We Can’t Achieve Equality through Disdain

We need a new word. I’ve noticed a preponderance of a phenomenon that is something more specific than racism or sexism. Unless someone can think of something catchier, I propose a German-style mash-up to get at the heart of the idea. Let’s call it “equality-through-disdain.” And let’s put an end to it.

Black History Month has come and gone. The Violence Against Women Act has finally passed out of the House and will be signed into law again. Over the last month, I’ve engaged in arguments about both. At first, I was completely flummoxed. Who could possibly be against Black History Month? What would motivate anyone to oppose The Violence Against Women Act? As I’ve been repeatedly told by conservative friends and the right-wing punditocracy, my liberal brain is just too naïve and too closed to comprehend the opposition’s point of view. If I could only open myself up to modern conservatism, walk a mile in those expensive loafers, I would see that the other side makes a persuasive case. So I tried to be persuaded. Instead, I found a kind of contempt born of resentment and masquerading as virtue: Equality through disdain.

The first revelation that came out of my attempt to understand the conservative positions was that the opposition to Black History Month and The Violence Against Women Act was not, in fact, two separate arguments, but one. Black History Month, I was told, divides us. It forces us to focus on one portion of our population. This division is unhealthy. If we could simply teach History, I was told, rather than any particular group’s history, then we would be better off. Similarly, The Violence Against Women Act divides us. It forces us to focus on …well, on a majority of our population, but a slim majority. This division is unhealthy. If we could simply focus on preventing violence against everyone, then we would be better off.

This argument is wrong factually, and it’s wrong morally. I’ll let you decide which of those is most important.

Factually, Black History Month does not make us focus on a portion of our population. An historian cannot tell the history of Black America without telling the history of all Americans. It’s a lens. Eight months of the year, schools teach “American History.” It’s the story of the (predominantly white, male) leaders who accomplished noteworthy things. Depending on your point of view, it’s the history of the winners or the history of the oppressors. Both those labels are loaded, and both are true. Black History Month provides us with an opportunity to reexamine our nation’s history through the lens of an oppressed people. That can be the story of striving, of overcoming obstacles, of breaking through seemingly impenetrable barriers. Or it could be the story of atrocity upon atrocity. Too often, in our schools, it’s the false story of an anodyne version of Martin Luther King Jr. who didn’t say anything that would still challenge us today. Still, the willingness to reexamine our history so that it’s more than the story of military battles and electoral victories is not divisive. It’s more inclusive.

Now, the conservatives I argued with said, “Why not Mexican American History Month? Why not Japanese American History Month?” (One wrote, “Why not Jamaican History month?” Um, two reasons come immediately to mind. First, Jamaica is a sovereign nation, and we generally don’t teach the history of other countries for a solid month in an American History class. Two, Jamaican Americans are Black.) To this I say, “Absolutely!” Why shouldn’t our history be taught in a thematic way, focusing on various groups who made contributions? Perhaps, if we are bound to the idea that history must be taught chronologically, we could divide Black History Month throughout the year. And we could sprinkle the stories of other groups in, too. And do you know what would happen? Unless a history teacher had figured out a magical way to rush through all of American History in nine months, when things had to be cut, they would almost inevitably decide that those stories would end up on the cutting room floor. Is this racial bias? No. It isn’t. I can say that categorically. History teachers, regardless of their races or racial biases, have to pick and choose. There simply isn’t enough time in the year to teach all the relevant material. It’s an impossible job. So they teach about leaders like presidents because presidents are important for students to know about. They teach about wars because wars are important for students to know about. They struggle to teach students about persistent institutions because concepts like “slavery” or “Jim Crow” or “Civil Rights” are abstract and difficult, and not limited to a day or an election or a year. Are those concepts essential to understanding American History? Absolutely. But they aren’t easy to teach or understand. Events like Black History Month aren’t evil mandates. A history teacher can choose to ignore Black History Month or she can attempt to spread it throughout the school year. Black History month is a gift teachers can choose to accept; it gives teachers permission to take the time to put things into a different context.

Similarly, the argument that The Violence Against Women Act only helps women is patently false. About four second of research reveals that the VAWA protects the victims of spousal abuse even if they are male, and increases funding for law enforcement programs which target abusers, even if those abusers are female. One could argue that the title of the bill is the problem. "The Violence Against the Victims of Domestic Abuse" would be better. For that matter, "An Attempt to Prevent Domestic Violence and Increase Penalties for Abusers After-the-Fact" would be much more accurate. The acronym AAPDVIPAAF is a bit unwieldy, though. The concept behind the actual title of the bill is largely correct, though; the vast majority of domestic abuse cases involve victims who are women. If that fact is divisive, the fault lies with the domestic abusers. 

[Side note: This false argument is not the reason the VAWA languished in Congress for so long. Opposition to the VAWA was politically toxic for its (uniformly) Republican opposition, and those politicians are all smart enough to know that the bill strengthened protections for victims of demostic abuse regardless of their gender. They didn't oppose it because they hate women. The story that my conservative friends seem to have missed is that the newest version of the bill extended protections to victims of domestic abuse who were LGBT, illegal immigrants, or Native American. The Republicans who opposed the bill had almost unanimously voted for it before those groups were added. Their much touted “War on Women” wasn’t focused on promoting the domestic abuse of most women. It was focused on cutting the funding for women's healthcare clinics if those clinics also provided abortions, or on making women undergo unnecessary medical procedures to shame them out of getting abortions, or on making medical doctors say patently untrue things to patients who might be considering abortions, or making women wait longer and longer to have an abortion while also limiting how long they could wait to have an abortion. Really, the “War on Women” was about abortion. Until the women being beaten up were illegal immigrants or Native American or gay. Then the “War on Women” extended to them, too. Make of that what you will.]

Now, the moral counter-argument in favor of Black History Month and the VAWA might seem to be obvious. The story of African Americans should be taught. The victims of domestic abuse should be protected. But it goes a lot deeper than that. The people who opposed Black History Month were, in my experience, uniformly white. The people who opposed the VAWA were uniformly men. That’s not to say that a black woman couldn’t oppose either one. It’s just that her arguments would have been different. I’m also not saying that the people who opposed Black History Month or the VAWA were overt racists or sexists. Instead, they were practicing a kind of unconscious racism or sexism that comes from the dangerous combination of good intentions and hurtful ignorance born of unacknowledged privilege. On the good intentions side of the ledger, they want everyone to be treated equally. That sounds great. Who is against equality? But, if you are a white male, your ethnicity and gender are rarely acknowledged. Nobody says, “Good for you, overcoming the obstacles that come with being white and male.” So, in a perverse way, it seems logical to these folks that we will achieve equality when no one acknowledges the race or gender of anyone else, either. In essence, the reasoning goes, if one person is not allowed to be proud of being white, the others should be prohibited from being proud of being black. If one person cannot enjoy the history of male oppression, another shouldn’t be allowed to gain confidence from the gains of feminists. Sounds fair, right?

But that’s not equality. It’s disdain. Oppressed people take pride in their categorizations because they come from a category which has, historically, overcome oppression. White men don’t get to take pride in their history of overcoming because, as a group, we haven’t had to overcome in the same way. So, for white men to try to deny anyone else the ability to be proud simply because we can’t be proud of our white-ness is another kind of oppression. The way to morally level the playing field is to lift people up persistently and systematically. The goal should be that being from any group other than white men is not a hindrance and hasn’t been for so long that the relationship between the oppressed person and their descendants diminishes with time. I can be proud of my ancestors’ struggles against poverty in Ireland, the anti-Semitism they survived in Eastern Europe, the second-class status they weathered here in America. It will be a marvelous day when a woman’s experience of sexism is just as removed from her life as I am distant from the hardships my immigrant ancestors faced, and when a black person is just as many generations removed from any experience of racial prejudice as I am from my ancestors’ experiences fleeing the Nazis. But we’re not there yet. (And don’t get me started on poverty. Americans aren’t even allowed to discuss the struggles they face due to our wide and growing income inequality without someone screaming “Class Warfare!” and mixing up socialism and communism while frothing at the mouth. Poor People’s History Month must be in July, because we don’t focus on that at all.) A white male telling anyone else that they shouldn’t have their experience recognized in a special way is just articulating a rough translation of “I still don’t get it.” 

Black History Month has come to an end, and now the Voting Rights Act is before the Supreme Court. The most likely outcome is that Section 5 will be invalidated. That’s the portion that says that specific parts of the country with a history of racial segregation have to check with the Department of Justice before they can change their voting laws. Now, a very good argument could be made that this section is unfair to those parts of the country, and should therefore be expanded to every state and locality to prevent things like racial redistricting or voter ID laws that target minorities. Another worthwhile change would be a recognition that most, if not all, voter laws are now motivated by political partisanship rather than race (thought race is sometimes a means to a partisan end), so perhaps changes in voter laws should be run by the Department of Justice to make sure they don’t favor a particular party rather than a particular race. But those were not the arguments made before the Supreme Court, and those will not be remedies the Court will consider. Instead, the Court will uphold or strike down Section 5 based on the argument that institutional racism is now so distant in the history of Shelby County, Alabama (the plaintiff) that the law no longer applies. But according to the Huffington Post, “The most recent census found that the city is 63 percent black, but the majority of the city council’s seats are held by white politicians who live in largely white sections of town.” One of Shelby County’s residents, Jerome Gray, said, “Listen, it’s plain to see that when Shelby County decided to take up this fight, they didn’t ask anybody who would be in a position to know if there are still real problems.” 

This attempt at equality-through-disdain isn’t limited to something as toothless as Black History Month, or even something as important as the VAWA. It goes all the way to the heart of the argument which may decide if some people maintain their enfranchisement in a democracy. So the next time someone says, “Why do we always have to focus on our differences? Why can’t everything just be the same for everyone,” please tell them that differences diminish in importance when people are lifted up, not when the simple acknowledgment of difference is treated with contempt.

Will Republicans Allow Themselves to Be the Party of Racism?

I just sent this letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,

I am writing you in reference to the protest of a dinner held to provide money to women’s shelters and to relieve homelessness. The dinner was held in Yorba Linda, California, by the ICNA, an American Muslim relief organization. The protest was one of the ugliest, most hateful things I’ve ever seen. The video footage of the event is posted here:



The rally was organized by Pamella Geller, the co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, a hate group. Speaking at the rally and depicted in the video were three members of your party, two Congressmen (Ed Royce and Gary Miller) and a local councilwoman (Deborah Pauly).

Rep. Boehner and Sen. McConnell, my conservative friends often remind me that the Republican Party is not the party of racists. They tell me that fringe elements who appear at Tea Party rallies or ask repugnant questions of their congressional representatives in public meetings are not speaking for the party as a whole, and that the party should not be judge based on these voices. I think that sounds fair. Then I see something like this, and watch Republicans, not just Republican voters but Republican elected officials, speak in favor of a protest where such pure, despicable hatred is spewed, and I can’t help but judge the whole party which allows any of its representatives to support this kind of thing. I know you want to have a “Big Tent,” but if you allow this kind of filth inside, the whole thing smells. And no amount of spin can Fabreeze this away.

Please let me, and all Americans who worry that one of our two major political parties harbors this kind of bile, know that your party is not the party of racism, not just by paying lip service to bromides or declaring your tolerance for difference of opinion, but by taking decisive action to expel those who promote this kind of hatred from your Big Tent. I am very proud of America’s broad defense of the right to free speech, and I recognize these protesters' right to spew whatever hatred they feel, but those elected officials at the rally are not granted a constitutional right to serve in your political party, and our constitutional right to assembly does not obligate you to include supporters of hate groups. I am asking you to convince me that this rally does not represent the Republican Party. Because if you just shrug or shake your heads, then, gentlemen, they are a part of you.

I’m a registered Democrat, so you might not care what I think. But I can assure you that if an elected Democrat spoke in favor of this kind of hatred of anyone, let alone Americans, and no action was taken by party leadership when it was brought to their attention, I would change my registration that very day. In that circumstance, would your party be an alternative, or a party that tolerates this kind of rhetoric?

Please let me know how you will address this disturbing event. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Gorman
Independence, Oregon


I will post their responses when I receive them.

Can the Shirley Sherrod fiasco start a real dialogue about white privilege?

An old college friend blogging at edgeofthepacific, suggested we start a dialogue wherein we choose a topic and exchange posts. We decided to start with the Shirley Sherrod fiasco. We don’t have much in the way of disagreement on this one. A lot of people came off poorly in this mess. In fact, only Sherrod herself came out of it looking good, and she was the one who suffered most in the debacle. I don’t think any other heads will roll at the White House or Fox News; that would be an ironic reaction to prevent future premature firings. However, in the midst of the circular firing squad of blame, I worry we’re decontextualizing the event, or contextualizing it poorly. Some of the coverage has gone back as far as the killing of Sherrod’s father by a white farmer, framing her initial reaction to the farmer she mentioned in her speech, and some has covered her husband’s role in the civil rights movement, placing her, generationally, in that historical context. Both those parts of the history are important, and one wishes someone like Breitbart or anyone in Vilsak’s USDA had bothered to type her last name into a simple Google search. But I’m worried that we’ve missed the most important context for this circus; a real discussion about white privilege.

My background gives me a somewhat unique perspective on white privilege. Thanks to magnet schools, I attended schools wherein I was an ethnic minority (an predominately Mexican American junior high in Sand Diego and predominantly African American high school in Cincinnati), but lived in predominantly white neighborhoods. Not only did I learn a lot about Mexican Americans and African Americans, but I also learned a lot about Whites. One thing I learned was that very few Whites think of themselves as racists, and a great many take pride in being “color-blind”. What those white folks don’t realize is that so-called “color-blindness” is a mild form of racism.

Racism certainly has degrees, from the gas chamber to the white hood to the exclusive country club to the awkward conversation, and the notion of “color-blindness” is among the mildest types, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely innocent. In a way, it’s insidious. The white person who buys the line can pat him or herself on the back, point to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and then turn around and point the finger at anyone who brings up race or racism and say, “See? They’re the racist.”

This is the context for the circumstances that led up to the Shirley Sherrod debacle. The NAACP demanded that the Tea Party reject racism within its ranks. This was done in a ham-fisted way, and offended a lot of people in the Tea Party who not only aren’t racist, but take great pride in not being racist (often to a degree that is, in fact, racist). One of the main problems with the NAACP’s statement is that it was directed at a group without leadership. Hell, they barely have a platform. How can a group that can’t articulate what policies they want to have put in place beyond sound bites the fit on placards go about systematically rooting individuals from their midst? It’s not like they have a membership test and those who check the “I agree with Glenn Beck that Obama is only interested in Health Care because it’s a form of reparations for slavery” box will be refused a membership card. The Tea Party can’t kick people out, but the Republican Party can, and the NAACP miscalculated by trying to remain non-partisan rather than asking Republican candidates to refuse to take money from Tea Party sub-organizations that espouse racist beliefs, inflame racial hatred, or tolerate racist rhetoric. As Frank Rich wrote this last week, “The Tea Party Express fronted by Williams is an indisputable Republican subsidiary. It was created by prominent G.O.P. political consultants in California and raises money for G.O.P. candidates, including Sharron Angle, Harry Reid’s Senate opponent in Nevada. But Republican leaders, presiding over a Congressional delegation with no blacks and a party that nearly mirrors it, remain in hiding whenever racial controversies break out under their tent. ‘I am not interested in getting into that debate,’ said Mitch McConnell last week.” The NAACP could have called those folks out. Instead, it went after a movement without a spokesperson. That was dumb.

Andrew Breitbart’s response was to pull a variation on the playground turn-around. “I’m not a racist. You’re a racist!” So he tried to paint the NAACP as racist using Shirley Sherrod. He has not backed down from this, even now, claiming that the crowd’s reaction to Sherrod’s speech implicates them as racists. I say that’s bull, but watch the whole thing for yourself and be the judge. You’ll be doing more homework than Breitbart did.

But why would Breitbart have calculated that this line of reasoning would play in the first place? After all, it’s inherently illogical. If I’m standing in the middle of the street and a police officer runs over and sites me for jaywalking, I can’t defend myself by saying, “I am not because you’re doing it too.” This line of reasoning didn’t counter the claims of racism within the Tea Party at all. Those have been challenged, but because there have been racist signs at rallies and reliable accounts of racist behavior, the reasonable defense would really be about the nature of the Tea Party movement and the lack of control of its fringe elements. That’s a bit nuanced for our sound-bite age, especially for a movement not known to be fans of nuance. It’s easier to play to a preconception, let’s call it the “He who smelt it dealt it” model, which dictates that the first person to bring up race or identify racism is the real racist. Unfortunately, that model is patently false, and it’s also racist.

It’s wrong because racism does exist. I could defend this claim with a hundred anecdotal examples I’ve seen with my own eyes, with statistics, links to racist organizations currently operating in the United States. But I won’t, because if someone believes there’s no real racism in this country, they’re a lost cause. Ditto for the people who believe that, thanks to “reverse-racism”, Whites have it worse off. That’s what Martin Luther King Jr. called “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”, and he was right to say it’s the most dangerous thing in the world. My friend at edgeofthepacific writes that the NAACP should be abolished because it’s been so ineffectual recently. I would argue that there’s still plenty of work for them to do, but agree that they need to refocus their energy and devise better, less reactive strategies if they don’t want to be overtaken by more effective groups like colorofchange.org

One dialogue the NAACP could actively engage is the “he who smelt it dealt it model”. This model is not only wrong, it’s also racist, because it’s rooted in an ignorance about white privilege. I’ve heard this expressed a number of ways, but they can generally be distilled to claims of “color-blindness”. Here’s the thing, though; racial color-blindness is a luxury only Whites can afford. Martin Luther King’s dream of a world where people are judged by the content of the character rather than the color of their skin is a goal, but ignoring racism is not the means to get there.

Years ago, I was in a multi-culturalism class taught by a Mexican American woman, and we were discussing race. One of the white teachers tried to explain that she refused to see the teacher’s skin color or heritage, and that’s why she didn’t think of herself as a racist. “But what is my heritage is important to me?” the teacher asked. “What if I like the color of my skin?” The white teacher was shocked. She’d never considered the fact that her color-blindness was dismissive and even hurtful. How could she have grown up without considering the importance of a cultural identity to someone from a minority group? Easy. She was white, lived in an almost entirely white world, and therefore could afford to ignore issues of race and racism if she felt like it. Racial minorities don’t have that luxury.

This came up again just this week in a conversation in the classes I’m currently taking. One teacher pointed us to this research, which shows that when whites attempt to display colorblindness they actually come off worse in interracial interaction, as their self-editing can be misinterpreted (or perhaps correctly interpreted) as insensitivity or outright disregard. In my experience (and I know this is only anecdotal evidence) ethnic minorities are far more comfortable bringing up race in interracial conversation, both mine and their own. I don’t think it’s a huge leap to theorize that this difference can be explained by the fact that minorities have to come into contact with whites more often than whites have to come into contact with minorities. One of the teachers in the room was flabbergasted by this research. “So what are we supposed to do?” she asked. “Just walk up to somebody and say, ‘Hi. I notice you’re Black.’?” That’s white privilege. She wasn’t racist, and she wasn’t trying to be rude. She just didn’t know how to navigate an interracial conversation about the topic of race so she preferred to avoid the topic. And she can do that. Because she’s white.

I worry that this Shirley Sherrod fiasco will blow over, caught up in the next turn of the twenty-four hour news tornado (though it may get some legs from this or this), and we’ll miss an opportunity to have a real discussion about white privilege. Chalk that up to the growing list of opportunities for real dialogue that this administration has missed in its efforts to be non-partisan (a real dialogue about the costs of war, a real dialogue about the dangers of oil dependence, a real dialogue about class disparity and tax policy, etc., etc.). That’s a shame, because ignoring the topic of race doesn’t make racism go away.

The Case of Wall Street Journal Vs. To Kill a Mockinbird

The next case before the court; Wall Street Journal vs. To Kill a Mockingbird.

In this piece in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Allen Barra takes on the pressing journalistic task of attacking a 50 year old book. Critiquing literature considered to be sacrosanct isn't so much the job of journalists as it is of undergrad lit. majors, but let's put that aside and take the piece on its merits. The thrust of Barra's critique is that the book is juvenile because the points it makes are obvious. "There is no ambiguity in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'; at the end of the book, we know exactly what we knew at the beginning: that Atticus Finch is a good man, that Tom Robinson was an innocent victim of racism, and that lynching is bad." In contrast, Barra praises books which contain "...some quality of moral ambiguity, some potentially controversial element that keeps the book from being easily grasped or explained. One hundred years from now, critics will still be arguing about the real nature of the relationship between Tom and Huck, or why Gatsby gazed at that green light at the end of the dock across the harbor."

I teach Mockingbird, and will continue doing so despite Barra's dismissal. For one thing, I teach the book to 9th graders. Not to insult the intelligence of my students, but they are learning to read literature, and what a more experienced reader calls "moral ambiguity", a younger reader often calls "confusing". It's wonderful when a class can really get into a rip-roaring debate about why Gatzby fixated on the green light, what it symbolized, and how their interpretations changed their reading experience, but contemporary students lose interest not just in the story they are reading when faced with such ambiguities, but may also lose interest in reading literature all together. Books like "Mockingbird" give them a foundational positive reading experience which they can fall back on when they want to dismiss all literature as a waste of time; it produces a fond memory of a book they understood and enjoyed. Moreover, the book is not easy. In the first chapter, Lee uses words like "taciturn". Students may not wrestle with moral ambiguity in the book, but they do have to struggle with comprehension, so that when they understand the text they feel they've earned something, and that confidence follows them into more intellectually demanding books.

Clearly Barra isn't a teacher, and doesn't make claims about when the book might be developmentally appropriate. Instead, one gets the sense that he finds the book so lacking in value that it should be shelved all together. First of all, good luck with that. Does he think public schools can afford to buy more books? I'm sure he would dismiss that concern as more "bloodless liberal humanism [which] is sadly dated". In education, we call that reality.

But his critique is fundamentally flawed. The notion that the injustices presented in the book are too obvious ignores the way literature often works. Symbols are often obvious, but gain their power from the fact that they represent signified which can be incredibly complex. When this is done poorly, it's reductive. It can make the reader feel like solutions are simple because the symbols are transparent. But Mockingbird does nothing of the kind. When we recognize the injustice done to Tom Robinson, this does not immediately translate into justice for him. When we recognize Atticus' virtue, this does not provide him with success or happiness. This incongruity produces complex questions just as challenging and far more relevant than Gatsby's green light. Why, when we know something is unjust, can't we simply make it right? Why does virtue not produce success? Why doesn't goodness necessarily lead to happiness? If the morals of the story are easy enough for ninth graders, I would challenge any adult of any age, any level of education, or any position with any newspaper of any reputation, to provide answers to these questions that aren't replete with ambiguity.

Beyond this literary analysis question, I doubt Barra's central assumption that the ideas he dismisses as overly obvious are so straightforward to all readers. Perhaps he's unaware of some facts:

Our country, over the last decade, has repeatedly taken innocent people from their homes here in the U.S. and abroad, prevented them from having legitimate trials wherein they could prove that innocence, tortured them (using the same techniques we deemed to be torture when prosecuting those who did the same things to our solders during WWII), and in a few cases killing them. If lynching is bad, a kangaroo court producing a ridiculous verdict is bad, Tom Robinson getting shot while ostensibly escaping from jail is bad, and we all find these to be so obvious, why do we allow the terror policies of our government to remain?

During the last election some students at George Fox University (where, full disclosure, I received my Masters-in-Teaching) hung an effigy of Barack Obama from a tree. If it's obvious that lynching is bad, why didn't they know better?

In the state of California, in the next few days or weeks, a judge may allow the voters of that state to strip legally married individuals of the social contract conferred in their marriage licenses because of the voters' prejudice against them. If it's so obvious that Tom Robinson is an innocent victim of racism, and if we should teach superior literature which contains more moral ambiguity, wouldn't we assume that adults possess the skills necessary to abstract from one straight forward symbol to a similar instance of injustice?

I will concede to my dated, liberal humanist beliefs, but they aren't bloodless. In fact, it gets my blood pumping pretty fast when anyone implies that we don't need to keep on hearing lessons we've still failed to grasp.