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 shoving a blanking ball up the blanking backside of a person is going a bit far, dontcha think? Kinda hard to excuse that as "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...

2 More Things Re: the Gates Thing, Then I'll Shut Up

1. I was reminded how friggin' racist too much of the blogosphere is when I read the comments to an opinion piece on this whole ordeal (I tracked down the link: http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:y_news:f61c5c1a81d6e4fc635b919aebdd1f65/Analysis-Obamas-rare-race-foray-a-positive-step-AP. 90% of the reaction was how racist the columnist was for taking a position defending Gates and Obama, and how Obama had shown his true racist colors, and calling gates a "black ass," etc. I knew there would be plenty of that, but my jaw was dropping to read 8 or ten of them in a row, with no retort for column inch after column inch. And this was on Yahoo, I believe, not FOX News or some virtual rag like that. We got some work to do, people (as if you didn't already know that).

2. I forgot the second. Oh, yeah, it was this: I wonder if the inordinate amount of attention this affair got can be explained thusly: we are so damned afraid to broach the subject of race (except for with the trusted buddies whom we know will agree with us on everything we have to say) that all this crap get bottled up in us, and when the rare opportunity comes where it's deemed acceptable to comment publicly on the subject, it's like a release valve, and a bunch of hot air comes pouring out. One wise columnist (I think it was in Time magazine) recounted the other supposed turning points in our recent "national discourse" on race (I probably got them out of order): Rodney King beating, L.A. riots, O.J. arrest, O.J. trial and verdict, Clinton's Council-to solve-this-here racial problem-once-and-for-all, Katrina, Jena, a couple of high profile NYC cop incidents, Obama and Wright, and the Philadelphia "More Perfect Union" speech, etc. Each time, there is high-minded talk of how THIS will dispel the white denial, or force us to come together, or prompt us to open the avenues of communications across the racial divide, etc., etc., etc. But the "national discourse" remains disjointed, and mostly talking past one another without bothering to take the role of listener.

The earlier Obama thing actually serves as exhibit A to my point. Throughout his campaign, Obama deftly deflected any focus on race until endless loops of an angry black voice growling "God DAMN America" forced him to take on the subject head-on....for maybe 30 minutes. Having delivered a very good speech on the matter, he then avoided the subject again, like the plague, the rest of the way and, behold, he got elected! Lesson: it is good and right to avoid the subject at all costs until circumstances demand it be addressed, and then it is expedient to dirty your hands with it quickly and get it over with, then move on like everything is fixed.

Obama's "stupidly" comment is Exhibit B: fail to choose your words carefully, I you'll pay, big time. Obama, the black man who never lost his cool, who had a seemingly inhuman ability to filter everything and respond calmly, even to the most outrageous accusations and falsehoods, was caught, one time, expressing, from the gut, how he REALLY felt and what he REALLY thought about a racial incident that no doubt peeled the scab off of real incidents from a painful past and ever-possible present. And what happened? He caught hell for it: everybody was talking about this, and getting distracted from healthcare reform and all that other mundane stuff. His popularity among whites plummeted, in no time flat, off a cliff. Lesson: don't drop the filter, or you'll get nailed.

OK, I'll REALLY shut up now.

Gates' Arrest. Obama's Comment, and Public's Reaction

OK, so I know I've been kinda of MIA on this Gates arrest affair. After initially reporting on it (really just giving the story link but hey: I WAS pretty early with it!). I've been asleep at the blog, except one cheeky cheer from the sidelines just before the so-called "beer summit" met. Truth is, I was distracted by other matters, as well as confused. I mean, that thing took off in a way I would have never predicted. It was getting a fair amount of press coverage (and, I would assume, water cooler talk) before Obama weighed in, but after his "stupidly" comment, we had a REAL controversy (funny how a prestigious African American scholar at our country's most prestigious university getting arrested in his own home on a break-in call didn't qualify as REAL controversy).

Anyway, I'd be kind of hypocritical if I now spent too much time analyzing the fine points of the encounter, since I've decided that much of the attention it's been given has been overblown and unproductive. After all, is the arrest of a world-renowned scholar and FOB (Friend of Barack) REALLY representative of the plight of the black race? I mean, I know we can extrapolate from that and say, if it happens to a well-dressed, well-spoken (oops, I'm steering dangerously close to Biden's infamous "articulate" comment!), highly educated elite living in a smug intellectual community, just think how bad it is for the average African American! And that's true.

But we can also fall in the trap of making the fight for justice in a matter like this a proxy for the broader fight for racial justice in our society. I mean, Henry Louis Gates is gonna be alright. His life chances wouldn't be affected one iota even if fate would have it that he was convicted of such absurd "disorderly conduct" charges and even spent a week behind bars. He would still have his audience--it has increased his visibility and name-recognition, and that's not a bad thing. I know it sounds like I'm downplaying the righteous anger he expressed and humiliation he suffered. I shouldn't. They were real. But my point is, for the press and public to spend so much time and energy dissecting this ordeal--don't you wonder if the time and energy might be better redeemed working on behalf of victims of racial discrimination, perhaps in our local areas, whose stories never see the light of day? And working to raise public awareness of stubborn structural causes for racial disparities, and trying to dismantle those structures? And helping whites to see the racial log of white privilege in our own eyes instead of trying to pick the speck of Affirmative Action and the so-called "race card" out of others' eyes?

There. I got that off my chest. Maybe being mostly silent for a few weeks was good for a broader perspective. Better to wait until I had something "wise and profound" to say. Or maybe I was just being lazy, and asleep at the blog. Anywho...