Who determines what racism is acceptable
and what racism must be punished? What are
the criteria? What has happened with Paula
Deen and Fox “news analysts” (wink, wink) Bill
O’Reilly has, for me, accentuated to whole question of racism is acceptability.
Paula Deen, as I’m sure you know,
has been tarred and feathered for her use of the n word and other alleged
really silly, racist remarks. If it
weren’t for the fact that Deen’s language and views came to light within the
context of racial and sexual discrimination in her business enterprises, I
would have dismissed her comments as the musings of an old, relatively
harmless, wannabe Scarlet
O’Hara. I still wouldn’t buy any of
her products, but it isn’t as if she was going to recruit anyone to follow her
on the path to the glory days of the Confederacy. Deen’s comments were expressed in a
conversation, not to millions of listeners on radio, like those of O’Reilly.
O’Reilly dropped any pretense of
being anything but racist in his response to African American’s exhibiting the
audacity of being upset that the unrepentant George
Zimmerman was acquitted at killing an unarmed black teenager. Think
the U.S. justice system treats African Americans unfairly? Then you “simply
hate America” or suffer a “victim mentality,” according to Fox News host Bill
O’Reilly.
The veil dropped further in his response to
President Obama’s call for a dialogue on race.
O’Reilly who knows absolutely nothing about Black folks
or what we go through (he was SHOCKED to learn that we behave in restaurants
the same way other human beings behave)
lectured black folks on why we are the cause of all our problems. O’Reilly’s response to Obama’s call for a conversation
on race was to tell black folks to stop having babies out of wedlock. Does this
mean that no out of wedlock babies would have prevented Trayvon Martin from
being killed? This is the same misdirection
tactic that was used during the Civil Rights era to cloud and confuse the
issues. Back then it was, “you just want
to integrate so you can marry my sister.”
The
noise generated by O’Reilly and the other propagandists at Fox News does
serious damage to race relations. They
deliberately misinterpret anything regarding black folks, and as a result,
pretty much preclude any serious conversation about race. Yet because O’Reilly and Co. have avoided
using the n-word, and the fact that their audience shares their willful
ignorance and hatred, the only consequences these hate mongers will face will
be increased ratings. After all, O’Reilly and his cohorts at Fox can’t be condemned
if they don’t use the n word.
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African
American reporter/anchor Don
Lemon touched off a firestorm when
he joined O”Reilly’s call for an end to out of wedlock babies and added a
couple more rules- notably pull up your pants, and stop using the n word- as a
panacea for America’s racial woes. Lemon’s comments sparked a lively debate on
the Melissa Harris Perry
show that focused primarily on the sagging pants. My own feelings are that we go too far in extremes
when dealing with the sagging pants issues.
On the
one hand, we know that the right wingers will use anything, including sagging pants
as a justification for all ill that befalls the African American community;
including their proclivity for shooting us.
(We probably wouldn’t have been enslaved in
the first place, if it hadn’t been for those sagging loin cloths we wore back
in the day). Those of us who feed into
these arguments, like Lemon, become pawns in the propaganda war against African
America.
On the
other hand, sagging pants ARE offensive, and no one is offended more- no one
has to look at them more- than the African American community. Almost every time I see these young men
wearing the drooping pants, I have an internal conversation with myself. First I acknowledge how thoroughly disgusting
it is to have to see these folks’ underwear.
Then I tell myself, that the man/child is just a product of his
environment, doing what everybody else does- like most folks- and that he might
be a very decent honorable young man, despite his sagging pants. (I really shouldn’t have to work that hard).
For me,
sagging pants are not the disease, they are the symptoms. They are not the cause, they are the effect. American society, (black and white) has been
deteriorating for quite some time. The
reasons are myriad, but among the biggest are deteriorating and, in the Black
community, declining hope. These young people are not the source of the
problem. They are the result. When we understand this, and can block out
the noise from racists and their Negro subordinates, we may be able to move
forward along with waistlines moving upward
You are absolutely right Bill to say that sagging pants are a symptom and not the disease. The disease is the lingering imbalance and misperception among large masses of white people that they have a certain superiority and the lingering imbalance among large masses of black people that we are inferior and constantly victimized. American slavery and the legal system that followed for more than a century ensured that this artificial imbalance persisted through the 20th Century on into the 21st Century, and truthfully white society has little motivation to change it. It will have to be up to those who are aware among black people to stop focusing on sagging pants and focus on sagging mentalities in our communities, especially among our youth who see no real future where they will be viewed as equals. Being beacons in our communities where we can be seen making upward bound changes will be what it takes to instill hope and create a shift in consciousness. Without it we will forever be treating symptoms, which is as putting masking tape on a sinking cruise liner.
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