This Week...

Unfortunately, both Stephen and I got caught up with obligations at the end of the week that precluded us from providing a genuine piece of our mind this week. But at the 11th hour, here are a few of the more interesting stories from this week in race...


New York Times
THE LONG RUN; In a Volatile City, a Stern Line On Race and Politics
More than any other Republican running for president, Rudolph W. Giuliani has confronted the question of race.

San Francisco Chronicle
Assistance for foreign speakers
State utilities regulators voted Thursday to require telecom carriers that market in a foreign language to also provide support to customers in that language.

Charleston, South Carolina Post & Courier
We must not wage another battle over the flag
As we all know, until 2001, the Confederate battle flag flew atop the South Carolina Statehouse dome. For many years a debate raged over the proper location for the embattled flag. It is instructive to remember the arguments made at the time.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota Argus-Leader
Indians target of hate crimes
In response to Mary Kay Truckenmiller's editorial, "Hate crimes bill violates rights," I would like to start by saying that I don't understand why a reasonable, peaceful and nonbiased person would want to oppose this law.

Racism on the "Down Low?"

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) persons are discriminated against in America. There is no debate about that. Some argue that the discrimination is warranted, while others argue that it’s yet another form of systemic oppression that manifests itself in bigotry and perpetuates social injustice. Irrespective of those debates, and setting aside any implications that may or may not be associated with the HIV/AIDS crisis, there are unique circumstances facing GLBT persons of color.

This weekend, those issues are prominent at the Miami Beach Bruthuz retreat on South Beach. Part of the complexity involves the conceptual and semantic parsing of sexual orientation and sexual identity. As the Miami Herald reports, one of the organizers of the event noted that some men will not refer to themselves as gay; rather, they adopt a mindset that essentially boils down to “that’s just who I sleep with, but that’s not who I am.” This is true of GLBT persons of both genders and all races and ethnicities, but cultural norms of masculinity affect both gay and bisexual males uniquely.

The Miami Herald quotes author William Castillo as saying that there is a lot of pressure for gay men to ''get married, have children and carry on the family name. . . To be a man. Because being a homosexual is anything less than a man.''

Rapper Kanye West has spoken very eloquently on this issue. In an interview with MTV personality, Sway, West explained how he developed homophobic attitudes. (Pardon the long quote, but West developed the point carefully, rather than settling for a quip.)

After my parents got divorced and we moved to Chicago when I was 3, I would go see my father on Christmas, spring break and summer. My father was my everything, but during the rest of the time, my mother was my everything. Of course there's a good side to that, but the bad side of that is that people call you a mama's boy. It gets to the point that when you go to high school and you wasn't out in the streets like that, and you ain't have no father figure, or you wasn't around your father all the time, who you gonna act like? You gonna act like your mother. ... And then everybody in high school be like, "Yo, you actin' like a f--. Dog, you gay?" And I used to deal with that when I was in high school.

And what happened was it made me kind of homophobic, 'cause I would go back and question myself, like, "Damn, why does everyone else walk like this, and I walk like this?" People be like, "Yo fam, look at you. Look at how you act." If you see something and you don't want to be that because there's such a negative connotation toward it, you try to separate yourself from it so much that it made me homophobic by the time I was through high school. Anybody that was gay I was like, "Yo, get away from me." And like Tupac said, "Started hangin' with the thugs," and you look up and all my friends were really thugged out. It's like I was racing to try to find that constant masculine role model right there, right in front of me. I would use the word "f--" and always look down upon gays. But then my cousin told me that another one of my cousins was gay, and I loved him, he's one of my favorite cousins. And at that point it was kind of like a turning point when I was like, "Yo, this my cousin, I love him and I been discriminating against gays."

But everybody in hip-hop discriminates against gay people. Matter of fact, the exact opposite word of "hip-hop," I think, is "gay." Like yo, you play a record and if it's wack, "That's gay, dog!" And I wanna just come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends, "Yo, stop it fam."

J.L. King, who helped bring the term “on the down-low” to national attention when he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, urges men of color to come out of the closet. “You don't have to march in a gay pride parade or put a rainbow sticker on your car. But it's that kind of attitude that [allows] so many preachers to beat up on black gay men.” But Charles Martin, executive director of the South Beach AIDS project, rejects the label: “I hate that term. It demonizes gay black men.”

Therein lies the language component to this issue. It is interesting that there is a unique term for men of color who live separate lives so as not to undermine their religious and community norms. There are certainly many white men who live “on the down-low,” but the term is used almost exclusively for black men. In an ask.com column, Ramone Johnson considers whether the term is inherently racist. He implies that it is yet another attempt to blame black men for society’s woes – this time, the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Whatever the intent (conscious or otherwise) or effect, it is important to consider the way language is used to continually divide those who are denied access to power. One of the ways that Republicans have been able to convince persons of color to reconsider their allegiance to the Democratic Party is by positioning themselves as the champions of heterosexuality, which plays well in many churches and communities of color. In fact, we recently saw how African American presidential candidate Barack Obama played into the same kind of black religious disavowal of homosexuality in black communities – rhetoric that on the one hand silences black gay men’s admission of their sexual orientation, and on the other finding the need to exclaim one’s own heterosexuality.

The end result, of course, is a perpetuation of the existing power structure that has disproportionately disadvantaged people of color since the nation’s founding.

"Nigger" Please!

“Ban the use of the word ‘Nigger!’” It’s the latest movement hatched by minority leaders and liberal do-gooders alike. From Al Sharpton to Jesse Jackson to mostly white towns such as Brazoria, Texas to the diverse megalopolis of New York City; this hip, new political fad has been part of the effort to do what proponents say is the best way to deal with the harsh offense the word often engenders: educating people, particularly young people, about the historical origins, context, and consequences that often follow the word’s use.

While censorship is never an answer to countering offensive speech, and while proposals to ban the word are, for the most part, symbolic in nature and would not be legally binding, education is clearly the best tool for ensuring that people have an informed view about the word – one that would temper and moderate their use or abuse of the term.

Following on the heels of the Ban and Educate About “Nigger” movement, however, is a complete and contradictory turn by educators themselves, some of whom are now saying that direct and explicit education about the word is out of bounds. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland have decided to suspend teaching a lesson called “Questionable Words” that required students to read about and confront the history and legacy of the term as a precursor to reading the popular novel To Kill A Mockingbird. The reason: some students found it offensive.

This move by the Montgomery County School Board reflects a bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, works like To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn and other generally required reading in high school literature classrooms were once anathema to many because of their unquestioned and de-contextualized racist content, replete with racial epithets such as the word “nigger.” Progress promulgated the penchant by these schools and others to institute means by which students and educators would openly question, confront and inform themselves of the historical origins, offenses and deadly actions that were often a direct consequence of the word’s use. And now they seek to reverse and roll back this educational progress by banning that which initially sought to, in part, mitigate the influence and offense of the term?

But this isn’t the only contradiction. Most proponents of so-called “N-Word Bans,” as well as scholars, have recognized that the term is, among all other racial epithets, the “nuclear” option, as Randall Kennedy – author of the acclaimed book, Nigger – points out; it is the epithet that out-offends every other epithet. Given this, it is curious and bordering on comical, that the new replacement for the now-banned lesson on Nigger and other offensive terminology in the Montgomery County schools is a reading by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. that details his father’s experience of being referred to as “George.”

This is not a criticism of Professor Gates; he is a brilliant man whose writings on race have much to teach us all. He did not write his piece for the purpose of substituting for a frank discussion of the “nuclear.” (In fact, we wonder if he’d even be comfortable with this substitution.” Is anyone ready concede that in the realm of offensive black epithets, “George” is nowhere close to “Nigger?” Like Jules (Samuel L. Jackson’s character in a film by a white film maker often criticized for using the word in question) once said about another explosive topic, “it ain’t even in he same fucking ballpark!”

So why the charade? Why this end-run around the interrogation, contestation, and consequences the term deserves and demands? There’s one reason: it is a reason that implicates African Americans and other minorities, as well as whites, in perpetuating the offensive force it carries and the stranglehold it continues to have on race relations in the United States. It is overwhelmingly apparent that we’d just rather not confront the issue of “nigger” and other racially offensive language in this country. Confrontation is difficult, painful, messy, and often ends with no resolution. It requires people to be engaged and to be willing to “confront,” which always carries with it the risk of offense. We’ve made this point several times before (recall that Stephen opposes whites using the word, while Charlton does not – Stephen wouldn’t even type the word in this week’s blog!); the aftermath of Michael Richards, Don Imus and others recently have all expressed a common preference towards a hollow harmony that comes by skirting an issue.

It seems that those who have most to gain by confronting these issues head on would just assume put the term to rest once and for all. In fact, the NAACP did just that recently. Replete with coffins, mourners, and eulogies, supporters of the action declared, with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, “Good riddance to this vestige of slavery and racism, and . . . hello to a new country that invests in all its people.”

Too bad some students have just lost another opportunity to learn about this vestige of slavery and racism because students, parents and leaders of all kinds have decided to let the elephant in the room remain for the time being – choosing instead the comfort and ease that comes with ignoring bliss.

Runnin’ With the Big Dog

On ongoing investigation into alleged dog fighting on the property of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick picked up steam this week. More information about the brutal practice is coming to the surface as the issue becomes salient (at least for now). What has been less frequently discussed is the relationship of race to dog fighting.


While there is very little chatter that explicitly notes that modern high stakes dog fighting is primarily an African American activity, there is much suggestion as to that reality. Nearly all of the high profile athletes who have been linked to dog fighting are black. The Virginian-Pilot noted last month that pit bulls – which are the overwhelming majority breed for fighting dogs – “have become iconic in the rap and hip-hop music culture. Missy Elliott and rapper DMX feature the animals on album covers, and an unedited version of rapper Jay-Z’s video ‘99 Problems’ features footage of dogs preparing to fight in a pit as spectators watch.”


We offer some thoughts about why this link between dog fighting and black culture may exist.


1. Counterculture: From all accounts, the reason that dog fighting, while illegal in all states, continues is the devotion of its participants to absolute silence. Forced from mainstream culture since the first slave ships arrived and systemically ushered into poverty after emancipation, black Americans share similar characteristics to other subculture groups that seek to operate outside of the mainstream. Such countercultural expression can be manifest in vernacular language, social separatism, or illegal activities involving such symbols of rebellion as guns, drugs or, in this case, dog fighting.


2. Competition: Our capitalist culture teaches us to compete (to “fight”) to get ahead in the world. We are urged to be aggressive, strategic, hard working, and smart. In communities where disadvantage is rampant, the realistic “outs” are limited. In recent decades, rapping has been an out, but before that and since, drug dealing and sports have been perceived as the most viable options to youngsters who were not getting the sort of education that would lead to competitive standardized test scores or result in the skills that would help them succeed in college even if they did get in. Today, we can see expressions of excessive spending (“bling”) on jewelry, cars, homes, etc. by wealthy black Americans who grew up with very little. The large amounts of money being spent on fighting dogs, as well as the money involved in gambling on fights, is yet another symbol of one view of the American capitalist dream.


3. Power: Dog fighting is primarily, if not wholly, a man’s activity; there is a high degree of machismo involved. In a piece for ESPN.com, Elizabeth Merrill notes that former running back Tyrone Wheatly is familiar with the subculture: “Wheatley grew up in a neighborhood near the Detroit area where it was prominent, and took care of pit bulls when he was a kid. He says he saw one dogfight, when he was about 13, and was drawn to the breed's strength, power and loyalty.” It is not surprising that so many dog fighters are tied to professional sports, where the focus is on power, speed, agility and aggression. The dogs might be seen as representatives of the owners, or even extensions of themselves. While this can be true for athletes of any color, combined with numbers one and two above, we can speculate as to how the intersection of these elements is an offshoot of the black professional athlete’s lived experience.


Of course, this story is not about Michael Vick. ESPN.com reports that he will likely not be indicted, even though an anonymous source revealed back in May that Vick was one of the “heavyweights” in dog fighting. But his celebrity and ties (whatever they are) to this Virginia circuit of fighting certainly helps to place the issue on the public agenda. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jeff Schultz argues that the NFL may be so concerned with its reputation that they don’t want to see this covered up.


For its part, Virginia officials don’t seem particularly attentive to any racial components. Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald G. Poindexter wonders why the federal government is involved. Said Poindexter, “. . . what's driving this? Is it this boy's celebrity?” (sigh) (It’s good to see that the 19th Century is alive and well in Virginia’s justice system).



There seems to be no explicit motivation in the tartgeting of Vick under these circumstances. However, the context surrounding the allegations, charges and scrutiny by legal officials, journalists, the NFL and others certainly fuels at least implicit associations between race and various forms of negative behavior that are much a part of America's racist legacy - associations between blacks and criminality (see one or two or three of our earlier blogs on this topic) , savagery, or something as seemingly benign as financial extravagance. The present case of Vick and the allged connections with the savage world of dogfighting merely fits into an already preformed picture many Americans have of black Americans.