Why-Because I'm A Black Man In America?

[Diemen]

Darrin,

Just go practice your guitar, I would rather listen to you sing.
I don't want you to get in trouble w Diemen again.



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Diamond, once again your patronizing tone is completely uncalled for.

 

[VintagePunk]

What I find most amusing is that they've been brainwashed by mainstream media and not...say...their own experience, or the experiences of those they know. Msm is responsible for everything, y'know.

 

[diamond]

Diamond, once again your patronizing tone is completely uncalled for.

a toast to sober equanimity!

seriously good job adam.

 

[diamond]

again, black people need to stop letting being black affect them so that they can't see reality.

.

Shelby Steele disagrees w you.

Reposting because I think Irvine just plopped into the discussion late:

OPINION AUGUST 1, 2009, 9:45 P.M. ET From Emmitt Till to Skip Gates

Black victim, white oppressor. It’s a narrative we know well.

By SHELBY STEELE
If the Henry Louis Gates imbroglio makes anything clear it is that, in 2009, the mere implication of racial profiling in the arrest of a black professor on the nothing charge of disorderly conduct is sufficient to trigger a national (if not international) furor involving even the president of the United States. This incident shows us an America so chastened by its racist past—and so determined to overcome that past—that, at least for a moment, the national politics (health care, Iran, recession) stopped as the country combed over a six-minute encounter between a black academic and a white policeman.

I remember when another racial incident riveted the nation. It was the mid-1950s. I was just old enough to be sent to the barbershop on my own, and there one afternoon I noticed the men passing around a magazine. There were hushed whispers. “Don’t let him see it.” And then a booming voice, “Go ahead. He needs to see it!”

And suddenly, there before me was a photograph of the worst thing I had ever seen: the bludgeoned and mangled body of Emmitt Till, the 14-year-old black boy killed by whites in Mississippi for supposedly looking at or whistling at a white woman. He was a Chicago boy (like me) who had gone South to visit family and had simply walked into this terrible fate.

Emmitt Till had walked into a cultural narrative in which his role was already tragically written. It was a narrative designed to preserve white supremacy. So it gave power—the right to kill—to any white claiming to defend the honor of white women. Whether Emmitt Till whistled at or stared at the woman, or did nothing at all (there is much debate here), he somehow affronted white supremacy and annihilation was his punishment. His murderers were exonerated. Everyone in America knew this cultural narrative. Anyone could have told him not to whistle at that white woman.

We all know these cultural narratives, which is to say that we all know exactly where racial power abides in a given situation. When a white woman pointed her finger at a black man in the old South and cried “rape,” everyone knew a black man would die. But it wasn’t the innate innocence of white women that brought them this imperial power. It was the role their “innocence” played in the preservation of white supremacy and all the social, economic and political advantages that grew out of it.




And didn’t Mr. Gates—jet-lagged and vulnerable—know exactly where to find power when he was confronted in his home by Sgt. James Crowley? Didn’t he—a lifelong student of African-American culture—know precisely the cultural narrative that would serve him best? Moreover, don’t we all know this narrative? Black victim, white oppressor. Here he was, no longer young, slight of build, professorial in look, and still he was under suspicion of being a common burglar in his own home. Add to this the fact that he knew himself to be utterly innocent. Out of these simple facts a sense of racial victimization could have easily developed within him. Few blacks would not at least wonder at this point if they were not being racially profiled.

But this is not really the point. Many a Southern belle would have known she was being ogled by an uppity black man. She would have known that a cultural narrative—heated up by the nuclear taboos of sex and race—put the power of life and death at her disposal. But when would she have actually pulled the cultural trigger and set into motion those forces that would surely end in the annihilation of a black man? The great question in the Gates story is why he put himself so quickly into the cultural narrative, why he screamed “racial profiling” more quickly than a Southern belle might have once screamed “rape?”

The answer may be as simple as Mr. Gates’s fatigue after international travel—a physical depletion that may have darkened him into seeing a tormentor where there was only a protector. After all, here was a white policeman—crisp and confident—demanding ID of him inside his own home. There are moments when one wants one’s station in life—hard earned in Mr. Gates’s case—to be a buffer against indignity. Who is above this?

Yet—if reports are correct—Mr. Gates challenged the initial request for ID by asking if it came because he was a “black man in America.” Most blacks would have stopped at the word “black.” But Mr. Gates is an intellectual, a man ever aware of cultural and political resonances. “Black man in America” was a grab for historical resonance. If you are just Skip Gates (as he is known to friends), then you have only a citizen’s power. But if you are a “black man in America” confronted by a white cop in your own home, then you can frame the moment as an echo of history. Your humiliation at the hands of this unwitting white cop becomes a cruel historical redundancy.

The great drama at the core of American race relations is always the same: Can black Americans ever be truly equal—are they capable of achieving it and are others capable of accepting it? Mr. Gates put himself inside a cultural narrative that said blacks could achieve it but whites could never accept it. (His 50 honorary degrees did not save him from having to produce ID in his own house.) This narrative sees whites as incorrigible bigots and supremacists. It was once true and it gave blacks great moral power. But it doesn’t work so well in modern America, as the Gates affair makes clear. Handcuffs were Sgt. Crowley’s answer to Mr. Gates’s moral muscling.

But then Skip Gates was tired. What was President Barack Obama’s excuse? Why did he step into the same cultural narrative that Mr. Gates had tried and failed with?

Where race is concerned, I sometimes think of the president as the Peter Sellers character in “Dr. Strangelove.” Sellers plays a closet Nazi whose left arm—quite involuntarily—keeps springing up into the Heil Hitler salute. We see him in his wheelchair, his right arm—the good and decent arm—struggling to keep the Nazi arm down so that no one will know the truth of his inner life. These wrestling matches between the good and bad arms were hysterically funny.

When I saw Mr. Obama—with every escape route available to him—wade right into the Gates affair at the end of his health-care news conference, I knew that his demon arm had momentarily won out over his good arm. It broke completely free—into full salute—in the “acted stupidly” comment that he made in reference to the Cambridge police’s handling of the matter. Here was the implication that whites were such clumsy and incorrigible racists that even the most highly achieved blacks lived in constant peril of racial humiliation. This was a cultural narrative, a politics, and in the end it was a bigotry. It let white Americans see a president who doubted them.

Mr. Obama’s “post-racialism” was a promise to operate outside of tired cultural narratives. But he has a demon arm of reflexive racialism—identity politics, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and now Skip Gates. You can only put a demon like this to death by finding out what you really believe. We should hold Mr. Obama to his post-racialism, and he should get to know himself well enough to tell us what he really means by it. As for the odd triad of Messrs. Gates, Crowley and Obama, only Mr. Crowley seems to have functioned outside his cultural narrative.

Please don't go hating on Shelby Steele because he chooses to think objectively ...

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[Irvine511]

Shelby Steele disagrees w you.

oh, then it's settled.

he's one of the good ones.

 

[diamond]

dont b hating..

 

[Irvine511]

i didn't hate. i just don't think that posting Shelby Steele settles anything.

reasonable people can disagree. however, i don't think it's reasonable to pat "black people" on the head and tell them they are brainwashed into worrying about things like racial profiling.

 

[diamond]

nobody patted anyone on the head.
somebody accuse someone of something untrue
and some people have chose to move forward and not hold on to their past.

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[anitram]

Who is this Shelby Steele and when was he appointed spokesman for all black people?

 

[diamond]

all black ppl?

I only see a conscientious person that looks at a situation honestly and with equanimity.

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[Irvine511]

Who is this Shelby Steele and when was he appointed spokesman for all black people?

he's "conservative."

hence, he's the only black man that matters to some.

he's a lovely writer, no question, and he's routinely cited by conservatives whenever situations like this come up.

 

[yolland]

.

That was quite a series of projections you made there, considering I hadn't even offered any personal commentary on the CNN poll. Interesting. I never argued that Gates' arrest was racially motivated; I argued that it was a wrongful arrest. I never suggested Gates' behavior at the time was commendable; on the contrary, I repeatedly said the opposite (though it doesn't matter; First and Fourth Amendment rights aren't contingent on being Mr. Congeniality towards police). Black Panthers? waterboarding? Heck does that have to do with anything?

This is systemic to the problem, we've all been subconsciously coached on how to view racial issues by the powers to be, namely the media. This is done by the media over hyping a few bad stories to serve a greater agenda.

It's not "brainwashing" or "subconscious coaching," and anyone can easily look up much of the relevant data online themselves. For example, according to the US Department of Justice, blacks nationwide are more than twice as likely as whites (9.5% to 3.6%) to have their vehicles searched for illegal possessions when pulled over--even though searches on whites are more than twice as likely (17% to 8%) to actually turn up illegal possessions (mostly drugs). The same DoJ datasets also note that blacks nationwide are more than three times as likely as whites (4.4% to 1.2%) to have force used against them by police when pulled over (gun drawn, grabbing, shoving, etc.). According to the NY State Attorney General, the records of the NYPD, the US' largest police force, show that their officers are 2.43 times more likely to stop-and-frisk blacks than whites for weapons checks--even after adjusting for weapons possession arrest rates and precinct demographics by race (in other words, no, it can't be attributed to 'But blacks are more likely to have an illegal weapon'). Any search on Lexis-Nexis or the like will turn up similar data from other urban police departments around the country.

These kinds of discrepancies, which have characterized the US criminal justice system for decades (not just in policing, the topic at hand, but in sentencing as well), can't be accounted for by easy counternarratives like "a few bad cops"--a nice piece of wishful thinking which simultaneously manages to slight not only the alienating experiences with law enforcement of thousands and thousands of African-Americans, but also the overwhelmingly well-intentioned (and well-trained) officers who after all still do a lot better than most of us at resisting their subconscious racial biases. Why do you suppose the Lowell Police Academy considered all those racial profiling classes Officer Crowley co-taught a necessary part of their curriculum in the first place?

 

[Irvine511]

These kinds of discrepancies, which have characterized the US criminal justice system for decades (not just in policing, the topic at hand, but in sentencing as well), can't be accounted for by easy counternarratives like "a few bad cops"--a nice piece of whimsical thinking which simultaneously manages to slight not only the alienating experiences with law enforcement of thousands and thousands of African-Americans, but also the overwhelmingly well-intentioned (and well-trained) officers who after all still do a lot better than most of us at resisting their subconscious racial biases. Why do you suppose the Lowell Police Academy considered all those racial profiling classes Officer Crowley co-taught a necessary part of their curriculum in the first place?

it seems that media bias has brainwashed even our academic literati.

 

[diamond]

That was quite a series of projections you made there, considering I hadn't even offered any personal commentary on the CNN poll. Interesting. I never argued that Gates' arrest was racially motivated; I argued that it was a wrongful arrest. I never suggested Gates' behavior at the time was commendable; on the contrary, I repeatedly said the opposite (though it doesn't matter; First and Fourth Amendment rights aren't contingent on being Mr. Congeniality towards police). Black Panthers? waterboarding? Heck does that have to do with anything?

It's not "brainwashing" or "subconscious coaching," and anyone can easily look up much of the relevant data online themselves. For example, according to the US Department of Justice, blacks nationwide are more than twice as likely as whites (9.5% to 3.6%) to have their vehicles searched for illegal possessions when pulled over--even though searches on whites are more than twice as likely (17% to 8%) to actually turn up illegal possessions (mostly drugs). The same DoJ datasets also note that blacks nationwide are more than three times as likely as whites (4.4% to 1.2%) to have force used against them by police when pulled over (gun drawn, grabbing, shoving, etc.). According to the NY State Attorney General, the records of the NYPD, the US' largest police force, show that their officers are 2.43 times more likely to stop-and-frisk blacks than whites for weapons checks--even after adjusting for weapons possession arrest rates and precinct demographics by race (in other words, no, it can't be attributed to 'But blacks are more likely to have an illegal weapon'). Any search on Lexis-Nexis or the like will turn up similar data from other urban police departments around the country.

These kinds of discrepancies, which have characterized the US criminal justice system for decades (not just in policing, the topic at hand, but in sentencing as well), can't be accounted for by easy counternarratives like "a few bad cops"--a nice piece of whimsical thinking which simultaneously manages to slight not only the alienating experiences with law enforcement of thousands and thousands of African-Americans, but also the overwhelmingly well-intentioned (and well-trained) officers who after all still do a lot better than most of us at resisting their subconscious racial biases. Why do you suppose the Lowell Police Academy considered all those racial profiling classes Officer Crowley co-taught a necessary part of their curriculum in the first place?

Good post, and enlightening.

You do agree however the country is moving in a post racial direction though I hope?

I can't speak to the actions of certain police officers, I would have to dissect the numbers and wonder if black police officers do this to black suspects in similar proportions, in other words is it a cop only vs black thing or white vs black thing.

I do have had black friends that complained about being profiled in the past who are not gang members-so I do empathize with that fact. It would be very infuriating.
Here's another poll since the event:

Obama’s Approval Rating Drops


By Kristin Jensen

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling amid concerns about the U.S. economy and his push to revamp the U.S. health-care system, a Quinnipiac University poll shows.

Exactly half of the registered voters surveyed from July 27 to Aug. 3 by Quinnipiac said they approve of the job Obama is doing, compared with 42 percent who disapprove. That’s down from 57 percent approval and 33 percent disapproval in a poll taken in late June, according to results released today.

Americans are upset about rising unemployment and worried that health-care plans making their way through Congress will add to the U.S. budget deficit, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Hamden, Connecticut-based polling institute. The combination has helped drive down the president’s ratings.

A “willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt is, among some voters, evaporating,” Brown told reporters in Washington yesterday.

The poll found that voters disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy by 49 percent to 45 percent. On his effort to overhaul of the health-care system, 52 percent disapprove of his handling of the issue while 39 percent approve.

Only foreign policy offered a bright spot: 52 percent of poll respondents approved of his job on this front, compared with 38 percent who disapproved.

Quinnipiac took the poll in the middle of a controversy over Obama’s remarks about the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates, who is black, was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after a confrontation at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a white police officer.

Obama, asked about the incident during a July 22 news conference, said police “acted stupidly” in making the arrest. In the poll, voters by 49 percent to 33 percent said Obama acted “stupidly” when he waded into the matter. Even so, 55 percent said they approved of the way Obama is handling race relations.

The poll surveyed 2,409 registered voters nationwide and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 6, 2009 06:30 EDT

 

[yolland]

You do agree however the country is moving in a post racial direction though I hope?

In the big picture, sure. If and when we reach the point where any assertion that "You've got it in for me because I'm black/white/Latino/etc." literally sounds as ludicrous to us as an assertion that "You've got it in for me because I have a mole on my cheek," when it can evoke only confused incredulity rather than defensive anger and indignation, then I think we'll have a 'post-racial' society. Obviously we're quite a long way from that yet.

I can't speak to the actions of certain police officers, I would have to dissect the numbers and wonder if black police officers do this to black suspects in similar proportions, in other words is it a cop only vs black thing or white vs black thing.

That's a good bit tougher to find data for. The DoJ and FBI don't track and sort incident/arrest data by officer's race; individual PDs sometimes do, as do occasional independent studies, but basically we're talking much more piecemeal data there, harder to reliably identify trends with. I have seen some data to the effect that black and white officers differ somewhat in which forms of intermediate-level force they tend to resort to (pepper spray vs. Tasers, etc.), but not on stop-and-frisk or traffic-stop comparisons or stuff like that. Some of the more widely used means of testing for subconscious racial bias, such as the Implicit Association Test, have found that the majority of white participants show distinctly more negative associations with black faces than with white ones, whereas black participants appear to be evenly divided between favoring white faces, favoring black faces, and showing no preference; that in theory might predict that black officers would be considerably less likely to show bias towards (at least) black suspects in terms of some of the statistical trends mentioned in my previous post. But obviously that's just a hypothesis.

I do have had black friends that complained about being profiled in the past who are not gang members-so I do empathize with that fact. It would be very infuriating.

I think quiet resentment is a much more common response to those kinds of experiences than fury. But the problem is bigger than policing, of course; it involves broader, collective distrusts from both ends (sometimes conscious, sometimes not), which often both precede and follow any such incidents. For example, more than one black male friend has told me that when he's walking alone at night and sees a white woman walking alone approaching on the same side of the street, he automatically crosses to the opposite side--because shifting the situation through his own volition feels less shitty than continuing on as he is until she most likely crosses to the other side herself for fear of him, something he suspects she's much less likely to do with a white man (and he'd generally be right in that suspicion, even though, once again, the actual statistical trends would favor the reverse 'strategy'). These kinds of 'subtle' dynamics have consequences, they add up; they're often not based on reason, however much we might try to ex post facto justify them to ourselves as such; and the temptation to rush to do so can itself be a major obstacle to initiating and sustaining honest discussions about race.