That was a bloody scream, except your download price is low by about 10 to the power 6.

iCackedMyself

I think your second-last paragraph states well the multifaceted and cross-grained issues ingrown into black/white relations in the US.

I thank you for your patience, frankness and candour.

The topic “Race Relations in America” is oceanic, and people of good will all want the same beneficent outcomes, but to get there, many of us differ on the details. In all of this I’m merely trying to get a handle on a few small, solid bits of coral reef in the great sea, so it’s necessary to scale down and try to say things in a certain key, for concreteness’ sake, with the awareness that they can be reasonably put in other keys, too. For all that, there are still places where I think you’re reading me sideways, but that’s not the most dreadful thing in the world.

A few specifics, as we approach the endgame of this interesting little volley… not trying to shoot back here, just trying to be clearer…

“what proof do you have that [whites'] dominant reason for disapprobating the Rev Al is because Whites believe that he is doing his black constituency no good?”

Well, ‘proof’ is a strong, big word, but you might ask, what ‘evidence’ do I have? Well, the evidence of talking to and living among people, all sorts of people, and listening to what they say with an open and non-judgmental mind. That’s not the evidence of a trained social scientist, true, but whaddaya gonna do. And ‘doing his black constituency no good’ is one of many ways to phrase the thing.

Do I believe that whites walk around wringing their hands with worry about what’s best for the black community? Of course not, that’s not really what I’m getting at. I’m getting at something a lot bigger, which is, that in the long run, the best version of ‘good’ for a community, micro or macro, is the ability to successfully lead a quiet, normal life. Whites want that for themselves, and at the end of the day, they want it for blacks, too, not out of altruism, but because they know that on some level the slogan ‘No Justice, No Peace’ is true — only, not true in the way that the Sharptonites understand it. (I might add that Al’s working definitions of ‘justice’ and ‘peace’ could do with a little rigorous Socratic enquiry, too, but that’s for another day.)

Still, it’s a sad fact of American history that on the whole, whites simply have more experience of what makes up a quiet normal life than blacks do. There’s all sorts of things you could say about that, but if this experience is frequently ignored, then it’s to the detriment of all concerned. That’s oversimplifying things, naturally, but you have to start off by saying *some*thing.

The perfect, perpetual case in point: the folly of the black establishment’s responses to the sad and unhappy cases of questionable police shootings that crop up in NY and elsewhere with such unpleasant regularity. This isn’t to say there ain’t folly enough to go around for all parties, but just trust me when I tell you that the play of forces as we so frequently see in these cases, and the spin on the ball that the black leadership habitually uses, is simply not helping, it is not best practice by a country mile, and it only makes matters worse. It does not lay the groundwork for positive, lasting long-term results. ‘The emmet’s inch, and the eagle’s mile,’ as Blake said. We want the mile, not the inch.

Your bringing up the ‘culture of negritude’ here is interesting, but it is matter for a whole thread, maybe even a whole blog, so I won’t address it here. Suffice to say there’s many different ways to put bubbles in that bathtub.

Your last point, about the practical usefulness of black political reasoning in these matters, is well taken. But the question of course is complex. I’ve been using the term ‘pathology’ with a certain amount of care; a pathology forms a natural constellation of symptoms, and its course has an organic and ‘sensible’ logic. But it’s still a pathology. The term does not of course compass the whole of black political behavior by any stretch; but it’s a thing that’s there. It’s not being derisive to admit that it’s a damaged culture in some ways; a strong and resilient one in others, but it is damaged, and there’s no reason to think that damage wouldn’t express itself in understandable patterns. Put that observation into a feedback loop with white perceptions both perceived and actual, the circus ring of politics, the misuses and misunderstandings of the word ‘racism,’ and also genuine instances of racism as we find them in the world, and you have a model of what I’m talking about. It’s not a comprehensive solution to anything, not even what Stevens called ‘a momentary end/ To the complication,’ but at least it’s a start from one corner of the room.

As always it’s instructive and pleasurable to break a lance or two with you. Thanks for your thoughtful responses, and if you have more to say I look forward to it, but I think I’m pretty much tapped out on this ‘un. Cheers!

Hey, no fair! You’re proving my argument FOR me!

No, j_p_z. that’s my argument.

Note that I said that gving primacy to race was only the “first reflex”. We begin many things on a “first reflex” and not follow through on them.

Note, also that I was talking about blacks as subject and not object, whereas in your last post you referred to blacks as object of whites’ thinking (as diverse as that may be) and not as subjects (i.e., the thinkers themselves).

However on that issue it would appear that you are in danger of committing the sin that you accuse others of, viz.:

a good deal of the reading here of the ostensible “whiteâ€? frame of mind is (and this was my real point) smug, shallow, out-dated, and plumb not useful.

Fair point. Racial attitudes are being redefined all the time (i.e., “plastic”). Moreover, there appears to be a general erosion of the racial attitudes that justified slavery, then Jim Crow and other forms of segregation. I agree with this generalisation.

But then, this:

Why do whites admire Colin Powell, but they don’t like Al Sharpton? Sharpton is a very smart guy and an adept political operator. But he is culturally beholden to a structure that is, as I said at the top, myopic and pathological. Powell is not. Nor is Obama. To deny this and cry ‘racism!’ is, at the very least, failing to consider all the reasonble options.

It would appear to me that this statement more or less diametrically contradicts the nuanced formulation of the earlier quote. While it is most likely true that many more whites admire Colin Powell than Al Sharpton, what proof do you have that their dominant reason for disapprobating the Rev Al is because Whites believe that he is doing his black constituency no good?

It might be argued, for example, that many whites fear and despise Al Sharpton’s encouragement of a continued culture of negritude among blacks. Now it, is well known that this tension between cultural integration and cultural distinctiveness has coloured racial attitudes in the US. The debates between Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois, the writings of Richard Wright, the thought of Malcolm X are examples of this tension.

The “if only they could be more like us” argument is very recent in white attitudes to blacks. The “they can never really be like us” argument has had a much longer period of dominance.

Many blacks may understandably question just how sincere is whites’ current commitment to liberal sentiment. Perhaps these blacks are being paranoid in these suspicions. But stranger things have happened. Just ask Weimar’s Jews.

So cleaving to the Rev Al may appear to be a sensible insurance policy against possible rejection and renewed marginalisation.

I am sorry, but I am far too old to allow the sophomoric pap of “the other” to invade grown-up discussion. What may charm the undergraduate tutorial kills adult debate. Please.

Well, a good start would be, by actually living in the country where the vocabulary is being used, and checking the ‘words’ being used against the reality of the ‘objects’ they purport to describe. Roll on down to a ‘no justice, no peace’ rally in NY with me some time. I’ll show you some really funny things.

Sorry, just having some fun with you there. (btw, “cavilling”?! ??! C’mon, gimme some credit, here!)

“Blacks don’t have to take notice of their traditional leadership. … The Black middle class grows apace in the US. Blacks have spread out across the country. Blacks have had formal electoral equality since the mid-1960s. Virtually all formal segregation has been swept away.”

Hey, no fair! You’re proving my argument FOR me!

Our little exchange, while interesting as always, is getting further and further away from the original point, which is to be found, if I remember right (it all seems so long ago!) in my response to a part of the Dickerson article, which is Mark’s first link. (I don’t think I ever cited the thing expressly; I’m not an academic, alas; careful scholarship will never be a deadly weapon wielded in my hands.) Or maybe it was the second link, by Kamiya? Or maybe a response to both. Anyway…

Somewhere in those two links, amid some perfectly interesting other bits of analysis, Dickerson or else the other guy asserts something like the following: whites can profitably salve their guilty ofay consciences towards “real” “black” Americans by cheering for the “non-black” or “fake-black” Obama because, whilst ‘looking’ black, he isn’t “really” black, being sired by an immigrant, not a descendant of American former slaves, and so his pseudo-black appearance lets whites off the hook because they can then seem to be not racist, though they “really” “are” still racist, and as a bonus, they still won’t have to deal with the terrifying spectre of electing a “real” black like, say, President Shaft.

While some of the internecine claims about layers of authenticity in “cultural blackness” in all this have some merit (although it would also all be glaringly fucking obvious to most people who lived in the US, so no points for originality or brilliance there), a good deal of the reading here of the ostensible “white” frame of mind is (and this was my real point) smug, shallow, out-dated, and plumb not useful. I can’t speak for *all* the whites in the US of course, because as Chris Rock used to say, I didn’t go to the last meeting. But the general trend of that line of thought is at best simplistic, and at worst (where I tend to locate it) downright daffy. My second point was in support of this: it’s possible that whites cheer on the “non-black” black candidate simply because he doesn’t grow from the arsenic-laced soil of the “real black” political establishment, which is demonstrably zany in many regards, and thus not palatable to whites for said zaniness, not because of “guilt”. Why do whites admire Colin Powell, but they don’t like Al Sharpton? Sharpton is a very smart guy and an adept political operator. But he is culturally beholden to a structure that is, as I said at the top, myopic and pathological. Powell is not. Nor is Obama. To deny this and cry ‘racism!’ is, at the very least, failing to consider all the reasonble options.

I think it’s also possible that white folks like Obama so much right now simply because he seems on the surface so much like the perfect exact opposite of George Bush, who, so I’m told, isn’t polling very strongly these days. Hmm, wonder why.

At any rate, in sum, I think both the word and the concept ‘racism’ should be handled every bit as carefully as that radioactive stuff that was used to poison that Russian spy dude in London. Dropping the word ‘racism’ around carelessly has been very detrimental lately to helpful political discourse in the US and the West at large. Although it benefits the people who want things that way. We should be smarter than that. English is a very rich language, with a lot of words, a lot of distinctions, and a lot of shades of meaning. Let’s all pretend like we care a bit more about what we mean and what we say.

And much cavilling, until this:

I mean that a black leadership and establishment that consistently blinkers itself, narrows its choices and possibilities for both itself and its constituency, and operates within the confines of what is frankly an archaic vocabulary, has a few issues it ought to discuss with a qualified professional before it proposes credible candidates for the presidency.

Blacks don’t have to take notice of their traditional leadership. Other groups, coalitions and interests have a much weaker association with putative spokespeople, and more importantly a much weaker political association with each other. For example look at the voting record of US farmers or blue-collar Catholics, or white women. I bet you could think of some more.

The Black middle class grows apace in the US. Blacks have spread out across the country. Blacks have had formal electoral equality since the mid-1960s. Virtually all formal segregation has been swept away.

When these “objective” conditions changed for other groups, their political behaviour changed. This change in political behaviour reflected in some way a change in outlook and expectation.

How do you measure how “archaic” a vocabulary is? How would one recognise an “archaic” vocabulary if one were to trip over it? Hamlet is “old” but it’s never “archaic”.

There must be more compelling reasons than “myopea” and “pathology” for this.

This is mere playing with words, in a sort of quasi-Scholastic fashion: you have isolated a word I used in casual illustration and now run with it literally. I could have used other more precise expressions, but it would have taken up too much space. In other words here, you’re looking at the finger, not at the moon.

“Now there is little doubt that the first reflex in American public discourse is to treat race as the independent variable.”

I can’t accept that as a ‘doubtless’ conclusion, sorry. But it’s probably the case that ‘race’ simply doesn’t/didn’t/won’t mean the same things, politically or ontologically, in America as elsewhere. Or perhaps it’s the case that America, because of its reach and influence, has fooled other, very different peoples, into thinking that its own bug-eyed attitudes about ‘race’ are universal, when of course they aren’t. But even still: look at all the hair-splitting Obama himself, an odd prodigy, has already inspired in Mark’s links. In any event it’s all far too complex to summarize that way; knot after knot after Gordian knot. A tentative tangling of tendrils, as Vonnegut once humorously said about something else entirely.

“A racist in 2007 may hold opposite opinions about the Other from those held in 1907 and still be accounted a racist. Yet it is also true that certain prejudices and stereotypes remain quite static over time.”

Basically, I’m afraid I don’t accept any of your major premises as categorically ‘true.’ It would take far too long to explain why, and besides, my reasons would not necessarily lie along the same axes as those you’ve used to assert this.

“In the popular media [a] discourse has been formularised into a virtual liturgy — a substitute for independent and critical thought.”

Well, I can certainly agree with *that* one… with a few reservations. But in that case, really all we’re both saying is, that children playing at kindergarten should be supplied with crayons, glue, spangles, and safety scissors.

“on the other hand, about 95% of Blacks do vote Democrat…”

See my remarks above re: myopic, pathological, etc. etc.

I don’t mean that either Democrats or blacks as a whole are myopic & pathological (though plenty of both classes are, as are plenty of white GOP). I mean that a black leadership and establishment that consistently blinkers itself, narrows its choices and possibilities for both itself and its constituency, and operates within the confines of what is frankly an archaic vocabulary, has a few issues it ought to discuss with a qualified professional before it proposes credible candidates for the presidency. (Though I’d exclude Obama from that taxonomy, for the reasons discussed in Mark’s links.) In another world, you could of referred to my never-to-be-written doctoral thesis, “Short-Term Vs. Long-Term Vs. Plain Crazy Thinking in Game Theory, or: Why Would A Smart Guy Like Al Sharpton Do Something As Stupid As Play The Tawana Brawley Card? Well, Becaaaauuuse, Silly!”

“‘I limit myself, yes,’ said the dog, ‘but I’m happy.’”
– Jim Carroll & Bill Berkson

“So race must mean something important.”

So must the Ghost in Hamlet; so must the double-finale of ‘Don Giovanni’; so must that hypnotic E-chord at the beginning of the ‘Ring’. People have been arguing over what the meaning of that stuff is for centuries, and they will probably continue to, I hope. So it is with ‘race’. Myself, I have a few of my own amateur ideas about all that, but they require way too much background to get into here, and who knows, they’re probably wrong. Maybe some day I’ll start a blog on the topic, and if I do, I will be honored to welcome you to come and argue about it over there.

On a side note, though, the smug subliminal assumptions by pundits of some essential stratum of indelible ‘racism’ (the most egregiously and frequently misused word in all of present political discourse) of American whites is, well, pretty breathtakingly silly.

I don’t think this is a sidenote j_p_z, it’s right in the mayor’s office.

The test of indelibility is whether a mark withstands determined attempts to erase it.

Now that raises three questions:

1. Was there a deep and pervasive mark of racism in the first place.

2. If so, has it been largely erased?

3. If it hasn’t been largely erased, is it because the erasers haven’t tried hard enough?

Now there is little doubt that the first reflex in American public discourse is to treat race as the independent variable. And the popular media do little to challenge that supposition.

And there is no doubt that images of race are quite plastic. A racist in 2007 may hold opposite opinions about the Other from those held in 1907 and still be accounted a racist.

Yet it is also true that certain prejudices and stereotypes remain quite static over time.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to overcome those habits of mind. But the task is made no easier by its reiteration and elaboration in public discourse. In the popular media this discourse has been formularised into a virtual liturgy — a substitute for independent and critical thought.

But on the other hand, about 95% of Blacks do vote Democrat. That’s a higher strike rate than even the percentage of Saab owners who voted for McGovern in 1972.

So race must mean something important.