Trump

So it appears that Donald Trump's campaign strategy is going to consist almost entirely on playing on the racial and religious fears and resentments of white Americans. How else to explain his laser focus on Obama's birth? I mean, the birth announcement was in both Honalulu daily papers within a couple of weeks of his birth. So I guess the conspiracy goes like this: A bunch of Muslims in Indonesia, or Saudi Arabia, or who knows where are planning on using this baby born in Indonesia, or Kenya, or God knows where as a plant to become president one day to take over the world. So, naturally, they use someone with black skin, kinky hair, and name him "Barack Hussein Obama" because that will make it easy for him to be elected. But, a couple of days after he is born, the conspirators say, "Hey, we better submit a birth announcement to be printed in the Honolulu papers to cover ourselves 40-some years later in case people question whether he was born in the U.S. and is qualified to be president." So they did. Yeah, that's probably how it happened.

Or it could be that, because Obama is black and has a Muslim-sounding name, had a dad he hardly knew that was a nominal, non-practicing Muslim and lived for a few years in his childhood in the predominately Muslim country of Indonesia, many white Americans don't trust him, and so the birther leaders play on that mistrust. Nah, the first one sounds a lot more believable, right?

And now, Trump is coming out questioning how Obama got admitted to Columbia, then Harvard. See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/trump_interview
Never mentions race, just dances all over the subject withOUT mentioning it, again trying to play on white American's resentment of Affirmative Action. Yeah, like Obama proved to be incapable of doing the work at those Ivy League schools. Obama has been honest about not being disciplined in his early college years in California. He was not the only 18-20 year old to struggle with issues of life direction, identity, etc.--he had more reason than most to struggle with these issues.

I suppose Trump will next question Obama's Christian faith, then bring up again the photo of Obama without his hand on his heart siging the National Anthem, and then... ad nauseum. WHat a great, substantive campaign to be leader of the free world. What a joke.

Loving v. VA

Was just reading up on the case that overturned all bans on interracial relationships in the U.S. in 1967. First, the anti-miscegenation statute in Virginia was used to charge them with ""cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth." I thought that wording curious. Would make the good title of a book, too. I hope the Commonwealth's precious peace and dignity have been recovered over the past 43 years. Also found that the Supreme Court handed down the decision on June 12, 1967--June 12th is my wife's and my anniversary! And the day is celebrated as "Loving Day" to commemorate the right to marry whomever one loves apart from racial restrictions (now, about those OTHER restrictions!) So I was married on "Loving Day"--cool! (Ours is not an interracial union, but it is an inter-regional one--breading down the barrier between North and South!)

Reading the Constitution Aloud--what to include, what to omit

It is well known that the House GOP leadership began their rule with a reading of the U.S. Constitution from the House floor. Nothing partisan about that. It IS the governing document of our nation. What is revealing about the GOP's intent is the sanitized version that was read. In particular they left out uncomfortable reminder about the egregious immorality of our Founding Fathers, such as the infamous three-fifths compromise and the provision that non-slave-holding states be required to return runaway slaves. It falls conventiently into teh typicla pattern of refusing to discuss anything related to race in pulic in hopes that the problem will just go away if we ignore it.

Of course, I can see the justification in omitting these passages if the intent is to read the Constitution, as organizer, GOP Rep. Robert Goodlatte of Va., said "as it currently operates," (Both of the mentioned omissions were canceled out by the 13th Amendment doing away with slavery. But I also see the point of critics, like Rep. James Clyburn and Hilary Shelton, vice-president of the NAACP (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010602807_2.html?sid=ST2011010603624 for more)that an opportunity was missed to air and discuss the necessary changing of the Constitution to correct for injustices that the majority finally come to recognize. Again, there are two sides, with Original Intent folks pointing to the Constitutionally-mandated amending process as the way that is to be done, whereas more pragmatic "living, breathing document" relativists (like me) see how cumbersome and unwieldy (and politically fraught) that process can be in the face of injustices in need of immediate redress.

Anyway, the race-muteness was erased in one grand, moving moment of political theater as Cibrave vil Rights wounded warrior John Lewis, Dem. Rep. form Ga., rose to recite the aformentioned 13th Amendment. The Gallery roared its approval. The moral: 145 years after it was abolished, there is consensus that slavery was wrong, and freeing the slaves was right. Don't know if we've reached that kind of consensus for any race-related issues since (abloshing Jim Crow, I suppose--although that consunsus took a few decades). I hope it doesn't take quite so long for us to come together on ways to redress continuing racial barriers to equality in housing, jobs, education, health, etc.

Hail Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter!

Fifty years ago today, the above-named brave young African-Americans became the first of their race to matriculate at the University of Georgia, enduring and persevering through a hostile mob, a night-time riot, and a temporary suspension "for their own safety" to become outstanding individual citizens contributing to our society, Holmes as a mideical doctor and Hunter as a journalist. I remember hearing Hunter-gault (her married name) as a correspondent for the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour years ago, not finding out until years later the prominent role she had played, and the courage she had shown, in breaking down the walls of segregation. Holmes died in 1995, God rest his soul.

Heres the link to teh NPR piece that alerted me to the 50 year aniversary (further reading indicates that today may be the 50th anniversary of the court ruling demanding they be admitted, with their actual matriculation following a few days later) http://www.npr.org/2011/01/07/132712913/a-pioneer-looks-back-50-years-after-making-history

White guy runs for 184 yards in NFL!

I'm just sayin'...

Dude's name is Peyton Hillis with the Cleveland Browns, in his third year out of Arkansas. Rushed for 184 in 29 carries today to help upset the Patriots. This may seem like a strange post for an anti-racist, but as long as race IS such a significant factor in our society, I say you might as well talk about it. It's also way cool when black athletes excel at speed skating (Shani Davis, e.g.), swimming (Cullen Jones,e.g.) etc., as well as when whites do well at sports like sprinting (Jeremy Wariner, e.g.).

Why is it "cool" and why would I draw attention to it? Because these athletes that go against the grain of racial expectations have to be twice as good to overcome the stereotype-driven expectations of coaches and others in positions of influence. The fact is, most of the biological explanations for racial dominance of particular sports is just plain bogus. Race ain't a biological category. And the biological explanations make a mockery of the dedication and effort, hard work and intense workouts, intelligence and quick thinking of the many black athletes that excel in basketball, football, track, etc. As if it came easy and "natural" for them.

By the way, Hillis looks like a good bet, if he avoids injury, to become the first white to gain 1,000 yards in the NFL since Craig James in 1985, 25 years ago. He's got 644 after 8 games, the halfway point in the regular season. But you won't see much about it in the mainstream press, because we are "color blind" nowadays. Yeah, right.

That's all.

Dubya on Kanye

Funny, but somehow George W. Bush's preoccupation, all these years later, with the "disgusting" comments of Kanye West during the Hurricane Katrina telethon only serve to make me wonder if there isn't maybe some substance to Kanye's accusations. So what keeps Dubya awake at night is not thinking about how he could have saved hundreds of lives (most of them black) with a more competent and compassionate, swifter response to the disaster. No, what keeps him tossin' and turnin' is the insinuations of one black man on live TV. Quite a revealing look into Dubya's soul.

Bush apparently calls West's words, according to his up-coming memoir, "an all-time low" of his presidency. His interviewer yesterday, Matt Lauer, "asked Bush if he was concerned that some might be upset that he has placed so much emphasis on being angry about someone criticizing his responsiveness to the hurricane victims as opposed to being saddened by the impact of 'watching the misery in Louisiana.' (this according to Billy Johnson, Jr.--see http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/hiphopmediatraining/302226/george-bush-doesnt-care-about-kanye-west/

But Bush dismissed the idea, unable to get past the audacity of anyone who would question his racial views. Sad. So sad.

If you're Gonna Make up a crime story, make the perpetrator black!

OK, so it turns out that Bethany Storro of Vancouver, Washington was not viciously attacked by a stranger throwing acid in her face. No, police have now determined that it was self-inflicted. Just a sad case of a very trouble young soul. So what does this have to do with race?

Well, it turns out that the description of the phantom perpetrator that Storro gave was of a black woman (with a ponytail, no less). Why? Because police, and the public, are more readily prepared to believe the story. We've seen it time and time again. The mother who drowned her kids in South Carolina quite a few years back. The young woman who falsely claimed to be attacked at an ATM machine in 2008 for displaying pro-McCain messages. and many, many more.

we've been fed the image so many times--blacks as criminals--that it's the first thing that comes to mind to those sick minds making up a crime (yeah, this applies to TV and movie screenwriters, too), and we eat it up like pigs at the trough. One more piece of evidence of the destructive, distortive power of stereotypes.