcoming Olympics being help in China, but that remains to be seen.

4. Xenophobia and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment– Immigrant haters were out in full force this year. In fact, the xenophobes have single-handedly attempted to turn the word illegal in a noun. Bigots like Lou Dobbs banged the anti-immigrant drum the loudest. They encouraged Americans to believe that illegal immigrants were destroying America. They opposed laws that would allow undocumented children, who were brought to the US by their parents, to get college financial aid; they separated breastfeeding mothers from their infants; they blamed undocumented immigrants for crime even though studies have shown immigrants have a lower rate of crime than native born folks; and some even suggested the US get rid of birthright citizenship. What is incredibly fascinating about most of the debate on immigration is that most Americans don’t have a clue about immigration trends and laws. Today’s immigrants are wealthier and more educated than ever, but this doesn’t seep into the debate.

5. Asian Male TV Characters– Late in 2006, Racialicious had a series of posts on the 5 (Part 1; Part 2) most fascinating Asian Male TV characters. There was a time not long ago when there weren’t even 5 recurring Asian male characters on network television. While there is still a long way to go, I think this was a relatively good year for Asian men on TV. I even noticed more commercials with Asian men in them, and as atlasien noted in a recent comment, several reality TV shows had Asian cast members prominently featured. Some may wonder why I said Asian men and not Asian women. Although I don’t have any numbers in front of me, the representation for men seem to increase much more rapidly.

6. “Model Minority” Black Immigrants–This was one of my predictions for 2007, and I was right about this one. There were several stories about African and Caribbean immigrants, focusing on the grand achievements. While some people think comparing African American blacks with foreign born blacks provides evidence that African Americans could really do better if they just “worked harder” and stopped “using the race card,” they miss how immigration law shapes the social status of foreign born blacks, especially African born blacks. Given the current structure of immigration policy, most of the African born blacks who are able to come to the US come as professional and students. The number of refugees and poor immigrants is fairly small, but the number of diplomats, professors, and students is fairly high. My partner and his relatives are good examples of this–He and his sister were the first to arrive in the US. His sister has a PhD, speaks 5 languages, and is a translator for the United Nations, and my partner was a excellent sprinter who was able to convince three Division I American Universities to give him track scholarships based on his race times in Nigeria. For both of them, it was the demand in the US for their talents, combined with a great deal of determination, that brought them to the US, but they hardly represent the typical Nigerian.

7. College Racism–Oh how I wish I didn’t have to put this on the list again, but a quick look at Vox Ex Machina,, which maintains the definitive list, reveals numerous incidents of racism on college campuses. From nooses to racially themed parties to rogue newspapers and all kinds of other incidents, students were busy this year. Often, the racist students posted their racist handy work on facebook and other social networking sites. I’m not really sure if today’s college students are any more racist than the college students were back when I was in college (mid-1990s). Social scientists could use survey data to track racial attitudes of college students, but the colorblind ideology is so prevalent that students know how to give the “right” answers even if their behavior belies such sentiments.

8. Celebrity International (Transracial) Adoption–I’m not sure if this trend fits better into 2006 or 2007, but nonetheless, it seems like every celebrity wanted to adopt a child from outside the US. Following the lead of Madonna and Angelina Jolie, numerous celebrities were rumored to be looking to adopt. I don’t think many of these celebrities will actually follow through and adopt, but there is something unsettling about transracial, international adoption being hip and cool. We are talking about the well being of children, but when adoption seems to be a media fad, I can see many unprepared and otherwise ignorant people adopting for the wrong reason and not respecting the rule of law like this French charity in Chad.

9. Begging to Apologize to Blacks via Al Sharpton–Apparently, racist whites have anointed Al Sharpton the “King of Black America” because every two bit loser who made a racist comment this year went begging to apologize to black folks via Sharpton (and sometimes Jesse Jackson, who must be second in line to the thrown). Don Imus, Michael Richards, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and I’m sure others who I have forgotten, all either went on Sharpton’s show or begged to meet with him. Do I really need to say anything else?

10. Using Racist Comments By Whites To Talk About How Blacks Need to Change–This may be number 10 on the list, but it was by far the most annoying trend of the year. It seems like every time a well known white person made racist comments the discussion ended up being refocused on how blacks need to fix themselves. I dedicated a full post to this topic in Oct. because I just couldn’t take it anymore. In fact, many of these discussions remind me of of children’s excuses for bad behavior. For example, let’s say I find little Timmy’s hand in the cookie jar. What’s the first thing little Timmy says, “Well Sarah did it, too?” Now, any good parent is not going to be fooled into turning Timmy’s cookie theft into a reason to punish Sarah. Unfortunately, when it comes to racism, many in white America act just like little Timmy, so racist comments from Don Imus and other whites turn into discussions of the pathologies of Blacks.

So there you have it, my list of the top trends in race and ethnicity.  I realize that this list is very US biased, so I’m curious to see what some of the readers outside of the US noticed in their countries this past year.

What do you think? Did I miss anything? Do you agree that these were popular trends?

1. Unfortunately, they do not specify a time frame for the 67 incidents. (back)
2. Sorry I don’t have the space to promote everyone’s site here, but a quick scroll through the blogroll on the left will reveal some great blogs that are often overlooked. (back)

In February last year, I put forth my predictions for the top racial/ethnic trends in 2007. I want to revisit this before I post my top trends of 2007 and my predictions for the top trends of 2008.

So where was I right and wrong? The original post is up here. You can go there and read the details of the predictions, but for the purposes of this post I’m just going to list the subject headings for each prediction, and after the heading I’ll list whether or not I think my prediction was right or wrong.

1. Asia/Asians are Hip and Cool

Well, this was a little true, but I overstated it a little.

2. End of Voluntary Desegregation Plans

This was true to some extent, since the supreme court rule against the desegregation plans in Louisville and Seattle, but it is going to take a long time for these plans to be completely dismantled. The Supreme Court is in dire need of another moderate or liberal judge.  If a Democrat wins, this may happen.

3. Biological Notions of Race

Does this ever really go out a style? :)

4. Latinos Becoming White

I was wrong; just flat out wrong here.

5. Non-African American Blacks are Popular

I think this was by far my best prediction. There were numerous articles describing non-African American Blacks as model minorities.

6. Anti-Racism/Pro-Racial Equality Blogs Blow Up

I’m not really sure about this one. There definitely were more of these sites than in 2006, but I don’t know if they “blew up.” They did grow.

So what do you think about my 6 predictions?

I saw this posted over at Mirror on America, and I have to agree. We should not be so naive as to think that people in the Clinton campaign are not directing their surrogates to play on racist and Islamophobic stereotypes of Barack Obama.

First, we have one of Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign leaders (now ex-campaign leaders) insinuating that Barack Obama is, was, or would be a drug dealer. Fortunately, Rikyrah is not afraid to call out the racial double standard:

Now, numerous previous candidates have admitted to drug use. George W. Bush spent the better part of TWENTY YEARS under some sort of influence, be it booze or drugs, and nobody EVER ASKED HIM THIS QUESTION.

But, THE BLACK MAN, who has TWO Ivy League Degrees, is ASKED IF HE’S A DRUG DEALER?

But, if Sheehan was ‘acting solo’/ ‘going rogue’, then what the hell was Mark Penn doing on Hardball with the same slime, not an hour AFTER the debate was over.

Thanks to our friend, sagereader, over at Think On These Things, breaks it down in this post: Evidence That Clinton Camp’s Attack On Obama’s Drug Use Was Deliberate (Make sure to check out this link, which sites evidence, suggesting the Clinton camp planted the drug dealer line.)

I‘d go further than Rikyrah. George Bush is certainly a great example, but we also shouldn’t forget President Bill “I Didn’t Inhale” Clinton. I don’t remember anyone suggesting that he was going to slang pot and try to turn the white house into the dope house. This playing off some of the most sinister stereotypes of black men, and it is a below the belt tactic. (Reminds me of John McCain’s black child.) And it seems like the media coverage I‘ve seen of these comments routinely ignores the drug dealer line, instead they just say Sheehan questioned Obama’s past drug abuse. ((The post also goes into a discussion of Hillary Clinton’s views on drug sentencing and how they may affect African Americans, which is worth the read.)

The other issue that keeps coming up is the accusation that (Gasp!) Obama is Muslim, and that seems to be coming from everywhere including from Clinton associates. Obama is not Muslim, but folks just can’t seem to accept that.

Apparently they are fighting over a nativity scene.

The problem erupted after a Columbus man apparently complained about equality of religions in displays at state parks.

After a letter to the business manager of Ohio State parks regarding symbols of religion, an order came down to remove the nativity scene which the Garden Club has provided. the letter told all start parks in the state to take down their nativity decorations.

On Friday, Dec. 7, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland intervened.

Under current law, government entities (city halls, courts, public schools, etc) can generally acknowledge religious holidays so long as they do not create an impression of endorsement of religion by the government, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Strickland issued an order mandating that Shawnee and all state parks continue their traditional nativity displays.

And he appears to be well within the law, according to the ACLU. “Just because a nativity scene or other religious display appears on government property does not necessarily mean that it is owned or is being displayed by the government, using tax dollars. Many local and some state governments have within their boundaries public areas whereby citizens are permitted to erect displays, including those of a religious nature, of their own choice” says the Ohio ACLU web site.

This is right in my parents’ backyard. This lodge is really fancy (at least by southern Ohio standards), and most of the folks who stay there are upper middle class folks, who come from places like Columbus and Cincinnati to explore the wilderness in the luxury of fancy hotel.

I wish somebody I know would go up there and put up a Menorah, and see how the locals respond. In my experience, a very large majority of southern Ohio folks are all for freedom of religious expression, when it in involves Christianity. But if somebody went up there and put up a Menorah or any other non-Christian symbol, they’d throw a fit.

I remember around the time I graduated from high school when there was some court decision about prayers at graduations. The administrators and students really wanted to have a prayer (of the Christian variety, of course), so they decided that the graduating seniors could vote on whether or not to have a graduation prayer. I bet I was the only person to say that I didn’t want a prayer. Of course, this was a school was everyone was a Christian or person like me, who was tired of Christianity. Nobody was Muslim; nobody was Jewish,;and if anyone was an atheist or any other religion, they wouldn’t say it publicly.

This is one nice thing about living in a town with a noticeable non-Christian population. There seems to be a great deal more tolerance.

Disclaimer: I think racial DNA tests are absurd, and are based primarily on social notions of race, not actual distinct genetic and biological human categories. Personally, I think the idea of African, Asian, or European DNA borders on absurd, and I do not endorse the use of “racial DNA tests.” However, I couldn’t resist posting this because I got a really big chuckle out of it.

Remember a few months ago when renown Nobel Prize winner James Watson claimed blacks were naturally less intelligent than whites–well I wonder if he now thinks he is less intelligent other “whites.” Check this out:

JAMES WATSON, the DNA pioneer who claimed Africans are less intelligent than whites, has been found to have 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.

An analysis of his genome shows that 16% of his genes are likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1%.

The study was made possible when he allowed his genome - the map of all his genes - to be published on the internet in the interests of science.

“This level is what you would expect in someone who had a great-grandparent who was African,” said Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics, whose company carried out the analysis. “It was very surprising to get this result for Jim.”

Watson won the Nobel prize, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, after working out the structure of DNA in 1953. However, he provoked an outcry earlier this year when he suggested black people were genetically less intelligent than whites.

This weekend his critics savoured the wry twist of fate. Sir John Sulston, the Nobel laureate who helped lead the consortium that decoded the human genome, said the discovery was ironic in view of Watson’s opinions on race. “I never did agree with Watson’s remarks,” he said. “We do not understand enough about intelligence to generalise about race.”

The backlash against Watson forced him to step down as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York state, after 39 years at the helm. He had said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospects for Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really”.

The analysis by deCODE Genetics, an Icelandic company, also shows a further 9% of Watson’s genes are likely to have come from an ancestor of Asian descent. Watson was not available for comment.

And if you want to read a bunch of racist rubbish you can go read the comments to the article, too.

Case #1 Renato Hughes

A few weeks ago I heard about a case in California where a man was being charged with murder, after he and two accomplices broke into the home of a man, who subsequently shot and killed the two accomplices. Just to make it clear the home owner was the shooter not the man being charged with murder.

Here’s a summary of the events surrounding this case from an AP article:

Three young black men break into a white man’s home in rural Northern California. The homeowner shoots two of them to death — but it’s the surviving black man who is charged with murder.

In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.

“It was pandemonium” inside the house that night, District Attorney Jon Hopkins said. Hughes was responsible for “setting the whole thing in motion by his actions and the actions of his accomplices.”

Prosecutors said homeowner Shannon Edmonds opened fire Dec. 7, 2005 after three young men rampaged through the Clearlake house demanding marijuana and brutally beat his stepson. Rashad Williams, 21, and Christian Foster, 22, were shot in the back. Hughes fled.

Hughes was charged with first-degree murder under California’s Provocative Act doctrine, versions of which have been on the books in many states for generations but are rarely used.

The Provocative Act doctrine does not require prosecutors to prove the accused intended to kill. Instead, “they have to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that the criminal enterprise could trigger a fatal response from the homeowner,” said Brian Getz, a San Francisco defense attorney unconnected to the case.

The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes’ church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent black.

There seems to be some contention over exactly what was happening when the two young men were shot; some have suggested they were shot “in the back,” but it is unclear if they were shot in the back while fleeing or while attacking Edmonds’ stepson. From several accounts, Hughes (who is black and Filipino) never entered the home, but he was the get-away driver. Depending on which account you believe, the three men went to the Edmonds’ home to buy or steal marijuana (and there was marijuana in the home). The Edmonds’ might have been selling drugs, but they are claiming the marijuana was for medicinal use. What is also clear is that Edmonds’ stepson was severely injured, and is now in a rehabilitation center because he suffered a brain injury in the beating.

So what do you think? Do you think the shooting was justified, or do you think that the shooter should be charged with a crime? Do you think that it is fair for Hughes to be charged with murder under the Provocation Act doctrine? My personal view is that the shooting appears to be justified, but I think the murder charge is not appropriate, especially given the fact that evidence seems to suggest that Hughes wasn’t even in the house. There was some debate about this over at field negro’s site, and Hughes got very little sympathy from most commenters.

Case #2 John White

John White is a black man and a father, who is being charged with manslaughter in the death of Daniel Cicciaro. Cicciaro and 4 other teenagers came to the White home, angry at Mr. White’s teenage son. Keith Boykin summarizes what happened before and after this confrontation:

One day a black teenager goes to a party where alcohol is served and a white teenage girl asks him to leave because she feels “uncomfortable” around him. He complies and goes home, but the girl then tells a male teenager at the party that the black teen had threatened her once before in an Internet chat room. The white teen then calls the black teen on his cell phone and yells at him using the N-word. Unsatisfied, the white teen then gathers four other white teenagers and they drive to the black teen’s house.

The drunk white teenagers pull up in the driveway of the house and block off the street. One of the teens is carrying an aluminum baseball bat. The black teen and his father then walk outside the house to the driveway. The father is carrying an unlicensed handgun. The black teen follows with a hunting shotgun. Words and threats are exchanged and eventually the father fires one shot into the face of the first white teenager. The white teen dies at a hospital an hour later.

Apparently, a “friend” made a fake Myspace page pretending to be White’s son Aaron.

Michael Longo, 20, told the court that he created a phony MySpace page - filled with insults and threats - and made it look like the work of Aaron White.

Aaron is the son of John White, who is charged with shooting 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro Jr. to death on his lawn in August 2006.

On the bogus Web page, Longo posted messages under Aaron’s name that spewed hatred against a mutual acquaintance named Jenny Martin, he admitted on the witness stand today.

Those phony messages were soon spotted by the girl. One of them, which threatened rape, particularly disturbed her. She then told Cicciaro what she thought Aaron was planning to do.

White’s attorney claims that Mr. White viewed the young men as a “lynch mob,” and racial slurs were recorded when one of Cicciaro’s friend’s made an inadvertent cell phone call to a dispatcher.

Mr. White, who by all accounts is an upstanding citizen, says he accidentally shot Cicciaro when the teen grabbed his gun. Cicciaro’s friends claim he pushed the gun away, and then White shot him. The forensic evidence suggests that Cicciaro was shot at close range.

Initially, the prosecutor’s charged Mr. White with murder, but the grand jury subsequently reduced charges to manslaughter. Prosecutors have suggested that Mr. White should have locked his doors and called 911, rather than confronting the teenagers with a handgun.

So what do you think? Do you think the shooting was justified? What about the manslaughter charge: do you think it was fair? From what I can tell about the evidence presented so far, the manslaughter charge seems too harsh, and initial murder charge was way out of line with the circumstances of the case. I’m sympathetic to Mr. White, and surprisingly many comments on the Newsday links above where also sympathetic to him (I expected less sympathy since I have seen some really racist comments on that site in the past.).

Similarities and Differences in the Cases

One thing I find striking about both cases is that in both cases black men were charged with crimes. In one case, the black man was part of the home invading group, and in the other case the black man was the home owner. The cases also bring up the issues related to self defense, gun rights, and over zealous prosecution.

There are also differences. In the White case, the teenagers never entered the White’s home, unlike Hughes accomplices. The Hughes case seems to rest on an obscure legal principle that is not used in many states or nations, while the law used in the White case is a little more conventional.

What do you think?

End Note: Ann, let me know about a case in Texas that has some of the same dynamics; however, in this case the man shot people breaking into his neighbor’s home. She also has a follow up post with more info. You can go over to her site to comment.

Just before Thanksgiving a Black family in suburban New York city found a cross burning in their yard. The police have arrested 21 year old Christopher Hudak for this crime.

Police have charged a 21-year-old Cortlandt man with burning a cross on a black family’s lawn the night before Thanksgiving, and prosecutors said he threatened to slit a potential witness’ throat.

Christopher Hudak of 27 Ridge Road is the older brother of one of the girls involved in a fight at Hendrick Hudson High School with Timothy Artope, 15, the oldest son of the family victimized by the cross burning.

Hudak, charged with first-degree aggravated harassment, a felony, was arraigned this afternoon in Peekskill City Court. His lawyer denied the allegation, but entered no formal plea.

City Judge William Maher set bail at $10,000 and issued nine orders of protection, seven for members of the Artope family and two for people in whom Hudak confided about the cross burning. Prosecutors say Hudak threatened to slit the throat of one of those individuals if they told anyone about the crime.

Wesley Artope, Timothy’s father, welcomed the news that an arrest had been made so quickly.

“I’m relieved that someone is being held accountable, and I’m relieved that my family can relax as far as feeling that they were under any danger.”

Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore said at a news conference this morning that Hudak was charged under a section of the law established in June 2006 that makes cross burning a hate crime.

Police charged Hudak late last night after searching his home. An alibi he had given police earlier in the week broke down, police said, prompting them to obtain a search warrant that turned up computer records that led to his arrest.

You can read the entire story here.

Last year I posted the story of Katelyn Kampf. Her parents kidnapped her in an attempt to force her to have an abortion. The parents were upset that Katelyn, who is white, was going to have give birth to a child whose father was black.

According to media reports, Katelyn is unhappy with the relatively light sentence that they received for the kidnapping. Fortunately, Stephanie has been keeping up with the story, or I would have never seen it. Unfortunately, the family is still torn apart by the terrible actions of the Kampf parents:

In a plea agreement with the district attorney’s office, reached over Katelyn Kampf’s objections, her parents pled guilty to misdemeanor assault charges and disorderly conduct. Felony kidnapping charges were dropped, and the Kampfs will not serve any jail time.

In court, her father Nicholas Kampf said, “The whole experience has been a sad ordeal. We as a family have lost so much … I am sorry.”

Lola Kampf also read from a prepared statement: “We have all made some bad choices in the past, and we will have to live with them. But we must believe with our hearts and soul that time will heal the wounds they have caused.”

But there was little evidence of any healing today. Neither one of the Kampf parents looked at their daughter or new grandson during the hour-long hearing. And Katelyn Kampf left the courtroom, crying, shortly after her parents arrived. She returned but then broke down and buried her face in her hands as she listened to her mother speak.

After the hearing, she explained her reaction, saying, “Even though she had done so many horrible things to me, I always looked up to her. I mean, she was my mom, you know.”

It’s hard not to have sympathy for Katelyn Kampf and her child. Not only does she have horrible parents, but she doesn’t have much help from the her child’s father. He is facing deportation to South Africa because he is an immigrant with a felony conviction. Furthermore, part of the conditions of the parent’s sentence is that they have counseling with their daughter. She still doesn’t want to be in the same room with them and who can blame her.

It is really sad to see cases like this where parents hatred of another race is stronger than their love for their own children. Sounds like another high profile case from last week.

I first heard about this case when I was listening to BBC radio on Tuesday. I tuned in during the middle of of this story, and it seemed so bizarre that I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Well, now I got the chance to hear the whole story. It turns out that some foreign aid groups tried to take a group of 103 children out of the country. The aid workers are now accused of child trafficking and violating international laws.

Some members of the NGO Children Rescue/Arche de Zoe have been arrested for attempting to take the 21 girls and 82 boys - the youngest being about a year old and the oldest about 10 - out of Chad. The agency workers were French. Three journalists who were travelling with the volunteer workers and the Spanish crew who were to fly them back to France are also being held. In Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, a prosecutor on Wednesday also charged Jacques Wilmart, a Belgian pilot involved in the affair, with “complicity in abduction”, before sending him to jail.

Zoe’s Ark says it wanted to rescue children from Darfur, but French officials and UN aid workers say they believe many were from Chad and were not orphans.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called the attempt to separate the more than 100 young Chadian children from their parents and then take them to France for adoption an “illegal and totally irresponsible move.” The UN said the children had family in the country.

“They are not orphans and they were not sitting alone in the desert in Chad, they were living with their families in communities,” Annette Rehrl of U.N. refugee agency UNHCR told Reuters in Abeche.

UNICEF spokesperson Veronique Taveau told journalists in Geneva that what happened had violated international rules, such as The Hague Convention on international adoption and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Taveau said the case was not an isolated incident but one that was highly visible because of the size of the group of children.

L’Express reports the Europeans offered sweets and biscuits to encourage the children to leave their homes.

“My parents had gone to work in the fields. As we were playing some Chadians came and said here are some sweets, why don’t you follow us to Adre and then we’ll take you home. We were taken to the hospital in Adre,” said a young boy who gave his name as Osman. Adre is a town on the Chad-Sudan border.

“We spent seven days in Adre and I’ve been here in Abeche for more than one month. We were well fed by the whites, there was always food. I would like to go back to find my parents,” he told reporters at the Abeche orphanage where the children are being cared for by local and international aid workers.

Many European media outlets were putting a slightly more favorable spin on this, but as more information comes out, these so called aid groups are not looking good at all. The UN has said that most of these children were not orphans, which they found out from interviewing the older children. Now many of the children are separated from their families, and there are concerns that the youngest children may not be reunited because they are too young to talk. Needless to say this is not going over well with people all over Africa. As the International Herald Tribune article cited in this paragraph notes:

The scandal has sparked outrage and condemnation across Africa, where it has a deep resonance from the colonial era, when slave traders, missionaries and colonial officials blithely separated African families with little regard to their wishes. In Congo, government officials suspended all adoptions by foreigners to examine their procedures more carefully, according to The Associated Press, and protesters angry about the attempted kidnappings took to the streets in Chad.

The scandal has also raised tensions between Chad and France just as the European Union begins deploying a peacekeeping force in the region aimed at shoring up Chad, which has been increasingly drawn into the four-year-old conflict in neighboring Darfur.

This history is one reason why adoptions by Westerners are not common in African countries. Incidents like this contribute to the destruction black families, and I suspect these aid workers felt no need to respect the rights of poor black African families.¹

1. Why oh why am I having flashbacks to this old Rachel’s Tavern post/comment? I was so angry at that woman. I could barely contain myself. (back)

Charles has posted the 18th Erase Racism Carnival over at Kill Bigotry! As usual we have great submissions.

Here is the schedule for the next 3 months. January is still open if anyone is interested in hosting. For more information about the carnival, check out the carnival’s home page at Ally Work.

November 2007 @ Eric Stoller
December 2007 @ Present Progressive Mood
January 2008 @ open

This weekend Carmen and I were interviewed by the New York Times about the recent rash of noose threats. Here is the link to the article and a few quotes from the article.

At least seven times in the past few weeks, nooses have been anonymously tossed over pipes or hung on doorknobs in the New York metropolitan area — four times here on Long Island, twice in New York City, once at a Home Depot store in Passaic, N.J. The settings are disparate. One noose was hung in a police station locker room in Hempstead, where the apparent target was a black police officer recently promoted to deputy chief. Another was draped over the doorknob of the office of a black professor at Columbia University.

The question of why these things were happening — whether linked to events somewhere else, like in Jena, La., or part of some new homegrown vernacular of race hate — seemed to wait in line last week behind the question of where the next noose would be found.

Three noose episodes took place on Long Island in three days. On Wednesday, two were found at a sanitation garage in the Town of Hempstead — one of them looped around the neck of a stuffed animal with its face blackened. On Thursday, a noose was discovered hanging in a Nassau County highway department yard in Baldwin. On Friday, a worker at the Green Acres shopping mall in Valley Stream found one slung over a door at a construction site.

Here they describe the history of Long Island, and we have Carmen’s quote:

Like many other parts of the country, Long Island is not without a history of racial bigotry. Black people were barred from buying homes in Levittown until well into the 1960s. Some Long Island school districts are still among the most segregated in the country. The black population is about 12 percent of the total, but is highly concentrated in a half-dozen communities that are 95 percent minority. In 2004, in Suffolk County, it was still possible for an interracial couple to wake up in the night to find a cross burning on their lawn — it happened in a hamlet called Lake Grove.

Lynching was not part of that history. But to some of those sifting the evidence, the nooses of 2007 represent much the same impulse as lynchings did in the Jim Crow South.

“In the context of today, the noose means, ‘There is still a racial hierarchy in this country, and you better not overstep your bounds,’” said Carmen Van Kerckhove, the founder of a New York consulting firm, New Demographic, that specializes in workplace problems, including racial tension.

Here’s one of the men who was threatened with a noose with my quote at the end:

Willie Warren, an equipment operator at the Nassau County Public Works yard here, was among three workers in the garage on Thursday when an employee ran in to tell them he had found a noose hanging from a fence outside. Mr. Warren, 41, who has been with the department for 20 years, filed a racial discrimination suit in 2004, producing tape recordings of a supervisor referring to him with racial epithets. He won the case, got a promotion, still works for one of the supervisors named in his suit, and considers himself unflappable on the job.

The noose shook him. “It’s hard to explain, but it made me upset the whole day,” Mr. Warren said. One white co-worker was as upset as he was, he said. Another said, “What’s the big deal? It’s only a noose.”

Rachel E. Sullivan, an assistant professor of sociology at Long Island University’s C. W. Post College, said most people do not understand what lynchings were. “They think it was a few guys coming in the night, in their hooded sheets, taking you away,” she said.

She teaches a course on African-American history, including the killings of thousands by lynching in the United States between the end of the Civil War and the end of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

“But in reality these were whole, big community events,” she said. “Children and families would come to watch. Hundreds of people attended. They would watch a man being burned and mutilated before he was hung. They would pose for pictures with the body.

“If people had a grasp of what really happened at these things,” Professor Sullivan continued, “they would understand the power of the symbol of a noose.”

You can read the whole article at the link above.

Editor’s Note: I’m absolutely not going to let this thread turn into a discussion of how whites really aren’t racist, and people of color are really the problem. So if you want to leave a whiny comment about Al Sharpton or illegal immigrants or any other distraction, I’ll delete it.

I want to pull several seemingly unrelated posts together to make a point about contemporary racism. Yesterday, I read this post over at Racialicious. Carmen closes the post with the following sentences about Don Imus and Michael Richards:

The Richards incident started with the racist ravings of a white man, complete with references to lynching, but ended up as a public discussion of why black people keep using the n-word towards each other. The Imus incident started with the racist and misogynist remarks of a white man, but ended up as a public referendum on misogyny in hip hop.

It’s fascinating to me that all roads seem to lead back to discussions of how black people are supposedly oppressing themselves.

I am struck by how common this phenomenon is. The basic pattern that these discussion follow is:

1. White person makes incredibly racist statements.
2. Some people express outrage over those statements; others seek to downplay the statements.
3. Those who want to downplay the statements are able to win the “hearts and minds” of the vast majority of whites, who want operate by the anything but racism philosophy.
4. The conversation the turns to how it really isn’t racist or wasn’t intention of the person. Since this allows people to think it is not that person’s fault, they then proceed to the last step.
5. Blaming the real victims of racism.

This leads to sentiments like notion Don Imus called women nappy headed hos because of Hip Hop. Once we reach the 5th step the conversation is almost beyond repair. Whites are reframed as victims people of color (in particular blacks) are framed as the real source of the problem, and then the debate has totally shifted.

Professor Black Woman’s post here gives several examples of this phenomenon. In particular, she focuses on how Tucker Carlson discussed the Jena 6 case by discussing Carlson’s reframing:

In the “new” face of racism, two things have to happen: 1. acknowledge that the certain aspects of any racist incident are extreme (not unfair, extreme) or that the black community is acceptable to you & 2. then posit a racist overlaying narrative that essential reframes the discussion around the unfair and extreme behavior perceived to be experienced by white people.

After reading those Carmen’s and Professor Black Woman’s posts, I was reminded of the discussion we had here and at Alas about the Don Imus controversy. I put up very few posts about the Don Imus case, but the discussion generated in those posts two posts reveals how these contemporary racist tactics work.

Let me start by going through the discussion on Rachel’s Tavern. At Rachel’s Tavern, most of the people who commented on the Imus post are black, not everybody (but most). Dcase (who I really like; I promise) was the first person to bring Hip Hop into the discussion, which lead to a focus on Blacks not Imus. He said,

Moreover, there is some hypocrisy inherent here in that many of those who are up in arms about Imus referring to them as such but use such language everyday in their own speech and bob their heads to it from their music. This especially true among blacks: the hateful stuff that they commonly direct to each other is often worse than anything a racist could think up.

This statement unleashed criticism from most of the subsequent posters, many of whom pointed out the logical flaw that it is unfair to assume that the people who were upset were necessarily the same people who condone the use of sexist and racist language in Hip Hop. (It’s worth reading the whole thread.) I think Gandolf Mantooth’s post summarized it well:

I don’t understand the “so what blacks do it, too” defense. So, Dcase, if Imus had used the N-word on air, would you still have the same opinion? Moreover, I don’t think that if say, Chris Rock (since he seems to be one of the whipping boys of the moment) had called the Rutgers team the same thing on some chat show that there would not have been similar outrage. Perhaps some non-African Americans might have sat on the sidelines and watched, however there would have been a problem, and for him, it would have started at home.

What is even MORE baffling is how many people are trying to pull rap music into the discussion (not only coming from the White right, but from Black talk radio). It seems that lately, any time a White guy mouths of we gotta talk about hip hop.

What’s interesting to me about this is the underlying tone about how we approach women athletes in the public sphere

I replied:

Which is one reason why many reasonable and non-sexist black men don’t say that bullshit. These stupid pundits think Too Short and Two Live Crew represent that typical black men.

Yeah, we always have to bring up hip hop and ignorant black people as an excuse for whites’ racism.

Angry Independent joined in the Hip Hop criticism later in the discussion by asking me:

Surely you aren’t trying to make excuses for the Rap Community?

Why shouldn’t they be held to the same standard for doing far more damage than Don Imus on a daily basis?

This caravan of criticism & accountability shouldn’t stop with Don Imus… We should drive this thing all the way to the doorstep of Hip Hop, urban radio, the record executives, the rappers, BET, and all the rest.

To which I responded:

No I’m not excusing it, but I do think it is not relevant to Imus. Just because some sexist black men degrade black women by calling them hos doesn’t mean it’s Ok for white men to do it.
This is the classic condemn the condemners strategy. It’s like the guy caught on tape committing a crime, and the first thing he says is “Other people stold too.” But you’re the one on tape, you’re the one everybody caught. You’re the one on trial.

Sexist hip hop artists and sexist black men can get their trial on another day, but it is not relevant now.

Then Angry Independent said:

Whoa!!!
I think you might have misunderstood me. I am completely against what Imus did… just to make that clear. And I AM NOT saying that Imus should be allowed to get away with it because rappers do it.
I am basically saying almost the opposite…. I am saying that ALL should be condemned…and that the African American community has to look within at this same kind of behavior, which (in the Black Community) is far more damaging. Yet, I don’t see Sharpton and Jesse & others working as vigorously or with the same determination to organize boycotts, or to get people fired at these radio stations, record companies, at rap concerts, against BET, etc.
I think we will just have to agree to disagree on the issue of rap not being relevent to the Imus situation. IT IS VERY relevent. The two cannot and must not be separated. One has facilitated the other. One has desensitized the society to such a degree that someone like Imus thought that this would be O.k. or that it would blow over.

The two issues are inseparable.

Then I responded:

I don’t think you are saying this personally, but I think the outcome of always bringing up sexist comments from black men or attacking the character of blacks who note these racist comment allows white racists to feel better.

On the issue of blaming hip hop…..I feel sexism and the “whore” image of black women existed way before hip hop. Sexist rappers may have helped it along, and they should be held accountable, but they didn’t create the problem anymore than preachers, politicans, and other sexist men.

Do you think Imus was out listening to hip hop, and it influenced him? I don’t think so. White men have stereotyped black women as “hos” going back a long way…back to slavery. They used this as a justification for rape and exploitation. This started way before hip hop.

Now for the record, I do think Hip Hop deserves criticism, and I do think both Angry Independent and dcase mean well. I’ve read enough comments of theirs to know that, but the reason others folks and I were so frustrated at that line of reasoning is that it is used by many in politics, mass media, and academia to avoid discussing white racism. I agree that there is a time and a place for Black Americans, like dcase, Angry Independent or any of the other folks participating in that thread, to talk about Blacks who degrade other Blacks, but that discussion needs to happen not because a white guy like Imus degrades Blacks.

The thread at Alas was even worse. Since there is no way I can actually recreate the 216 comments, I’ll just summarize what happened. When one commenter focused only on the sexist aspect of the comments, I reminded her that “It also matters that the women were black.” To which Brandon Berg responded,

It’s not at all clear that it does, given that he then went on to say, “the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute,” and they’re black, too (as far as I can tell—the video clip isn’t very clear). His choice of whom to insult and whom to compliment was based on his perception of their attractiveness, not their race.

I responded to Brandon, by saying it was obvious that he would not have called a white woman nappy headed. I also noted that references Black women as “hos” were much more common than references to white women as hos, to which Brandon responded:

He called them hoes because they had tattoos. The perception of an association between tattoos and promiscuity and/or general trashiness is not something that’s limited to black women. For example, lower-back tattoos on white women are called “tramp stamps.” It wouldn’t strike me at all as unusual if a man were to call a group of white women with visible tattoos “hoes.”

I’m not sure what you mean about Google. “White hoes” gets slightly more googits than “black hoes,” and likewise “hos”. Are you talking about quantity or quality?

The only other time I’ve ever heard the phrase “nappy-head” was back in high school, when a Mexican boy called a Mexican girl with straight hair a nappy-head. I realize that one meaning of nappy is the texture of a black person’s hair, but it also means icky or unappealing, and is used as a generic insult. You can argue that the second meaning has racist origins in that it was derived from the first, but words tend to get divorced from their origins, and people use them without understanding where they came from.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that it wasn’t a bad thing to say. I’m just saying that I’m not sure race factored into it much if at all. Racism is one of the few things that’s more or less universally regarded as unacceptable in American culture, so as a rule non-nuts don’t say things which are clearly racist. Which is why most of the examples of racist comments that you post are ambiguous.

For the record, Brandon never met a case of racism that he actually thought was racism. This was part of an on-going tit-for-tat between he and I, in which I would put up a post about an event or practice that I felt was racist, and he would come in an say it wasn’t racism.

On the upside, there were several people challenging Brandon, but as the thread went along racism apologists started to outnumber (or it was at least equal) the people saying Imus’s comment was not racist. Then at some point the discussion ended up moving away from the original content, and the racism apologists helped move us to a discussion of what is racist and who is racist. They wanted to define racism so narrowly that almost nothing is defined as racist. Robert made this claim:

Saying so-and-so is a racist, in my view, is saying that they’re of a piece with the night riders who terrorized blacks, raping and killing to buttress an awful system of oppression and outright tyranny. That’s one hell of a serious charge to lay on somebody, so I’m reluctant to do it unless the evidence is unequivocal. Racism is evil, and racists are evil. I hate to put someone in the “evil” category if I don’t have to.

To which I responded (you can click on this link for the full comment):

To Robert and everyone else,
The problem here is the very simplistic thinking. White racism runs the gamit from very virulent violence that can result in bodily injury to more subtle things like not feeling comfortable in a room where there are people of color or not listening when people of color give their points of view.

When we reserve the term racism for only the most violent acts, we ignore the cumulative affects of those more subtle forms of racism, which add up over time.

(To Robert) Take your early reaction to Angel H. She was clearly ticked off, and even though I don’t agree with her in theory, she was trying very hard to be heard. She was saying as a black woman I find this offensive, and then what happened? Rather than making any attempt to confirm her feelings or acknowledge why she was hurt and frustrated, you came in with your theory. In doing so, you dismissed her frustration, your dismissed her view, you dismissed her anger, and you dismissed her as a black woman. Because you were so fixated on being right and creating a good theory, but you did really seem to connect with her everyday experience. (I saw the same thing with pheeno on a thread about a month ago.)…..

But letting go of racism and privilege is so very hard for most white people. So rather than being able to serious engage Angel and acknowledge her feelings we have to go back to our precious worldviews. We just can’t let the focus be on the black women who were insulted by such language. No instead we have to insult black male leaders and go over what we think are their shortcomings, talk about really nice white guys, who help kids with cancer. Then we start to talk about the great freedom of speech principle, and on and on and on……Ok, white folks and men. It’s not all about us and our views all the time. Just take a minute to put yourself in someone elses shoes.

What was also disturbing about that thread was that all of the black women, especially Angel H. and Ann, were dismissed or ignored as if their perspectives weren’t important, which was incredibly insulting since the racist and sexist comments by Imus were directly at Black women.

That Alas thread was one of the most exasperating and annoying exercises in contemporary racist rhetoric I have ever seen. A few posters wanted to talk about Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (because every time white guys screw up we have to talk about both of them); another one wanted claim that there are basic genetic differences between whites and blacks; Michael wanted to talk about how black women are doing great because Oprah Winfrey is doing well, and an idiot called GET OVER IT admonished those of us complaining about Imus’s comments to:

FIND SOMETHING BETTER TO WORRY ABOUT. ALMOST ALL OF YOU COMPLAINERS OUT THERE ARE GUILTY OF DOING THE SAME THING ONE TIME OR ANOTHER. IF THIS WAS EDDIE MURPHY OR SOME OTHER BLACK PERSON THAT SAID THIS, NO ONE WOULD HAVE EVEN SAID ANYTHING.

It got so bad that Ampersand, banned 5 different people from posting on the thread, and we had a really long discussion both on and off the site about how we were going to change the comment policy.

Here’s what frustrates me: we need to talk about white people’s role in racism. We need to have a discussion about white racism that is not derailed. After all, Whites hold the vast majority of power in the US (and in the global political and economic institutions), and we have the most influence over racism. We need to stop pretending that Hip Hop, or Black criminals, or anyone who acknowledges racism is the problem. The analogy I have used for the past 10-15 years is the analogy of alcoholism. One of the basic tenets Alcoholics Anonymous is that a person has to acknowledge his or her alcoholism before he or she can get better. Well the same is true for white racism. No matter what people of color are doing. We whites don’t need to make an excuse, saying when Black people do better then we will stop being racist. First, it unfair to make glaring generalizations about how bad black people are based on the behavior of a select few blacks, and second, we don’t have to wait for every black person (Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, too) to be perfect before we stop being racist. If we want to stop racism, we have to acknowledge that the problem is ours. We need to have a conversation about ourselves where racism is at the forefront. We need to stop the distraction tactics, stop the victim mentality, stop the whining, and focus on what we can do better.

This pattern of behavior needs to stop. Just like alcoholism, white racism doesn’t need enablers, and it doesn’t need excuses. For racism to stop we need whites to acknowledge the problem and then to start working on it.

This month’s Erase Racism Carnival will be held at Kill Bigotry!

Submissions are due on Oct. 17th, and the carnival goes up around the 20th. If you want to submit an article you can go here.

For more information about the Carnival, You can check out the Carnival Homepage at Allywork. The Hosting schedule for the rest of the year is: November 2007 @ Eric Stoller; December 2007 @ Present Progressive Mood.

I received an email from a reader about a round table on the Tavis Smiley Show. Apparently, Tavis will have a panel discussing Thomas’s book and his appearance on 60 Minutes. Panelists are Marc Morial, President and CEO of The National Urban League, Princeton Professor Cornel West, and Columbia University President, Farah Jasmine Griffin. If you are in New York, the Tavis Smiley Show airs at 12 midnight on PBS.  If you are in another market, I’m not sure of the time, but you can check you local PBS station.
Did anyone else see the 60 Minutes interview with Thomas?   I thought he came off as really bitter.  He kept using the anchor’s name in a pejorative way.  It was very uncomfortable from my vantage point.  For those interested in abortion and sexual harassment issues, Thomas made the claim that the controversy surrounding his appointment was really about abortion.  The panel on the Tavis Smiley Show will discuss this issue in some depth.

I’m stepping outside the usual fare because I saw something a few weeks ago that surprised me, and I was curious what others thought. I walked into a local discount store, and the first thing I saw was Big League Chew. For those who are unfamiliar, Big League Chew is bubble gum that is made to resemble chewing tobacco. It was really popular when I was a child, and at that time, chewing tobacco was popular with baseball players, so the idea was that if you had Big League Chew you could be popular like your baseball heroes. As the popularity of tobacco has declined, I haven’t seen this product as readily advertised or promoted–the same for candy cigarettes¹. However, I was under the impression that these products are not only less popular today, but illegal. I personally wouldn’t support a law against pseudo-tobacco products for kids because I think it’s too much government intervention, but I would be more than happy to launch a boycott or letter writing campaign against companies who produce and distribute pseudo-alcohol, tobacco, and drug products to children. I’m not sure what correlation there is between the use of pseudo-tobacco/alcohol/drug products as a child, and subsequent use of tobacco/alcohol/drugs as an adult. What do you think?

Would you allow your kids to buy these products? Do you think the products should be banned? Do you think they affect children’s likelihood of using the “real thing” when they get older?

1. Apparently there are also marijuana candies, but I’ve only seen them when a local TV station did an expose a few years ago. (back)

The Carnival is really growing, and Susan has managed to piece together a long list of posts for this month. Go check out the posts!

Next month’s Carnival will be held over at Kill Bigotry, and in November the Carnival will be at Eric Stoller’s place.

If you are interested in hosting a future Erase Racism Carnival or submitting a post, you can check out the Carnival Homepage for available dates and contact information.

Editor’s Note: I don’t often share very personal stories, but I think there is something instructive in this story, so I am prepared to deal with the blowback.

I remember an argument I had with my mother a few years back. I had brought my boyfriend, a black man, who I had been dating for 4 years, to a family picnic. At the picnic, my grandfather and his wife refused to shake my ex-boyfriend’s hand because he was black. I knew something like this was going to happen, as my maternal extended relatives had made numerous bigoted comments going back to my childhood. I felt terrible for putting my ex in that situation, and I felt terrible that nobody in my family stood up and said something. They pretended like nothing happened. I was sobbing and furious, and he and I left the picnic soon after. We stopped at a fast food place, and he said, “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before. I’m so glad we left.” I was glad to be gone, too.

After leaving I had an over the phone discussion with my mother, where my mother suggested that it was unfortunate that we left because my young cousins were crying. They liked and missed my ex and could not figure out why he had left. Her tone suggested that my ex and I were responsible for my cousins being upset, and perhaps, if we came back, they would stop crying. I remember being furious with my mother’s reaction, and I blurted out, “They should be upset. Racism hurts people. The fact that they are crying is a good thing. Hopefully, when they grow up, they will remember this so they don’t ever treat people that way.”

Later that evening, my mother and some of my aunts and cousins who felt bad about the situation came over to my apartment. I guess it was their way to try to make up for not saying anything at the picnic. They brought my younger cousins, so they could actually talk to my ex and hopefully feel better. At some point, they tried to tell me how my grandfather felt uncomfortable, and he felt like everybody was looking to see what he would do, and he made the claim that this was why he and his wife refused to shake hands. They also reminded me that my grandfather was notorious for being an abrasive person outside of his racism. But I wasn’t having it. To me this was all bullshit. Racist bullshit. Yes, he had been an asshole on other occasions, but this time he was a racist asshole.

I had listened to him and some other relatives in my extended family say pejorative things about blacks and Latinos for years. These offensive comments ranged from using the word nigger, to talking about lazy “colored” people, and making all kinds of statements about Mexican migrant farmworkers. It was rare for anybody but me to challenge this, and I didn’t even do it every time. In fact, it reached a point where people didn’t saying these things around me anymore because they knew I would get mad.¹

The next Christmas my father and brother showed their solidarity with my ex (and me) by refusing to attend any events that my maternal grandfather attended.

I half forgave my grandfather and his wife even thought they never apologized and most likely they weren’t sorry for what they did. I’m not exactly sure how my ex dealt with this in the long run. By the time I saw my grandfather again, about 2 years later, I was no longer is that relationship. I had recently found out my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, and I sat at the table and bit my tongue, while trying my best to act friendly. I know my mother, who felt torn over these events, was happy to see me sitting at that table, and I cheered when I saw him again 6 months later, and he announced his cancer had gone into remission. But I can’t lie. I was happy to be living very far away from him; I knew I didn’t have to confront this issue over and over again.

In my first month in New York, he suffered a severe stroke and heart attack. He suffered a great deal for a month or two, and then he passed away. I was sad that he died, and part of that sadness was with the fact that he never confronted any of the pain he visited on others. That racist incident defined my relationship with him over the last few years of his life. It’s really hard to remember the jokes he made when I was a child, before I knew or understood the depth of his bigotry.

This incident didn’t only change my view of him; it still lingers in the background of the relationships with many of my relatives. Some people may believe the lesson in this story is that you should make up with your loved ones before they die, but I don’t see it that way. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I didn’t want to expend any more emotional energy fighting an uphill battle. It would have been nice to get an apology for my ex and myself, but the odds of that happening were slim. To me, the lesson is that racism destroys relationships. It makes, otherwise decent people, turn a blind eye to suffering. The theory that says many white people don’t care about racism because it doesn’t effect them or their loved ones makes sense until you realize that in many cases loved ones are either perpetrators or inactive bystanders when racism is directed at their loved ones.

Racism is so insidious that it anesthetizes people to suffering of others (even others who they care about). It destroys empathetic reactions to human suffering. The victims of racism are expected to be the “bigger people” while the perpetrators get the “Get Out of Racism Free” card. Even when they know racist behavior is wrong and harmful, many white observers of racism suffer from moral paralysis. Rather than doing what is morally right, they do nothing.²

Moral paralysis is learned. It is not something that you are born with. This is actually why I was happy that my little cousins were crying when we left that picnic. Even though they didn’t quite know what was going on or why this situation was bad, it showed me that they hadn’t quite learned to be immune the suffering that racism causes. I hope, nearly 10 years later, they still get upset in those situations. I hope they have the courage to respond to bigots inside and outside our family. It may be the more difficult path to take (as I can attest to), but it’s the right one.

1. I’d like to think that some stopped because they had a change of heart, but I’m not so convinced. (back)
2. I’m not saying that it is easy for people who observe racist behavior to speak out. In these cases of family racism, there are often long protracted battles where people choose sides, which is not easy to do when you love someone but don’t love their behavior. Personally, I chose to withdraw rather than lobby for support. Partly, because I knew I was right; partly because I had been fighting on this issue for years prior to this; and partly because I didn’t expect to get too much support. In fact, I suspect that the amount of sympathy my partner and I received would have been inversely related to how much lobbying we did. (back)