Talking honestly about race

Flotsam from this week's media flow that has stuck to my skin concerns reports about counties or districts in Virginia where people are 'trying to talk honestly about race.' I heard something similar on trash radio yesterday. It leaves me cold.

When white people say that they want to talk honestly about race, they usually mean that they want to be able to say racist things without people thinking they are racist. They want to confess to being scared or uncomfortable, and then be absolved. They want reassurance that they aren't alone in their racism. They want to tell a story about a white friend getting mistreated and a black person getting unjustly rewarded. They want to voice a difference between us and them and have that difference recognized and affirmed.

Notice: no one uses the catch phrase "honest discussion of race" to refer to a discussion of the history of slavery and segregation, the Tuskegee experiments, or the Supreme Court's recent backing away from Brown v. the Board of Education. It's as if history were somehow part of a dishonest discussion of race, a form of race deceit, betrayal or denial.

It's possible that black and brown people use the expression 'honest discussion about race' with something different in mind. But I don't think so. I think they are more likely not to use that expression at all and to use instead the term that's more appropriate: a discussion of continued racism in the US.

Comments

[Kareem]

Jodi, as a former student of yours, and an African-American... you never cease to amaze me.

Required viewing: On Hulu.com :
Daily Show Season 13 : Ep. 127 -
Of interest, the dumb vote.

Democratic enlightenment and heuristic tools Prof. D... I hope a majority has them on election day... moving on...

It is hard to talk about this subject.

On one hand there is the brutal truth of self reliance. Things are better now than they were then. There is however a problem, a false reinforcement of this truth by what I would call the "caricatures of black success"... we hear about them in the "pop" world... occasionally about their charitable deeds, but not of the inventors, thinkers and teachers that are also succeeding.
(To be clear, I’d also state that those caricatures also do damage to those in the “Trenches” – they see limited opportunities of escape.)

There is resentment and fear – not out of anyone’s fault. Being real, most of America lives in homogeneous bubbles, limited spheres of influence. The only thing that penetrates those spheres is the “pop”

In some cases it does inspire a desire to try to understand the “other”… it also can reinforce the hatred of how “seemingly” easily a life of luxury was obtained in hard times. And that is only one reason among many to hate the other within these spheres...spheres that honestly believed even up until recently that Osama worked with Saddam... How can you combat that? I wonder how is it possible to question such judgement without being low brow (to an extent) like the daily show clip i reference above..

Not everyone voting for McCain is doing so out of fear or hate… but there is an explosive level of fear fueling hate bubbling up that shouldn’t shock anyone… It has always been there…

[Jodi]

thanks, Kareem, for the comment and the references. You're right that not everyone is voting for M out of fear or hate. Some are doing it out of stupidity. Some out of greed. These may be the same people. I was driving today and listened to right wing radio. The hate-monger guy told his listeners that the Nation of Islam supported Obama. This would mean that if they supported Obama, his listeners would be agreeing with the Nation of Islam. Which, he implied, was unforgivable and wrong and the only way anyone could vote for Obama.