Lessons: Being white on St. Paddy's Day in Philly

One thing we white people don't have nearly enough of is conscious thought about what it means to be white. So whenever something emerges, it's good to read it and pass it along. And, as a white person, to deeply take in what it says. As in, "This applies directly to me."

So today's lesson comes from, Being White in Philly St. Patrick's Day Weekend by j.n. salters, a Black feminist writer. We white people have such a hard time looking at our own whiteness and associated privileges that it is no surprise this is penned by someone who is Black. Kind of like how women can turn the mirror on men to see their sexism, their privilege, etc. We have to battle it, fight the power of it, so we know it. 

In her article, she points out,

"As I walked down 15th Street in Center City this past Saturday night -- amidst drunken white girls in green mini skirts and green heels with green bows in their hair, and belligerent white boys wearing green beaded necklaces and funny-shaped glasses yelling and chasing after the girls -- I could not help but think, this is what it actually means to be white in Philadelphia...

... Seriously? You cannot be fucking serious. But, of course you're serious. You're white in Center City. As I continued to make my way down the shit show covered in shamrocks, I asked myself, what if all these people outside were black? If we are to go by recent Philadelphia policies and legislation -- many of which disproportionately target people of color (e.g., stop and frisk, "zero tolerance" policies, curfew ordinances, voter ID laws) -- I am almost certain that had these been masses of drunken black teenagers and young adults decked in matching colors, they would have been deemed gang members, looters, flash mobsters, and subsequently stopped and frisked, beaten, and/or arrested."

Go read the whole thing (link conveniently re-inserted).

If you are white, did you go out and party on St. Paddy's Day in large crowds of mostly white people? Or at some other street party in the last few zillion years? Did you for one second think about your relative safety and what she just said? Probably not. That unawareness is your/our privilege at work.

And now that you're more aware, what are you gonna do about it? (And please do think about what it means that one of the viable answers is "nothing.")

Trayvon Martin could have been your son

 Trayvon Martin, killed at age 17, on Feb. 26, 2012

Most of us didn't know much about the murder of Trayvon Martin until it blew up on Twitter when the 911 tapes were released on March 16. The tapes essentially documented that a teenage African American kid was murdered in Florida while walking back from a store where he had bought Skittles and iced tea. Apparently those actions were grounds for "suspicious behavior," to be shot and killed.

When I listened to the tapes, I flew into a rage, a mama rage, and joined in the shared outrage on Twitter.  

If you've been paying attention, you know this story by now. You know that his shooter, Geroge Zimmerman, a "neighborhood watch" volunteer, has not yet been arrested. You know the Department of Justice is finally involved. And you know this story was silent in our national headlines for far too long. How did it take almost two weeks for most of us to learn about this? Somehow the senseless death of a black teenage kid just doesn't make the lede. But thanks to social media and a few dedicated journalists, the outrage, by this week, could no longer be ignored.

If you haven't been paying attention, catch up now. One of the best sources is NY Times journalist Charles M. Blow, who was one of the first to bring this story to a national audience in his March 16 column. He also has been relentless in his pursuit of the story, chronicling it all on his Twitter account. Another good source is Goldie Taylor, again on Twitter. Or Google "Trayvon Martin."

But here's the deal. The outrage is mostly polarized. Like it was with so many slain young African American men before Trayvon. And it is polarized in a specific way. We white people don't get how each death is so much more than the horror of the individual incident - it is most certainly that - but it is also the hundreds and hundreds of murders and lynchings that have come before, and the daily threat to any black person, but especially any black male over the age of 12, that this too could be your story. Any day. Any time. For any reason. 

The Grio just published this slideshow which sets Trayvon's murder in the terrible history of young men and women who have been killed before him. Watch, remember, and carry it forward. Because there will be more.

A couple of days ago, someone wrote a piece about white privilege and how we white people will never look suspicious like Trayvon Martin because of that privilege. Yes, but please stop. That is an obvious truth and not what this is about. This is about the senseless death of a young man, a young man that could be anyone's son. 


Your son. Our son. My son.


Write about that instead. Write about how white people, even if we are terribly upset about what happened, cannot begin to understand the depth of the outrage, sorrow and worry that black and brown people feel. Unless we have a black or brown son, spouse or loved one. Only then do we begin to step a little bit closer to that outrage, the despair, and the worry - because only then do we feel it from within the context of love and the deepest parts of our hearts.

I never would have understood this had I not raised a black son. He was first stopped and searched by the police at 13 and has been stopped many times since for no reason. His daily existence equates to "suspicious behavior" for far too many. I live with a constant worry of "what if." He has already been dragged under by the streets, by "the system," and by his own foolishness. Yet still he survives, trying to thrive. Actually just trying to live. And he knows, as sure the air he breathes, as sure the depth of his love for his own young son, that at 29, at any given moment, he could be the one in the cross hairs for "acting suspicious." 

Even if we have a Black president. Even if he was president.

That is our country's shared disgrace. That is the thing we must all understand and fight. 

March 21 Update: 
NPR has excellent coverage of this issue this morning. 

First, listen to this story about the response in a community in central Florida. Listen carefully to the differences in the black and white responses to this murder. My point exactly. 


Also, listen to this story that documents how the Black community forced this story into mainstream media through social media, the black press, individual journalists, and thousands of outraged individuals.

Review: "The Help" doesn't help white people

If you've missed the outpouring of negative reviews, tweets, and general outrage over the release of the movie version of The Help from voices in the African American community, you've had your head in the sand. To bring yourself up to speed, read these reviews before continuing with this post:

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help, by the Association of Black Women Historians

Black-and-White Struggle with a Rosey Glow, by Nelson George

And for balance, here is an interesting interview with Octavia Spencer about her role as Minnie Jackson, one the of maids, and the movie overall.

Another great source for ongoing discussion of the movie is to search the hashtag #TheHelpMovie on Twitter. All kinds of people have lots to say.

I finally saw the movie tonight and came loaded for anger after reading all of that outrage. I was shocked to find myself liking it more than I thought I would. I could see and understand that the movie was a sugarcoated, whitewashed version of what really happened during Jim Crow, but it didn't send me into a fury. It didn't go far enough, but it wasn't that bad, through my lens. I was disappointed I didn't hate it.

That got me thinking about how differently black and white people are experiencing the movie and wondering why. Is there a white perspective on the movie, and if so, what is it?

Let's start with comedian Louis CK, who sums up things pretty well here:


Sadly what makes this spot so hilarious is that most white people are pretty clueless about our privilege.

We are also pretty clueless about the varied experiences of African American people of all education and economic backgrounds, from slavery to today.

I came of age in the sixties and early seventies, during the time in which The Help is set, and when the civil rights movement was in full force, changing our country forever. But I barely knew it was happening.

The environment I grew up in was virtually all-white, middle class suburbia. Anything I knew about Black people, slavery, Jim Crow, or the civil rights movement came from the history I was taught in school, what I saw on TV, or from the very brief, infrequent conversations we had about those topics at home. Which means I knew Jack, and what I did know was mostly distorted, watered down, or an outright lie. This is true for most white people.

I didn't begin to get another point of view until college, when I had my first opportunities to meet Black people, say stupid stuff in front of them, be called a racist, and thanks to the beginnings of African American Studies and Women's Studies programs, take classes that deconstructed the hell out of my naive reality.

More than 35 years and thousands of experiences later, I am no longer clueless. Yet I am clued-in just enough to understand that what I know about being African American is only by proxy, despite the fact that my most intimate and important relationships are with people who are Black, including my children, my grandchildren, and my spouse.

But I'm fortunate. Most white people stay in segregated enclaves and never get the chance to grow or to understand anything outside of our distorted realities.

So the stakes are very, very high for African American people whenever a movie comes out about The Black Experience, especially if it is a white person trying to tell the tale. (There is also the Tyler Perry debate, but that's a whole other post.)

No wonder people are seething at how The Help falls short, glossing over the exploitation and brutality of the time, and appropriating the real story of Black maids in the Jim Crow south by making the central character a white person who saves the day.

Which is exactly why movies like The Help are not helpful for white people. Most of us have not had enough experiences or education outside of our white worlds to have any critical context and perspective about what we are watching. We falsely think it is The Truth. Liberal white people in particular have a hard time wrapping our heads and hearts around the ugly truth of our nation's racial history without becoming paralyzed with guilt. Many liberal white people want desperately to believe that things are almost all better now, especially since we elected a Black man president.

The great racial divide is alive and well. Same country, two different worlds. And it's all playing out in reactions to this movie.

Read the screen grabs below from actor Wendell Pierce's Twitterstream. He recounts watching the movie with his mother, who was The Help at one point in her life, as was his grandmother. He sums up the great divide perfectly, 140 characters at a time. Especially this: "Watching the film in Uptown New Orleans to the sniffles of elderly white people while my 80 year old mother was seething, made clear [the] distinction."

Read from the bottom to the top:

Pierce: "The story was a sentimental primer of a palatable segregation that is Jim Crow light."

Yes. The The Help lets white people off the hook. It creates a partial truth that allows us to feel less guilty about Jim Crow and all the bad things our ancestors did during slavery because the feel-good outweighs the feel-bad, to keep our heads collectively in the sand about how we still benefit from all our privilege, and to be in denial about the incredible racist backlash caused by President Obama's election and how bad things still are for most Black people today.

There is an opportunity in all of this. White people, if you were moved by the movie (thanks in part to the amazing actors who play the maids) and are curious about the vocal controversy surrounding it, seek out knowledge about what it really meant to be The Help. We share this history. We need to understand it.

I recommend these books as a place to start:

Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody

Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

And here is a list of books offered up by Melissa Harris-Perry (@MHarrisPerry) after she did some scathing live tweeting while watching The Help. A great recounting of her tweets and an interview with her about the movie can be found here.

(Again, read from the bottom up.)

Note to readers: In all the searching I've done for reviews and responses, I've not found one critical piece by someone who is white. If you know of any, please leave them in the comments sections. Thank you.

Sept 18 Update: Read this great post by 74 year old Janet Cheatham Bell, an accomplished author who once worked as a maid. 

Unpack your white privilege with LOLcats!

In the late 80s Peggy McIntosh penned her now famous essay "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." 


Ever since then, white people have had the most serious, earnest, difficult conversations about white privilege, unpacking our personal knapsacks, and, well, being white. I have led or sat in many such sessions, so I can attest to how hard this work is for we white people and how seriously those of us who engage in it take it. Seriously serious. As in makes-me-wonder-about-white-people-and-our-collective-sense-of-humor-or-lack-thereof serious.


Don't get me wrong. This work is important and necessary. Doing the work changed and continues to change my life. But seriously white people, can we learn by laughing at ourselves once in a while?!


FOR EXAMPLE....


This week, thanks to my friend the amazing Erica (AKA Swirlspice) I learned about the invisibul backpak LOLcats. They were spawned in 2008 so I'm late to the table, but maybe you are, too.


Check out the whole thing here, but I have to post a couple of examples to give you a taste:

See we can be funny! (That is, if the creators of most of these kittehs are white. Maybe they're not.) 


But seriously, I do wonder this: Do white people have to have read the essay, have to be engaged in the work, to get the humor in this? 


Maybe we have to get serious before we can laugh.


Check our this post on the same topic on the blog "Stuff White People Do." Be sure to read the comment thread.


Related posts:
My Big Fat White Privileged Life
Louis CK on being white

How to scare (some) white people

I've been trying to figure out for weeks how to better talk about the way the "race card" is being played by the right wing conservatives/tea baggers to manipulate white voters. Well, here is the best analysis I've seen yet and it is hilarious.

Elon James White, who brings us This Week in Blackness (TWIB)," brings it all together with "TWiB! Season 3 Ep#7 - The 'How To' Guide on Scaring White People." 

Fear of a Black President

The Tea Party, which is the epicenter of post-racial right wing conservatism, is at its roots all about race. The party's supporters, (un)affectionately know as Tea Baggers, and others like them, are at their roots, all about race. About being racist. About "Fear of the Black Man."

And what set off their maelstrom of hatred and lunacy? Was it that their daughter married a black man? No. This is 21st century fear and loathing. It's their worst nightmare come true: "Their" country (not "ours") elected a black man president.

I am 54. Demographers say the U.S. will become majority people of color in about 30 years. I'm hoping I live to see it. In the meantime, this fear-hatred-take-back-what-we-think-we've-lost mentality is menacing to me. Because it could get ugly. Way uglier. The right is systematically organizing, using fear as their central tactic. And the crazies are getting crazier. The central theme? Everything Obama does is a conspiracy against white people. For real.

Tim Wise nails it. Read every word of his latest entry in his dairy: Black Power's Gonna Get you Sucka: Right-Wing Paranoia and the Rhetoric of Modern Racism.

Here's a few excerpts, but please. Read. It. All.

"Prominent white conservatives are angry about racism.

Forget all that talk about a post-racial society. They know better than to believe in such a thing, and they’re hopping mad.

What is it that woke them up finally, after all these years of denial, during which they insisted that racism was a thing of the past?

Was it the research indicating that job applicants with white sounding names have a 50 percent better chance of being called back for an interview than their counterparts with black-sounding names, even when all qualifications are the same?

No.

Was it the study that found white job applicants with criminal records have a better chance of being called back for an interview than black applicants without one, even when all the qualifications are the same?

No.

Was it the massive nationwide study that estimated at least 1 million cases of blatant job discrimination against blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans each year, affecting roughly one-in-three job seekers of color?

No.

Is it the fact that black males with college degrees are almost twice as likely as their white male counterparts to be out of work?

No...

...Maybe it was because of those guys over at the popular right-wing website, FreeRepublic.com who called the President's daughter, Malia, "typical ghetto trash," and a "whore" whose mother likes to entertain her by "making monkey sounds?"

No.

Or perhaps they finally had enough when they heard about how Rep. Ciro Rodriguez was called a "wetback" by one of his constituents and told to go back to Mexico?

No.

Or maybe it was that lawmaker in South Carolina who called both President Obama and Republican Gubernatorial candidate (and Indian American) Nikki Haley, "ragheads?"

No...

...It is none of this. Neither the evidence of systemic discrimination against people of color in every walk of American life, nor the repeated examples of blatant racism directed towards people of color individually moves them.

But they're angry nonetheless about racism in America.

They're especially angry about the tax being placed on those who use tanning salons. Because this is racist. Against white people. No, seriously.

Oh, and the President criticized a white police officer for arresting a black man for a crime that, turns out, the black man didn't actually commit, according to state law. That Obama would do such a thing--namely, criticize an officer for making an unjustified arrest--means that white police officers are "under assault" from Obama, and that the President is trying to "destroy" the white officer, no doubt because he's white.

Oh, and since people of color disproportionately lack health care coverage, the President's plan for expanding coverage is obviously a racist scheme to get reparations for slavery...

...Oh, and the President nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. And she's a Latina, who notes that she sees the world through the lens of her experience, and that she hopes that experience would positively inform her decision-making. And that means she's a bigot. And the fact that Obama nominated her, as well as Eric Holder, proves that he "views white men as the problem" in America, and that the only way you can get promoted by Obama is "by hating white people."...

...Yes indeed, they all agree, Obama is a "reverse racist" who has a deep-seated hatred of white people...

...And for sure, Obama is the reason race relations are so strained: not because of the ongoing discrimination against people of color, which the data indicates is commonplace, or because of the incendiary rhetoric coming from conservative commentators...

...Or by a prominent conservative commentator insisting that white men are experiencing the same kind of oppression that blacks faced for years, even as that commentator has previously reminisced fondly about the days of segregation... 

...Or perhaps by having a right-wing talk show host announce a plan for conservatives to "take back the civil rights movement," and compare himself to Martin Luther King Jr. This, even though conservatives were almost uniformly opposed to the movement and King, and even though the talk show host's favorite authors, whose work he promotes regularly, viewed the movement as a communist conspiracy and referred to civil rights activists as animals...

...No, none of those things could strain race relations, or further racism.

And certainly not when compared to a tanning booth tax.

While on the face of it, these kinds of right-wing inanities may seem so absurd as to hardly merit being taken seriously, it's important to step back and think about the internal logic of even the most outlandish claims. I mean, no one can honestly believe that health care reform is reparations...

...But the intellectual strength of the claims is not the issue. It doesn't matter. From a political perspective, even the most insane-sounding claim about Obama's supposed hatred for white people makes sense. It's a perfect way to prime white racial fears and anxieties, to say, in effect, they're coming for your money white folks, and then your children. In a nation where the population will be half people of color within 25-30 years, and where the popular culture is now thoroughly multicultural (and thus many of the icons don't look the way they used to), and where the President doesn't fit a lot of people's conception of what such a person is supposed to look like, and where the economy is in the toilet for millions, playing upon white anxiety is the perfect recipe for political mobilization.

They've said very clearly that they want their country back. And if we who oppose the right don't challenge these folks for the racists they are, or continue to shy away from making race an issue (as if it weren't already), they just might get it.

Did you read that? One more time, for the record:  

"They've [white right wing conservatives] said very clearly that they want their country back. And if we who oppose the right don't challenge these folks for the racists they are, or continue to shy away from making race an issue (as if it weren't already), they just might get it."

Need a little something after reading all that? Me, too.

Here's Tracy Chapman's prophetic "Talkin' About a Revolution" to sip on.

Vuvuzela stirs up hornets nest

Can you say "how annoying" in hundreds of different languages? As the 2010 FIFA World Cup is being beamed into homes, pubs, bars, and public watching spots across the globe so is the bee-swarming sound of the vuvuzela, a plastic horn that South African fans and others love to blow during soccer matches. The idea is like the homer hanky but with sound. The vuvuzela has been part of South African soccer for a couple of years, but the horn is front and center to the soccer world this year since the World Cup is being held in South Africa.

While the World Cup brings the planet together like no other sporting event, the vuvuzela is creating its own global buzz for better and sadly, for worse. It's a global trending topic on Twitter. Check out these screen grabs (taken at different times) to see for yourself:

The venerable New York Times even has a story today about the controversy created by the noise. According to the story, World Cup organizers are debating what to do about it, but have decided the horns stay for now, and "Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, has supported the trumpets, saying Europeans must adjust to African traditions."

Here is what a stadium full of vuvuzela noise sounds like:



But alas, the vuvuzela controversy has taken an ugly turn. Fans annoyed by the constant buzzing noise (which drowns out all the normal crowd sounds) have gone beyond complaining. It goes like this: Vuvuzela = I don't like that sound = the sound is the ruining the World Cup = here is how soccer matches sound everywhere else = here is how soccer matches should sound = what is wrong with those South Africans = [a whole bunch of racist comments and You Tube videos].

Sigh.

You can dislike the sound (I do), or even hate it, but why you gotta go there, people?

Do I Look Illegal?

May Day mug shot. Do I look "illegal?" I could be. (Actually my ancestors are the original "aliens.") Think about the privilege in action here. Would I be stopped in Arizona? Audre Lorde said, "Your silence will not protect you." Some day your/our skin color privilege will not protect you/us. In solidarity against AZ SB 1070 and immigration rights protests planned across the country today.

Related post: "By the Time I Get to Arizona," Toki Wright Style

"By the Time I get to Arizona," Toki Wright style

Toki Wright, long time local emcee, activist, and rising hip-hop star is mad as hell about Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (SB 1070) that essentially legalizes racial profiling. He's turned his rage into art by creating an amazing remake of the Public Enemy classic "By the Time I Get to Arizona," called "By the Time I Get to Arizona 2010." He wrote and mixed the track just last night and released it this morning. You can listen to it here.

The song pays homage to Chuck D and the social and political activism he inspired in rap music through PE and much more. His activism continues today. Read what Toki says about his relationship to the original PE classic (about Arizona's refusal to recognize the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday), Chuck D, and the all-night process to create the remake here.

Video for the track will be shot this Saturday on May Day at a protest against SB 1070 taking place right here in South Mpls. at Martin Luther King park. Very fitting as Toki is a child of this city and has worked tirelessly on behalf of our city's youth (Yo! The Movement being one example). (And, well you know, the name of the park and all that, too.)

I met Toki when he was 15 and was part of a youth organization where I worked. Since then, I've watched him (from the sidelines) grow from a youth activist to an activist for youth to a community activist and emcee and hip hop artist who is now making a national name for himself. I couldn't be prouder even if no personal claim to pride is due me.

The seeds for this protest song were sewn in part when Toki asked, "What would Chuck D do?" When I read that, I thought, "This song." So maybe a better question is "What would Toki Wright do?" Because the answer is "This song."

Related post: He Got Game and Fight the Power: Lovin' PE

This is what post racial America looks like

My last post, celebrating the historic health care reform legislation and our amazing President, referred to his quote, after the bill was passed, "This is what change looks like."

Sadly -- no make that horrifyingly -- this is what post racial America looks like. We have all read about the disgusting behavior of tea baggers and other right wing republican conservatives, but this opinion piece, by Bob Herbert, in the March 22 issue of New York Times, captures the broader view as well as any commentary I've seen. Be sure to read the entire piece, but here are a couple of highlights:

"...In Washington on Saturday, opponents of the health care legislation spit on a black congressman and shouted racial slurs at two others, including John Lewis, one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was taunted because he is gay.

At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich...

...This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry...

...A party that promotes ignorance (“Just say no to global warming”) and provides a safe house for bigotry cannot serve the best interests of our country. Back in the 1960s, John Lewis risked his life and endured savage beatings to secure fundamental rights for black Americans while right-wing Republicans like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were lining up with segregationist Democrats to oppose landmark civil rights legislation.

Since then, the right-wingers have taken over the G.O.P. and Mr. Lewis, now a congressman, must still endure the garbage they have wrought.

Tiger Woods and race: Vanity Fair cover speaks volumes

As most of the world knows, Tiger Woods has been in the news of late due to his exploits off the golf course, not on. What interests me most about this are the myriad of racial implications to the coverage of this relatively common story of a famous person who cheats on his wife. And we care why? Or why anymore than anyone else who cheats?

But the race part is important since Woods, who is of mixed African American, Asian, and white heritage, has dug a complicated hole for himself by distancing himself from the Black community for years and aligning himself with a white community that he should have known would turn on him on a dime -- and did. The white majority transformed his image from a nice guy sports hero to Black sexual savage faster than you can say "Cablinasian." And the black community, for the most part, has not had his back, for good reason.

Case in point: This month's Vanity Fair's already infamous cover features a "raw" (their words) Tiger Woods looking like a thug with a freshly cut cell block body minus the tattoos. Our Mr. Clean golf hero is gone gone gone.

RaceWire has a brief, interesting post about the cover shot and its implications. The post simply says:

"So folks, what do you say? The photographer, Annie Leibovitz, should be well known to RaceWire readers as a shameless provocateur, with questionable race politics. We know Leibovitz’s track record. We know the cultural context of this moment in Tiger Woods’s life and career. What say you about this latest image?"

I find the comments interesting. For example:

"Dunno if it's intentional, but I think this serves as a brilliant illustration of how public perception of Tiger has shifted from 'nonthreatening Asian/mixed-race American success story' to 'sex-crazed Black professional athlete' over the course of a single scandal..."

My take -- don't deny who you are. It will bite you in the ass eventually.

What do you think?

Related links:
The Root: Goodbye, 'Cablinasian', and Congrats Tiger, you got the race neutral response you always wanted.
Racialicious: Revisitng "100% Cablinasian": 6 Thoughts on Tiger Woods
Nketlk: Tiger woods got the OJ treatment
The Daily Voice: Tiger stereotypes Tiger, and black males too
PostBourgie: Eyes on the Tiger
Womanist Musings: Vanity Fair: Tiger Woods the Thug

Post Racial America: Black kids booted from swimming pool

Today cries of pure rage could be heard across the Blogosphere and Twitterville when folks began to post and share this dispatch from "Post-Racial America"

Pool Boots Kids Who Might "Change the Complexion"

More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.

The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately..."

"They just kicked us out. And we were about to go. Had our swim things and everything," said camper Simer Burwell.

The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

So angry you could scream? Me, too. But what fuels a deeper rage is the harsh reality that if you are a black child in America, this is your story, too, and some version of it has happened or will happen to you. The election of Barack Obama does not and will not protect you. The illusion of a post-racial reality is dangerous to your well-being.

Here's what my friend Quiana said about that truth: "A black president is not the same as the end of racism...We have to worry about the kids, white, black and those who live somewhere in the middle... messages about body, skin and self are painfully branded in moments like this. No matter what the club does, I hope all these kids have a caring adult who can support them to learn and heal instead of hurt and grow hard."

I remember with clear precision the first time my daughter was on receiving end of an overtly racist remark/action from an adult -- she was three. A mother on our block told her she couldn't come in their house because she was black and left her screaming in the front yard two doors down from me as the other children went inside. One of the children she let in was a very light biracial girl who must have "passed" to this woman. I ran and grabbed my child, not knowing why she was screaming. As soon as I knew (she told me), I raced and got that other girl's mom who snatched her child right up out of the that house. Our daughters had played like neighbor kids do on the sidewalks with the two little white girls from that home without prior incident. Who knew?

My son was five, in kindergarten, the first time he experienced the sting of a racist taunt from a classmate (I don't think I need to explain that one further). I will say it was a very racially mixed school that praised itself for its diversity and welcoming environment.

As a young, naive white parent I was shocked at each of those experiences. My Black friends just shook their heads and said to me, "So what did you expect?" They understood what I still needed to learn -- that it was just the beginning.

That was the 80s. Now here we are, a generation later, and even after we elect a Black man President of the United States, for some kids in a pool in Philadelphia, it's the same old same old same old.

Related posts

Womanist Musings: Black Kids Change the Complexion of a Pool

Harriet's Daughter: The Longer I live in post-racial America

Pam's House Blend: Black kids booted from Philly club's 'whites only' pool

Jack and Jill Politics: 60 Black Kids Booted from Philly Pool for Being Black

BET Awards and Racist Tweets in Twitterville

Jamie Foxx's Michael Jackson tribute -- "Beat It" on BET Awards
(video at bottom of post)

One of the things I love about Twitter is following other people's live tweets during programs I am watching on TV. It's one big conversation happening out there and good entertainment for comments on all kinds of things going on. Twitter has also become the best source for news, especially if you are following media folks and regular folk all commenting on the same stuff.

So on Sunday night, I tuned into Twitter as I tuned into the BET Awards, which promised to be a tribute to Michael Jackson. It was fun to watch and tweet. I weighed in on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the evening -- along with others I follow. I used #BET Awards (hastags allow you to follow others tweeting on a topic) to check in on what folks all across Twitterville had to say. I was pretty excited to see SO many African American folks tweeting and weighing in, and that the performers and the show itself were all trending for the night.

But the next morning, as I reviewed my BET tweets, I had a bad feeling in my stomach. While I hadn't said anything super negative about the show or performances, I had taken a few shots. Once again, as a white person who lives in a brown family, I found myself on that nebulous bridge between black and white. Taken out of the context of my life, my tweets as a whitegirl seemed out of school and borderline offensive. Examples: "My daughter and I are texting each other about the BET Awards. Jamie Foxx is acting stupid drunk." Or, "Keith Sweat is definitely not old school and he's not that good, either."

So I took them all down.

It reminded me of how different it feels to watch a Tyler Perry movie, for example, in a theater full of white people vs a theater full of black folks. The jokes FEEL different. Watching with a white audience feels like white people laughing at black people, stereotypes reinforcing their (our) misguided reality, etc. When it's black folks, it feels like people having a good time laughing together, getting the jokes on a whole different level, good fun.

And there's this: The morning after the awards, @humanitycritic, who I follow on Twitter and is funny as hell with a razor sharp mind, posted this: "I'm now convinced that this Boondocks portrayal of BET is close to reality - http://tinyurl.com/9adckx"

The clip is hilarious and captures the ongoing debate among some black folks about whether BET sucks or not. I love love the Boondocks, and I agree with the complaints about BET, but I didn't pass the clip along. Why? Watch it. First through the lens of a black person, then through the lens of a white person. My point exactly. Not my place to make the joke.

Back to Twitter and the BET Awards. After I had taken my tweets down, I learned that the BET trending topics on Twitter had spawned some very ugly, racist tweets by white folks offended that black folks were "invading" Twitter and worse.

To get a really good sense of what happened, read these two great posts:

The first, posted by Renee on Womanist Musings: OOPS The Blacks Are Chattering On Twitter

The second, posted by Carmen Dixon on Black Voices: Twitter, BET Awards and Racism

Needless to say, while my tweets were not racist, I am so glad I listened to my gut and deleted them. My opinions were valid, and mine, but on a public feed on Twitter, they were part of an ugly, slippery slope. And the last thing I ever want to do is fuel that fire.

Michael Jackson tribute performance -- BET Awards

Cross post from A Slant Truth: People Liked Obama, Don’t Worry; It’s 0nly Black People

I am cross-posting a wicked post from Kevin of "A Slant Truth." This guy is razor sharp. Follow his blog! I've added his post here, but go to his blog post and be sure to read the comments, especially that call him racist for calling out racism! Post-racial life, indeed.

A Slant Truth

If You Thought People Liked Obama, Don’t Worry; It’s 0nly Black People.

By Kevin ⋅ May 1, 2009

One of my non-blogging buddies (one of the coolest mofos on the planet, actually) tipped me to this nice little article, by Byron York, entitled The black-white divide in Obama’s popularity. Imagine the look on my face when I read this, the very first paragraph (actually, don’t imagine that look; it’s not pretty):

On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.

Um, yeah…WTF?

This dude actually wrote this. Here, let me translate this for you:

Black people don’t count (or if they do count, they sure as hell don’t count for more than 3/5’s of a white person) so, even if President Obama has a high approval rating, it’s not accurate (or actual) because black folks are all up in the mix. We all know that only white people’s opinions matter, right?

The entire article says nothing other than black people like Obama, and so he’s not really as popular as you think he is. It doesn’t matter that we happen to be members of the population and so our opinions count too. It doesn’t matter that black folks also overwhelmingly liked Bill Clinton. No one challenged Bill Clinton’s popularity because black folks loved him (ok, now that I think on this some more, I bet a good handful of folks did, but still). But when a lot of black folks happen to like another black dude, well then obviously something is amiss.

Post-Racial United States. Gotta love it.

WOC and Allies Blog Carnival!

I am very excited to share that the Tell it WOC Speak (and allies) blog carnival is up with some fantastic entries, kicked off by Transgriot blogger Monica's piece Becoming a Quality Black Woman. The Carnival includes entries from across the planet on topics including Sexual Violence, Racism and Colonialism, Feminism, Identity, Sex and Sexuality, Gender, and Politics. I am very proud to have two blog posts (One week until Inauguration and all things are not equal, and My wuzband is a drag king (and queen)) published in the Carnival and humbled to among some fabulous writers and women. Thank you, Renee, for putting this amazing thing together!