Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
To some of us the transition from slave to citizenship by those Africans brought in chains to these shores for economic exploitation and horrific abuse ended with the “Emancipation Proclamation”. To others its’ end might have been marked by “Brown v. Board of Education”, or by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Those of somewhat more insightful bent may have said that the true emancipation occurred when Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. In my view, as much of an impact as all those milestones (and more such as Jackie Robinson i.e.) made to American consciousness, Black people in the United States clearly still lack the benefits and rewards of citizenship. I would go further and say that in the United States, at this time; most Black people still suffer the degradation and challenges brought about by both institutional and emotional racism. This is not to say that in our country other groups, such as Latino’s and Native Americans are free of oppressive prejudice, but to assert that given their history in this country Black people are slotted into the bottom of the economic and social ladder and are still struggling to obtain even those most minimal of rights that most Americans see as their birthright.
This article is a very personal one for me, even though I am not a Black American. As someone born in 1944 I have lived through a great deal of significant Civil Rights history and even contributed to the struggle albeit in a minor way. As a Jewish kid from New York, born into a progressive family, my experience with Black people was minimal until the age of eighteen. There were no non-Whites in my High School, for instance. Yet as someone from a large family, where both set of grandparents immigrated to this country, we as Jews were quite aware of the Country’s innate prejudice towards ourselves and many of us translated that awareness into understanding the prejudicial plights of other ethnic groups. In America though, even among Jews, as each new wave of immigrants found success and acceptance many among them viewed Blacks with disdain believing something to the effect of “If I and mine “made” it, why can’t they. What’s wrong with them? The following will be my personal explanation for “what’s wrong with them” and to me the inevitable conclusion will be what’s wrong with us, the US being this country.
The first African slaves were brought to Virginia in 1619. As the centuries passed this was seen by those profiting from it as a fortuitous economic innovation. Pre-Revolutionary American also had another longstanding, economically exploitive and fortuitous use of lowering labor costs known as indentured servitude. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude European immigrants sign a legal document committing them to a certain term of service as “servants”, during which time they received no pay, only food and lodging. They could be discipline through beatings and their contracts were fully enforceable by law. The practice began to die out with the proliferation of African slaves, since the Blacks had a lifetime obligation of service which ended at death, they were economically more feasible a solution. With history memory fades quickly, especially if a whole cottage industry of media propaganda has been produced to “smooth” its edges. “Birth of a Nation”, one of the most cinematically acclaimed films of all time, present Blacks as rabid sub-humans, who required a heroic Ku Klux Klan to keep them in line after the Emancipation. “Gone with the Wind” an even more financially successful film portrays the Blacks in it as sort of loyal simpletons who wouldn’t know how to exist without white people to give them guidance. Racist, denigrating portrayals of Blacks ran rife through the American Cinema and indeed the arts. Stereotypes become universal mythological archetypes and even many of those who believed in freedom for Blacks were skeptical of their capabilities for acting as average citizens.
Looking back at the history of Black slavery in America, I believe we need to re-emphasize an aspect of it that though well known, is usually given intellectually short shrift as to its long term effects. Genocide comes in many forms. Given Twentieth Century history genocide connotes outright murder such as those committed by the Turks against the Armenians, the NAZI’s against the Jews, homosexuals, Gypsy’s and mentally incapacitated. We can add Stalin’s “agricultural reform” via murder, Pol Pot’s political purification via the “killing fields” and the various tragic genocides taking place in Africa today. Yet in that past Century we have another example of a less murderous, but no less horrific genocide as exhibited by Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”. This was an effort less to murder people and more to provide them with a harshly imposed re-education and as such I see the “Genocide” of American slavery as a pre-cursor of Chairman Mao.
Except for instances of sadism, or extreme disciplinary example, it was not the intent of the American slaveholder to murder his/her slaves. They represented property and wealth. They could be put up as chattel for loans and they could be sold for profit. The “smart” slave investor wanted to keep his “property” healthful and in good shape for possible profit via sale. What that investor, entrepreneur may we say, didn’t want was any particular slave believing that they had the right to do anything but serve the will of their Master. Cultural genocide was what was imposed upon the captive Africans, to destroy any memories of their past history and to dent them the normal human comforts of wives and family. The truth, conveniently ignored by common history books to sugar coat the horror of imperialist exploitation of Africa, was that existing there was rather strong and sophisticated cultural heritages. These were not “savages” falling upon each other in constant strife and living unsophisticated lives as “jungle denizens”, but rather richly developed cultures that had a sophisticated cross-cultural interdependence. That some of the more powerful tribes sold their fellows into slavery was not a good thing, but actually slavery in the Western world’s history goes back to our “cultural forebears” the Athenians, the Trojans, the Carthaginians and of course the “glory” that was Rome. Human’s tendency to exploit other humans for personal gain seems endemic to our history as we see today in our “great banks”, or phony entrepreneurs like Mitt Romney.
Slaveholders in America needed to ensure docility by expunging the African memories and identities of “their” slaves by renaming them, destroying personal bonds such as marriage and parenthood, and most importantly teaching their unwilling slaves that all the stereotypes of their inferiority were true. They succeeded fairly well in many cases. I could put in here the actual truth that the slaves were highly resistant and developed their own intellectual and cultural movements, including many rebellions, but if you don’t know of the lives of Frederick Douglas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass and Nat Turner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner it might profit you to do a little research. Nevertheless, the slave holder propagandists did have widespread success in their genocide of cultural destruction, abetted by the mass media and certain historians forgetfulness of the true history of American slavery.
The “Abolitionist Movement” in America gained strength to the point of electing an American President who shared somewhat similar sentiments. One of the bloodiest wars in history was fought on American soil and in the end the forces of Abolition seemed victorious. Lincoln was of course murdered only days after the Gettysburg surrender and replaced by a somewhat less committed and capable President Andrew Johnson. While the plans for “Reconstruction” had been drawn prior to the Civil Wars end, Johnson’s ability to fully implement it and truly give freed Blacks the chance at full citizenship and freedom was limited by the deal he had to make to keep from being impeached. Slavery was over but “Jim Crow” replaced it with a system no less harsh and certainly no less murderous. Historically and in the doctrines of our courts “Jim Crow” was the law of the land and Black people were for the most part not allowed the normal rights of American citizens, most importantly the right to vote.
What is forgotten in all of this is the psychological effect this condition of “Jim Crow” had upon Black Americans, particularly males. Imagine living a life where you are not only constantly under suspicion for mischief, but extremely likely to be incarcerated or lynched for innocent actions? Imagine having to step into the gutter when encountering a white person on the sidewalk? Imagine being afraid to look a white person in the eye for fear of being charged with the “crime” of being “uppity”. Imagine being educated in severely under funded school districts, with poverty the impetus to drop out early to work and with lack of books to help one in their study? Imagine having to take a “literacy” test to vote, or having to pay a “poll tax” in order to vote? Imagine seeing angry policeman staring at you as you approached a polling place and knowing that they could beat you senseless just for the fun of it? Imagine being called “Boy” by someone years younger and your life in danger if you don’t acquiesce?
Imagine as a father being unable to find, or hold a job as easy as your wife and the shameful baggage that goes with the knowledge you are unable to support your family? Imagine needing welfare assistance for your family to survive, yet having to either move out of your home, or pretend not to live there lest the Welfare authorities cut off your family’s entire assistance? Imagine living a life of having to suffer constant humiliation and degradation of your self-esteem? What I’ve just written only briefly touches upon the psychological genocide that was inflicted and still is being afflicted upon the Black portion of our people.
That so many Black people have thrived, despite all of these difficulties, is a tribute to the intelligence and talents of this portion of our population. That such a rich cultural heritage has been produced by Black Americans is a similar paean to the strength of their culture and to the many examples of true genius that exists amongst them. So yes in America we have a Black President, many distinguished Black legislators, educators, entertainers and sports stars. I would assert to you that while on an individual basis that is a cause for celebration, on an institutional basis things have not really progressed much beyond “Jim Crow” and we may actually be entering a time of retrenchment if we don’t see the ominous signs.
Last week my fellow guest blogger Lawrence Rafferty made this excellent contribution: “Probable Cause..Black, Latino and Young”. http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/24/probable-cause-black-latino-and-young/#more-62063 In it he discussed the ongoing New York City “Stop and Frisk” policy instituted by Mayor Bloomberg and his Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. While the trial isn’t over the evidence is pretty conclusive that for the past decade people of color have been targeted by the NYPD simply based on their appearance:
“According to department data, the NYPD has made roughly 5 million street stops in the past decade, the vast majority of those stopped being young African American or Latino men. Nearly nine out of 10 of those stopped by police have walked away without a summons or arrest.”
Explain to me please the difference between these actions and those Blacks lived through during “Jim Crow”? Now due to his media savvy I have no doubt that Mr. Bloomberg, that champion of the elite, has publicized this to the point where we think it is simply a New York City phenomenon. In truth this is common practice all over this country and especially in places like Los Angeles, San Diego and Joe Arpaio’s famed Maricopa Country. Indeed in all of Arizona one can be stopped for driving as a suspected Mexican. Seriously, can you deny that in the “formerly Jim Crow” South this is still not a common practice?
A companion piece to this is something that I have previously written about: “The Incarceration of Black Men in America” http://jonathanturley.org/?s=The+incarceration+of+black+men+in+america
To quote from that piece:
“Black males continue to be incarcerated at an extraordinary rate. Black males make up 35.4 percent of the jail and prison population — even though they make up less than 10 percent of the overall U.S population. Four percent of U.S. black males were in jail or prison last year, compared to 1.7 percent of Hispanic males and .7 percent of white males. In other words, black males were locked up at almost six times the rate of their white counterparts.”
http://www.laprogressive.com/law-and-the-justice-system/boiling-hot-mad/.html
How can we honestly say given the above, if you accept it, that Black people share equality of citizenship with their fellow Americans? The “stop and frisk” actions lead to predominantly minor charges, that despite guilt are plea bargained away due to lack of viable legal representation. Arrests and jail records make finding gainful employment harder, which leads to a kind of “what the hell” despair that imbues the psyches of may Blacks, despite their intelligence, strength of character and the stability of their communal connections. We still live in a land of “Jim Crow” and those who pretend we do not are either politically and/or racially motivated, or suffering from denial in my opinion. To any who might dispute my conclusions, or think they are based upon lack of evidence beware, because the evidence of this fact is so overwhelming that this guest blog would run into the tens of thousands of words were I to produce them. Until all of our citizens, despite their backgrounds are treated on an equal basis than the idea of our Constitutional Republic is a mere sham. It must seem so for so many people of color.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger.
As predicted, I will get the fire. Free simply isn’t smart enough to understand he’s a victim..right folks?
When people say I’m lying, or intimate it, I have a simple reply. I’ll put up 1k and prove what is claimed to be a lie. We will need someone as a broker. I will then prove what I say and be 1k richer. Words like “possibly fake” are cowardly. Care to put your $ where your mouth is? I’m dead serious.
That’s the one, Elaine.
I do swear a lot. One of my many faults.
Gene,
Did you mean Cliff Clavin?
White People Have to Give Up Racism
Mychal Denzel Smith
February 14, 2013
http://www.thenation.com/blog/172925/white-people-have-give-racism#
Excerpt:
Last week, I argued that a repeal of so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws and the outlawing of racial profiling are necessary but insufficient to prevent murders like that of Trayvon Martin. On Twitter, someone asked me, “What’s your solution?” My short answer: white people have to give up racism.
As complicated an issue as race has become in the United States, that might sound like an overly simplistic answer, but it’s the root of it all. While we’ve all come up internalizing racism, since it’s all around us, only one group of people actually benefits from its existence. Not every white person is a racist, but the genius of racism is that you don’t have to participate to enjoy the spoils. If you’re white, you can be completely oblivious, passively accepting the status quo, and reap the rewards.
Over time, those living on the other side, whether black, Latino, Asian, or Native American, have fought back and shamed white people into sharing the power and the spoils of capitalism. A few people of color have managed to achieve levels of success, as we typically define it, that rival their white counterparts. So, a popular narrative has become, “These few tokens beat the odds, why can’t all of you?” In fact, no one defeats racism; they just succeed in spite of it. But most don’t.
No, it’s not the job of people of color to win over racism, it’s the responsibility of white people to abandon it altogether. We’ve reached a point here in America, though, where we believe the worst of racism is over and the remaining animus is either not worth mentioning or dying off. Neither is true. Racism is the foundation; it literally built this country. It’s going to keep showing up. Denying that doesn’t solve the problem, it exacerbates it, making it so we can’t ever achieve real solutions.
Then Trayvon dies, or Rodrigo Diaz dies, or we debate protecting Native American women from sexual assault, and the promise of America doesn’t match up to the reality. But we’ve accepted the falsehood of equal opportunity. We’re a nation constantly lying to ourselves instead bettering ourselves.
What’s that smell?
The fragrant steam produced by warm water and vinegar.
Way to go, Cliff Claiborne. Way to go.
Freeasabird, the history was a context to address what is happening now, what is happening now is overt and extremely destructive unless one believes that African Americans, as a cultural group, are as dangerous and lawless as the number of Terry stops and rate of incarceration would indicate in a color-blind society. Do you? I don’t.
“If we are all Americans then let’s start acting like it and stop the excuses.” Agreed. And remove the systemic injustice to impose and reinforce the notion that “we are all equally Americans but…” so everyone can.
Nick,
As usual you substitute possibly fake anecdotes for argumentative logic. In the time you have been here you have never once responded with anything that approaches logical argument, on any issue. You are sneaky in your implications and seem to have a convenient anecdote made up and to available to replace logic with prejudice. Were you an honest player, such as Freeasabird, I might deign to take you seriously. You’re not, however, just another pompous guy at the local bar who is bully quick with an opinion, but short on facts.
“The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.” That’s terrorism. Terry stops and incarceration (Thank you drug war- we couldn’t have done it without ya’.) as they are enforced is state sponsored terrorism against people of color, primarily African Americans, no less than the camps RWL writes about. If you want equality, work for justice reform and an end to the war on drugs.
Mike, excellent article and I too have missed you. I’m glad to see that you have returned and I hope you’re feeling better.
nick spinelli
Your language stinks.
Mike Spindell
White people also have the problem of being associated with the ones who caused such hatred and racism even though they were not alive. I am tired of a color preceding a person for then we are dividing and conquering. If we are all Americans then let’s start acting like it and stop the excuses.
freeasabird, First of all, welcome. I have lamented here for some time this lily white forum desperately needs diversity. Allow me to give you some background. Firstly, as you can probably tell, this pablum is all theory as is much of what you’ll read here. Most of these folks know few, if any black people and certainly don’t socialize w/ them. I have many black friends w/ whom I routinely socialize, vacation[last week two black amateur boxers we know came out to visit from KC to vacation and do some sparring]. One of my black friends LOVES to play on white guilt. White women are like shooting fish in a barrell but as you can see some men here would also be sputtering and apologizing. My friend will make outrageous comments to random white folk alleging racism and they do back flips apologizing. He sometimes goes too far and we have to tell him to back off. It’s a bit edgey, he mostly does it for laughs but there’s a dark side to it..as there is w/ most comedy. As Steve Martin used to say, “Comedy is not pretty.”
Then there is a pathology here that is overriding and has nothing to do w/ race. You see, there are a few charter members of the Andy Rooney Curmudgeon Society. Even when a very positive post is made by Mr. Turley of a guest blogger, there will be the tedious, “Yeah, buts.” A recent example was a heartwarming story of a downs kid playing basketball. The curmudgeon in this case felt compelled to point out the horrors of competition. Indeed there is a dark side to sports but I mean, DAMN..just smile @ the nice story and save the negativity for another day. But, you know the type, free; the people who aren’t happy unless they’re fighting some injustice.
Finally, you are not a proper black man in the minds of some here. So get w/ the f@cking program right now or get the f@ck out is what they’re thinking but NEVER say..well one guy might!! I implore you to stay. They’ll be tougher on me than you since I’m white. But continue to be a fly in their ointment. I’ve said here previously, I’ve tried to get some black folk to comment but they read horseshit like this and say, “No thanks.” My white guilter friend isn’t into blogs. He would cause a few strokes here if he were.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=162
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”
But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
Dredd wrote: “For example, the Yale historian, David Blight, has shown that during the first 50 years after the Civil War, the majority of white Americans largely forgot the harshness of slavery and came to remember the institution as relatively benign. A southern, romanticized version of slavery took shape”
*
Right. Took shape and is still alive at CPAC and I suspect in a not inconsiderable segment of neo-cons:
CPAC meeting on race the title of which was ‘Are you tired of being called a racist when you’re not one’ as I recall:
AP poll: U.S. majority have prejudice against blacks
10/27/12
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2012/10/27/poll-black-prejudice-america/1662067/
Excerpt:
The AP surveys were conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and NORC at the University of Chicago.
Experts on race said they were not surprised by the findings.
“We have this false idea that there is uniformity in progress and that things change in one big step. That is not the way history has worked,” said Jelani Cobb, professor of history and director of the Institute for African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut. “When we’ve seen progress, we’ve also seen backlash.”
Obama himself has tread cautiously on the subject of race, but many African-Americans have talked openly about perceived antagonism toward them since Obama took office. As evidence, they point to events involving police brutality or cite bumper stickers, cartoons and protest posters that mock the president as a lion or a monkey, or lynch him in effigy.
“Part of it is growing polarization within American society,” said Fredrick Harris, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. “The last Democrat in the White House said we had to have a national discussion about race. There’s been total silence around issues of race with this president. But, as you see, whether there is silence, or an elevation of the discussion of race, you still have polarization. It will take more generations, I suspect, before we eliminate these deep feelings.”
Thank you Mike for another well founded and articulate presentation.
The final straw of racism will probably be the subtle yet not provable discriminations, such as I have two grocery clerks to ring up my bill, one white, the other green. I’ll just head to the green person. Then, maybe their children will not think that way.
It seems the overt racism can be easily met with legal actions, but the subtle are likely more widespread and collectively just as bad as the ocasional outrage to one individual. But, it applies to all members of that group.
The rise of hate in the age of Obama
By Jonathan Capehart
10/29/12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-rise-of-hate-in-the-age-of-obama/2012/10/29/2ed7c4c0-21ec-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html
Excerpt:
While folks were obsessing over polls that showed their preferred presidential candidate being up or down, I obsessed over a poll that revealed a troubling rise in hatred among the American people. According to a poll for the Associated Press, anti-African American and anti-Hispanic attitudes have grown since the election of the nation’s first black president.
I’m not one of those people who thought sending Barack Obama to the White House would exorcise the nation’s racial demons, that centuries of strife and tribulation would simply melt away with one historic election. But I did hope that some remnants of the the wave of good feeling that swept over the United States between Election Day 2008 and Inauguration Day two months later would remain. How silly of me.
In 2008, anti-black attitudes were held by 48 percent of Americans surveyed. Today, that number is 51 percent. When implicit racial attitudes are measured, that statistic jumps to 56 percent. The viewpoint is even worse for Hispanics: A poll done last year showed that anti-Latino attitudes were held by 52 percent of non-Hispanic whites. On the implicit racial attitudes test, the negative views of Hispanics goes to 57 percent. (The AP worked on the poll with NORC at the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan and Stanford University.)
Mike,
It’s great to have you back posting again. Your posts are always thought provoking.
In addition to “stop and frisk,” I’d add “driving while black.”
*****
Driving While Black: Racial Profiling On Our Nation’s Highways
http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/driving-while-black-racial-profiling-our-nations-highways
Excerpt:
September 14, 2005
By David A. Harris,
University of Toledo College of Law
An American Civil Liberties Union
Special Report
June 1999
INTRODUCTION
On a hot summer afternoon in August 1998, 37-year-old U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Rossano V. Gerald and his young son Gregory drove across the Oklahoma border into a nightmare. A career soldier and a highly decorated veteran of Desert Storm and Operation United Shield in Somalia, SFC Gerald, a black man of Panamanian descent, found that he could not travel more than 30 minutes through the state without being stopped twice: first by the Roland City Police Department, and then by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
During the second stop, which lasted two-and-half hours, the troopers terrorized SFC Gerald’s 12-year-old son with a police dog, placed both father and son in a closed car with the air conditioning off and fans blowing hot air, and warned that the dog would attack if they attempted to escape. Halfway through the episode – perhaps realizing the extent of their lawlessness – the troopers shut off the patrol car’s video evidence camera.
Perhaps, too, the officers understood the power of an image to stir people to action. SFC Gerald was only an infant in 1963 when a stunned nation watched on television as Birmingham Police Commissioner “Bull” Connor used powerful fire hoses and vicious police attack dogs against nonviolent black civil rights protesters. That incident, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s stirring I Have a Dream speech at the historic march on Washington in August of that year, were the low and high points, respectively, of the great era of civil rights legislation: the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
How did it come to be, then, that 35 years later SFC Gerald found himself standing on the side of a dusty road next to a barking police dog, listening to his son weep while officers rummaged through his belongings simply because he was black?
I feel like I’m a guy who’s pretty much walked the straight line and that’s respecting people and everything. We just constantly get harassed. So we just feel like we can’t go anywhere without being bothered… I’m not trying to bother anybody. But yet a cop pulls me over and says I’m weaving in the road. And I just came from a friend’s house, no alcohol, nothing. It just makes you wonder – was it just because I’m black?”
– James, 28, advertising account executive
Rossano and Gregory Gerald were victims of discriminatory racial profiling by police. There is nothing new about this problem. Police abuse against people of color is a legacy of African American enslavement, repression, and legal inequality. Indeed, during hearings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (“The Kerner Commission”) in the fall of 1967 where more than 130 witnesses testified about the events leading up to the urban riots that had taken place in 150 cities the previous summer, one of the complaints that came up repeatedly was “the stopping of Negroes on foot or in cars without obvious basis.”
Significant blame for this rampant abuse of power also can be laid at the feet of the government’s “war on drugs,” a fundamentally misguided crusade enthusiastically embraced by lawmakers and administrations of both parties at every level of government. From the outset, the war on drugs has in fact been a war on people and their constitutional rights, with African Americans, Latinos and other minorities bearing the brunt of the damage. It is a war that has, among other depredations, spawned racist profiles of supposed drug couriers. On our nation’s highways today, police ostensibly looking for drug criminals routinely stop drivers based on the color of their skin. This practice is so common that the minority community has given it the derisive term, “driving while black or brown” – a play on the real offense of “driving while intoxicated.”
*****
Even Now, There’s Risk in ‘Driving While Black’
By BRENT STAPLES
Published: June 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/opinion/15mon4.html?_r=0
Excerpt:
The experience of being mistaken for a criminal is almost a rite of passage for African-American men. Security guards shadow us in stores. Troopers pull us over for the crime of “driving while black.” Nighttime pedestrians cower by us on the streets.
And black men who work as undercover cops are occasionally shot to death by white colleagues, as happened to a young officer named Omar Edwards when he was off duty and in plain clothes last month in New York City.
We have often been seen as paranoid for attributing these things to bias. But the racial stereotypes that link blackness and crime have recently become a hot topic in social science.
These pervasive and often unconscious biases affect social transactions of all kinds. They drive voting behavior. They make it likely that black defendants will receive longer sentences than whites for comparable crimes. They wreak havoc with the job possibilities of young black men. And they give the lie to the idea that the Unites States is becoming a “postracial” country.
Freeasabird,
How superior you must feel to your brethren then having made your good choices? I don’t play “race cards” I talk about reality as it is. There is a kernel of truth in what you write, albeit how encrusted with mythology you were taught. That kernel is that in order to thrive a black person has to live life as if they weren’t victims in their individual lives. Yes that is a necessity for personal survival. Go and tell some 16 year old sentenced to jail for possession of a joint though that he is wrong and not the system. Explain to he and his cohort that when the NYPD keeps stopping them and humiliating them that they are not being victimized.
I wish too that more fathers would stay with their families, but the I also wish that our teenagers were more sexually educated and that the macho needs of surviving at the bottom of the economic pack leading to “baby bragging”, would be overridden by a sense of understanding about how lives can get ruined at such young ages. That would be helped of course by less poverty and better schools, but like you let’s close our eyes to these realities. Instead let us pat ourselves o the back and say “move along now…..nothing to be seen here……this is America where we’re all free and equal before the law. As for:
“Romney has done more for people than Mike ever has.”
When Mitt Romey can say he directly saved three people from suicide, two more from drug overdose and one from insulin shock, he might be able to get to a first syllable in comparing himself to me, but after that his (and your) whole argument falls apart. Especially, noting those I was directly involved in sending to prison for child abuse and the others who I helped change their lives through counseling.