Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday, ""Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards....we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
"If we're going to ever make progress, we're going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified," Holder told reporters after the speech.
The speech was to Justice Department employees which included the Office for Civil Rights the major arm of the Federal Government for the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.
To say the least the radical right went ballistic.
----Once again the Left was calling our brave men and women in uniforms cowards.....
----Holder is a racist for his tolerance speech.....
----by most Americans of course he meant whitey....
----Holder. A racially motivated politician and citizen...
----Not worth the salt you'd toss to ward off bad luck....
----Holder is bemoaning the lack of mixed-race marriages, I suppose...
----Holder should stick to being the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States. If it isn’t a crime, he shouldn't’t concern himself with it.
Exactly!
Did you notice the part about the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) being in his domain?
The Clinton administration emasculated OCR.
The Bush administration turned it into quadriplegic bureaucracy.
The OCR hasn't done its job since 1990. The laws are on the books, no not"Affirmative Action", and have not been enforced. Don't think this speech was about have an inter-racial beer bust over the weekend. It wasn't. Nor was it about everybody doing bad stuff to blacks. It wasn't about whites needing to feel bad either.
It was about enforcing the law and understanding why it will be enforced.
He was putting the old black power structure on notice as well. Notice their reluctance to comment much about it?
They got it.
In my work over the past three plus decades I've had the damnedest education on separatism, neo-apartheid, racial hubris, and plain damn race stupidity. Nobody has clean hands in any of this. Self Righteousness is the rule of the day.
Holder won't be a perfect AG, but he does intend to be the AG for the people, and that will be one really big change.
So how am I wrong?
Come on, tell me about Race.
31 comments:
The AG is correct about cowardice - or perhaps discretion, which is traditionally the better part of valor. On the right, the last election allowed a good deal of old-fashioned racism to surface. One of the most instructive things I've seen was a collection of statements] from the National Review during the civil rights period - an agonizing debate that pretty much everyone now publicly admits that the Right had wrong. Segregation was wrong. Jim Crow justice was wrong. The manifold ways that white majorities found to disenfranchise blacks were wrong. Classical racism - that one race is biologically inferior to another - is wrong, along with the whole suspect notion of what race is. Needless to say, the NR would never print the columns now that it wrote then - but I don't remember the front page mea culpa they deserve. I think the reaction of much of white America to Obama shows that for many (not all, not most), that many of the ideas are still intact, and only social cowardice keeps it under the surface. now, I'm not sure this isn't a good thing - bringing it out into the ope may seem like a healthy thing to do, exposing it to the sunshine of public discourse, but I'm not sure that making white racism shameful isn't ultimately as effective in gradually driving it into extinction as making it wrong.
But this is not to say there weren't perfectly good reasons not to vote for Obama, like his stand on issues that a voter didn't share; his relative youth and inexperience.
On the other side of the divide, arguing that this or that is part of "black culture" and is therefore legitimate is profoundly dangerous. Even assuming there should be racial "cultures", and ignoring the way this seemingly obligates individuals to choose a majority tendency in the name of loyalty, every culture has things that are self-destructive, and a culture alleged produced/deformed by slavery and segregated inequality is going to produce a higher than normal level of social pathogens - just as it's likely to create some pretty special strengths. In any case, the whole conversation - even within the black community - is deformed by concern that somehow acknowledging there are some terribly self-defeating dynamics means that the white majority gets a free pass on the subject of racism - great or small, overt or hidden, that has a serious impact on blacks or other disadvantaged groups.
Anyway, I know this is incoherent. For all I know, the AG was referring to the cowardice that white Washington bureaucrats have when faced with the inevitable (and I mean this pretty absolutely) EEO complaint that comes from making a decision unfavorable to a member of a protected class OR the unconscious white clannishness that precedes THAT whole dynamic.
I also think it applies LESS to the military. Despite the social conservatism, particularly of the officer class, they've been years-to-decades ahead of much of the rest of America,
I have to say, DrLBJ (and I use those initials as a complement), I have not read such a framing of Holder's remarks anywhere else.
And I would tend to agree that the speech is a functioning one rather than a self-gratifying one as many seem to assume. Perhaps you are exactly right and Holder just delivered his opening remarks to judicatory review and action to come.
I would add that your positioning of Holder as that of a more centrist actor fits would fit with the general truth that Afro-Caribbean Americans are less resentful of historical hurts, more trusting of authority, and more committed to moving forward in commonality.
Holder's parents were Bajan.
Did you see the August 08 NYT Sunday magazine last fall regarding black politics and generational change by Matt Bai?
It details a big part of what you refer to as the old Black power structure on guard.
And now, today, we have this: www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/02/19/us/AP-Burris-Blagojevich.html
What ever Holder meant, one must remember that he is the MAN when it comes to the enforcement of Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, and a few hundred other laws and Federal regulations concerning discrimination based on race, sex, religion, ethnic origin, etc..
So when the man with the "power to do", says I'm thinking about this or that in a certain way, then his thoughts mean a whole lot more than the average Washington chatterbox.
F: "I have not read such a framing of Holder's remarks anywhere else."
Well guys, having over the years delt with OCR in it various venues (there is a branch in each and every Federal Agency) I may be too legalistically focused on what its leadership says.
In about 20 years or less, white guys like me will be a minority.
Regarding the "old Black power structure", the current black power structure is about the forth iteration since the Civil War.
In the era 1920-1960's for example the black power structure was based in the institution of Jim Crow segregation and a necessary accommodation there with. When Phillip Randolf initiated the break with that structure, it revolted against his equal rights movement. Now it is the Civil Rights black power structure who are losing their hold on the actual power.
I have a theory that we will know that blacks are equal to(perhaps equitable with) other American racial groups when there are no public black colleges. The public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs) originated out of miscegenation during slavery (except for one), were maintained during Jim Crow by elite blacks in concert with white segregationist, and have continued into the civil rights era as a remnant of that previous era. When the black power structure no longer feels compelled to require and support the public HBCUs that will be the sign equity may actually be here.
HBCUs are in economic peril, no doubt, but for two or three.
But their mission is no longer the same, nor do they understand it to be the same (or they would be pretty ignorant wouldn't they?).
Instead, I think most feel that majority black campuses free up students to engage in learning, discussion, and cultural critique in an unusual environment fostering atypical findings. Both for black students and others.
Like one gender only education.
I agree with them. But the ability of most HBCUs to provide strong faculty and the best in administrative leadership has withered.
Bright note: Black ministers reconsidering (but not rashly) their support for Senator Burris in light of his efforts to raise funds for Blago.
Dark note: Rep Clyburn's characterization of Republican governors' considering refusing some of the state-aid stimulus funds as "a slap in the face to black people." Now i find it highly unlikely that the governors will actually turn down anything other than a token amount of largely free money, but racializing the issue is another discreditable self-interested crap.
Over a quarter of the US population live in cities. 80% of Americans live in cities or suburbs of cities.
Cities are cutting jobs in police and fire departments, teaching, sanitation, administration; public transportation fares are on the rise, aid to shelters, food programs, etc. all being cut.
Who do you think are paying the greatest cost now and for the next five years?
If you think Clyburn is radicalizing the issue, it is testament to how America does not know itself.
If I remember correctly it is Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas Governors that says they will turn back money. Actually I think those Governors are betting that their own legislators will over-ride them. There is a provision in the Stimulus bill that allows that.
I do know that the powers at LSU who have suffered through a hiring freeze are about ready to send their Governor down the river.
Texas, was on one list, but Texas who heavily taxes oil revenue and has its own oil and gas wells still has a budget surplus from last year. That will evaporate soon.
As for Mississippi, well the shit head there thinks he can be President.
Race may not the the underlying cause for these governors rejecting all or parts of the stimulus but given the demographics it sure will have a disproportionate impact on minorities.
Even granting "disproportionate" - which may not be the case i terms of state employment and indirect services - in absolute numbers there will still be more whites affected. Playing the issue as primarily race is pretty stupid and dishonest.
TS: "Playing the issue as primarily race is pretty stupid and dishonest."
Yep.
But that's the Civil Rights Era black power style.
So let me get this straight.
The black congressman speaks out for his people and suddenly race is the "primary" way in which he understands the issue and thereby he is stupid and dishonest.
You don't even want to cut the brotha' a break since dishonestly requires some amount of smarts?
DAMN!
Either one of you "gents" look into the poverty rate in Mr. Clyburn's district?
TStockmann is the dishonest gentleman and doing it stupidly.
Dr. LBJ, I'll assume, has legacy issues.
Legacy?
F, dude , Rep. Clyburn, even though he is now Democratic Whip and a good man, he is an old style civil rights era black politician using old style black tactics. He was in the S.C. State government since 1970, and served 18 years as the States appointed Human Rights Commissioner. While he was in this position I actual met with him in a group about a half dozen times to work on mutual projects at the Southern Regional Education Board. He was working for Gov. Carroll Campbell, a Republican, when the political deal to create a majority Black District 6 was made. That's the newly formed district into which he was elected. Sure he is worried about his district but he is attributing an effect as being the cause.
"The district (58% Black) was gerrymandered in the early 1990's from a deal by Republicans and black Democrats in the South Carolina General Assembly to ensure a majority black population. The rural counties of the black belt in South Carolina make up much of the district, but it was also carved to include the black precincts in Charleston and Columbia."
--Wikki
Obama will have as much trouble dealing with the old style black politics as he will with the Neo-Con Republicans and eventually with the ultra-liberal wing of the Democrats.
By the way name calling simply cuts off the conversation. Let's keep it constructive.
Thinking about it,Clyburn was after all playing to his district with that remark. Maybe, then, I should retract my agreement with "stupid", but it is still "dishonest".
Unnecessary name calling cuts off conversation.
That includes the honorable Rep. James Clyburn with whom we met last Spring here in NY on part-time MBA educational initiatives for women of color who are owners of (very) small businesses.
You say cause and effect like the district was drawn to be poor. The district was drawn to give blacks some political voice in the Georgia contingent. Poverty was the byproduct that speaks volumes not about Georgia political machinations to give blacks a voice but volumes about America.
Part of what Clyburn was pointing out is how Gov. Jindal of Lousiana has now turned down a total of $100 million in Recovery funding for unemployment.
Louisiana.
If you want to start calling a politician names, start with that son of a bitch.
I will leave it here whether someone using the completely racist and unreflective term "Women of color" has the ability to look at this with any objectivity. And, as always, Feodor proves my point rather than his: making a principled policy disagreement a matter of racial politics is inherently and itself debate-ending name-calling, just as black ministers attempting an (illegal) recall of the Republican House Rep from Louisiana - also a "person of color" - over a principled policy position. The question is whether the election of Obama is going to move the debate to a new, more honest arena - which is what i hope the AG meant - or it's simply going to embolden parochial black partisan and their pious apologists.
TStockmann's suggestion to America on how to cease being a nation of cowards is to double down on cowardice with silence and blindness.
Marvelously supple mind at play.
Living in a bi-racial marriage (with a woman no less), I think I'll choose to find Mr. Stockmann's perspective ingrown and hermetic.
I'm sure you privately congratulate yourself on your openmindedness in marrying a woman of a different race, and perhaps having the sheer sex appeal to attract one. Of course it's not condescending or arrogant to her if you do it in the privacy of your own mid. Oops - no, I see t also credentials you publicly so you can't possibly be saying anything racist.
Let's deal with the implied propositions of what i actually said:
"Women of color" is a racist phrase. Discuss in terms of Edward Said's "Orientalism" and also from the standpoint of, say, the word "goyim" to imply an everyoe-but perspective. Do I have to unpack that further or are you capable of a response?
An argument about government expenditures is no more a matter about blacks than a call to make income tax more progressive can be characterized as antisemitic or anti-Japanese, even if Jews and Japanese Americans would be disproportionately affected because of the pattern of income distribution.
Gve me a coherent argument or just give up. As far as I can tell, you're ELAshley in drag - all piety and propositional groupthink, no analysis. Or is critical thinking something one gives up in order to make it into your heaven?
TStockmann apparently believes that marriage is all about sex and strict gender roles with none of the modern partnership with all its goofy conversation and sharing of minds.
TStockmann apparently devolves to one source at a time to inform him of his opinions without the need for complexity and synthesis.
Tell me who is aping ELAshley?
TStockmann reminds me of overread underdigested men who perhaps should condescend to read Robert Fulgham:
Golden Rule, let a person decide for him or herself how they want to be called.
So, I take bell hooks, angela davis, Audre Lorde, Jorie Graham, etc. inform the discussion. I'm sure Edward Said wont mind a bit. Or, taking TStockmann to his primary resource, Google "women of color," click on the associational groups and take a gander at the boards and staff.
Perhaps TStockmann resents the witness of practice and wants to keep things confined within the classroom. That's fine. It's my default reaction, too. It was there I heard Henry Louis Gates reluctantly talk about his memoir... "Colored People"... and his lightly ironic enjoyment of claiming such a nomenclature for himself.
Stockboy seems a petulant interlocutor and has a jutting jaw.
He should, then, make a vow never to marry a black woman, if women are his thing. She'd knock that cocky weak-ass look right off his face in ten seconds and then go out and conquer the world with all the curves God gave her.
TStockmann is afraid of life and what it can bring and who it can bring. He is the American so sensually shy of communal intercourse and the pulsing blood of intellectual exchange that he has protestantized himself into a ghost of a culture, a mere appearance of a man.
________
A congressman, charged with representing his district, arguing about government expenditures in the interests of his constituency... is doing his job. And Mr. Clyburn tends to do his job well as I can personally attest from experience.
But by mentioning this, I may be instigating Mr. Sockmann's inclination to believe that I'm fucking the congressman as well.
DrL:
I think Feodor's last post pretty much answers your question - it's impossible to have a conversation about race, partly because people (1) think the cowardice is on the other side; (2) getting your way on the ssues is more important than an honest discussion of them - that pts the discussion into litigation mode.
I was going to do a long post on the racism of talking about what a back woman would do, as if they were all the same, and the implicit contrast with what other race women wouldn't or don't do, because they're all the same and how irony is just a way of avoiding repsonsibility for iresponsible statements , and the relevance of "What you mean 'we", paleface," joke (perhaps the most philosophically important joke ever told) to the notion of "people of color," and the rhetoric of it and all that, but then if I've concluded there's no point in talking baout it, I shouldnt talk about it, right?
TS: "...but then if I've concluded there's no point in talking about it, I shouldn't talk about it, right?"
I don't really know. I've been in this conversation for decades. I have learned a great deal. I might have been better off ignorant. I mean I can hold forth on the degree of skin color and what it means withing the Black culture and to the Black fraternity and sorority systems. I know in some detail why I can't hire a Kiowa counselor to work with a group of Indian children that contains Osage and Cherokees. I have mucho information on why the Hispano culture of the upper Rio Grande of New Mexico looks way down on the Mestizo Mexicans from the Mexico mining area. I have had a Jack Daniel's fifth worth of lecture about why the Yaqui Apaches don't trust anyone.
Still, I keep trying to converse and learn, and I'm still just a White man who can't understand and am arrogant to trying to do so.
Maybe we should just let the children do it.
You get the moderation award on this one, Prez My Prez.
Right down the center line! With traffic whizzing by on both sides.
Dated somewhat (within a male black/white framework of 1969) from James Cone, Black Theology & Black Power.
"For white people, God's reconciliation in Jesus Christ means that God has made black people a beautiful people, and if they are going to be in relationship with God, they must enter by means of their black brothers, who are a manifestation of God's presence on earth. The assumption that one can know God without knowing blackness is the basic heresy of the white churches. They want God without blackness, Christ without obedience, love without death. What they fail to realize is that in America, God's revelation on earth has always been black, red, or some other shocking shade, but never white. Whiteness, as revealed in the history of America, is the expression of what is wrong with man. It is a symbol of man's depravity. God cannot be white, even though white churches have portrayed him as white. When we look at what whiteness has done to the minds of men in this country, we can see clearly what the New Testament meant when it spoke of the principalities and powers. To speak of Satan and his powers becomes not just a way of speaking but a fact of reality. When we can see a people who are being controlled by an ideology of whiteness, then we know what reconciliation must mean. The coming of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that whtie people are prepared to deny themselves (whiteness), take up the cross (blackness) and follow Christ (black ghetto).
To be sure, this is not easy. But whoever said the gospel of Christ was easy? Obedience always means going where we otherwise would not go; being what we could not be; doing what we would not do. Reconciliation means that Christ has freed us for this...
Reconciliation does not transcend color, thus making us all white. The problem of values is not that white people need to instill values in the ghetto; but white society itself need values so that it will no longer need a ghetto... Reconciliation makes us all black. Through his radical change, we become identified totally with the suffering of the black masses. It is this fact that makes all white churches anti-Christian in their essence. To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people!"
"It is to be expected that many white people will ask: 'How can I, a *white* man, become black? My skin is white and there is nothing I can do." Being black in America has very little to do with skin color. To be black means that your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are. We all know that a racist structure will reject and threaten a black man in white skin as quickly as a black man in black skin. It accepts and rewards whites in black skins nearly as well as whites in white skins. Therefore, being reconciled to God does not mean that one's skin is physically black. It essentially depends on the color of your heart, soul, and mind. Some may want to argue that persons with skins physically black will have a running start on others; but there seems to be enough evidence that though one's skin is black, the heart may be lilly white. The real question is where is your identity? Where is your being? Does it lie with the oppressed blacks or with the white oppression? Let us hope that there are enough to answer this question correctly so that America will not be compelled to acknowledge a common humanity only by seeing that blood is always one color."
The black experience in America is, in Christian reflection, a theological one. There truths lie that are not found elsewhere so close to our reach.
"Colored people," or "people of color," is a working term, a moral category necessary to indicate the epistemological, moral, and perhaps theological experiences of oppression first categorized by black critical thought and claimed in recent decades by those who recognized existential similarities.
Tension with this working term can be an expression of freely working out one's individual identity, denial of one's communal ties, or it can be soft, white, hegemonic resistance.
Hahahaha! I get it now. You meant "cant" all along - not "Kant." My bad!
Look, if you want to have a brave conversation - that means with someone outside your inbred discourse community becuase there's nothing brave among singing from a choir book - you don't get to use words like "white hegemony" uncritically. Because, like, we don't accept them - and now we're just talking Orwell, not Wittgenstein. Now you can argue for the concept in the context of a specific meaning, but you can't assume it.
Sorry, I meant cunt.
My feminist friends will forgive since it's used for good cause.
DrL:
See what I mean? Your examples on the right wing pretty much ruled them out of consideration for that frank conversation on race. On the left, I'm afraid Feodor is not atypical.
Maybe I need to hang out with more First Peoples types, as long as we can keep messing with the Kennewick Man's bones.
Now that that's cleared up, TStock, I've spent all these words and all of DRLBJ's space, and all you have done is take some steps backward and sideways.
Let's see an argument instead of name play and denials from one who may always be on the outside looking in at discourse communities.
And let's note that you were the one who sexualized my wife in print.
How old are you, and who taught you ethics? They need a new job.
Unless you're seventeen, you are uncouth, glib and snide, and unfortified with anything but notes to names. You have a Google search for brains and a yahoo politesse.
Well so far this conversation on race has gone so spify. Time to close this thread down. Thanks fguys.
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