Healthcare and race and poverty

With the healthcare issue, perhaps the most important life and death issue of (in)justice in our lifetimes, at a critical juncture, I thought a couple of short quotes from 48 years ago might by apropo. I've been reading a classic from an earleir generation, Blaming the Victim by William Ryan. Hear are the quotes that jumped out at me: you judge how timely or dated they are:

"The reason whites live longer than blacks..is very simple. They buy, at very high prices, that extra seven years of life from the merchants who have it for sale" (158). "The poor are less healthy for the same reason they have less of everything else: they can't afford to buy health" (159).

Kind of cuts through the b.s. and hits you upside the head like a two-by-four, no?

Is the White anti-racist movement racist?

I've subscribed to a white anti-racist network web newsletter for some time now. The latest carries an intriguing, insightful discussion of racial issues within the anti-racist movement. the link is at http://www.wacan.org/wacanupdate/archive/wacanupdate20091104.shtml
Jeff Hitchcock, in the article "A Blessing or a Curse?" responds to a blog entry by "Guerilla Mama" http://guerrillamamamedicine.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/anti-racism-what-went-wrong/
Excerpts from Guerrilla Mama (AKA Mai'a): "the ones who are the most ’successful’ in anti racism are white. they are the authors, bloggers, consultants, workshop trainers, speakers etc." While critical race people of color provide most of the theory, whites benefit most from the antiracist "industry." "...the line in the anti racism mvmt is that it is white people’s duty and responsibility to speak to white folks about white privilege. people of color shouldnt have to do it."
"but. when white folks are getting mad props, respect, accolades, book deals, professorships, awards, etc. when white folks use the fact that they identify as white to gain a leg up on people of color in the anti racism industry/profession. then it is racism pure and simple. and if you are white and in the anti racism movement then that is what you are doing."

And excerpts from Hitchcock's response: "Her words are troubling, partly because they hold truth, and partly because they obscure." "White people benefit from the very thing we work against." Yet he defends white racist leaders, saying they all acknowledge their debt in learning from people of color (my reply--and do they point their listeners to these voices rather than making them disciples of their own?)He also mentions the "People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, an organization and anti-racist collective led by people of color which over the course of nearly 30 years has single-handedly trained a few hundred thousand people and introduced more white people to anti-racism than the collective body of white anti-racists and whiteness studies scholars combined." He admits that the mainstream attention to the antiracist movement enriches the white practitioners, but claims that in "In the smaller, more concentrated community of white anti-racist activists who wish to be part of a larger multiracial anti-racist movement, that's as much an obstacle as it is a benefit." And what's to be done aobut this racial injustice within the movement, I ask? My reply on Mai'a's blog is this: "In religious terms, perhaps what the antiracist movement needs is less evangelism and proseletyzing, and more confession and penance and restitution."

Interesting issues--make me squirm a little, gotta fight the defense impulse, ("How dare you question my motivation and sincerity!") and see the white privilege at work within the very movement meant to expose and expunge said privilege.

La. Justice of the Peace: no interracial marriages, but "not racist"

The story out of Louisiana: Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, refused to perform the ceremony for a white woman and black man looking to marry. The story is at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091016/ap_on_re_us/us_interracial_rebuff

Bardwell uses two old refrains: 1) his "concern for the children" of interracial unions, i.e., "I don't have a problem with it, but I'm looking out for the best interests of potential kids and the problems they'd face." Yeah, mighty big of him to take upon himself the burden of deciding whether two people would be doing right to have children. 2) His "I'm not a racist. I have racist friends." THen he adds a new twist to that one: "I even let black people use my bathroom"--everybody knows a real racist would never do that!

Check your calendar. Yep, it's 2009. Post-racial my fanny.

Race, Race Everywhere, but not a Drop to Drink...

Kanye West, Taylor Swift and Beyonce
Serena Williams, Kim Cjisters and an unkown lineswoman (is that the right term?)
Rep. Joe Wilson, President Barack Obama, Wilson's son, and former president Jimmy Carter
Michael Jordan and the sports journalist reaction to his Hall of Fame induction speech

What do all of these have in common? 1) They all involve people behaving in ways that other people don't approve of, even find offensive.
2) Until Jimmy Carter "injected race" into the Wilson episode, race was rarely if ever mentioned in any of these stories. But it enveloped, silently, every one of them.

NPR's call-in talk show "Talk of the Nation" mentioned the trouble "the three W's" (West, Williams and Wilson) were involved in, but did they use it as an opportunity to prove the racial implications? NOOOO! They invited an etiquette expert to help us learn how best to apologize when we "make a mess of things."

Of course, I'm gonna wimp out too--I'll bring up the situations, and the fact that there IS a racial angle to be explored in each, but since, besides Wilson, the above examples involve an African American being accused of offense, I'll reserve judgment. Ah, hell, I can't do that and remain true to my credo of taking race head-on, can I? Oh, OK.

West: I'll cop out by quoting the Angry Black Woman: "The line between bad boy and public asshole has now been crossed. Brother man would do best to step back on the other side." (the blog entry is entitled, "Kanye-West-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you?")

Williams: 1) It was, by accounts that I've read, an inexplicable, horrible, totally unfair and crucially harmful call. Yeah, Williams probably still would have gone down, but don't gift-wrap it for her opponent! Was race a subliminal factor in a lineswoman, who presumably has watched feet stay behind a service line until a split second after contact with the ball several thousand times before, and made the right no-call on most all of those serves (else she wouldn't have been judged competent to be where she was for the U.S. Open Semifinals), inexplicably calling a phantom foot fault on Williams, one of the few blacks (along with her sister, of course) in the upper echelons of the traditionally liily white country club sport?
2) Uh, Serena, really now, talk about shaving a blanking ball up the blanking backside of a person is going a bit far. Don't think that can be excused by, "Hey, it was just black street talk misinterpretted by the white establishment." But hey, she paid the price in losing the match, and in the public shame she's experienced, so let her be.

Wilson: Carter is right. Of course, 99.5% of my fellow race members disagree. Like I've said before, we've got some work to do...

Jordan: Not sure on this one. I've got to check my own biases here, since as a Illinois native I was a Bulls fanatic in the 1990s, so much so that I was able to forget, once he put the red white and black on, that MJ came from the hated (by me) UNC program. I haven't seen the video, but the reports from several white journalists is that Jordan's approach left much to be desired, and revealed a sad case of a person, regarded as the best player EVER in his sport, apparently still feeling the need to build himself up by denigrating others, all this on the occasion of his "acceptance" into the hallowed halls of basketball immortality. Maybe it's a case of whites not understanding the black cultural tradition of trash talk and put-downs and manhood. Maybe. I kind of doubt it though. As painful as it is for me to admit, the guy who brought me so much vicarious joy and celebration is, apparently, a bit of an ass. Oh, well, burst my bubble...

The right to invade Caster Semenya's Body

Angry Black Woman http://theangryblackwoman.com/ has a provocative blog entry on the invasive, speculative media take on the sexual genitalia of So. African runner Caster Semenya. (Read "Race, Gender, and the Oppressive Public Gaze") ABW compares it to the treatment accorded Sarah Bartman (the notorious case of the exploited "Hottentot Venus" of an earlier time). She's got a point. Caster just wanted to run, she's from a poor, isolated area, and she quite probably had no idea what she was getting into as her running career progressed--that strange white people would be probing her body, literally and in the media, and treating her as an inhuman specimen to be dissected and studied for our satisfaction and curiosity (oh, it's in "fairness"--how could I have forgotten?) Come on, folks, leave the poor girl alone--she didn't choose to be born with the body she has, but it is hers, and she shouldn't be made to feel inadequate or freakish, either. As the great (at least occasionally blatently racist) philosopher Elvis Costello says, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?"

Here we Go Again: White athlete makes it because of Effort, Black because of talent

(Sorry, faithful reader, for the long absence of entries. Laptop miseries are my only, weak excuse)

Oh, Lord, when will sportswriters and commentators ever learn? It seems that Michael Jordan and John Stockton are both to be enshrined in the basketball hall of fame. As the greatest player of his, and perhaps any, generation, Jordan has naturally been scooping up the lion's share of publicity. So old Fran Blinebury of Yahoo! Sports decides to give Stockton his due--fair enough.

I have fond memories of John Stockton. I remember watching, I think, his first all-star game when I never saw him take a shot, content to dish well over a dozen assists, I'm sure, to the best finishers in the game. I thought that was cool. And I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit that I thought it cool that a white dude could hang with the predominately African American fraternity of NBA stars. Of course, when his Jazz played my Bulls, it was sorry, Johnny--MJ and Co. are gonna shoot you down! But I digress.

Instead of writing about Stockton's ability and grace, Blinebury falls back on the old myth: that white athletes make it on determination and effort, whereas blacks make it on natural, God-given talent. Here's the link to the pathetic piece. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AlmO81gQfqsN7NEUgHYk41w5nYcB?slug=ys-stocktonhall090809&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Yeah, the white guy is the blue collar, lunch pail guy who makes it on sheer grit. We've heard it all before, ad nauseum. Jordan was impulsive and spectacular, Stockton, relentless and single-minded.

1) You telling me Jordan wasn't relentless? That he didn't spend hours and hours in the gym and weightroom, watching film and breaking down defenses? Give me a break.

2) You telling me Stockton wasn't naturally gifted? The guy makes 5000 more assists and 700 more steals than anyone else in the game ever has, and it's all due to his effort and work ethic? Yeah, right.

The worsPt, it turns out, was not in the article, but in the headline teaser on the Yahoo! Sports front page: there it says, "John Stockton wasn't big or fast. He goes into the Hall of Fame because few in the NBA could ever match his toughness."

Stockton wasn't fast? He got those 3,265 steals by willing the ball into his hands? And how many of those nearly 16,000 assists came on fast breaks? Slow guys don't lead fast breaks. They lead slow breaks. And slow breaks don't result in very many assists.

White reporters seem to want to believe that sports come easy to blacks, and therefore any white person who makes it in black-dominated sports must not be doing it on talent, but on personal effort. It's a sick theory. It's racist. It's demeaning to both the black guy who, it is assumed, is undisciplined and "lucky" to be born the way he was, and the white guy, whose gifts are belittled. This is 2009. Sports scholars and critics have been critiquing this myth for dozens of years. Yet it still prevails. Sad.

The Fine Line Black Athletes Must Walk

So I came across this teaser for a story entitled "J.R. Smith Shuts Down Twitter Account Amidst Controversy." I took the bait, and clicked. You can too at http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/J-R-Smith-shuts-down-Twitter-account-amid-contr?urn=nba,180969

I seems that the aforementioned guard for the NBA's Denver Nuggets had the occassional habit of replacing a "c" with a "k" in the words he typed on his Twitter entries ("tweets.") It would seem that members of the "Bloods" street gang are also known to do this. And so, naturally, the (white, I'm sure) reaction of many was, Oh, my God! He must be a murdering merchant of mayhem! And J.R., after, no doubt, hearing from his agent about the potential harm to his endorsement deals, pulled the plug.

I always knew those "PlaySkool" folks were up to no good...