A (Purportedly) Colorblind World

From last week's newspapers: There are now more "Hispanics" (1.48 million) than whites (1.44 million) living in Harris County, Texas. And persons who happen not to be white make up a majority of approximately one third of the nation's most populous counties.

The SCLC And Michael Vick

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference may honor Atlanta Falcons quarterback and dog enthusiast Michael Vick at the organization's annual convention. "We will work with anyone who opens their heart and arms to us," said SCLC president Charles Steele (who may want to revisit that standard).

The N Word In A (Purportedly) Colorblind World

The law school at Roger Williams University is named after Ralph R. Papitto, the longtime chairman of the university's board of trustees. At a May 2 trustee meeting, in which the participants were discussing the lack of racial and gender diversity on the board, Papitto (age 80, if that matters) reportedly became agitated and said: "They want us to add more poor kids and they want us to add more, well, I can't call them niggers, I learned that from Imus."

Papitto has resigned from the board to (here it comes) spend more time with his family. An effort to remove his name from the law school has commenced.

A colorblind world indeed.

Loving v. Virginia

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia, wherein the Court held that a Virginia statute banning interracial marriages violated the Constitution's Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.

Recommended

Ian F. Haney Lopez, "A Nation of Minorities": Race, Ethnicity, and Reactionary Colorblindness, 59 Stanford Law Review 985 (2007).

Bill O'Reilly's Colorphobia

Interviewing Republican presidential candidate John McCain on the May 30, 2007 broadcast of his show The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly, never shy in expressing an opinion, said that open borders for "illegal aliens" would "change, pardon the pun, the whole complexion of America. Am I wrong?" McCain responded, "No, you're right." O'Reilly later accused the New York Times and the "far left" of trying to (in O'Reilly's words) "break down the white Christian male power structure of which you (McCain) are part and so am I."


O'Reilly apparently agrees with Pat Buchanan, who has proclaimed that "White America is in flight." This is a colorblind country? Yeah, right. Where is the news media? Where is the outrage (real or faked)?

Recommended

Arnold Rampersad's Ralph Ellison: A Biography.

Profiling The Bengals (Or "Oops")

On Wednesday of last week Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis appeared on Dan Patrick's ESPN radio show. Asked by Patrick if a traffic stop of Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry for not signaling while turning was an indication of profiling, Lewis responded, "I think there's profiling, no question. [Cincinnati] is a small place, our guys stand out, and they know that and you've got to do things the right way, but when you are arrested for, or you are pulled over for not putting on your turn signal, there's something wrong there. Many people make right turns without putting on their turn signals and that's unfortunate that we've had a guy that's pulled over for not putting on his turn signal."

Lewis the next day: "Yesterday, I gave a radio interview and made some comments that did not illustrate the high regard I have for the Cincinnati Police Department. I apologize that what I said did not reflect my true feelings." "I have spoken with [Cincinnati police chief] Tom [Streicher] to express my regret. I do not believe the Cincinnati Police Department is specifically profiling our players." "At no point did I say or mean to imply that these issues had anything to do with race. Broadcast comments to the contrary are simply not true. When I spoke of our players being perhaps more subject to scrutiny than others, I was referring to their standing as public figures."

Oops, I did not mean what I said and explained in detail. Yeah, right.

More People Of Color

According to the United States Census Bureau, as of 2006 100. 7 million persons in this country (one in three Americans) is "Hispanic," black or of Asian descent. Minority-majority states: Hawaii (75%), New Mexico (57%), California (57%), and Texas (52%). Number of African Americans in the United States: now over 40 million.

Racial Culture?

A federal district court in Charleston, South Carolina recently ruled in favor of a white teacher who was verbally abused and subjected to a racially hostile work environment by her students who happened to be black. The teacher was called a white b__, a white m___ f___, a white c___, and a white h_. When she complained, school officials responded that the slurs were part of the culture of the students and advised her to find another school if she could not handle the language. A jury awarded the teacher $307,500 in lost income and emotional distress damages; when the judge affirmed the liability ruling but required a new trial on damages the parties settled the case for $200,000.

It's not "black culture," it's ignorant and abusive and indefensible behavior.

Alright Paula Zahn!!

Tonight's Paula Zahn Now featured three people of color discussing--not Don Imus or hip hop or Al Shartpon--but Rudy Guiliani's position on abortion and the ramifications of his pro-choice stance on his election prospects. Let's hope that more media folks recognize that persons of color know and can discuss and are interested in more than the "black story" du jour.

White Males And Company Diversity

The Wall Street Journal Online recently ran a story on the enlistment of white males to head company diversity initiatives. "It's part of an effort to get diversity programs off the sidelines and into the mainstream of the business" and "can help bring other white males on board, the theory goes." White males head up diversity programs at Coca-Cola and other major companies.

Barack the Magic Negro

Rush Limbaugh has been airing a parody entitled Barack the Magic Negro on his nationally syndicated radio program. Focusing on Senator and Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama (Limbaugh refers to Obama as a "halfafrican-american"), the parody includes the following lyrics by an Al Sharpton imitator: "vote for him and not for me 'cause he's not from da hood."

Recent news accounts report that Obama has been receiving hate e-mail and letters, that CBSNews.com decided not to enable comments on Obama stories after some commentators posted racist remarks, and that members of the United States Congress have recommended that Obama be provided with Secret Service protection.

A colorblind society indeed.

America's Next Black Leader

Columnist Clarence Page has written about Reverend Paul Scott's "America's Next Black Leader" YouTube contest. Page writes that "Americans since [Martin Luther] King don't seem to find out who their black leaders are until the media tell them." Scott has invited persons to post a video on YouTube "if you feel that you are sharper than Sharpton, bring more action than Jackson and create more drama than Obama." Only four persons have posted videos so far.

Traffic Stops And Race And Ethnicity

According to a special report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, approximately 19% of U.S. residents age 16 or older experienced a face-to-face contact with a police officer in 2005.

In that same year 8.8% of all drivers in the United States were stopped by police. The stoppage rates for whites was 8.9%; blacks, 8.1%; and Hispanics/Latinos, 8.9%.

The race/ethnic demographics of those drivers who were stopped by the police and were then searched: white, 3.6%; black, 9.5%; and Hispanic/Latino, 8.8%.

It's 2007, Right?

Last Saturday the students at Turner County High School in Ashburn, Georgia attended their first racially integrated prom. That's right, their first racially integrated prom, breaking a tradition in which black and white students attended separate proms with separate (one white, one black) homecoming queens.

The separatist tradition was not rejected by all, however, as the prom for white students was held a week before the integrated prom. One student, quoted by CNN, asked her classmates why they would not attend the tradition-breaking prom. According to her they answered, "'My mommy and daddy--they don't agree with being with the colored people,' which I think is crazy." Crazy indeed.

Where's The Outrage?

If the Imus affair was of such importance that, for many, the world literally stopped to contemplate and condemn his actions, where is the outrage over (1) recent reports of a spike in the infant mortality rate in Mississippi and several southern states and (2) Sunday's "60 Minutes" story on the "Stop Snitching" phenomenon in which persons refuse to deal with and assist the police in addressing and trying to solve crimes?

Increasing rates of infant mortality should concern us at least as much as (I would argue more than) the rantings of the I-man. The reasons for this increase, including the unavailability of health and and prenatal care, should (but won't) grab the nation's attention and won't be the subject of wall-to-wall cable news coverage. And telling and teaching people not to consort with the "man" as the police try to find out who robbed or assaulted or murdered one of our fellow citizens sends a message that the lives of those victimized by the beneficiaries of this silly silence don't count at all or as much. To say this is not to criticize those who are afraid to come forward out of fear of retaliation. But that fear and the reality of possible if not probable retaliation is only fueled by those who repeat the "stop snitching" mantra for street cred or financial gain or in furtherance of some distorted devotion to "keeping it real."

Imus is gone (at least for now) and there is ample room for the new and next outrage of the week. Too bad that it won't concern infant mortality and the "Stop Snitching" campaign.

Names

"It's not what you call me, it's what I answer to." Author unknown.

Can't Make It Up

1. Discussing the I-Messed Up incident on Hannity & Colmes, Sean Hannity asks Ann Coulter to discuss the assumed moral authority of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. That's right, Ann Coulter. Oh man.
2. From the "I can't believe I'm saying this" category: On John Gibson's Fox News program Bo Dietl, an Imus defender ("with friends like these . . ."), emphasized that Senator Barack Obama's middle name was Hussein. Dick Morris--DICK MORRIS--correctly accused Dietl of spewing "racist garbage." I usually change the channel whenever I see Morris's face on television, but this time I watched and found myself agreeing with Morris, for the first and probably last time. What a world.

One More Imus-Related Comment

When did the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson become the arbiters of all things moral and righteous?

The Demise Of The "Imus In The Morning" Show

Don Imus has now been fired by both NBC and CBS. Whether this penalty is proportionate to the offense (no tears are being shed here) is and will continue to be debated.

A number of important issues and subjects remain to be considered and addressed in the aftermath of the Imus incident. In focusing on Imus we should not lose sight of the wonderful young women of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights women's basketball team who were the targets of the venomous and repugnant "nappy headed hos" statement. Focus on and support Coach Vivian Stringer's team: Katie Adams, Matee Avajon, Essence Carson (who writes poetry and plays the piano, bass guitar, drums, and the saxophone), Dee Dee Jernigan, Rashidat Junaid, Myia McCurdy, Epiphanny Prince, Judith Brittany Ray, Kia Vaughn, and Heather Zunich.

Focus on the fact that Imus and his sidekicks, including his longtime producer Bernard McGuirk, have a long history of disparaging persons and groups on the basis of race, sex, and religion. For instance, as Bob Herbert reports in today's New York Times, in a July 1998 "60 Minutes' interview with Mike Wallace, Wallace said to Imus, "You told Tom Anderson," a 60 Minutes producer, "that Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes." When Imus denied using the n-word Wallace asked Anderson whether Imus had in fact used that epithet. Anderson: "I recall you using that word." Imus: "Oh, O.K. Well, then I used that word. But I mean--of course, that was an off-the-record conversation." And just last month McGuirk referred to Senator Hillary Clinton as a "bitch" and, commenting that she tried to "sound black" while giving a speech in Selma, Alabama, stated that the presidential candidate would "have cornrows and gold teeth before this fight" with Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic Party's nomination for President is over.

Focus on the fact that politicans and well-known members of the so-called mainstream media and the chattering class were frequent guests on "Imus in the Morning." Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Chris Dodd, and Rick Santorum; Representative and now Democratic Leadership Council chair Harold Ford, Jr.; journalists and pundits Tim Russert, David Gregory, Bob Schieffer, Tom Oliphant, Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Craig Crawford, Evan Thomas, Howard Fineman, Jon Meacham, Jonathan Alter, Frank Rich, Brian Williams, Paul Begala, James Carville, Mary Matalin, Pat Buchanan, Mike Barnicle, Jeff Greenfield, and others. In the wake of the slur of the Rutgers team Russert, Thomas, Begala, Carville, Fineman, Oliphant and Barnicle appeared on the show, while Friedman, Crawford, and Schieffer indicated that they would continue to appear on the program. The now cancelled program.

Focus on the fact that Imus is not the only person who has engaged in the degradation of black women, and that others who do so should be subjected to a rigorous critique of any sexist and racist images and stereotypes they project and inject into the culture. But also focus on and question the sudden concern with this issue expressed by some who suddenly became moral relativists as they argued and lectured that Imus was doing the same as and nothing more than what rappers (here, insert "black males") do when they who use the b-word and the h-word without criticism. To those I ask: where have you been? More than ten years ago the late C. Delores Tucker, as president of the National Congress of Black Women, challenged the music industry over the misogynist and violent and derogatory content of rap and rock recordings. In the early 1990s black ministers called for boycotts of hard-core rap and demanded that radio stations stop playing 2 Live Crew, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur. Writing in 1993 columnist William Raspberry asked, "What arrested emotional development has led so many young black men to feel this way? What self-contempt has led so many young black women to go along with it? What perversion of priorities has led the rest of us to ignore it for so long?" And let's not get it twisted: The denigration and objectification of women (and black women in particular) in music and in life has a long and sordid history and was not invented by rappers or hip-hop. Note that in "Brown Sugar" the Rolling Stones sing "she tastes so good . . . just like a black girl should."

Finally, focus on the good things Imus has done for a number of causes, including his ranch for kids with cancer, raising awareness about the rising rate of autism, raising money for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, supporting Harold Ford in his unsuccessful bid to win a Senate seat in Tennessee (today Imus criticized Ford for not publicly supporting him), etc. As Imus has said repeatedly, "I'm a good person." But being a good person does not excuse and does not license what he said and what he did to the good persons and members of the Rutgers basketball team.

Yet Another Apology

Don Imus, the so-called "shock jock," has issued an apology for calling the members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy headed hos." Apparently his apology will not be followed by an annoucement that he will enter rehab to explore his inner demons.