“That Conversation about Race” category archive
“Like an Invisible Plastic Shield” 0
One of the things about privilege is that those who have it don’t notice it.
Making a Hashtag of It 0
Elie Mystal comments on the Mall of America’s attempt to prevent a #BlackLivesMatters protest. A snippet (emphasis added):
And Mall of America certainly can’t ban black people from coming into it. They can’t restrict the activity of protesting until, at the very least, people actually start doing it. Otherwise you are just banning black people for something they might do, which is pretty damn racist.
Of course, Mall of America doesn’t want to ban black people. Black people can spend money too! They just don’t want black people to voice… anything of substance inside the mall, or disrupt other people’s attempts to spend money in the mall.
The concept that a mall is private space is morally, if not legally, flawed. In many communities, malls are for all practical purposes the downtowns of yesteryear, at least in the relatively few places where they have not yet been supplanted by big boxes. They want to be seen as public spaces, with shops and restaurants and recreation sometimes even exhibits of various types, as long as the public remains docile and compliant. Otherwise, otherwise.
And now for the rest of the story.
America’s First Ponzi Scheme 0
It predated Charles Ponzi by a couple of centuries. (The interview starts at about the 30-minute mark.)
If you don’t have time to listen now, bookmark or download it for listening later, but be sure to listen.
Now You See It, Now You Don’t 0
Another great moment in out of sight, out of mind.
Blank Check 0
One more time: Persons who whine about “political correctness” want permission to offend without penalty.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
A member of the Minneapolis city council has blamed peaceful protesters shot by white supremacists for getting themselves shot. Here’s a bit from a detailed story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
That’s part of the problem with these protests: the longer they go on, the more participation there is from across the country,” Johnson said. “The longer it goes on, the worse it gets.”
When I was a young ‘un, back in the olden days, the defenders of the segregationist status quo liked to blame “outside agitators” for getting themselves shot and buried in dams.
I’m trying to figure out whether blaming “inside agitators” is a step forward, a step backward, or a just a step sideways.
“You’re Just Trying To Make Me Feel Guilty” 2
Another View, a marvelous show on one of our local public radio stations, tackled the topic of “white privilege” on last week’s show. From the website:
Follow the link and listen.
Now.
You’ll then understand why I titled the post the way I did.
Also, mark your calendar to listen to the Friday, November 13, show. The monthly round table is always entertaining. The host skillfully gives the panelists enough leeway to speak freely without letting them get completely out of hand.
One of the topics is scheduled to be the the highly commendable revolt of the Missouri football team over unchecked racism at their campus. That episode should rip and snort in all the right places.
Aside:
When I was in elementary school, history books called 1619 the “Red Letter Year.”
Satanic Writes 0
A copy of The Clansman, written by a Baptist preacher often described as the “Billy Graham of his day” in terms of his popularity, resided on my parents’ bookshelf. I don’t know that they ever read it. Likely they had inherited it, but no doubt they knew of it. It was probably a fixture in many Southern white households of a certain day.
I was never tempted to read it, I can’t say why. My hand hovered over it many times, but I did not pick it up.
It’s a book that still influences today. It was the source for D. W. Griffith’s vile movie, Birth of a Nation*, a propaganda piece for Jim Crow created by scions of the Secesh. Many of today’s images of freed slaves and their descendants (think watermelons and fried chicken) can be traced to that book and movie.
Yesterday, I listened to the podcast of last Friday’s Another View, which featured a discussion of Birth of a Nation. You should listen too.
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*The “nation” in question was the terrorist organization called the Ku Klux Klan, which D. W. Griffith thought was a Good Thing. ‘Nuff said.
That Conversation . . . . 0
We don’t need “that conversation.” We have had enough damned “conversations.”
We need racist white folks–not the ones who wear hoods and proudly claim their racism, but the ones who chat oh so politely at their country club gatherings about “those people you know who I mean”–to stop lying to themselves and each other and the rest of us about their own racism and the hypocrisy attendant thereto and see themselves for what they are.*
Image via Job’s Anger.
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*No, I don’t think it’s going to happen either.
And Now for Something Completely Different 0
An evening poem in free verse.
“They’re Being Uppity, That’s Why” 0
Chauncey Devega discusses why the right fears and smears “Black Lives Matter.” (The relevant part starts at about the 18-minute mark.)
Via Indomitable.