Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Thu 19 Feb 2009 00:44 Post subject: Holder: US a nation of cowards on racial matters
Quote:
Holder: US a nation of cowards on racial matters
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 23 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Eric Holder, the nation's first black attorney general, said Wednesday the United States was "a nation of cowards" on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues. In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.
"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," Holder said.
Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
Holder's speech echoed President Barack Obama's landmark address last year on race relations during the hotly contested Democratic primaries, when the then-candidate urged the nation to break "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years" and bemoaned the "chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." Obama delivered the speech to try to distance himself from the angry rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Holder cited that speech by Obama as part of the motivation for his words Wednesday, saying Americans need to overcome an ingrained inhibition against talking 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.
In the speech, Holder urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education and economic disparities.
Race, Holder said, "is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation's history, this is in some ways understandable... If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us."
In a country founded by slave owners, race has bedeviled the nation throughout its history, with blacks denied the right to vote just a few decades ago. Obama's triumph last November as well as the nomination of Holder stand as historic achievements of two black Americans.
Holder told hundreds of Justice Department employees gathered for the event that they have a special responsibility to advance racial understanding.
Even when people mix at the workplace or afterwork social events, Holder argued, many Americans in their free time are still segregated inside what he called "race-protected cocoons."
"Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad," said Holder.
Matt Miller, a spokesman for Holder, said later the attorney general used "provocative words to be clear that Americans of all races should stop avoiding the difficult issues of race."
Andrew Grant-Thomas, Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, praised Holder's general message but said the wording of the speech may alienate some.
"He's right on the substance, but that's probably not the most politic way of saying it. I'm certain there are people who will hear him and say, 'That's obnoxious,'" he said, adding that what was missing from Holder's speech were specific examples of what painful subjects need to be addressed.
Hilary Shelton, vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called the speech "constructively provocative."
"Nobody wants to be considered a coward. We've learned to get along by exclusion and silence. We need to talk about it. People need to feel comfortable saying the wrong things," said Shelton.
Holder is headed to Guantanamo Bay early next week to inspect the terrorist detention facility there. Obama has assigned Holder to lead a special task force aimed at closing the site within a year.
Holder's Justice Department will have to decide which suspects to bring to U.S. courts for trial, which to prosecute through the military justice system, and which to send back to their home countries.
When the cost of speaking honestly is so high people will remain "cowards" on racial issues.
And let us be honest, people like Holder really want honesty in racial discussions so they can go after their enemies once they reveal their true selves.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Thu 19 Feb 2009 16:33 Post subject:
G-Man wrote:
When the cost of speaking honestly is so high people will remain "cowards" on racial issues.
And let us be honest, people like Holder really want honesty in racial discussions so they can go after their enemies once they reveal their true selves.
Someone else said that today on right wing radio as I was coming to work, before I switched to NPR.
When the cost of speaking honestly is so high people will remain "cowards" on racial issues.
I agree. In addition to this group, I host/moderate two well-attended, one-hour-long discussions every week in the Second Life metaverse. In that venue (face-to-face with audio), as well here (typed text only), many people come wanting to vent their spleens and to unburden themselves of baggage.
A-A's want to complain about "racism" (applying the word to anything they dislike). Whites want to complain that they cannot use the word "nigger" without bringing wrath upon their heads but A-A's can. (Why anyone of reasonable decorum feels the need to use such a word baffles me.) Such "open discussions" quickly spiral into intellectually sterile mutual recrimination--pointless noise (or bandwidth).
I am sure that the other moderators here will agree: productive discussions are possible only when those who cannot stick to the topic or are otherwise counterproductive are mercilessly ejected. If civility, decorum, and sticking to the issue at hand is cowardice, then anyone attending a discussion that I host had damned well better be cowards or they are gone.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Thu 19 Feb 2009 16:58 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
G-Man wrote:
When the cost of speaking honestly is so high people will remain "cowards" on racial issues.
I agree. In addition to this group, I host/moderate two well-attended, one-hour-long discussions every week in the Second Life metaverse. In that venue (face-to-face with audio), as well here (typed text only), many people come wanting to vent their spleens and to unburden themselves of baggage.
A-A's want to complain about "racism" (applying the word to anything they dislike). Whites want to complain that they cannot use the word "nigger" without bringing wrath upon their heads but A-A's can. (Why anyone of reasonable decorum feels the need to use such a word baffles me.) Such "open discussions" quickly spiral into intellectually sterile mutual recrimination--pointless noise (or bandwidth).
I am sure that the other moderators here will agree: productive discussions are possible only when those who cannot stick to the topic or are otherwise counterproductive are mercilessly ejected. If civility, decorum, and sticking to the issue at hand is cowardice, then anyone attending a discussion that I host had damned well better be cowards or they are gone.
What Holder said was vague, but I don't think that is what he was getting at.
I think he was saying that people lie or hide behind politically correct language, or avoid subjects completely so they do not have to discuss racial issues.
Racial issues are so emotionally charged that often once brought into a public forum (and I have witnessed this) it becomes far more emotional than objective, as Frank noted, but not speaking about issues that are obviously racial or speaking about them as if they are not (instead using a pretext) does not solve the issue.
I do believe that a lot of American politics is racially driven (this goes for liberals as well as conservatives but the issues differ usually).
For example, I think we would have national health care if this country was 98% Anglo-Saxon in ancestry, the reason we don't is racial and ethnic (not necessarily racial)...that's my belief anyway, there is some research to back this up, but I'm not going to argue the validity of the research as much as saying it is my belief that it is accurate.
Instead of saying this people couch the argument in various ways, but it is really a racial issue.
I can think of when liberals do this as well, not just black liberals but white liberals (using blacks or other minorities as a bat to swing as conservative whites, blah blah blah)...
Well, that was my interpretation of his expertly crafted ambiguity.
Dragon Horse wrote:
people lie or hide behind politically correct language, or avoid subjects completely so they do not have to discuss racial issues. ... a lot of American politics is racially driven ... liberals do this as well, not just black liberals but white liberals (using blacks or other minorities as a bat to swing as conservative whites).
Yes indeed. I agree completely, although I would add that there is also a religious aspect to the nation's health care fiasco.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Thu 19 Feb 2009 17:43 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
I don't think that is what he was getting at.
Well, that was my interpretation of his expertly crafted ambiguity.
Dragon Horse wrote:
people lie or hide behind politically correct language, or avoid subjects completely so they do not have to discuss racial issues. ... a lot of American politics is racially driven ... liberals do this as well, not just black liberals but white liberals (using blacks or other minorities as a bat to swing as conservative whites).
Yes indeed. I agree completely, although I would add that there is also a religious aspect to the nation's health care fiasco.
When the cost of speaking honestly is so high people will remain "cowards" on racial issues.
And let us be honest, people like Holder really want honesty in racial discussions so they can go after their enemies once they reveal their true selves.
Someone else said that today on right wing radio as I was coming to work, before I switched to NPR.
Who are his enemies?
Anyone who disagrees with him, regardless of political orientation.
For the record, I agree with his words and strive to live by them myself (which often gets me into trouble with at least someone from some group), but given Obama's opinion, for example, that Lou Dobbs' speaking out against illegal immigration is racist I remain skeptical that Holder really wants honest discussion about racial issues for its own sake.
Last edited by G-Man on Fri 20 Feb 2009 13:30; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Thu 19 Feb 2009 19:26 Post subject:
G-Man wrote:
Dragon Horse wrote:
G-Man wrote:
When the cost of speaking honestly is so high people will remain "cowards" on racial issues.
And let us be honest, people like Holder really want honesty in racial discussions so they can go after their enemies once they reveal their true selves.
Someone else said that today on right wing radio as I was coming to work, before I switched to NPR.
Who are his enemies?
Anyone who disagrees with him, regardless of political orientation.
For the record, I agree with his words and strive to live by them myself (which often gets me into trouble with at least someone from some group), but given some of Obama's opinion, for example, that Lou Dobbs' speaking out against illegal immigration is racist I remain skeptical that Holder really wants honest discussion about racial issues for its own sake.
I agree with this...they are politicians...although holder has not ran for office...he is still a politician regardless of his position. Obama also knows that he wants to get reelected and catering to ethnic pressure groups is part of his constituency, those who are hard core border control advocates are not and likely won't vote for him even if he does go that route. You know how I feel about illegal immigration and I gather you know by now I'm not racist...I hate when people try to demagogue issues this way...
All and all, there are counter-views to Holders.
One is "if you ignore it it will go away in time".
As much as we talk about "race" in America...we (meaning Americans in general) often focus on the extremes of everything, I guess this is human nature.
We tend to forget that white Americas are far less openly racist or (IMO) racist than they were 2 or 3 generations ago. We also forget that since the civil rights movement the vast majority of blacks in America have moved out of poverty, college education attainment is up (about half the white number last time I looked, which is far higher than it was in 1964).
Instead we focus on the most racist people, the most racist regions, the poorest and most criminal blacks, etc.
I have lived in a few different states in this country (Illinois, Virginia, Ohio, and California) and in my own short life I have seen more racial integration in the work place, in neighborhoods, and just out of bars and clubs...far more than my father, as a child, or especially my grandfather could imagine.
SO the trend is toward a positive (in my opinion) despite lingering racism or the state of the remaining black underclass. I think people lose site of that. The issue with me is rate of progress, not if progress exists.
I also believe that time does help (but not completely heals) as those who remember legalized state sanctioned segregation and overt public racism die off...those who can't remember working in an office without a black person (or Asian, or Hispanic, or recent immigrant from a non-Western nation), those who can't remember happy hour after work without a face that is not of their "race"/ethnicity things will improve as that new generation takes control.
I can't prove this with stats, but I feel that in my generation, there is much more racial interaction and interrelations and TRUST than when my father was my age and definitely more than his grandfather.
I personally can't imagine growing up in JIm Crow or in a segregated Northern city...I can't imagine not working a white collar job with people of various races and nationalities and I was born a little more than 10 years after 1965...imagine my children's lives.
My personal opinion is change can't come without effort and work but the passage of time helps as well.
IN the UK, I don't think most Englishmen look at each other examining names trying to figure out who is a Norman, who was originally a Celt, and who was Germanic, nor to do they look in the mirror and cry that they aren't pure Angle, or pure Jute, or pure Viking, etc.
Then again their integration into one group was forced and was not complete as it did not include Welsh or Scots (well entirely) but still, you get the picture. I can also go back and say the same of Chinese, of Japan, of modern Italians, of Russians...all these nationalities formed out of divergent groups who at one time saw each other as enemies not just foreigners.
My hope is in 500-1,000 years we can look back and people would look at their ancestors as an oddity that they fought over "insignificant things like perceived phenotype or geographical origin...as it will have little meaning outside of a "boring" history class.
Posted: Fri 20 Feb 2009 04:05 Post subject: What’s really cowardly is racial dishonesty.
Quote:
Heather Mac Donald
Nation of Cowards?
So says Eric Holder, but what’s really cowardly is racial dishonesty.
19 February 2009
Attorney General Eric Holder, a Clinton administration retread, wants to revive Bill Clinton’s National Conversation on Race. (What’s next? Hillarycare?) Holder recently told his Justice Department employees that the United States was a “nation of cowards” for not talking more about race. “It is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation’s history, this is in some ways understandable,” Holder said. “If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.”
Is he nuts? Leave aside for a moment Holder’s purely decorative call for a “frank” conversation about race. The Clinton-era Conversation also purported to be frank, and we know what that meant: a one-sided litany of white injustices. Please raise your hand if you haven’t heard the following bromides about “the racial matters that continue to divide us” more times than you can count: Police stop and arrest blacks at disproportionate rates because of racism; blacks are disproportionately in prison because of racism; blacks are failing in school because of racist inequities in school funding; the black poverty rate is the highest in the country because of racism; blacks were given mortgages that they couldn’t afford because of racism. I will stop there.
Not only do colleges, law schools, almost all of the nation’s elite public and private high schools, and the mainstream media, among others, have “conversations about . . . racial matters”; they never stop talking about them. Any student who graduates from a moderately selective college without hearing that its black students are victims of institutional racism—notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of black students there will have been deliberately admitted with radically lower SAT scores than their white and Asian comrades—has been in a coma throughout his time there.
Education bureaucrats maintain an incessant harangue on white racism because they see the writing on the wall: most students are indifferent to race and just want to get along. If left to themselves, they would go about their business perfectly happily and color-blindly, and the race industry would wither on the vine. Thus the institutional imperative to remind black students constantly about their victimization and the white students about their guilt. Last month, the elite Phillips Academy at Andover proudly announced a student presentation on White Privilege: A History and Its Role in Education. Would the student have come up with such a topic on her own without the school’s educators deliberately immersing her in such trivial matters? Of course not.
But if Attorney General Holder is really sincere about wanting a “frank” conversation about race, he should put the following items on the agenda:
The American electorate. The country just elected its first black president. And it actually didn’t talk a lot about Barack Obama’s race during the election, thank heavens, because most Americans were more interested in the candidate’s ideas than in his skin color. There were undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn’t vote for Obama because of his race. I would guess that their average age was 75. There is no question that a great many geriatric Americans continue to harbor the rankest racism for blacks, but guess what? They’re not going to be around for much longer. Young people growing up in the last 30 years live on a different planet when it comes to racial attitudes—until the educrats start playing with their minds.
Crime. Holder told his Justice Department employees that they had a special responsibility to advance racial understanding, according to the Associated Press. Uh-oh. Before and during Holder’s first stint at Justice, when he served as Clinton’s deputy attorney general, the department’s civil rights division specialized in slapping onerous federal consent decrees on police departments. Its assumption was that racial disparities in cops’ stop-and-arrest rates reflected police racism, not racial disparities in crime rates.
Before Holder and his attorneys revive that practice, they should study certain facts that remain taboo in the mainstream media. For instance, the homicide rate for black men between the ages of 18 and 24 is well over ten times that of whites. And disparities in other violent-crime rates are just as startling. In New York City, one of the nation’s safest large cities, 83 percent of all gun assailants were black during the first six months of 2008, according to victims and witnesses, though blacks make up only 24 percent of the city’s population. Add Hispanic perps, and you account for 98 percent of all shootings in New York City. The face of violent crime in cities is almost exclusively black or brown. That explains why someone might feel a sense of trepidation when approached by a group of black youths. That’s not racism; it’s the reality of crime. And it’s that reality that determines whom the police stop, frisk, and arrest.
Education. Commentators on NPR’s “black” show, News and Notes, recently groused about the lack of black policy experts on the Sunday talk shows but ignored the possibility that the education gap might have something to do with it. Blacks, they said, need to be twice as qualified as whites to get a job. Let’s look at the evidence. The black high school drop-out rate approaches 50 percent. On the 2006 SAT, the average score in the critical-reading section was 434 for blacks, 527 for whites, and 510 for Asians; in the math section, 429 for blacks, 536 for whites, and 587 for Asians; and in the writing section, 428 for blacks, 519 for whites, and 512 for Asians. America’s lousy showing in international math, science, and reading tests compared with Japan and Western Europe is influenced in large part by the low scores of blacks and Hispanics. If blacks and Hispanics performed at the level that whites do, the U.S. would lead all industrialized nations in reading and would lead Europe in math and science, according to a study published in the Phi Delta Kappan in 2005.
Likewise, after their first year of legal education, 51 percent of blacks labor in the bottom tenth of their class; two-thirds reside in the bottom fifth. Blacks are four times as likely as whites to fail the bar exam on the first try. Until such achievement disparities are eliminated, any allegations of racial discrimination in the absence of proportional numbers of black policy wonks—or law partners, chemists, engineers, or investment bankers—is absurd, especially when the nation’s elite institutions are doing everything they can to recruit black students, professors, and employees. Perhaps Holder could confront the stigma against academic achievement in the black community, which derides studying and staying out of trouble as “acting white.”
The family. Closing the educational achievement gap will be difficult as long as the black illegitimacy rate is nearly 71 percent, compared with a white rate of 26 percent. Taxpayers foot the bill for this family breakdown—when fatherless children who never learned self-control and self-discipline disrupt classrooms and prevent other children from learning, and when the same fatherless children get sucked up into gang life and fail to connect with the world of work and responsibility. Many poor single mothers work heroically to raise law-abiding sons, but the odds are against them.
When communities resist an influx of Section 8 housing-voucher holders from the inner city, say, they are reacting overwhelmingly to behavior. Skin color is a proxy for that behavior. If inner-city blacks behaved like Asians—cramming as much knowledge into their kids as they can possibly fit into their skulls—the lingering wariness towards lower-income blacks that many Americans unquestionably harbor would disappear. Are there irredeemable racists among Americans? To be sure. They come in all colors, and we should deplore all of them. But the issue of race in the United States is more complex than polite company is usually allowed to express. If Eric Holder wants to crank up our racial preoccupations even further, let him at least do so with a full airing of the facts.
Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal and the John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Fri 20 Feb 2009 13:21 Post subject:
Quote:
When communities resist an influx of Section 8 housing-voucher holders from the inner city, say, they are reacting overwhelmingly to behavior. Skin color is a proxy for that behavior. If inner-city blacks behaved like Asians—cramming as much knowledge into their kids as they can possibly fit into their skulls—the lingering wariness towards lower-income blacks that many Americans unquestionably harbor would disappear. Are there irredeemable racists among Americans? To be sure. They come in all colors, and we should deplore all of them. But the issue of race in the United States is more complex than polite company is usually allowed to express. If Eric Holder wants to crank up our racial preoccupations even further, let him at least do so with a full airing of the facts.
I pretty much agree with the article actually but I disagree with what she said about just "lower income blacks" I often here (on the net and even in the "mainstream media") people speak as if all blacks are like this, as if a majority of blacks are poor criminals who don't go to school and there is a "black crisis"?
That hyperbole spreads a stereotype to all blacks when you are talking about a minority in the community. Right wing racist do this for obvious reasons, left wing zealots (of black and white) do this because if you say it is a "black issue" it puts the clout of having it potentially being an issue of 40 million people instead of isolated lower class issue which will drop it down to less than 8 million. Then you also look at the problem in isolation as if it is just "black" when the reality is it is national and blacks are disproportionately effected.
Why is the Hispanic illegitimacy rate about 50% and the white one about 25% (all rose since the 1950's significantly)...it is just the black rate rose faster. I can do this with just about every stat, if America gets a cold, black people have a flu, the black community is a leading negative indicator of broader societal problems historically...but why? To couch it as a 'black issue' when to me it is obviously a class issue with blacks being effected more due to their historic vulnerability is intellectually dishonest at best.
That being said, these black people mentioned do have responsibility to do many things better, but lets keep things in perspective.
As far as "racism" just disappearing if blacks just "behaved better"... I think some of it would but I've been discriminated against more than once in my life and I've never been to jail, never lived in a ghetto, sound just like a mid-Atlantic white man on the telephone, have a Master's degree, always worked white collar jobs since I was 22 years old, and don't even smoke let alone do drugs.
I think Ms. Mac Donald would be more insightful if she spent a year in a nation where she was a visible minority...maybe like Japan. Then come back and comments on what it is like to be a visible minority.
I can't prove this with stats, but I feel that in my generation, there is much more racial interaction and interrelations and TRUST than when my father was my age and definitely more than his grandfather.
If I read what you say right you are some where in your 30s, meaning that I am 15-20 years older than you. I remember in the 1980s whenever I went to a party of a white colleague from work other whites who worked elsewhere would as discretely as they could, enquire about how come I was there (considering both my race and ethnicity). My entire resume had to be discussed to explain why I would be there (the he is different thing).
About 10 years ago some one asked if I was going to be in the office on MLK Day even though it was closed. I said no and that but for MLK I wouldnt have been allowed in the country (immigration laws were changed around the civil rights movement and to be sure there was some correlation), or in what would then have been an all white office (at least at the professional level). A young white guy (then in his early 20s so born in that late 70s ) couldnt believe that race would have been a factor for my exclusion from anything. At first I was going to give him a history lesson, but then realized that he probably would not have understood a thing that I would have told him given that in his life (at least from his teen years) he would have had exposure to diverse ethnicities. To him hanging out with different groups is cool (I suspect especially if they are black). Many/most of his "heroes" were black males (musicians and athletes) and who would not understand why some thing as trivial as race would be a sole factor for exclusion. Now this is not to say that there isnt racial bias amongst the younger college educated whites, but it is A factor, not THE factor.
This country has changed a lot and IMO many in Europe and Latin America who love to chat about its racist nature need to examine what is happening within their own countries and whether some one from a minority group would be head of state with (as of now at least) a 60%+ popularity rating.
Posted: Sat 21 Feb 2009 01:42 Post subject: Re: What’s really cowardly is racial dishonesty.
Powell wrote:
raise your hand if you haven’t heard the following bromides about “the racial matters that continue to divide us” more times than you can count: Police stop and arrest blacks at disproportionate rates because of racism; blacks are disproportionately in prison because of racism; blacks are failing in school because of racist inequities in school funding; the black poverty rate is the highest in the country because of racism; blacks were given mortgages that they couldn’t afford because of racism. I will stop there.
Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal and the John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
An HONEST discussion about race will allow all sorts of issues to be raised. This including racially paranoid attitudes by some blacks who still deny that SOME progress has been made, merely because they are scarred from the bigotry of 30 years ago.
Of course whether Heather wants an honest discussion on race is something that some might dispute.
Well, according to most serious scholars (including Cavalli-Sforza, incidentally), the U.S. population is the most sincerely religious of the Westerrn World. And so every social policy is affected by this slant.
The form it takes for the health care issue consists mainly of accusations from organized religion that State involvment in health care is "socialized medicine," an evil to be avoided at all costs. The subtext is that anyone who cannot afford to provide health care for his/her own family is morally deficient in some way.
The clash between organized religion and all forms of state-run social welfare goes back to colonial times, of course. But a useful overview of recent trends is Robert J. Wineburg, A Limited Partnership: The Politics of Religion, Welfare, and Social Service (Ithaca NY: Cornell, 2001).
It is my view that racial groupings and their associated politics stem from a very emotive and unreasoned level of the human psyche. There very well may be legitimacy to the fear that an unveiling of honesty and frankness about race may open the door to a disastrous playing out of unreasoned tribal loyalties. (Hence, a resurgence of institutional forms of white on black racism.) But I am not satisfied with things as they are. I want progress and I recognize that positive change will require people being forced to re-evaluate their prejudices on all sides. This requires dialogue. So I basically agree with what I interpret to be Holder's central point here- that the current gag order regarding discussion about race needs to be lifted if positive change is to occur with regards to race.
What is most crucial, in my mind, is how dialogue is opened up and how it proceeds as it is opened. Not just any dialogue will do. To be constructive, dialogue must be well intentioned and argument must be framed with certain prerequisite appreciations regarding the supply of evidence and the use of reason. Passions must never overwhelm to the degree that forceful or repressive means are sought to get around such prerequisite appreciations.
I laud the efforts of this forum to function as a platform for just such civilized dialogue.
I should add that I rarely go so far as to invest my hopes in the prospect of politicians opening up dialogue. Heather MacDonald, above, gave Eric Holder a taste of frank honesty as he asked for and, while her article serves as interesting and perhaps even useful polemic, it didn't seem to represent well the direction that Eric Holder intended a racial "dialogue" to take.
And there is something about Eric Holder's call to honesty that rings hollow to me. Does he really want to move America beyond the us and them formulation that is black and white, or is he simply advocating like most politicians do for the unreasoned advancement of the us group to which he identifies? That sort of thinking also seems, to me, to underlie Heather MacDonald's response. These two articles both strike me more as tools in a political contest then they do the sort of well reasoned dialogue I described in my last post.
Does he really want to move America beyond the us and them formulation that is black and white, or is he simply advocating like most politicians do for the unreasoned advancement of the us group to which he identifies? That sort of thinking also seems, to me, to underlie Heather MacDonald's response. These two articles both strike me more as tools in a political contest then they do the sort of well reasoned dialogue I described in my last post.
I agree.
caribj wrote:
An HONEST discussion about race will allow all sorts of issues to be raised. This including racially paranoid attitudes by some blacks who still deny that SOME progress has been made, merely because they are scarred from the bigotry of 30 years ago.
An odd usage of "honest" (even in all caps). I remind Caribj, who has just returned from an 8-month suspension, that the paranoid hate-spewing "honesty" he describes is not tolerated in this website.
About 10 years ago some one asked if I was going to be in the office on MLK Day even though it was closed. I said no and that but for MLK I wouldnt have been allowed in the country (immigration laws were changed around the civil rights movement and to be sure there was some correlation), or in what would then have been an all white office (at least at the professional level).
MLK had very little to do with changes in immigration laws. Furthermore if a change in immigration laws in the 60s is the reason why you were allowed to enter the country, how were my parents and many family members able to immigrate here prior to changes in these laws?
In all likelihood changes in immigration law brought about by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 made it easier for you to come here after its passage because of the abolition of national quotas. But there has been West Indian immigration to the U.S. from as early as the first half of the 20th century.
there has been West Indian immigration to the U.S. from as early as the first half of the 20th century.
One of the members of the special-interest group of educators in the metaverse, to which I belong, is a woman whose Second Life lectures and displays (plus her real-life dissertation) are about the suprising extent of West Indian immigrant influence on the Harlem Rennaissance.
And there is something about Eric Holder's call to honesty that rings hollow to me. Does he really want to move America beyond the us and them formulation that is black and white,t.
I see no evidence that Holder is taking sides here. For instance blacks are hardly innocent when it comes to self segregation. And there is a great deal of discussion within the black community about what ails it that isnt necessarily heard by whites. Cowardly maybe? Yes if its part of the "dont air our dirty linen in public". As an example in a PBS program on the Little Rock high school when asked why so many blacks kids are failing, some of the black kids said "laziness".
Of course we are seeing growing pathologies among segments of the Hispanic community. New York Times reported a few days ago that there are now more Hispanic jail inmates than black. Now while that is due to the incarceration of undocumenteds, when these were excluded the incarcerated Hispanic population was not far behind. The problem of an "oppositional" culture among many inner city Hispanic youth has been discussed as has the increasingly out of wedlock births.
What may well come out of this is that CLASS might play as much a role as RACE in examining some of these problems. Especially when juxtaposed with patterns of contemporary or historic racism. It will also be worth looking at whats happening to the white working class in places lilke Michigan where decent paying jobs are hard to get and many white youths are having to settle for lower income levels and reduced job prospects when compared to their parents.
So I do not think w eneed to worry about Holder's motives. We just need to ask ourselves whether we are having open discussions on race.
Last edited by caribj on Tue 24 Feb 2009 02:10; edited 1 time in total
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I think some of it would but I've been discriminated against more than once in my life and I've never been to jail, never lived in a ghetto, sound just like a mid-Atlantic white man on the telephone, have a Master's degree, always worked white collar jobs since I was 22 years old, and don't even smoke let alone do drugs.