“That Conversation about Race” category archive

There was a young Trumpler from Nantucket . . . .

A historic building central to the history of Nantucket’s African-American community was defaced between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning with racist and sexually explicit graffiti, according to local police.

Between 4 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday, someone vandalized the island’s African Meeting House, spray-painting a racial slur and the word “leave” on its door alongside a crudely drawn penis on its shingled facade, according to Nantucket’s police chief William Pittman and photos of the scene.

Pap Discusses a school that’s being sued for not taking action against racist bullies.

Via PoliticalProf.

When I took my first class in Virginia history in third grade (yes, they used to teach history in school) that was the label given to 1619. The label referred to three events in that year:

• The first meeting of the House of Burgesses, the Virginia colony’s legislature.
• The arrival of the first English women to the colony.
• The arrival of the first “shipment* of Negro (as the text book styled it) slaves.

The Hartford Courant’s Frank Harris, III, muses on how to recognize the last event on that list. Here’s a bit of his musings:

For blacks, slavery was our holocaust and our Kristallnacht — it was bodies smashed and shattered over centuries, tossed into the oceans and rivers and creeks, burned into the embers that blackened America’s soil and soul.

It should not be forgotten. But how do we not forget it?

____________________

*Yes, “shipment” was the word in the text.

I paid attention in history class, even in third grade. I paid attention in history class up through graduate work in history, with a focus on “U. S. Southern,” and much subsequent reading, because the past explains the present.

In that text and in the construct it portrayed, persons were “cargo” because they were Not White. And many would take us back to those days.

Shorter Tony Norman: It’s an ugly society that dares not look in the mirror.

Taylor Batten.

In a long and thoughtful post, Professor Rupert Nacoste considers the interplay between law and culture and, in particular, the poisonous side-effects of pigeon-holing people by race and heritage. Here’s an anecdote from his piece; follow the link for the rest.

“…we moved to North Carolina. My first day of 7th grade, I faced one of the most embarrassing interactions so far in front of a group of people. My teacher, Ms. L, asked me to stand in front of the class to tell them a little bit about myself.

“Hi my name is J-M and I want to be a psychologist like my mom and that means I need to be in middle school and high school here…”

After a long pause, Ms. L replied, “Where did you move from Miss M?” (She mispronounced my name). So I replied, “Its M and Tampa, but before that I lived in 29 Palms, California and before that was Virginia, and I was actually born in North Carolina but I don’t remember it.”

“Well you’ve certainly moved around a lot”, she said, “You have such beautiful olive skin, where is your family from?”

“Up-state New York!” I replied without hesitation.

“I mean what are you? Mexican? Indian?… your ethnicity? Your last name is different from normal…” She trailed off.

I could feel my face turning red and I stuttered that I was…”

Remember, this is an interaction between a teacher and a seventh-grade student; an adult and a thirteen-year-old. Indeed, when it comes to the possibility of being taken over by neo-diversity anxiety “who are the ‘we’ and who are the ‘they’”, there are no innocent.

Maria Panaritis tells a tale of profiling. A snippet (emphasis added):

The judge walked out his front door and revealed himself to the men with guns. One officer instantly recognized him. “Judge?” he said, in bewilderment. “Is everything OK in there?”

Guests of a neighbor had seen a black man pull into his own house in an affluent enclave and assumed he was a burglar.

Follow the link for details.

Sam and his guest discuss how racism is much more present in American society than most persons think.

Oh, my.

The (Lyft–ed.) driver said he heard a “thump” and saw Tuimauga hit Horne twice in the head, prompting the victim to fall to the ground, according to Auburn police.

Tuimauga reportedly said, “This is what happens when you bring black people around here” and continued to beat Horne as the Lyft driver went to park two houses away and call 911. The driver claimed he saw the victim try to get up and walk, but fall to the ground again. Tuimauga allegedly took the bat and returned to the house.

Medics took Horne to Harborview Medical Center, where doctors removed parts of his cranium to relieve the pressure of his swelling brain, according to the incident report.

You know that the Trumpling’s got to be bad if the Trumpler got banned from Uber.