Tag: Politics

The Racist Post-Racial America

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.

— W.E.B. Du Bois

Well, Mr. Du Bois — oh, pardon me, Dr. Du Bois — it seems the problem you defined was too big for just the 20th century; we’ve carried it into the 21st.  For you and so many others who devoted lives of study and advocacy, who marched in protest, who lobbied politicians, who gave their lives, we offer our most shame-faced apology for not addressing your problem as fully as we should have.

From the outside, it might look like we’ve made progress, Dr. Du Bois.  We have an African-American President, what would seem like the ultimate final hurdle.  But, his ascendancy has, unfortunately, brought once-silent voices to society’s microphone.  It’s not just that there are white supremacist groups and hate-directed organizations of misfits; we have always had those and, sadly, probably always will.  But, as long as it was just the KKK and the Aryan Brotherhood and isolated pockets of inbreds, we knew what we were dealing with and felt protection under the law for our brothers and sisters of color.  No, the ones that scare us now are the ones we never would have suspected.

When suburban white boys brutally beat and kill an African-American man simply because of his race, when elected officials advocate books and ideas which promote the pro-slavery confederacy, when a politician refers to the President of the United States as a “tar baby,” when a major news organization refers to a gathering at the White House as a “hip-hop barbecue,”  then we definitely have not appropriately addressed the problem you prophetically outlined.

The sad part, Dr. Du Bois, is that the stories mentioned above all took place and hit the news within the last two months.  I so very much wish that I had to dig deep for these examples, but they were at my fingertips.

I recall stories within days of President Obama’s election in 2008 of flags flown at half-mast or upside down (the international signal for distress), of children on a schoolbus in Idaho chanting “Assassinate Obama,” of a black church in Springfield, MA, being burned to the ground within hours of the election, of students spray-painting racist statements against the President-Elect on a sidewalk at North Carolina State University, and of the nooses that showed up in many places, one of which was Baylor University.

On one hand, Dr. Du Bois, I’d rather the racists come out of the closet so we can see them.  A visible enemy is always less dangerous.  But, on the other, far larger hand, I feel saddened and embarrassed that elements in this nation have seemed to remain so doggedly attached to our racist roots.

Saddest of all, where is the public outcry?  Michele Bachmann’s political days should be so clearly numbered that the tick of the countdown clock is almost deafening.  Instead, she leads rallies attended by thousands.  Fox News should be required by the FCC to take the word “news” out of its name.  Instead they continue to be the frontrunner in cable news ratings.  People who hang nooses in reaction to the election of an African-American president should be charged with inciting hate and investigated by the Secret Service.  Instead they receive diplomas from a Southern Baptist University.

So, you see, Dr. Du Bois, it is not the Michele Bachmanns or the Doug Lamborns or the Roger Ailes who have so clearly let you down.  It is us.  It is the collective American spirit that is capable of watching these news stories without taking to the streets.  It is the parents and ministers who have somehow managed to make racism and religion compatible in their pea brains and then pass that warped vision of Christianity to children like a perpetual motion machine of bigotry.  It is the masses who choose to live in isolated fear rather than risk the horrible chance they might actually feel love for all humanity.

We are the reason why the problem of the 21st century is still the problem of the color line.  The only way I know to apologize to you, sir, is to ask myself, “What can I do to address this problem?  What part can I play in a solution?”  And hope beyond hope that others will ask the same.

Deciding on The Decider

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.  — Henry A. Kissinger

I have a love/hate relationship with politics.  It’s like a drug I can successfully abstain from for awhile, and then suddenly it’s as if I’ve gone to a party where everyone is passing around the pipe.  I hesitate (almost imperceptibly) and then say, “What the hell.”

And now the silly season is looming over us yet again.  I opened my Comcast home page to be met with the news that Sarah Palin thinks she could beat President Obama.
In checkers, maybe.  She promises to make an announcement in August or September.  I can hardly wait.  (Please, do it, Sarah.)

See?  I’m pulled in yet again.  If personal history is the least bit accurate, I will slide down the long and slippery slope of political interest until splashing into the pool of election frenzy about 16 months from now.

I’ll let you in on a little secret.  There was one thing I actually admired about George W. Bush (and, yes, a small puff of smoke arose from my keyboard as I wrote that sentence).  I actually appreciated the fact that he was “the decider.”

A friend of mine always says, “Let’s do something, even if it’s wrong.”  I thought of that saying often during the Bush II Era.  I rarely liked his decisions, but I had to give him credit for simply making them.  Washington has such an incredible tendency to become a stagnant cesspool of indecision that it isn’t really that difficult for a confident “decider” to rise above the crowd.

Because that’s really what we are voting for on election day — a decision maker.  Our entire democratic republic is based on that concept.  With rare exceptions in the form of ballot initiatives, we rarely vote for ideas; we vote for people.  We don’t make decisions; we vote for decision makers.  And then we hold our breath for the next four years as we watch them do exactly what we gave them the power to do.

President Obama’s ability to hold the Republican hopefuls at bay in 2012 may well depend solely on his ability to appear decisive.  Americans have their pet issues and political perspectives, but mostly they just want to know someone is in charge.  Someone who is not afraid to make a decision.

I contend that the President’s 2012 hopes will rise and fall not so much with the decisions he makes, but with his ability to appear decisive as he makes them.  That theory, of course, is dependent upon the assumption that the decisions won’t be too outlandish.  I suppose if he decided to invade France, I would have to return my Amateur Political Scientist merit badge.

Mything the Target

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

This just in: The Great Wall of China CANNOT be seen from the moon.   It’s not even all that visible from closer realms of space, and where it can be seen via a space shuttle flight, so can other human-made objects.   Trying to see the Great Wall of China from the moon is like trying to visualize a human hair from two miles away.  Besides, the terrain around the Great Wall is so similar in color to the wall itself that differentiating it from such a distance makes it even more implausible.

Up until yesterday afternoon, if you had asked me, “What is the only human-made structure visible from the moon?” I would have promptly and confidently answered, “The Great Wall of China,” likely followed by a smug look subconsciously requesting that you recognize my immense knowledge of all things.  I had heard this my entire life.  It is such a part of our collective consciousness that this “fact” had even made its way into textbooks at various times.

So, what intense desire drove me to look up this information?  My students, of course.

Last week in class, a student put forth the “known fact” that the word picnic came from the phrase “pick a nigger,” and that it was related to the days of lynching when white folks would pack a basket, grab a blanket, round up the kids, and head to a local meadow for some lynching entertainment.  I had a faint memory of having heard this before but was not up-t0-date enough on my etymological studies to be able to refute the claim.  But I are smart, and I knowed how to look stuff up.  Turns out this too is a “know that I know that I know” piece of information that just ain’t true.  Picnic derives from a 17th century French word and predates the horrible era of lynching in the United States.

Well, YOU KNOW that I had to share this with my students.  The thought of not correcting their belief in a false contention is the stuff of a teacher’s sleepless nights.  Urban legends abound; hence, the need for Snopes, not to mention universities.   Teaching people to research and ferret out the truth is at the core of what I do.

I would purport that a large portion (maybe in the 90th percentile) of what people believe falls into this because-that’s-what-I’ve-always-heard category.  Politics and religion are two areas particularly susceptible to this.  I remember when I first read Gilgamesh, an ancient Sumerian tale that includes the story of a great flood.  In several ways, this story echos the story of Noah in Genesis, including sending out a raven and a dove to see if the waters had receded.  The parallels are not nearly as interesting, however, as the fact that Gilgamesh predates Genesis by about 800 years, and it had been an oral tale long before it was actually carved in cuneiforms on clay tablets.  (Gilgamesh reigned as a Sumerian king about 1,500 years before the writing of the earliest parts of the Old Testament; his legend had been told for centuries even before it was finally written “in stone.”)

There are (many) other examples which might create the logical conclusion that the Old Testament should be approached by a metaphysical understanding at best and by a mythological understanding at least.

As I tell my students, I don’t really care what you believe as much as I care that you know WHY you believe WHAT you believe.   I encourage them to question preconceived notions, even when at first glance it might seem to shatter the foundations they once thought to be rock-solid.  What they just might end up with is an understanding of the world deeper than they could have at first imagined.

Either that or they could just say “Screw it,” and spend their summer vacation at the Creation Museum.    Their choice.

But, Then Again . . .

~ Deb ~ 4 Comments

(A sister post to my most recent.)

I’ll be honest, sometimes I wonder if I’m part of the problem.  (Side note – if you want to test your own level of self-assuredness, type that sentence sometime and see how it feels.)  If there is a devil on my shoulder, then I blame him (of course it would be a “him”) for my eagerness to leap into the verbal fray.

But there is an angel on my shoulder too.  A Jekyll to my Hyde.  A Cher to my Sonny.  And every now and then she gets my attention.  And, of course, it would be a “she.”

I’m in a constant hop-scotch between the two.  On the one hand, hey, knowledge is power.  Study, analyze, research.  Pack the brain until it feels mighty damn important.  Be an informed voter.  Read the paper.  Read the encyclopedia.  Read Trivial Pursuit cards. . . for fun.

On the other hand, sometimes I wonder if I really need to know any of that crap.  Perhaps I should trade in a few cable news anchors for 13 indigenous grandmothers.   Information overload eventually and inevitably sends me running to the woods to commune with the oaks and listen to the scuffle of squirrels in the leaves and the caw of the raven.  For a few days I avoid the Comcast home page headlines and start my day with sacred moon incense.  I pause to acknowledge the wisdom of the west, the north, the east, the south and shake the flame to embers with a silent appeal for the health of our planet.

It’s an age-old war that is not at all unique to me, I know: that war of wills between the aggressive mind and the passive heart, the assertive brain and the silent soul.  My mind uses fear.  It tells me I’ll fall behind, that something really important will happen, that I must stay informed with the world’s comings and goings.  It tells me that if I’m not careful, I’ll become like my sister, Donna (“We have a black President??”).

My spirit uses . . . well, nothing.  It just sits patiently and accepts me home every time I return.

My brain is like an academic playground.  Politics are the video game I’m addicted to.  And when I get really still and centered, I realize just how insignificant it all is.  There really are more important forces at work in the universe.

I don’t want to be part of the problem.  I want to be part of the solution.  And I have a feeling the solution will come from the heart.

Guess I’ll have to think about that for awhile.