Month: July 2009

A few years ago, when we still had time for such things, my husband and I belonged to a book group. One of the last books the group read before it’s leader moved away (and, having become a first-time parent that year, I declined to be in charge of much else besides keeping myself in relatively clean clothes) sparked an exchange between me and my husband that came to mind as I watched the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

The book was Middlesex (a delightful read), and in one chapter the protagonist’s family of Greek immigrants shopped for a new home. They encountered a real estate agent who asked how many relatives lived with them, and subtly directed them toward certain neighborhoods and away from one — where "ethnics" like themselves would "not fit in."

It hit me like a slap in the face. It sounded familiar, but different. To me, this fictional family was white. But in the time and place they occupied on the page they weren’t "white enough."

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. My husband, who was reading the same book, looked at me.

I looked up from the page, looked at him, and said with a note of wonder in my voice, "There are different shades of white."

"Yes," the son-of-Polish-immigrants that I married said, dryly. "There are."

Or at least there were. From the moment Judge Sotomayor’s nomination was announced, it’s become more and more evident that all those varied shades of white have since blended into a much paler, but more uniform, shade.

In fact, the more I think about it, it seems like there are a great number of White Americans today who are a few generations removed from being "not white enough" to just "White" or just "American" as opposed to Irish-American or Italian-American.

There is room under that umbrella for a number of formerly "ethnic" Americans who are now finally "white enough" to just be White.

White American (often used interchangeably with "Caucasian American"[3] and within the United States simply "white"[4]) is an umbrella term officially employed by the United States Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget and other U.S. government for the classification of United States citizens or resident aliens "having origins in any of the original people of Europe,[5] the Middle East, or North Africa".[6]

German Americans (16.8%), Irish Americans (12.1%), English Americans (9.3%), Italian Americans (5.9%), Polish Americans (3.3%), French Americans (3.2%), Scottish Americans (2%), Scotch-Irish Americans (1.8%), Dutch Americans (1.7%), Norwegian Americans (1.5%), Swedish Americans (1.4%), and Russian Americans (1%) make up 60% of the "White" population.[7] Included in the category are White Hispanics representing 8.11%,[1] mainly Mexican Americans.

Whites constitute the majority of the US population with 73.94% of the population. Whites are regarded as the socially and demographically dominant racial group in the United States.

It’s a kind of homogenizing process rendering those with the right qualifications a paler shade of white.

The homogeneity assumption is best described as a cultural ideology of "Americanization," a monistic view that Anglo-Saxon culture is the core American culture and that Anglo-Saxon culture is superior to all others.

…in our cultural dialogue Americanization is commonly expressed as (1) utilitarian arguments made with respect to immigration and assimilation and (2) the view that the dominant Anglo-American culture represents the one "true" American culture. This dialogue, not always overtly stated, regarding why immigrants should assimilate and what it is that makes up the core American identity, deeply influences how we think about ourselves and those who the majority perceives as falling outside the assumption of sameness, which becomes also the assumption of who should be included in the monolithic whole.

Actually it is overtly stated at times, and not just by the usual suspects, but often with those who have the most invested in maintaining the status quo on ethnic primacy, because they have only recently (if one takes a long view of history) gained admission for themselves. And if seems to render they unconscious to both present and historical realities, that is both the price and the intended effect of admission.

Once you become part of the cultural Baseline, of which the rest of is must be constantly aware of (along with our relationship to it) at all times, you must hold the line. Lest it be erased.

It means that someone like Pat Buchanan — no doubt so distressed over living in an America with a black president in a White House built by black slaves — can assert that America was pretty much "built by white folks", and seem to utterly ignore historic fact.

When asked why the overwhelming majority of justices have been white, Buchanan declined to explicitly cite discrimination, but explained that "White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against. That’s why."

He has to remain ignorant, and obviously with great effort if he can say, without a hint of irony, that “what is happening now to white men right now is exactly what was done to black folks for years.” And he said it at the almost the same time that President Obama and his family — with his wife and daughters who are descendants of slaves — stood at the "door of no return," during a visit to Ghana’s Elmina Castle.

Buchanan says what he does because he has to. He has to be ignorant of the inaccuracies of his own statements. He has to remain ignorant of his own history and the reality that his own people — the Irish — were originally "not white enough" but became white, through the process of "Americanization" or assimilation mentioned above.

It was a tough read. It was a story of primarily Irish Catholic emigration before and after the potato famine – roughly 1840 to the Civil War – and that people’s struggle to survive in this white, Protestant world. It’s a sympathetic yet tragic story of how race has been a defining characteristic in U.S. culture and how the race question has also plagued the white working class in this country. One might say that it is a story of how the Irish exchanged their greenness for whiteness, and collaborated with the dominant white culture to continue the oppression of African Americans.

Ironically, Irish Catholics came to this country as an oppressed race yet quickly learned that to succeed they had to in turn oppress their closest social class competitors, free Northern blacks. Back home these "native Irish or papists" suffered something very similar to American slavery under English Penal Laws. Yet, despite their revolutionary roots as an oppressed group fighting for freedom and rights, and despite consistent pleas from the great Catholic emancipator, Daniel O’Connell, to support the abolitionists, the newly arrived Irish-Americans judged that the best way of gaining acceptance as good citizens and to counter the Nativist movement was to cooperate in the continued oppression of African Americans. Ironically, at the same time they were collaborating with the dominant culture to block abolition, they were garnering support from among Southern, slaveholding democrats for Repeal of the oppressive English Act of the Union back home. Some even convinced themselves that abolition was an English plot to weaken this country.

… Irish and African Americans had lots in common and lots of contact during this period; they lived side by side and shared work spaces. In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as "Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish." A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: "My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman." Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.

That process of "Americanization" wasn’t exclusive tongue Irish, of course. Germans went through the same proccess.

GERMAN IMMIGRANTS and African Americans enjoyed relatively positive social, economic, and political relations during the mid- to late-nineteenth century, especially when compared to relations between white and black southerners. The Germans were a middleman minority community, occupying a middle tier on the racial and ethnic hierarchy below white southerners and above African Americans.1 Exceptional relations declined in the 1870s, coinciding with the failure of Reconstruction and the so-called Democratic Redemption of 1876.

…It is difficult to explain the Germans’ transition to becoming white southerners without situating the case study within a few historiographical trajectories, mainly urban slavery; pre-industrial economic history; Reconstruction social and political history; and, of course, mid-nineteenth-century immigration history.3 As the title aptly suggests, this essay is interested in the ways Germans became white southerners.4 They never stopped being German, but they increasingly identified themselves as white southerners. White southerners as an ethnic group, in the main, remained committed to white supremacy pre- and post-emancipation, and that commitment created tension between whites and blacks. White southerners were overwhelmingly wedded to the Democratic Party, and their social and political spheres were inseparable. By 1876, Germans identified with white southern Democrats, some faster than others, while some Germans migrated out, and others withdrew from public life altogether.

It was a doorway to assimilation open to all who could simultaneously "Never stop being German," or Irish, and yet identify themselves as White, without surrendering their authentic ethnic identity. In doing so they homogenized themselves until they were "white enough" to be considered simply "American."

Sometimes they were even able to fit their rather non-anglicized names through that door with them. Conservative commentator Mark Krikorian demonstrated this when he pronounced the pronunciation of Sotomayor (with the emphasis on the last syllable) "unnatural in English", and then went on to explain in excruciating detail how his own non-Anglo (Armenian) surname is not "unnatural" and in fact follows the proper rules of pronunciation, with the emphasis on the correct (second, as opposed to last) syllable.

Names, by the way, matter. It was pointed out on election night that Barack Obama is not just our first Black president, but also the first whose surname ends in a vowel, and is now the first and only "ethnic," non-Anglo or non-Anglicized name on the roster of U.S. Presidents.

Of course, nobody planned this. Surnames are different from company and product names, which people invent. No candidate sits down and decides what name to use in a bid for the presidency. But a screening process has taken place historically. Though we’re a nation of immigrants from everywhere, the list of presidents’ names is overwhelmingly Anglo-derived, reflecting a prejudice that has stubbornly held on in political elections despite general improvements in Americans’ attitudes about ethnicity. It’s obvious that there are no non-European-sounding names on the list of U.S. presidents. But even if you limit yourself to Europe, there are no names whose origins are distinctly Polish, Greek, Italian, Spanish, or Norwegian, either. And lots of other European ethnicities could be added to that list.

The only “ethnic” (i.e. non-Anglo) names on the list of U.S. presidents are Roosevelt, Van Buren, and Hoover (Dutch); Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, and McKinley (Scottish); Kennedy and Reagan (Irish); and Eisenhower (an Americanized form of German Eisenhauer). Plotting the geographical origins of those names on a map doesn’t get you very far from England. Leaving aside the Celtic-derived names, which got all mixed up with English before there was a United States, you’re left with a list of names derived entirely from the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.

Now along comes this guy named Obama. His name comes from Luo, a Nilo-Saharan language spoken, among other places, in Western Kenya, where his father was born. This is a big jump in the linguistic family tree. What we see in the name Obama is a typological difference between Germanic and the languages related to Luo. While Germanic has a tendency toward closed syllables, which begin and end with consonants, Luo tends more toward open syllables, which end with vowels.

And the Obama’s election — race and vowel-heavy surname not withstanding — makes a difference.

Perhaps Obama’s success to date is a sign that America finally is maturing as a place of unlimited opportunity for all; that the immigrant heritage we all share somewhere down the line no longer requires dilution; and that those of us with A’s on the ends of our names — or I’s, O’s or U’s — can be president.

But Krikorian’s laborious take on why names are important — why his own is more acceptable than Judge Sotomayor’s, and why she should accept his pronunciation of her name — (because he is a white man now, after all, a white man now, and has the privilege of deciding who’s called what) suggests that demanding other minorities undergo the same process of "Americanization" as the Irish, German, Dutch, Irish, Scottish, etc., actually requires sacrificing more identity than any of these other groups had to — perhaps even to the point of impossibility.

Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor’s name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?). But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer of the name prefers, including one who pronounces her name "freed" even though it’s spelled "fried," like fried rice. (I think Cathy Seipp of blessed memory did the reverse — "sipe" instead of "seep.") Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent’s simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.

For instance, in Armenian, the emphasis is on the second syllable in my surname, just as in English, but it has three syllables, not four (the "ian" is one syllable) — but that’s not how you’d say it in English (the "ian" means the same thing as in English — think Washingtonian or Jeffersonian). Likewise in Russian, you put the emphasis in my name on the final syllable and turn the "o" into a schwa, and they’re free to do so because that’s the way it works in their language. And should we put Asian surnames first in English just because that’s the way they do it in Asia? When speaking of people in Asia, okay, but not people of Asian origin here, where Mao Tse-tung would properly have been changed to Tse-tung Mao. Likewise with the Mexican practice of including your mother’s maiden name as your last name, after your father’s surname.

This may seem like carping, but it’s not. Part of our success in assimilation has been to leave whole areas of culture up to the individual, so that newcomers have whatever cuisine or religion or so on they want, limiting the demand for conformity to a smaller field than most other places would. But one of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that’s not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch. And there are basically two options — the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there’s a lot more of the latter going on than there should be.

Krikorian’s forebears — like those of any number of Republicans "carping" about … well … just about everything in the Age of Obama — made a decision, as some point, to walk through that "doorway to assimilation," taking with them much of their identity and culture, and sometimes their names, but more often than not some Americanized version.

The Irish, Germans, and other European immigrants — as noted above — often started out in America with only a slightly better social position than African Americans; mainly because everything about them that reflected their culture of origin — from their language to their accents to their clothing, their names, their customs and even the food they ate — marked them as "other" and made them (too) stand apart from the Anglo mainstream of American culture. They were just a little too far from the baseline.

So they adapted, assimilated, and over time "became white" — though it sometimes took great effort, and  a generation or two. It was a "no-brainer" when they realized how close they already were to entering the mainstream and enjoying the privileges it afforded. If you qualify for an upgrade, you take it. Period.

But they did something else that creates a real challenge as a requirement for sitting in the oval office, on the Supreme Court, or just being a person of color in the U.S. As one essayist above said of the Irish, they "embraced whiteness." They "traded up" on the basis of their white skin and European origins. Something difficult to do if you’re African American, Latino, Asian, etc.

Not impossible, but difficult. And the process of "becoming white" — that all the groups mentioned above went through — is something that can’t be done without great cost to the individual.

This week’s immigration blog roundup discusses recent protest over the direction immigration reform is headed under the Obama administration, two new reports on immigrant detention violations, and more.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

On Wednesday, immigrant advocates rallied out outside the offices of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, where Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was giving a speech. Advocates protested her recently announced expansion of the 287(g) program, which authorizes local law enforcement to apply immigration laws, and the administration’s embrace of the E-verify system, an electronic verification system for employers.

Although Napolitano held a closed-door session in Seattle, Washington on Monday to discuss immigration issues with immigrant advocates, state officials, business leaders, law enforcement officers, and farm worker representatives, among others, many immigration advocates feel a sense of betrayal.

"We are getting to the tipping point. Immigrant communities that helped to elect President Obama strongly believed that there would be reforms. Now, there is a creeping sense of betrayal," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, which organized the demonstration."There is a huge disconnect and contradiction between what the President is saying and what Secretary Napolitano is doing. You can’t have it both ways."

National, local and community level immigration news

A new report, A Broken System: Confidential Reports Reveal Failures in U.S. Detention Centers, outlines the failures of current immigration detention centers that have systematically violated the basic human rights of detainees. The 170 page report released by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the ACLU of Southern California, and the international law firm of Holland & Knight, LLP provides a comprehensive analysis on the conditions, such as a denial to basic necessities, suffered by immigrants in government-run detention centers.The report also offers policymakers specific recommendations to improve the situation.

Another report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) concluded that immigrants were held in “unacceptable conditions,” with their rights to due process “compromised after having visited various centers in Texas and Arizona. The IACHR delegation visited a family detention facility, three adult detention facilities, two unaccompanied minor shelters, and met with representatives from civil society organizations focused on U.S.immigration issues according to a press release.

These reports come as the Obama administration has refused to make legally enforceable rules for immigration detention after rejecting a federal court petition by former detainees and their advocates. The decision disappointed immigration advocacy organizations around the country that point to the vast array of evidence of the government’s failure to enforce basic standards and prevent violations of human rights.

"This whole detention system that has been created is a human rights nightmare," said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Massachusetts will provide partial coverage for 30,000 legal immigrants after the legislature voted to restore $40 million to the budget, but it was left unclear how much care the affected immigrants, permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years, would qualify for.

"It’s a first step, and we’re pleased they will be covered,” Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said of the partial restoration. “But we still remain very concerned as to what type of coverage they will receive."

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda’s website.

I thought the term Jungle Monkey was pretty universally seen as a racial epithet, but I’m guessing that Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck will find some way to spin this away as less offensive that calling an Indian-American ‘macaca.’ I also enjoyed reading a Boston police officer explain how a suspect has no rights and that they must make it a priority to comply with police officers who enter their property without a warrant. Dr. Gates, apparently, is still a suspect and will always remain one. Not only that, but he isn’t famous because he has never done anything to reduce or limit Officer Barrett’s income tax.

I’m not surprised that a member of the Boston police force is a racist, but I’m a little surprised that one of them could think it is okay to write emails comparing black people to gnats.

I’m not panicking yet about the outcome of the health care debate, but I think we’ve all learned quite a bit about the Democratic Party in the last seven months that we might not have known, or might only have surmised, during the Bush Era.

I think we all expect and can understand that politicians are foremost concerned with their own reelection prospects. And, so, it isn’t any special surprise that there are Democrats who hail from conservative states and districts who are going to buck the Democratic agenda on controversial issues from time to time. For example, we’re lucky to have pro-choice senators from North Dakota because abortion is a highly contentious issue in that state. If they go soft on issues like parental notification or abortion coverage in a public option, I don’t think that is anything we shouldn’t have expected, even if we disagree with their positions wholeheartedly. Politicians normally have a keen sense of which votes will put their career in true jeopardy, and we should not be shocked when they duck those types of votes.

What is surprising, is that there has emerged a kind of ideological opposition to even the lukewarm kind of health care reform that Obama ran on as a candidate for office from a significant bloc of Democrats in both the House and the Senate. It seems to me that the fact that the people had ample opportunity to size up Obama’s health care proposals in both the primaries and the general election, and that they strongly preferred Obama over his competitors, should relieve most Democrats of their anxiety over whether supporting his plans will cost them at the ballot box.

Now, I know that despite Obama’s strong showing nationally that he did very poorly in states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee. I can understand why Democratic politicians from those states might feel that there is little to no mandate for Obama’s health care reforms in their districts. But what we’re seeing goes far beyond any instinct for self-preservation. We’re seeing evidence that a lot of so-called Democrats are actually more concerned about corporate profits than they are in making sure that every American has health care coverage.

Even this isn’t so terribly surprising in the sense that we knew that we had a lot of pro-corporate Democrats in the party. This is basically a legacy of the Democratic Leadership Council and the influence of the Clinton administration. But, even with the DLC’s love of free trade and its pro-growth bias, they have historically given more than mere lip-service on the issue of the medically uninsured. Health care coverage has been as issue that has united Democrats of all ideological stripes.

We knew that a heavy pro-corporate tilt existed in the Democratic caucus. That’s why single-payer was never on the table and that’s why no one other than Dennis Kucinich even bothered to pretend that it might get anywhere in Congress when they were running for the Democratic nomination. That was a concession to political reality that was made right up front. Obama has said repeatedly that single-payer would be the best system if we were starting from scratch, but he never would have won the nomination or the endorsements of the majority of his colleagues if he had run on introducing a single-payer system in this country.

Yet, I don’t remember any elected Democrats coming out against the watered down health care proposals of Obama or Clinton or Edwards during the primaries. But, now, with a health care bill under consideration in Congress, we see these ‘centrist’ Democrats coming out of the woodwork to oppose even a public option. What this shows is that a lot of Democrats have been running a fraud on the members of the party. They want us to support them and work for their election because the Republicans are worse, but when the testing time comes, they are not with us.

It’s funny that it’s not enough to have sixty senators and 255 members of the House, because the only possible solution is to elect more Democrats. We might be able to make a small amount of progress by primarying out a few bad actors, but that’s difficult to do and only plays around the margins. We can probably manage our problems in the House, but the U.S. Senate is hopelessly conservative. The only answer is to elect another five or six Democratic senators and hope we can overwhelm these ‘centrists.’

I’m not panicking yet about the outcome of the health care debate, but I think we’ve all learned quite a bit about the Democratic Party in the last seven months that we might not have known, or might only have surmised, during the Bush Era.

I think we all expect and can understand that politicians are foremost concerned with their own reelection prospects. And, so, it isn’t any special surprise that there are Democrats who hail from conservative states and districts who are going to buck the Democratic agenda on controversial issues from time to time. For example, we’re lucky to have pro-choice senators from North Dakota because abortion is a highly contentious issue in that state. If they go soft on issues like parental notification or abortion coverage in a public option, I don’t think that is anything we shouldn’t have expected, even if we disagree with their positions wholeheartedly. Politicians normally have a keen sense of which votes will put their career in true jeopardy, and we should not be shocked when they duck those types of votes.

What is surprising, is that there has emerged a kind of ideological opposition to even the lukewarm kind of health care reform that Obama ran on as a candidate for office from a significant bloc of Democrats in both the House and the Senate. It seems to me that the fact that the people had ample opportunity to size up Obama’s health care proposals in both the primaries and the general election, and that they strongly preferred Obama over his competitors, should relieve most Democrats of their anxiety over whether supporting his plans will cost them at the ballot box.

Now, I know that despite Obama’s strong showing nationally that he did very poorly in states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee. I can understand why Democratic politicians from those states might feel that there is little to no mandate for Obama’s health care reforms in their districts. But what we’re seeing goes far beyond any instinct for self-preservation. We’re seeing evidence that a lot of so-called Democrats are actually more concerned about corporate profits than they are in making sure that every American has health care coverage.

Even this isn’t so terribly surprising in the sense that we knew that we had a lot of pro-corporate Democrats in the party. This is basically a legacy of the Democratic Leadership Council and the influence of the Clinton administration. But, even with the DLC’s love of free trade and its pro-growth bias, they have historically given more than mere lip-service on the issue of the medically uninsured. Health care coverage has been as issue that has united Democrats of all ideological stripes.

We knew that a heavy pro-corporate tilt existed in the Democratic caucus. That’s why single-payer was never on the table and that’s why no one other than Dennis Kucinich even bothered to pretend that it might get anywhere in Congress when they were running for the Democratic nomination. That was a concession to political reality that was made right up front. Obama has said repeatedly that single-payer would be the best system if we were starting from scratch, but he never would have won the nomination or the endorsements of the majority of his colleagues if he had run on introducing a single-payer system in this country.

Yet, I don’t remember any elected Democrats coming out against the watered down health care proposals of Obama or Clinton or Edwards during the primaries. But, now, with a health care bill under consideration in Congress, we see these ‘centrist’ Democrats coming out of the woodwork to oppose even a public option. What this shows is that a lot of Democrats have been running a fraud on the members of the party. They want us to support them and work for their election because the Republicans are worse, but when the testing time comes, they are not with us.

It’s funny that it’s not enough to have sixty senators and 255 members of the House, because the only possible solution is to elect more Democrats. We might be able to make a small amount of progress by primarying out a few bad actors, but that’s difficult to do and only plays around the margins. We can probably manage our problems in the House, but the U.S. Senate is hopelessly conservative. The only answer is to elect another five or six Democratic senators and hope we can overwhelm these ‘centrists.’

Today, in the words of Dave Letterman, is the “Kegger Day at the White House”. This evening the President will engage in political super damage control with beers all around. It is to the issues that are responsible for and preceded this historic meeting that these observations are directed. However a warning to White people, the following discussion is written by an African American from an African American viewpoint. It is my opinion that here in America, among many White Americans RACE SUPERCEDES CLASS, and I shall present my arguments for the validity of this observation below. But first on to Kegger day…..
At this point just about everybody has heard of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. The news coverage of his arrest has even pushed the gossip surrounding the death of Michael Jackson into the background. Suddenly very ordinary people are being hounded by microphones and blinded by the glare of TV lights, and yet the fascination continues. This endless coverage is being driven by the nagging question, the Black professor and the White police Sergeant? How could a mild mannered internationally celebrated Harvard professor and widely acclaimed PBS Television host and producer wind up in handcuffs in his own home on a sunny afternoon in of all places Cambridge Massachusetts?  Further, with some charging racial profiling, why are certain groups across the nation, including major network outlets rushing to cover the police Sergeant in laurels of righteousness?  The crux of the question comes down to whose word is truthful concerning events directly leading to the arrest of Professor Gates. So the national fascination lies in another question, who do you believe?

One the one hand we have a Harvard professor, internationally acclaimed for his remarkable accomplishments and a serious educator of the public on many key social issues, but he is black. Then we have the police Sergeant who has performed his duties properly and responsibly and unremarkably like thousands of other police Sergeants in towns and cities all across this nation, but he is White. Other than RACE, the difference between the two men is CLASS. You cannot equate on any scale of logic the remarkable with the unremarkable or average achievers with over achievers. In a nation that thrives on competition normally CLASS triumphs except when it comes to CLASS verses RACE. As demonstrated by recent events in Cambridge and across the nation RACE triumphs CLASS, on all levels including the Presidency.  Q.E.D.

Moving on in the discussion, I should like to point out several important factors. First, the President, as a former member of academia himself knows well that even a cursory investigation of the subject of “Racism in America” would require at least a college semester to adequately address all of the necessary discussion properly. Therefore, his use of the phrase “teachable moment” was definitely made as a “tongue in cheek” estimate at best. Second, to even provide a single sentence for each of all known and documented manifestations of American’s unique form of abject racism would require a publication approaching the size of Webster’s Dictionary. This remainder of this discussion will therefore not include chronicles of, or specific mention of publicly documented acts of discrimination, bias, prejudice, bigotry, or outrageous policing acts. This discussion will confine itself to the task of attempting to define the heretofore “indefinable”, Racism in America”. In the American mainstream media racism is always defined as a specific act or event. Unfortunately, each event as reported always includes individual unique characters whose actions occurred in specific places thereby depriving most members of the general public of any frame of reference whatsoever as they receive the news. If a violent act is included as part of a racist attack and the perpetrator is a burly tall tattooed male member of a Skin Head gang, urban gentle passive closet American racists would see no commonality between themselves and such a person, and thereby resolutely conclude with certainty that “I’m not a racist”!

What the average White American citizen does not know is that disrespecting black people is behavior grounded in the hellish years of early American slavery. On March 6, 1857 the United States Supreme Court announced their verdict in the famous case of Dred Scott V F.A. Sanford, traditionally known as the Dred Scott decision. Judge Roger B. Taney in his remarks at the announcement offered these famous words, “A Negro has no rights which a white man need RESPECT”. Judge Taney simply had encapsulated a cogent summary of thousands of reams of Negro control law documents that had been accumulating in the courthouses across the country for over 178 years.
(Many of these laws were in existence long before the first shots were fired by the British Red Coats on Bunker Hill in Boston.) Though the word RESPECT was used, Judge Taney’s statement at the time was welcomed by many white Americans as vindication by the highest court in the nation of their own homespun conviction that no Negro can claim ownership of anything, including his or her person. Even prior to Taney’s famous observation White men used it a pretext for the right to seize anything possessed by a Negro that was percieved to have value. This forced Black folks from colonial times into the post Civil War era to habitually hide anything (even of the most insignificant value) that they might acquire; for fear that they would lose it to some White person.

This legalized denial of RESPECT as a hangover from slavery days, is a lesson that thousands of Black people still encounter and endure on the streets of America every day. However, even though White people no longer can exercise the right to seize possessions of Black Americans, they still find personal enjoyment in denying Black people RESPECT whenever the opportunity arises. White people often ask. “Why do Negro Americans become so angered by the daily snubs and discriminatory affronts that they receive from White people in the process of going about their lives? Because each discriminatory act screams an unspoken invective that carries the following meaning:
(a)    You are a worthless as a person, along with your family and all of your ancestors.
(b)    You are a member of the most despicable group on earth and you and your kind are repugnant to all forms of life around you.
(c)     You and your kind deserve nothing less than total destruction.

Let’s continue by digging down into the real nitty gritty.

Conflict between Black and White individuals generally begin as pair of strangers meets face to face in what I call an Interracial Encounter which involves a curious form of “street etiquette”. Let’s examine exactly how these Interracial Encounters can become transformed from a casual encounter into a Racial Conflict with all of the ongoing potential for dangerous explosive violence.

Initially at the first meeting in any encounter White folks start by unconsciously immediately exhibiting a strained attitude of painful tolerance. This attitude may be generally exhibited through various facial expressions or by body language. Black folks instantly detect this attitude and instantly react. They have seen it many times before and it causes an immediate painful feeling of extreme discomfort. However if the attitude of the White person does not moderate, this pain quickly turns to anger. This in turn causes the Black person to quickly modify his or her attitude. In this instant and under these conditions as soon as the first words are exchanged the racial encounter quickly descends into racial confrontation, with the battle over RESPECT center stage. The unspoken question each individual is directing towards the other is, “Are you going to modify your attitude and show me the RESPECT that I deserve?” However, the battle lines are drawn and from this point onward as more verbal exchanges start to occur, the situation rapidly spirals out of control.

The argument from the perspective of Black folks is that, “You as a White person know nothing about me and suddenly when we come face to face you exhibit this attitude, the mannerisms of which WE KNOW is RACIST!” How do Black people know that the attitudes and mannerisms of a White person are racist? Because Black people have been going through endless unsolicited tutorials where they are treated to offensively painful observations of the attitudes and mannerisms of racist White people who evidently enjoy the prospect of “putting us in our place”. Black children in America are raised on a steady diet of these brief but painful episodes. This is how they know a White racist attitude when they see one. It is also why NO OTHER maltreated group in America can lay claim to experiencing discrimination similar to the acts of discrimination inflicted on Black people in America for centuries.

American racist treatment of Negroes was engendered, created, and forged in the damned cauldron of brutal American slavery; the widespread practices of which, in this country, are older than the nation itself going back to the days of colonial America. This fact in itself is another strong reason as to why Negro Americans are experts on recognizing when White racist attitudes are on display. Conversely, Negro Americans are also expert in recognizing the absence of White racism during any encounter between the races. This is what W.E. Dubois meant when he stated that, “racism is the White man’s problem.”

In summary, interracial encounters between African Americans and White Americans generally degenerate into a racial charged confrontation when initially triggered by exhibition a racist attitude and or racist mannerisms by the White person. Racial disrespect is a active byproduct of ignorance. Sadly in order to purge racist disrespect from the American population, the gross ignorance and insensitivity that feeds it must necessarily also be eliminated, obviously a daunting and challenging task.

Obviously, my observation of racist behavior of White people does not include all White people. Without millions upon millions of kind and caring sensitive and sincere White people in America, America would not have made the amount of progress in race relations that it currently enjoys. Needless to say thousands of White Americans toiled unceasingly in the Anti-Slavery movement which contributed mightily to the eventual freeing of the slaves in America. So all White Americans are not painted with the same broad racist brush, and Black Americans are well aware of this. The problem is that Black Americans don’t know where the next racist encounter will be coming from. From the time they leave their house until the time they return and sometimes before they leave home and in the case of Professor Gates it was the time after they get home.

As a Cantabrigian myself, I have observed how the African American community in Cambridge emerged over the years to rise positions of power in the City government. Over the years Cambridge has had a virtual succession of African American (AA) mayors, two AA Chiefs of Police, an AA Police Commissioner, and many AA elected to the City Council and to the School Board and an AA Superintendent of Schools. Cambridge was the first City in America to make diversity programs in its workplace mandatory. So with a national reputation for being the most liberal city in America, why this sudden and most public racial incident, and why now? As the song lyrics go, “nothing stays the same”. Time goes on, people retire, some leave, some die and as new comers assume positions in City administration sentiments and attitudes are bound to change. Unfortunately, the old reputation supposedly continues the tradition of defining the popular sentiment until an incident like this recent one involving Professor Gates explodes on the national scene.

Regardless of the daily spin belching out of the Cambridge Police Department, the final shape, purpose and resolution of this ugly incident is in the very creative and scholarly hands of Professor Henry Louis Gates. Sergeant James Crowley may be the media darling among the patrolmen’s union and police departments around the nation for the moment. Ah, but the pen in the hand of a learned internationally revered scholar is a highly formidable weapon indeed, and over time I sincerely believe it will prove far mightier than the sword, or the handcuffs or the jail cell in this case.

I know. You think developing a vaccine for the swine flu is probably a good thing, just like you believe that health care reform (if done right) would benefit all Americans. After all, an effective vaccine could potentially prevent the deaths of millions should the current influenza virus which has created a pandemic mutate into a more deadly version.

But out in the fever swamps of the right, where government is seen as always a bad thing, there are those with a darker vision. And I’m not just talking about the Republican and Insurance company financed scare campaign that Obama’s health care plan is intended to kill your grandmother to save a few bucks (as if that isn’t already happening under our current system). No I’m talking genocide: a plot by Obama and others to provide forced vaccinations for the “swine flu” that will depopulate the planet:

(cont.)

[A] very capable investment and portfolio strategist asked me if he could come have a private lunch with me in Washington. We sat in a posh restaurant across from the Capitol. He said quietly that he had calculated out where the derivatives and debt bubble combined with globalization were going. The only logical conclusion he could reach was that significant depopulation was going to occur. […]

Now we have exploding unemployment, an exploding federal deficit, an Inspector General for the TARP bailout program predicting that the ultimate bailout cost could rise to $23.7 trillion and a Congressional Budget Director who is concluding that we can no longer afford the social safety net.

That is, unless you change the actuarial assumptions in the budget – like life expectancy. Lowering immune systems and increasing toxicity levels combined with poor food, water and terrorizing stress will help do the trick. Review the history of vaccines rushed into production without proper testing and peer review – it is clear about the potential side effects. In addition, a plague can so frighten and help control people that they will accept the end of their current benefits (and the resulting implications to life expectancy) without objection. And a plague with proper planning can be highly profitable. Whatever the truth of what swine flu and related vaccines are, it can be used as a way to keep control in a situation that is quickly shifting out of control.

… The disinformation and control opportunities are profound. They keep the slow burn going. It is the next, meaner face of “the establishment against the rest of society.”

Sound a little crazy? Not to some people:

There’s a knock on your door. A peek through the window reveals two young soldiers in urban camo fatigues gripping M16 rifles slung across their chests. In front of them, an official-looking doctor person sports an N95 mask and carries a clipboard thick with ruffled papers. […]

Knock KNOCK. “We’re here from the pandemic response team,” insists the doc. “We’re here to help. Open up or we’ll be forced to come in.”

Reluctantly, you inch towards the door and grip the doorknob with damp, sweaty hands. Your pulse pounds hard as you crack open the door. […]

“Our records show you haven’t received the swine flu vaccine yet,” squeaks the doctor from behind the bulk of the domineering soldier now squarely positioned in front of you. “We’re here to administer your vaccine.”

“I don’t want a vaccine,” you protest. “They’re not safe.”

The soldier chuckles, blurts out, “They’re as safe as the U.S. government says they are.”

You want it spelled out for you? Well, here’s a good Christian group that is convinced the Swine Flu is a manufactured crisis by the World Health organization to kill Americans:

WHO Memoranda from 1972 prove three shots mandated by US government for “swine flu” vaccine designed to be killer

[…

These WHO Memorandas describe the three-stage impact of the three “shots” many people will be forced to take this fall to allegedly treat a virus that WHO also helped create and release. […]

For every crime, there needs to be motive, an indication that it was deliberate, planned. The WHO memorandums provide the evidence of just that deliberate, long-term planning to kill people by weakening their immune system by use of the first vaccine, injecting a live virus into their body by a second, and creating a cytokine storm using squalene in a third.

In short, now that Obama is in charge, the vast left wing one world government conspiracy can implement it’s decades in the making plan for mass genocide:

Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.

The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the “bird flu” virus and the “swine flu virus” in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S. This action is in direct violation of the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act.

Burgermeister’s charges include evidence that Baxter AG, Austrian subsidiary of Baxter International, deliberately sent out 72 kilos of live bird flu virus, supplied by the WHO in the winter of 2009 to 16 laboratories in four counties. She claims this evidence offers clear proof that the pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies themselves are actively engaged in producing, developing, manufacturing and distributing biological agents classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth in order to trigger a pandemic and cause mass death.

And they call us Moonbats? I love how they manage to link Obama, Sibelius, the CDC, WHO, Pharmaceutical companies and George Soros to this master plan to commit mass murder across the globe, but particularly here in the United States. I’m just surprised they didn’t add Michael Moore and ACORN to the list of co-conspirators.

At least most of the “conspiracy theories” from the left regarding Bush and his administration turned out to be true. They really did lie about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction in order to start a war. The NSA and other government organizations did carry out a massive and illegal warrantless surveillance program against Americans. We did torture prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions. White Phosphorus was used as a weapon against civilian populations. The White House really did out Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative. Bush planned for war with Iraq back in 2002 and we have the British government’s “Downing Street Memos” to prove it.

But Linking Obama, WHO, the CDC and other governments to a worldwide conspiracy to commit mass genocide? Only wingnuts could dream up such ludicrous and murderous fantasies. Our side of the blogosphere is, for the most part, a reality based community. The right? They invent their own realities, remember?

What I don’t understand is why I’m supposed to think this is a good thing.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) said she believes the Blue Dogs have scored a major victory by getting leaders to back away from their goal of having the House vote on a healthcare bill before members return home for the month of August.

“We’ve achieved the victory of not having a vote on the House floor that will give every member a chance to digest what’s in the bill, whether it’s in a markup that occurs in Energy and Commerce or whether it’s as the bill exists right now,” she said. “It is because of the Blue Dog Coalition that there is no floor vote before the August break.”

I’m all for congresspeople reading the legislation before they vote on it, but that isn’t why the Blue Dogs want to avoid a vote before the recess. The Blue Dogs are clearly trying to defeat health care reform, and Ms. Herseth Sandlin, at least, isn’t even doing much to hide that fact.

They are basically bragging about their progress.

Why does it feel like Friday already?

Mickey Z. interviews Richard Oxman
What do you think of Obama’s reaction to the Gates incident? Who killed Michael Jackson? Why did Palin resign? Why are 90% of the large fish in the ocean gone? Which question doesn’t belong?

California-based organizer, educator, activist-writer, and playwright (and, oh yes, home schooling father and devoted spouse) Richard Oxman knows the answer. He’s more than aware that our current system – our very culture – is designed to shove the “big” questions to the fringes. This is why Oxman has conjured up a unique form of dissent: TOSCA – Taking Over the State of California.

“A necessary, urgent action,” he calls its, “designed to put thirteen non-politicians into the Sacred Seat in Sacramento (the Governor’s seat)… with all of those citizens having an equal say… along with the working figureheads who will be our candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor in the 2010 gubernatorial race.”

Oxman feels California is ideally suited for such an effort and has begun the important work of getting the campaign (so to speak) rolling. I recently asked him some questions via e-mail and here’s how it went:

MZ: What is it about the state of California and its political apparatus that makes it a logical venue for your efforts?

RO: The Governor of California can wield great influence in the state, having the legal right to move unilaterally on many fronts without having to compromise with opposing politicians.  The state itself is tremendously influential, nationwide, internationally. Her/his role – the Guv’s – in Higher Education alone could change the world. Think divestment, for one. And because California is in serious – historic – trouble on several counts, citizens there are primed to follow a new paradigm for change. They are desperate.

MZ: If/when this succeeds, what might be the first obvious difference the public would notice?

RO: It will succeed, it must… or we are doomed. Everything else on the table is either disingenuous or moving at an arthritic snail’s pace. Once in office all decision-making meetings will be filmed for public consumption, to help citizens to self-educate, and decide for themselves who has their interests at heart, what to demand, who to pressure , etc. Our Guv can actually teach citizens HOW to pressure. That’s one of several aspects of TOSCA that have no historical precedent. Our tenure in office will be citizen-centered and communally-centered, NOT about the self-interest of career politicians or their money men.

MZ: Speaking of money…

RO: Our campaign will be waged on a ZERO budget. Whereas people concerned with the influence of money in campaigns to date have tried to change things with efforts such as campaign finance reform… we will Be The Change We Want To See. Meaning, we intend to demonstrate what miracles can be wrought with no money. TOSCA is all about opening up a window to see what the public will do on their own once they see how much can be accomplished without any funds whatsoever. How much pure joy can be generated, how much human connection can be had… with nothing in one’s pocket.

MZ: Considering the roadblocks involved with even getting a candidate on the ballot, how do you intend to accumulate enough votes?

RO: One thing we’re going to do is do away with all the time, energy and money that’s always put into getting on the ballot. What we save there we’ll put into recruiting… on an intimate basis. Not with signs, petitions, online blah blah, meetings, announcements or any of that habitual generic stuff. Sure, we’ll accept high profile plugs, but our basic m.o. will be to have friends contact friends one-on-one, bonding in an unprecedented way, passing the word incessantly; we have a huge jump on others already. No real time needed. That 61% who didn’t show at the last statewide election will provide mucho. Then there are the voters whose votes weren’t counted because of carelessness, more than what the Green Party garnered! None of our unaffilitated write-in votes will be lost in that Black Hole. I can’t fit “reasons” and much else into this telegraphic bite, but… contact me. There will be easy crossovers from major and marginalized parties… for it’ll be effortless to sell the notion that we need deep institutionalized changes… like detaching our economy from the Pentagon… which no one else can offer. Before much longer highly influential souls will take up TOSCA’s cause… almost exclusively. And then the first step in our legal, non-violent revolution will kick in.

MZ: Okay, I’ve asked to sound-bite and condense and reduce your idea to an easily digestible morsel to keep it ready for prime time…but now imagine you have a totally different audience: radicals, activists, etc. Why should, say, an anarchist get on board the TOSCA Express?

RO: Express, yes! Everyone should get on board “yesterday” because individual freedom will be of paramount importance – on an ongoing basis – for all connected with TOSCA. There are different kinds of anarchists, of course, but like the vast majority of anarchists… TOSCA’s core members believe that an appropriate economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statues of a government. We’re into the collaboration of workers in all aspects of production… keeping in mind, however, please… that we have no intention to approach “production” along traditional, environmentally destructive lines. The taking over of management in all facilities by the producers themselves is of prime importance to us, and of great appeal to most anarchists, I believe. We see separate groups within industry as independent members of the Big Industrial Picture, carrying on production/distribution of products in the clear interests of particular communities… on the basis of free mutual agreements. That said, it doesn’t mean that the thirteen people serving as Governor together will not be trying to influence decisions made in each little corner. Everyone has an obvious vested interest in moving in solidarity respecting certain environmental facts, at the very least. And, by the way, this business of anarchism should not scare anyone away. For everyone who opposes the Pentagon being inextricably bound up with our economy’s success, functioning… must, absolutely must acknowledge that we’re going to have to have radical institutional changes in order to create greater democratization in society. To say nothing about other equally important (related) issues…like abominations abroad… which we will spotlight daily on our own media outlet.

MZ: When you talk about the need to move in solidarity respecting certain environmental facts, are you saying that we may differ on certain issues but everyone is heavily impacted by 80% of world’s forests being gone?

RO: Perfectly put. We are all doomed if everyone is merely doing their own thing. TOSCA would respect anarchists more than any other group in office in history, but… we would do our damnedest to help everyone self-educate about our mutual environmental threats, and do what we could to encourage those making decisions in little corners to deeply consider larger communal concerns. Their own survival, to put in another way.

MZ: Who – besides me  – have you asked to serve as an advisor and who have approached about being a candidate? What kind of response have you generally gotten?

RO: High profile figures and others such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Bill Blum, Derrick Jensen, Glen Ford, Afshin Rattansi (in Iran at present), Jennifer Loewenstein, Greg Moses, Wallace J Nichols, Michael Stocker (of Ocean Conservation Research), the great African specialist who constantly risks his life to get great news to us… Keith Harmon Snow, Dave Lindorff, Cindy Sheehan, Ron Jacobs, Kim Petersen (of Canada), Henry A. Giroux (who Routledge named as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period), L.A. attorney/author Ellen Brown, Argentina’s Marie Trigone, Bruce Anderson (of the Anderson Valley Advertiser), Devinder Sharma (of India), Ronnie Cummins (Executive Director for Organic Consumers Association), David Yearsley, organic farmer Dr. Shepherd Bliss of Sonoma State University, Murray Dobbin (of Canada), Stephen Martin, and artist Jerry Fresia (in Italy) are just some of the people who have offered us their public imprimaturs.

We’re still in the process of trying to recruit Mike Davis, Paul Hawken, Michael Albert and Arundhati Roy… and everyone else! Noam Chomsky hasn’t come on board yet, but we haven’t given up on anyone, and even people like Noam – who for very legitimate reasons want to take “a little more time” to consider all aspects of what we’ve put on the table before adopting a public stance – have taken the heartbeats to go back and forth with us, very generously. Much is not written in stone, and so we can take the time to ask people to make recommendations, to feel free to tweak this and that to, possibly, suit their own purposes… their angle on society.

MZ: So the reactions have been encouraging?

RO: Everything considered, I’d say that we’re getting an over-the-top positive response. I mean, the above list was compiled over a period of only about two weeks of me working alone, spending only minimal time on recruitment. That’s actually phenomenal by any standards, yes? And one really has to factor in that we’re coming out of nowhere, dumping ourselves in the inboxes of individuals and organizations quite suddenly, absolutely no prep for what’s essentially, arguably, the most radical proposal in the realm of politics… for the electoral arena… in the history of the country. IRV is one of our big/small potatoes.

Some groups and some activists are truly puzzling in their responses, but that’s another book, as they say. The reasons for silence in response to my missives sometimes, the dropping of the ball inexplicably by some, the lack of nurturing well-intentioned efforts like TOSCA’s, and premature dismissal of what we put on the table for consideration now and then is all part of the animal we’re taming. By which I mean any effort to mobilize citizens for the purposes of moving in solidarity meaningfully – not in lockstep automatic meaningless mode following old paradigms for protest/change – is going to encounter all kinds of resistance for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is what I call territorial trauma. But that’s part of the beautiful satisfaction that’s coming our way, this TOSCA making a dent in all that. The fact is that there’s nothing else on the table that I know of which has a shot in hell at saving this “heaven on earth” in time.

MZ: How can readers learn more and get involved?

RO: Readers should contact me directly IMMEDIATELY. They can reach me at tosca.2010@yahoo.com or at headburg@yahoo.com for starters. Urgent connection is crucial… whether one wants to limit one’s participation to only ten minutes total running up to the election in 2010, OR whether one wants to work alongside me 24×8 to create this watershed in history. PLEASE NOTE that I always get back within 24 hours at the outside. If one doesn’t hear back from me directly within that time frame, something’s amiss. The link http://oxtogrind.org/archive/353 is a decent place to start learning about TOSCA, and a reading of that can be followed by encouraging others to contact me.

Mickey Z. is the author of two upcoming books: Self Defense for Radicals (PM Press) and his second novel, Dear Vito (The Drill Press). Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net