Dean,

Talk about differences!

I'm just about opposite from you - I didn't meet my first racist until some time after I met my first black person ( by "meet" I mean actually have some social intercourse with same: riding my bike through Mission Bay park I just happened to cut into a pathway at the same time a black man who was jogging did - ended up having quite the chat; very instructive for a 12 year old - but also shows how remarkably lilly-white my neighborhood was). That racist I met turned out to be one of my childhood friends - never suspected at all and then one day when we were 16 he goes into this long discourse on whats wrong with black people; turns out his dad was quite the racist and thats where he picked it all up from.

The only person, however, that I ever met in my life who was entirely non-bigoted about anyone or anything was (and is) my father. Never a harsh word about any group and always full of careful, subtle instruction on the matter of how people should treat each other, even though we're likely to fail often in our attempts to be decent about things (he failed, often; but never on the score of anything which could be called bigotry).

My main brief these days is that while racists still exist, racism is not an operational parameter of the United States - meaning that the racists extant are entirely incapable of holding anyone back in a general sense and can only do very specific things against the targets of their hatred; things which tend, in the end, to garner greater support for their target. Having a black skin is no excuse for failure, in my view; or even for thinking that life is a bit harder - I'm sure that the black people I know have come across people who didn't like them because of their skin color...probably as often as I come across someone who doesn't like me for ditto, or who hates me as soon as they find out I'm Catholic. Water off a ducks back.

Given this, the constant harping on racism we get from the left and from the so-called civil rights leaders is clearly a cover for something else; for the geniune political left, its just a handy club to beat the United States with, for the civil rights leaders, its protection from having to get a real job.

Funny thing. I've been back to the old neighborhood a few times, and there are quite a few black and hispanic people living there now. Still plenty of white folks too. Not much in the way of tension either.

Times change.

As I recall, the last lynching was in Indiana. There were more Klan members in the North than there ever were in the South.

In a sense (broad and general) racial tensions in the South were based on a class system, rather than out and out hatred. Blacks and whites worked and lived together in the South whereas in the North they were segregated, by choice.

All that had to happen in the South was a change in perspective--they were already commingling--and an abandonment of a class and social structure. I'm not suggesting that it was easy, but it is a lot easier to overcome class distinctions than race hatred.

I grew up in Los Angeles. I didn't meet my first bigot until I was 13. It was the parents of a Jewish girl, who wasn't allowed to invite one of the other girls in our clique (she was black) to her birthday party, so we boycotted the party.

Later we discovered that racial slurs had power and made adults really nervous. When we'd be out as a group, we made a point of referring to each other my the worst racial slurs imaginable. We thought it was funny because adults would get really intense about it.

Good post.

But Harold Washington was a horrible, corrupt, racist, criminal.

I thought Chicago had a single sitting Republican Alderman.

At any rate, I guy I knew from out west (a really, really bright man, at that) had an interesting generalization about racism. A Southern white racist has few qualms about having a black neighbor, but would chafe at being subordinate to a black. A Northern white racist is much more inclined to be all right with a black President, but doesn't want black neighbors.

I have noticed, empirically, that it is easier for a lot of folks to get along with blacks in the south than it is in the north. Before anybody starts to throw a penalty flag on that...

To be sure, I've spent a lot, lot more time in the north than the south, but I've never gotten any racial flack from African-Americans while in the south, while I have in the north.

Dunno. Beats me. If this thread is going to really explore the issue, someone might want to consider inviting some black bloggers over to give their input.

Oh, an Eddie Vrdolyak fan I see. Hey Spoons! ;-)

I saw Washington as being someone who tried to put a lid on the worst of the nastiest black aldermen (like that evil woman Dorothy Tillman) and who did lots of things to make it clear to white voters that he didn't hate them and wanted to work with them. I believe it showed, because a lot of white people I knew came around to liking him, or at least giving him a grudging respect.

Corrupt? Enh. I hope you don't just mean that silly tax thing. If it's corruption in general: Jesus, the entire city ran on graft and cronyism and patronage--to a MUCH greater degree than what most people outside that city can possibly imagine. I mean, I go to other parts of the country, and they say the government's corrupt, and I just want to laugh at what their ideas of "patronage" and "corruption" are.

I mean, the man took over Richard Daley's city. I can't even think of another way to say it except, it was Chicago. Taking corruption out of government there is like... like.... words fail me.

But like I said, whatever else you can say about the man, he got the grudging respect of a lot of people who were pretty damned racist.

Some excellent points.

I always thought the difference between the North and South was Northerners hated black people and Southerners treated blacks as second class citizens.

I'll have to go read the article you reference, but did want to mention the excellent book "Confederacy of Silence" by Richard Rubin. He starts with the Till story, then relays the year he spent in deep Mississippi. He captures the feel and the dichotomy of the South perfectly.

I am no fan of any Chicago pol, Dean. It is every bit as corrupt as you say -- and not getting better. I loved a lot of things about the city, but I'm glad to be rid of that government.

The problem with racism and non-racism is in noticing facts.
Thomas Sowell said that cultures vary and differences have consequences.
It cannot be otherwise, and the multicultural folks keep telling us that cultures vary, so there must be consequences extant.
But anybody who wants to discuss them is branded "racist" by others for whom the point is uncomfortable or politically unhelpful.
It's a fine line, trying to decide who's a bigot and who is discussing reality.

As it happens, Dean, I was born in Chicago (1961) but raised here in LA. My mother was raised in Chicago and my grandmother and aunt still live there--aunt is a lieutenant for the Chicago PD. They likely can verify the type of attitudes to which you refer.

Chicago was my first experience with rigidly segregated neighborhoods. I remember a seventies-era visit to Chicago. I was around seventeen and while driving around town in my grandmother's car, I got lost. Suddenly all the faces on the street were white and I remember the looks on their faces: What was a lone black girl doing in their neighborhood?

I've had never experienced anything like that in LA and I couldn't wait to get home.

Almost no white people live [in Detroit] anymore, since the city's first black mayor, Coleman Young, went out of his way to drive them all out.

Well, ah, I've lived in Detroit longer than you have and I can tell you that "white flight" started long before Coleman Young was elected.

Which is not to say he didn't show his contempt for these folks. Of course he did; he took every opportunity he could get to slam their asses in the door on their way out.

I'm just saying.

When I lived in Oak park (a western suburb just outside Chicago), for a few years in the mid 1990's, I remember a house in Cicero (a town just south) getting torched just a few blocks south of where I lived. Apparently a black family had moved in. Needless to say, they didn't stay long. Funny how just crossing the expressway to OakPark changed the racial complexion of life.

For 6 years prior to that I lived in Houston and Dallas, I never came close to seeing such racial divides as I did in Chicago.

Excellent post, Dean...excellent comments. This *should* be talked about more often, if only to set the truth straight about the multi-culti political correctness. I have always said that the multi-culti propoganda was the grossest corruption of anthropological principles. American anthropology made headway through Franz Boaz who boiled down these principles to a phrase "suis generis"...that a culture is in and of itself.

Multi-culti has run away with the European sneer that Americans have no culture and exploited the divisiveness of various cultures clashing. My grandparents came to America from Italy and had to compete with all the other immigrants for jobs and land, but they understood that there was enough in America to go around...and bottom line was that once they were all in America, they were all AMERICAN, even if the "Pollacks" lived in one segment of town and the Italians lived in another.

Multi-culti exists to continue to exacerbate the divisions. From an anthropological perspective, it should be wonderful to "celebrate" your distinctive cultural heritage...but even that heritage has a distinctly AMERICAN perspective, and that *is* "suis generis."

Anticipatory Retaliation,

I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice the difference between northern and southern Blacks. In the south black folk are generally polite, kind, friendly and NOT racist.

I live in Atlanta and I rode our public transportation system downtown on Monday.
On this errand I had a nice conversation with a black woman and her son, a black man helped me make change for the fare, a black woman who slightly bumped into me went out of her way to apologize... Note that this is not unusual behavior here. When I go "Up North” even White people look at me like I'm crazy when I TALK to them.

In the north, I'm sad to say my experience has been unpleasant, dealing with blacks especially. Is the North as hostile and segmented, as it seems? Or is this just and example of Southern Hospitality?

Here is another example: In a fast food joint in the North, the people are ass-holes, but you get you food quick. In the South they’re nice, but they take forever.

Y’all want fries with that?

ack! wholly not-safe-for-the-workplace entry titles, batman!

you tryin to get me fired, dean?

This is the best thing about the net, and I haven't seen something as nicely particular - with people talking about racial attitudes in their communities, since the early days at Salon's Race Project and others similar. As an old veteran of working through this stuff, I offer congrats to Dean. (I knew you were an interesting character when I read about Mr. Mossberg). But don't let your head swell, this is just one thread with 14 comments. I'm talking about scores of threads that go on for months. That level of interaction simply doesn't happen in the blogosphere.

I wonder if any of you fine folks have found a book that best encapsulates what you find to be true about race and culture. Have you read a book specifically about race and culture?

Someone uttered the truism about the difference between white racism in the north vs that of the south.

South: Blacks can be close, just not too high.
North: Black can be high, just not too close.

As for myself, I never went to any school with white kids until I was in the 9th grade. The only whitefolks that ever came through the neighborhood were cops and one or two teachers at the elementary school. There was a jewish grocer who was there for a short time, but he got bought out by blacks soon after. We were on the edge of a light manufacturing district and the whitefolks who worked there never left their buildings and used to shoo us away from their cars. I haven't thought about them or written about them ever before this moment. They didn't really exist in our reality - they were like ghosts.

I agree with Dean that the South should not be the nation's whipping boy for racism, because it exists and operates everywhere, just differently. Sometimes it's blatant, sometimes it's subtle. There are a million stories. I've lived and travelled all over and I know. What it's like to be black in Seattle is very different from Boston is very different from New York is very different from Atlanta is very different from LA. You can't piss on multiculturalism because it respects the difference between cities and regions, that's just reality.

I think part of the problem is that people online fail to talk about their own backgrounds and fail to recognize the different cultures. I'm from LA, and out here relatively nothing to have a black and white couple walking hand in hand, whereas in Brooklyn people will stop and stare and say ugly things on the street and in Sumerville just north of Boston, they'll throw rocks. So understand that somebody who grew up in Dean's old neighborhood is likely to have a lot more stomach for racist bullshit that someone like my sister whose husband is white (from Portland).

So don't think 'crying racism' is oversensitive until you are willing to talk about who you are where you are coming from - that is if you're not coming with an informed opinion from a respectable writer on the subject.

Charleston, S.C. has been having controversy over the gentrification of predominantly black neighborhoods. White families move in and fix the houses up and drive the property values up which drives the property taxes up in the whole neighborhood - and results in the people who lived there before the white families moving in having to sell because they can't afford the taxes.

In one neighborhood, the first white family to move in had multiple attacks on their house - at least one of them with molotov cocktails.

All of this has been in the last 3 or 4 years.

It was the Chicago comedian Dick Gregory, and his words were more like

Down South they don't care how close Blacks get, as long as they don't get too big.
Up North they don't care how big Blacks get as long as they don't get too close.

I was born in Chicago, and grew up in Hyde Park - Kenwood, the neighborhood around the University of Chicago. Race relations were different there than in the rest of the city. It was Black and White, shoulder to shoulder against the poor. I was in the next to last class at Hyde Park High School with any white students, as they had created a new *integrated* high school for the whites and middle class Blacks, and abandoned the ghetto Blacks and those few white and Asian juniors and seniors who didn't find a way to transfer out. When the school went from 20% white to 1% white the racial tensions ended.

We moved from Chicago to Milwaukee six years ago, and it is surprising how much more integrated this city is. Not by the statistics (almost no Blacks in the suburbs here whereas Chicago has had Black ghetto suburbs since the '20s) but in everyday experience. Our view of this is only partial, consisting mostly of the lack of reaction we get when shopping in all-Black establishments, but my wife's coworkers (who call her The Caucasian Lady) concur.

Hayes

I live in the heartland, Iowa. You would find midwesterners very hospitable. We chat with strangers on a daily basis. I don't know if we are "Northerners" exactly but I would certainly agree that EASTERN Northerners are not very friendly to strangers, in my experience. They are rude to one and all with race being immaterial.

Jane, Iowans are Heaven-forsaken Yankees. ;-)

I grew up in Memphis. We had our share of racists and anti-semites. But most of the people were neither. Most exemplified the idea of southern hospitality. And that's the example I took.

I remember my first week in Boston for college, and someone on the train sneezed. I said, "bless you." The person next to me actually laughed.

Of course, in Hernando, Miss., where my dad worked, a black man and a white man opened a store together. The next week, a cross was burned in front. The week after, no more store.

I think the lesson I learned was that you have to take everyone as you find them.

Sharon Ferguson wrote:
American anthropology made headway through Franz Boaz who boiled down these principles to a phrase "suis generis"...that a culture is in and of itself.

Please be very careful with the "suis generis." It can very quickly lead to a strict cultural relativism. Then we are left with no ways of discussing issues such as female genitle mutilation, female infanticide, etc, without resorting to: "Well its their culture and we have no right to change it."

And I think I can see that beginning to happen in your pronouncement that "we are all Americans." Certainly you can agree that decendants of slaves do come from an american heritage that is *not* "we are all american." While there are many similarities, there are important distinctions, too. Many important distinctions appear in Living culture - which "suis generis" ignores.

This is a great post, Dean. Your candor and honesty on a subject such as this, is admirable.
I moved up from the south myself. I only saw those racial riots and problems on the news. I was just 26 when I moved to Chicago, where I got a part-time job at a renowned dinner-theater playhouse on the south side.
That is when I found out about not to go across this one street, because that is where the blacks were. I thought to myself: "So what! What's wrong with that! Then I was told, that if I go over there, I would get myself mugged or killed! Well, that scared me enough. And then, of course, I started to watch the news in Chicago.
There is something about working for that dinner-theater (renowned mind you). This man that owned it, opened up two more in the Chicago area. But in my training in the ticket office, I was shocked, and genuinely felt so uneasy, as I was trained to distinguish a black person's voice over the phone while taking reservations for the dinner and the play. On top of the little reservation sheet, if it was a black person, I would put a little "r" and circle it. That would tell the restaurant that black people were coming in, and to seat them in the back. That same reservation would alert the theater to seat them in the back row of the play.
I was so excited to be working there, especially a producer wanted me to be in the children's plays on Sundays. I was a natural, for I had a deep love of children, and my grandmother had given me a gift I had never lost, even until today. (have faith as in a child). And it was that conflict in my heart, about making those reservations, that caused me to walk away from that job.
And that was in the latter part of the 70's, and as you mentioned, well it is still a very racial town. If I met a republican, well gosh there Dean, I think this fair haired lassie would faint.

On the other hand, Cobb, any honest discussion of race has to include a blunt discussion of people who do cry "race" inappropriately. And who use it as a club against others, or as an excuse.

I know white people who've been beaten up solely because they were white, and for no other reason at all.

I've seen black people use their race as an excuse to not do their jobs, and accuse their bosses of being racists if they said anything. Including at least one woman I remember being one of the most lazy and incompetent people I ever saw on any workplace, ever, a workplace filled with black people and women who worked hard, who nevertheless sued when she finally got fired, and got a big settlemen and forced the resignation of an innocent VP, solely because the company didn't want the publicity of that lawsuit.

Having had plenty of friends of many different races, I've also experienced the fact that a lot of black people I know are a lot more racist in general than most white people I know. These days, I mean. Oddly enough, as much toward each other as toward white people. Light-skinned vs. dark-skinned, interracial too. A lot of them also don't like Jews.

I dated a black girl for a while, and she told me that while she would date either race, as she got older she got to prefer white guys for the sole reason that they were generally less racially hostile than most black guys she knew. Then again, she hated the way black people in general stared daggers at her on the streets for being with a white guy, which happened to us a few times while we were dating.

I could tell you more about that relationship. It was a deep education for me about attitudes in the black community--at least in New York and Chicago.

To go back to white racism, though: My experience, increasingly, is that white racism is primarily a phenomenon of poor and lower-middle-class white people. The poorer they are, the worse educated the are, the more racist they are likely to be. And of course, since the majority of the nation's poor and badly educated people ARE white (not black or other colors), I do see this as a problem that's going to have to be addressed sooner or later.

Right now we do very little about it, because we're still in denial about these aspects of our culture.

Oh, as for number of readers? It all depends. Blogs get lighter comment traffic, but they do get cross-blog discussion and pollinization. Also, if you have a discussion thread that goes on for hundreds or thousands of messages, odds are at some point that the only people reading are those who are participating in the discussion. Blogs have a lot more readers who simply read and never speak up--indeed, DW gets 3,000 daily visitors, but probably only a dozen or two comments a day. So what's better? Actually I'd say neither one, it's just different.

I do try to presreve our best discussions in the Best Discussions archive, though. This'll probably go in it.

Any honest discussion of world communism will show that the commie rat bastards actually loved their children and that capitalists actually did them wrong for no good reason other than that they were commie rat bastards.

Where I come from we have an expression. It's called 'first things first'. Devil's advocates get paid the minority share.

Not that I don't agree with you 100%. I simply have different priorities, but please do let me know the next time a black police officer beats an innocent white man so bad that his whole neighborhood goes berzerk. The good thing about being consistent is that you're consistent.

Which reminds me, what do whitefolks think of Barry Scheck these days?

Ok, time for the obligatory "where I come from" graf:
I'm 44, from just north of Cincinnati. My suburban home (Forest Park, Ohio) was lily-white until the mid-to-late 60s. I remember being terribly confused when someone from the family across the street complained about "the niggers" moving in. I had no idea what they were talking about.

What was possibly the first black family in Forest Park moved into our street, I think it was c. 1st or 2nd grade, so that should make it ... around '67 or '68. Forest Park (and our part of town) gained a greater proportion of black families all through the 60s and the 70s. I can't speak for the 80s and later, as I moved out and got my own place.

I, personally, had little problems with having black and white friends; and looking back at the Class of 1977 I would have to say we were more integrated, in some ways, than high schoolers are today. Sure, the black kids listened to more Ohio Players, while the white kids listened to more BeeGees, but we all danced together. Well, I say "we," but I was part of the iconoclasts over in the corner, listening to Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and ZZ Top, while grumbling about the "boogie assholes"... Heh.

I remember the 1977 Talent Show; a wild mix of song, dance, and Kung Fu demos. Again, a mix of different choices, instead of some politicall correct list of diverse cultures, or a mindless pablum that offends no one.

One of my best friends in high school was young black woman named Violet; we both liked creative writing, and we were both very weird! We pissed everyone off... :)

I also remember a lovely black woman with whom I used to work, who came from New Orleans. She said she encountered a lot more racism up in Ohio than she ever did down south. What this proves, I'm not sure...

Dean: I've encountered a lot of the "light-skinned" vs "dark-skinned" discussion around here as well, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily racist or not, at least, the way it's expressed down here. A lot of the time I get the impression it's like height, or eye-color; just another way to describe how someone looks.

I have to say that your observation that white racists tend to come from the lower-income side of the spectrum is true of any "color," or "race."

And I'll say that it's hard for a (say) 20s-to-30s age black American not to wonder about racism if something bad (lose a job, etc) happens to them. After all, they've literally grown up with the "everybody knows" mantra that the whites in America want to hold the blacks down. Go back and look at what William Shirer had to say about how a constant barrage of propoganda, even if you know better, can insidiously affect your point of view, in his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

I also have to say that I've seen a lot of improvement around here. (yeah, I know, I heard about the riots two years ago... all that means is that the Cincinnati City Council is incompetant) A lot more "mixed" couples in public, even in Ohio, and a lot more "mixed" kids are popping up.

It's getting better. It just isn't obvious enough, or quick enough for the "Full Victory, NOW!!!" clique. They want a Star Wars victory, where the Rebels blow up the Death Star, Luke kills the evil Emperor, and everyone lives happily ever after. All in an afternoon.

The real world, alas, is more like alcoholism than a movie. Instead of 120 minutes of exposition with a solution, we are faced with an endless tedium of day-after-day confrontation of our weaknesses. And -just like alcoholics- that's how we have to face it: from day to day.

Uh, Cobb, except the part about loving their children, that's just a crazy thing to say about Communism. I mean, there were some naive people who were communists, but really, communism itself was never any better than Nazism.

I understand we all have our priorities, and I'm glad we mostly agree. I worry if we do that too much of that prioritizing though. What happens if white people stop saying they want equality and fairness for all, and instead want their whiteness to be their priority? Hell I've lived in mostly-black neighborhoods, and live in a mixed-race one now. I like it that way. I don't want to go back to any other way. If we all make our race our primary identity, where do you think that ends up? We all have our own separate country, and segregate ourselves some more. I hate to think that way.

As for Barry Scheck, I don't know. I personally don't think much about him at all. Can you tell me what black people think about Reginald Denny these days? How about Yankel Rosenbaum?

Me, I'm a human being first, and anything else second. I guess that's just the bleeding heart in me.

Cobb:

I missed the whole point of the first part of your last post. I think that's technically called a "non sequiter." :) I have no idea where that came from, or how it relates to the thread.

And I'll be glad to follow up on your challenge re: the black cop and the white perp, when you can come up with examples where most of the time the perp doesn't already have a long history of violating the law, and a city where 75% of the cops killed are black, and 75% of the shooters are white...

I find that alcoholism comparison particularly apt, Casey. Especially if you think of it as recovering alcoholism, which often features relapses and backslides, but can be conquered if you're determined...

My experience, increasingly, is that white racism is primarily a phenomenon of poor and lower-middle-class white people. The poorer they are, the worse educated the are, the more racist they are likely to be.

I disagree. The difference is not how racist they are, but how open they are about it. I talk to way too many upper class assholes (working at 911) when thier guards are down, and they are as bad as the poor (but usually less ignorant).

I grew up in a town where there was only one black person. He was a WWI veteran, living on a pension (this was in the '40s and '50s). The kids had quite a legend about him, the most notable story being that he had been castrated for raping a woman.

But not a single story made reference to the fact that he was black, or colored, as we said in those days.

When I was 18, a black family moved into town, but all the kids were way younger than me, and I never had any contact with adult blacks.

The first time I ever spoke to a black person face to face was my first day of college. She was attractive and I tried to date her. She was having none of that, thank you, not gonna go out with no white boy, that's nothin' but trouble.

We became good friends, and many months later, lovers, but she eventually left me for a better man (and he was, too).

None of this means that I was ignorant of blacks, or of racial troubles. I could read, after all, and I did, a lot. But I was not raised to be a racist. Race was a moot point where I grew up, it was never talked about, no one cared, because there was no reason to care. When I finally got to meet black people, I was thrilled, and extremely interested. Black people were a novelty for me, and I couldn't get enough of them.

I was viewed as strange. I still am. [What, strange or viewed as strange?] [Yes]

Well, this did start off somewhat as a story about the mayor of Chicago, which is reminiscent of the old joke: what do you call a black man with a phd? clue: look at the title of the thread.

so sure the commie bit is a non-sequitur and a non-starter. Everybody knows there are white people who have been beat up just because they're white. At some point this goes from the personal to the political and then you talk about what is to be done about America's problems. America's problems with race are not about white people getting beat up because they are white. UNLESS, and I don't think there is a tactful way to say it, you are invested in white supremacy.

If you look at websites like American Renaissance and the EAIF, this is exactly the first premise. This is, that the primary problem in America with race is that whitefolks have lost something. They are trying to impose a racial zero-sum box on thinking about American progress. The argument works on folks who want to be white.

Sure an honest discussion about race does talk about errors on all sides, but it shouldn't end up talking about white victimology.

As for the 'few ,lower-class' racist thing, that's just a stereotype. If intelligent, powerful and influential people weren't racist we'd be in a lot better shape as a nation.

btw: here's a test of the sort you never get in school.

The link didn't work for me. Tried it, don't know what's wrong with it. But otherwise:

Wow.

Cobb, I just don't know what to say.

I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone I knew would have hated you just for being there. Where, seriously, they would have stared at you and pointed, just like--just exactly like--Juliette described above. She didn't exaggerate either: I remember times when I was sitting around that old neighborhood, and someone would come by and say, "I just saw some fucking nigger driving down 73rd street, can you believe that shit? Good thing that motherfucker didn't stop, I would have beaten the shit out of him."

My wife, she grew up in Detroit. Almost everyone in her school was black. Hundreds of kids in her graduating class, and maybe a half-dozen white kids. The class picture's kind of funny, you just see this sea of dark with these little pale smudges here and there, showing those kids' faces. Her family came over here from Poland in 1965 or so, from Communist oppression. Her mom grew up in a dirt-floor shack with an outhouse and a hand-pump well outside.

The government didn't always give them enough food to eat, so sometimes they'd hunt or fish to help them get by. Except they had to be careful, because of the Communists caught them hunting or fishing, they'd go to jail. Because that was illegal without a special license that they couldn't get.

Rosemary got beat up a few times. For the whole slavery thing. She cried a few times, trying to tell them she had nothing to do with it, that her family was little better than slaves, but that didn't matter. Later, she made a few friends in the all-black ROTC, who protected her a few times going home, and that kind of put a stop to it for her.

I work now for a Fortune 500 company. I'm what amounts to a floor supervisor, sort of a foreman for that company. There are two other floor suprvisors I work with, a dark-skinned, swarthy white guy, and a black guy from Gambia. The immediate manager we work with every day, he's black. His manager's black--a woman, as it happens, and a lesbian. The people we supervise, about a quarter of them are black.

I live in a neighborhood where about a third of my neighbors are black, and a few are hispanic. My son's best friend, DJ, is black. Or whatever "black" means, since his mom's white and his dad's black.

Then I look at what you write here, and I think: "What can I say to this man? I see his pain, I see his anger, and I don't know what to say to him."

It reminds me of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Somewhere about halfway through the book, Malcom--who is one of my heroes--tells of how he was giving a speech at a college in the early 1960s. After the speech, a pretty, fresh-faced, long-haired little bohemiam white girl came up to him, and said to him that she wanted him to know she respected him, and admired him, and supported him. She wanted him to know that there were white people who really supported him, believed in his cause, and really truly hoped he realized that there were white people who really wanted to make things better. She just wanted to know what, if anything at all, white people like her could do to help his cause.

As Malcolm himself described it, he looked at her coldly, and said, "Nothing."

I read what you say here, and all I can think of is that.

Cobb:

America's problems with race are not about white people getting beat up because they are white. UNLESS, and I don't think there is a tactful way to say it, you are invested in white supremacy.

Logical form: "If you believe X, then you are Y, which is a nasty thing to be. Therefore, you shouldn't believe X."

Which, of course, is completely fallacious.

Worse, it's the kind of assertion that attempts to declare certain kinds of thinking taboo. To me, that's a warning flag.

You could be right, for all I know. As you mentioned, the real problem with race is structural, and it's possible that none of the structural problems we have now are on balance harmful to whites. (That would, I think, be a hard thing to prove, given the presence of affirmative action and "the race card" in politics, but it's not an illegitimate position.)

But all you've convinced me of so far is that you're guilty of sloppy thinking on racial issues, which speaks to your credibility on nearly everything else you've said so far.

Everything I've said so far in this thread which ain't much. So I don't mind if you think I'm a complete wackjob. If you really want to see where my thinking is, that is if you really want to investigate the content of my character, then you're going to have to go see the Race Man's Home Companion, which is something I started writing in 1995 years ago and kept up for at least 3. I forget.

what america needs is a clear and present anti-racist politics. since this is a democracy, that means that citizens must understand the finer points of the issue and be able to develop a praxis. a praxis is a combination of thoughts and deeds which are consistent to a philosophical position. it means talking the talk and walking the walk. the home companion is designed to develop in american citizens, anti-racist praxis. anyone who has developed for themselves a well thought out anti-racist praxis would be squarely in the tradition of the race man. i envision the home companion as a focal point for that struggle, as well.

Jeff, if I told you that Maxine Waters has gone as far as flying in Japanese investors to cope with the structural issues of racism in her congressional district, would you believe that she was pro-business and pro-jobs? If the structural effects of the legacy of segregation are the most serious aspects of white supremacy in America, what is keeping all of us from supporting Maxine Waters in her efforts to get decent jobs in her district? We've got racial issues in our politics, and that's not only about policy, it's about people's ideas of who they *are* as partisans.

Dean,I'm right with you and the whole problem you state is exactly where I want you to be. What I wish to god you could say is not 'nothing' but "I am a Republican, and I voted for xxx, and everybody knows that when it comes to issues of race xxx is right. The majority of people of all ethnicities in this country agree with xxx, and we're all behind xxx's programs." The fact that we are not yet there is one of the things that keeps me writing on the internet, more to whitefolks than to anyone else.

I've seen the other side, I've helped people see more clearly. And I've seen who my enemies are clearly. I'm saying that there is a philosophy of anti-racism and that people are basically being lazy, playing the victim, standing in denial and remaining ignorant, because if they could talk straight, there'd be no reason for political intransigence on the matter.

People pretend that it's about the money. It's not about money, it's about racial resentment. We're spending $87 billion to build Iraq to resemble someplace like Compton, where the lights stay on and there's enough hospital beds, and the Iraqis are killing Americans every day. But try spending $1 Billion on Affirmative Action so that blacks could study and work side by side with whites, and everybody shits a brick. That's just and off the wall analogy here's the real problem as I see it. I'm in 100% agreement with Glenn Loury.

I know how to get down to the commonality of values between blacks and whites because I've done the dialog and gotten past the kind of race baiting politics we suffer in the mainstream. But I know that people have to get over themselves, and by and large they haven't.

I'm not in anger or in pain. I'm passionate and I try not to pull any punches. I generally do pretty well for myself in the software business and have survived the downturn. I have a few headaches right now, but I still expect to gross close to six figures this year. If I was fubar on race, I wouldn't bother writing. But I do feel a special responsibility as a citizen of the republic to contribute even though I get sick to death of repeating myself. The web is gonna kill me, I need an editor and a book publisher.

One of your better posts, Dean.

Fascinating discussion. I gotta come back tomorrow when I have time to absorb it slowly. There's fodder for three-four posts in these comments.

I'm from South Louisiana. I've always thought that there was a difference in the Northern White view and Southern White view of blacks. In the South we don't care much for the group but treat each individual black person with respect. In the North they don't care much for the individual but love the group.

My Dad lived on the Southside of Chicago during the late 40's early 50's and he told me racsism was pretty rampant. Not just against blacks, but Jews, Italians, Irishmen, etal... He remembers his Dad telling a neighbor to stop passing out Nazi propaganda near the end of WWII.

I try to treat each individual with respect and hope I receive the same.

"I've also experienced the fact that a lot of black people I know are a lot more racist in general than most white people I know."

The problem with anecdotal data is that, well, it's anecdotal. All the statistical evidence I've seen suggests that the exact opposite is true: on every single measure of racial attitudes you mention, whites come out as more racist than black, sometimes very much more so. Everything, from surveys attitudes towards interracial marriage, through economic experiments on named-based discrimination ("black" vs "white" names), right on to psychological measures like the Implicit Association Test, tells the same, depressing story - percentagewise, there are a lot more white racists than there are black ones.

I won't presume to speak for Cobb, but what I will say is that reading people on here go on and on about "multi culti" this or that, or claiming that black racism is the real problem today, or moaning about how blacks are always screaming "racism" to get out of trouble and are the only ones to blame for holding themselves back, makes it hard for one to hold a charitable view of those who say such nonsense. Of course there are a few opportunists who seize on racism to get out of trouble, but the same is no doubt true of Jews as well; yet how many of you would dare make statements about how "Jews are always going on about anti-semitism" or "anti-semitism is a thing of the past, and these people are just being oversensitive?"

Sure, racism of the sort Dean describes is no longer as prevalent as it was, and sure, the South has no monopoly on racial prejudice (nor does America, for that matter), but going from there to saying that everything is alright in America, and wondering why these oversensitive blacks won't just get over it (which Dean himself didn't say, but others on here have certainly implied) requires a gargantuan effort at ignorance, in light of the extremely substantial evidence to the contrary.

Cobb, your reaction makes me think that you've completely missed the point of my criticism, so let me say it again a different way.

I don't care what you're arguing; fallacious reasoning should have no place in your argument. That goes double when you're trying to invalidate someone else's point of view. The fact that it does in your writing, and your further dismissal of that concern ("So I don't mind if you think I'm a complete wackjob.") simply makes you look the fool more and more.

I don't give a whit what your position is. My discussion of "structural problems of racism" was an attempt to extract some evidence out of you that would support your position about white victimology, one that seemed to confuse you. Heck, I'll even posit that I'm the one confused by making the argument I did. It doesn't matter that much to me.

The bottom line: I want to take you seriously, because you sound like someone who has given this whole issue some thought. That's why I'm even bothering to reply, instead of just adding you to the "nut list" in my head. Give me something to hang my hat on, if you care to.

A lot of whites don't have rascism; they have apathy. I have my own problems, and they have their problems, and my problems are more than enough for me to worry about.

Point two: I actually found people friendlier in Michigan than in the South. Although, I think Southerners will in passing acknowledge you more often.

Like say "How ya' doing?" to a complete stranger as you pass on your way into a store, and the other is going out. I remember getting a weird look from a Northerner I did that to. For me it was a habit.

Cobb,

I'm still having trouble following your arguments. In an earlier post, you say "I simply have different priorities, but please do let me know the next time a black police officer beats an innocent white man so bad that his whole neighborhood goes berzerk."

Now, I may be missing something, but this (to me) sounded as if you were trying to make the point that black folks have issues that white folks don't have to face.

Or are you saying that white officers are more racist than black officers? It's hard to tell, because after my observation that most police officers KIA are white, and that most of the shooters are black, you say "Everybody knows there are white people who have been beat up just because they're white. At some point this goes from the personal to the political and then you talk about what is to be done about America's problems. America's problems with race are not about white people getting beat up because they are white. UNLESS, and I don't think there is a tactful way to say it, you are invested in white supremacy,"
and I'm STILL not sure what you were trying to say with that?

My point was that black kids getting beat up or shot by white cops isn't necessarily racial. Violence determined by (in order) age, sex, then race. Point being that any cop -white or black- is most likely to be attacked by a young (16-25) black male than any other category. That's just statistics. Mind you, this does not excuse kicking in a black kid's head just 'cuz he's in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that's another situation.

My point is that I have no idea where you were going with this, with your stream-of-conciousness post. :)

I want to thank you for the link to that quiz; I found it interesting. I also found the way they phrased some of the questions irritating.

What, for example, do they mean by "Racial minorities are just fine in America."? Do they mean that minorities are fine (e.g. in good shape), or do they mean that it's fine that we have racial minorities? Rrgh.

Also, how about a "neutral" button? The label "Not Sure" means something different from "neutral". I, personally, would like to have a "It's nobody's fucking business" for questions like "18. Interracial marriages are morally
superior to same-race marriages. "!!

But, overall, I found it interesting. BTW, my result was:

goodness. i thought this thread was dead. i'm on my way out of the door, but what i'm going to do when i come back is cite a number of books that i've read over the years.

i just read a link from a cat named george junior who is over in the uk as well as the feministe.com followups, and i was about to make exactly the point that abiola did, which was my presumption that very few people have done any reading on the subject, and *once again* ask people here which books they have troubled themselves to read in the interests of informing their opinions about race in america.

this goes double for jeff.

Two Cites:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/1JI5UKJXRRTBI/ref=cm_aya_av.lm_more/104-8232743-3781538

http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/debunk/dbcrime.htm

To Casey about white and black police officers. I think I was being flip in response to a flip remark. But I was also saying that if you are a appealing to whitefolks' racial fears, the spectre of 'black crime' is the first place to go. If I haven't said so here, let me say so explicitly because I have visited both American Renaissance and the EAIF within the week and this theme was directly on their front pages. Blacks killing whites in racially motivated violent crimes. Now my standard position is this, unless you are willing to cite some statistical evidence of this, I will presume that you as a white person are simply responding to a prejudicial matter aimed at whites without doing any serious thinking about the matter whatsoever. In other words you are 'acting white'.

Ellis Cose writes in 'The Rage of a Privileged Class' that whitefolks somehow get the idea that racial crime against whites is much higher than it is and that blacks have a special responsibility towards it. Understand that I have very little interest or patience even talking about crime, period. But somehow the notion of criminals and my attitude about criminals who are black finds its way into discussions about race and identity.

I mentioned this neighborhood going berzerk because I know Dean wrote about Benton Harbor here not too long ago.

Here is pretty much my final word on it written in 1999:
http://www.mdcbowen.org/cz/parables/black_rage.htm

ah.. here's the context of my frustration:

http://www.mdcbowen.org/cobb/archives/000679.html

Cobb,

"Now my standard position is this, unless you are willing to cite some statistical evidence of this, I will presume that you as a white person are simply responding to a prejudicial matter aimed at whites without doing any serious thinking about the matter whatsoever. In other words you are 'acting white'."

Given this quote, is there any reason I shouldn't dismiss your arguments as the dishonest, self-serving expressions of a racist?

In any case, you misstated the proper definition of "acting white" as it is commonly used. It is a common "slur" aimed at the quiet black student who goes to school every day, cooperates with authority, and tries to succeed using legitimate means. The people who try to bring this student down are usually her black peers from her own neighborhood who are essentially accusing her of being an Uncle Tom. In rational terms, the phrase "acting white" is a compliment--but it is not intended as such. Your version is certainly original, but even the virtue of originality does not lift it above its position as a racist insult.

Well, I come from the Old School. Three generations of college educated black Americans. I don't heed much ghetto culture so I have no reason to respect that definition of 'acting white'.

I am also giving caucasians an opportunity to distance themselves from all perjoratives associated with 'white'. In fact, I have been asking the question (rather than just asserting a theory) what is the difference between the white in white supremacy and the white in you?

This is the most thoughtful reply I've ever recieved. It's something I think James Baldwin would be pleased with. What do you think?

I ask for statistical evidence of anecdotal, off the cuff, blather on race and crime. Stop being an anti-intellectual whiner.

Hmm... Is it just me or is a LOT of this discussion focusing on the problems of Black folks dealing with white racism? I mean, to talk about C Young as the "reason" there are no white people in Chicago is just beyond foolish (IMHO). Let me be clear here - racism is a white problem - period. Black people (and all folks of color) may find strange (unacceptable?) ways to DEAL with the problem - but it is a white problem.

Or maybe I should be more specific: racism - a tool used by the powerful to retain power - has historically been refined to the benefit of white people. Xenophobia has probably always been with us. But it was the Europeans who colonized the world and still hold the keys to the economic kingdom. I believe that to then talk about "Southern Blacks" as "polite" while dumping on others is just another form of racism.

Look, white people need to step up to the plate of responsibility and just say it like it is. For 400+ years Europeans have been wrecking havoc on the world and reaping the benefits of an unfair and unequal system that is largely based in racism. White people need to stop that s&^% and start treating folks around the world with respect.

There is enough pie for everyone. But at some point, those who are hoarding the pie need to relax their grip a little and chill out. Jumping on Black folks for wanting a bit of pie is counter productive.

Is the South more or less racist than the North? Depends on how you define it. I still do not see many white folks (North or South) step up and say that the system is so far out of balance we need it fixed. I'm still waiting for my 40 acres and my mule (joke).

Kobe Bryant is a bad nigger rapist.
Michael Jackson is a bad nigger pedophile.
Every other nigger is a bad nigger for supporting
these two criminals.
At least in the North niggers only live in the
cities.
Down here in the South, you can't get away from
niggers. They are everywhere like cockroaches.
They live in rural and urban areas.
It sucks.

Racsim exists, but there's one type of racsim that's hardly ever talked about. It's the racism that I have faced in my life, especially as a student in Canada. Most of it came from black and other non-white people. They didn't like me cuz I "acted white". Furthermore, I even could pass for Caucasian although I'm from India. That was something that they found very hard to accept. At one time, I even got assualted for "trying to be white". It was horrible, to say the least.