Commenter Nate writes:
You know, for a blog that claims black people don't always sit around thinking about what white people think of them, there is an awful lot of complaining about about what white people think and say about black people. I mean, Barack Obama gives a speech about black fatherhood, and instead of a discussion of black fatherhood, we get a discussion of how stupid white people are to think Obama is saying something novel.
Yeah, and see that's the problem. Never confuse the ramblings of a pinko, commie who happens to be black, with all, or even most, of black America. As I've said before, the musings of those who think for a living are quite different from those who work for a living. I learned this many years ago when in my 10th grade Social Studies class, at my predominantly black high school, I made the mistake of defending welfare. I was immediately shouted down. The lesson of that early ideological smack-down? "Traditional values" run as strongly through my neck of the woods, as through the rest of the country.
There is no West Village for black people. If you're gonna live in the neighborhood, you're gonna be exposed to all ranges of opinion. In fact once we finally win and all this craziness is over, I'm sure I'm gonna miss the evangelical lady downstairs who keeps trying to convert me from my heathen ways.
Because I spend much of my time here talking about race, obsessing over white people is what this blog--at least partially--is all about. But confusing that talk with the views of "mainstream black folks" isn't any more intelligent than confusing the views of some white blogger with "mainstream white folks." Watch that Obama video again. Those are black people cheering for him.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I've read three of your posts today - and each had a stunning "glad I read" moment. Thanks.
I will agree that you can’t have a dialogue about race without talking about race. However, the hypocrisy that Nate is pointing out is valid. You make very valid and insightful points in this blog, and then go on talking as if you have never heard what you just wrote.
No matter what culture you look at, those who live within that culture will possess a far grater understanding of that culture than those who live outside of that culture. Based on what I’ve read of your writings, you already understand that. What, then, is gained by harping on the fact that whatever narrow stereotype of whites you have formed don’t understand blacks? Why do you select the writings of a few and talk as if it is representative of the whole when you don’t like it when it is done to you? You actually do admit that you don’t understand whites, but it is frequently in a derisive context that implies you can’t understand whites because you deem the behavior or point of view to be irrational. By what measure do you think that is helpful to anyone?
You can’t build bridges of understanding by using the mortar of ridicule. Someone wise wrote that we shouldn’t mistake prejudice for insight. I’d sure like to read more from the person who wrote that.
Lance, I hope you attempt to RIDICULE and pull a guilt trip works for you. Talk about HYPOCRISY.
Really, it would be much more "insightful" and helpful to your point to actually point out where "narrow stereotypes of whites" were used. There are, indeed, things and attitudes that are representative. The problem is people tend to try to associate the least representative and less honorable virtues of virtueless characters in the Black community as representative of the Black community.
I challenge you to show where Ta-Nehisi has done that by doing what blogger of every hue do all the time: take to task the the ideas and concepts of public figures great and small. And, really, Black folks in America live in a largely White world. Always have. You can't even begin to say that a people whose historical mothers breast feed White babies and cleaned White folks houses don't have a better sense of what goes on with White people than vise versa.
There is no ready moral equivalence. You can't simply substitute Black where White was used in an attempt to (over)play the hypocrisy or the double-standard card. Details are a b*tch but you won't be granted a pass for not paying attention to them.
And, you know, I've always wanted to believe in the kind of bs you're trying to pawn off but all too often in these blogs and boards over the internet, let alone what's floated in the media and among people I know... Well, suffice it to say I'm sadden by the fact that the vast majority of Whites I've come across speak like they're reading a script when it comes to discussing/debating race and that kind of stuff is well-documented.
Take for instance the findings in Racism Without Racists. The findings show how certain frames are common and I promise I'm going to seriously hurt somebody the next time somebody White misappropriates Dr. King ignorantly extracting his "content of character" clause completely out of the context of his whole life's work and disassociating it from so many other things he said.
But, go ahead... keep trying those greasy guilt games.
Also, on the "build bridges of understanding" idea... please supply a link to the White bloggers you charge with that duty and show that you have an understanding that this goes beyond some interpersonal level, "can't we all just get along" bs.
I have noticed that the people who are sick of this conversation are the ones who the conversation was never intend for (I assume?) This is because they are tired of blacks being used as the poster children for everything pathological when it does not match who they are. I have noticed that
I lost my father when I was 5. He died after a short illness and he did not have healthcare because we were too poor. He could have survived if he had healthcare.
Here is my issue in regards to this whole idea of perception.
Whenever "young", "black" and "male" come together, negativity comes to people's minds both black and white due to this thing called perception. If you dont know, this is what has contributed to the prejudice in the criminal justice system and excessive use of force by cops. When Sean Bell got killed and the verdict sparked anger, most people in New York did not care (in case people outside of New York do not know this). It came up at my job. A white guy said that he "applauded the police officer because they are just trying to protect the public from these thugs". That is due to public perception. The only thing that most people see are the negative images. This makes people think that all blacks are this way. This is at the root of prejudice. This is why some AA's were annoyed. Perception matters!
When the Clinton's were race-baiting we got upset? Why? Weren't they just basing what they said on public perception in many cases. They know how the public perceives black men so they used each opportunity to remind them of this.
Barack as "drug-user", "drug-dealer", "affirmative action candidate", "blacks as sheepish", "blacks as non-hardworking unlike those good old white Americans". Why did we get so upset if we do not care what whites think? Or if those labels did not apply to us or Barack but only some black people?
Obama better keep up the family image. If he leaves his daughters out of the picture ops, they may say that he is abandoning his children like the rest of the black men.
Of course, Obama is not talking about all black men but I am sure that he is smart enough to know how it would look or how it would be reported.
Where was all his honesty when it came/comes to other Americans? What happened to their being no black issues or white issues but American issues? Why doesn't he speak to all Americans about family issues? Has anyone seen the divorce rate in the white community, absentee fathers are growing in the Latino community and latino girls have the heighest cases of teenage pregnancy? He should address the American public in its totality in regards to everything from deadbeats (which blacks have no monopoly on)to divorce rates etc..
He should address the entire American family (the one America he talks about)about the importance of family as means of uplift, strength and empowerment.
I noticed that Latinos ( I am half Latino by the way) scream about the constant attention given to Latino illegals. Many feel like it is a prejudice attack despite the fact that the numbers show that too many Latino immigrants are migrating here illegally. Truthfully, I believe that everyone should come legally. There are many around the world who do things the right way. It is not fair for those people. I believe that the immigration process needs reform though. Anyways, when you get these people on TV, they could never answer why they are against people telling them to stop breaking the law.
However, they rally and get really heated about it! Most of the people who are heated about it are not illegal. Some are even from countries like Puerto Rico (my father's native country) who don't even have the red tape to migrate here. These people are fighting perception. They hate feeling suspect. They hate being publically ridiculed for the fact that Latinos from some ethnicities are jumping the border. Many Latinos are facing prejudice from employers and are often stopped by police for searches.
Its the same thing.
You're a media guy, Mr. Coates, so it makes sense you will analyze the media and how it deals with race issues. And if you say there is a substantial contingent of black America that truly doesn't give a damn about white America thinks, I'll have to take your word. I certainly haven't seen it, outside of the usual black conservative suspects and Bill Cosby. I definitely don't see it in the black people I interact with at work or in the public sphere, because these people tend to be VERY touchy.
We aren't disagreeing. They may well be touchy when you see them, but you've got to consider how segregated the country is (black/white) and thus consider that many of their social interactions aren't with white people. Also, a small fact, just so you know I'm not BSing, Pew did a study and asked black people how they ranked celebs as positive influences on black life. Cosby ranked second highest. Oprah was first. Obama finished below both of them. Al Sharpton was way down. Not to jock myself, but have a look at my Cosby article. I did some reporting on this very phenomenon.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/cosby
(((( Perception matters ))))
And worn over, worn out stereotypes do too. In fact, that's what stereotypes are: fucked-up, jacked up, overgeneralized perceptions folks project to be more true of more people than what decency and honesty (let alone objectivity) would have you admit. One of the best and most explicit breakdowns I've read came from a commenter on Too Sense which went like this:
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"Obama's speech is clearly trafficking in [stereo]types... Do we have statistical evidence that, say, there's a surfeit of dudes SportsCenter and feeding their kids cold Popeye's for breakfast? Of course not. Do we know trifling cats we've seen do stuff like that? That's more likely. So what Obama (and Cosby, more dramatically) has done here is stitch together a character... whole cloth from something most people feel is true and plausible and because so many people know someone sorta like that, it feels like a fact. (Obama has even called this imaginary dude 'Pookie' on many occasions, though he wisely avoids doing so here.) Uh, guys: If this isn't stereotyping, there actually is no such thing as stereotyping.
Are we just ignoring this because we like Obama?"
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I also like Dr. Boyce Watkins open letter to Barack.
http://drboycespeaks.blogspot.com/2008/06/open-letter-to-senator-barack-obama.html
And I'm still waiting for someone to explain why Barack Obama repeatedly tries to paint certain White demographic groups as VICTIMS often making *ahem* EXCUSES for them. And speaking of excuses... I'm just having a hard time imagining that a dead beat Black dad's excuse for not following through with his fatherhood obligations being "it's the racism. If it wasn't for racism I'd be with the mother of my children or at least taking care of my children now."
But that's the kind of nonsense Obama floated and I have a serious problem with people confusing change with convention. Badmouthing Black people and floating castigating, aspersion casting stereotypes is a time honored American tradition. And I'll reiterate what I said before: it's obviously not about the personal responsibility when Min. Farrakhan organized a large event, the Million Man March, whose primary focus was all about manhood, fatherhood and brotherhood.
Notice how Obama was quick to denounce Farrakhan and wanted to distance himself from his former church when news of the church's magazine awarding his service for playing a part in what?? Helping Black men, ex-offenders in particular, become better citizens and, by extension, better men and fathers.
Yeah, I read the article when the magazine came out. I remember being a bit confused by it, because it seems to me this embrace of a culture of personal responsibility should be more widely known, and yet it's not. You might perhaps attribute that to the ignorance of mainstream media, but my thought was that this is because black folks would rather whites not be privy to this difficult self-examination. Consequently, the conversation goes on over kitchen tables and on front porches, but not in any public forum. (Note the absences of press at the Cosby event you attended. You cited a different motivation, but perhaps this sense of the subject being a private affair is more of a driving force?)
I realize this is a difficult issue, since it involved black people airing their dirty laundry in the presence of white people. And on a visceral level, that is very hard to stomach for many blacks, due to the fact that whites were the authors of the past injustice that put them in this predicament. But look at the upside.
I have a notion that if black America were to expose this internal debate they are having to a wider realm of people, and risk exposing themselves to shame, they might be surprised at the level of support they would get. If defensive whites got a sense that blacks are trying to deal with these issues in a way other than complaining about grievances and injustice, and whites got a good look at this side of the black community that is not about anger, I think they would have more sympathy, and be less racist, and more open to supporting the kinds of social and economic programs the black community desires.
I mean, even if one feels anger is justifiable, there is the larger question of whether it is useful. I'm postulating that it isn't, and that a focus on problems other races can relate to would bear more fruit. I'm open to dissenters, since after all, I'm speaking as an outsider here.
well i guess when obama falls to defeat, it will be said that it was rasist white people had it in for him!!! well i am sorry for your out-look on life.. most of the people in the world are rasist, and us few that are not feel the same as i do. he is a human being , that will be ridiculed win or lose!!! so grow up
and put away those childish feelin's and understand the man points of goverment,MORE then his race !!! you simple minded S.O.B.'ES. MAYBE SOMETIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE WE ALL WILL CALL
EACHOTHER HUMAN-BEINGS !!! UNTILL THAT DAY .....MAY GOD HELP US
ALL!!!!
Nquest:
If you can somehow perceive that what I have written above is ridicule or a guilt trip, then by that definition it is impossible to voice a disagreement thoughtfully and peaceably. I reject that definition.
My wife grew up as one of six kids, and in their household arguments were won or lost based not on which argument was most rational, but which side put forth the sharpest criticism. It took me years to teach my wife how to be assertive without being offensive. I hope that you don't counter with the view that trash talking is just the way blacks like to hash out differences. It has been my great pleasure over the past two years to befriend The Cultural Coach, Linda Wallace. Yes, she's black, and I've never read anything in her blog that ridiculed another's views.
As talented a writer as is Mr. Coates, I have to believe that he knows full well the difference between ridicule and peacebly counterpoint. I am trying to reach out to this very thoughtful individual and understand him better. There is more than one facet (or face, if you will) to Mr. Coates -- it is evident in his blog. I would be very interested in understanding how those different facets form a coherent whole.
Gotta love white people getting all defensive and hostile, and acting like race isn't an important issue. (Yes, I'm white, and I love to discuss/debate race issues.)
Lance you made no such counterpoint. That's the very thing I encouraged/challenged you to do vs. making empty claims and using shotty logic. And there is no other way to interpret your remarks about "you can’t build bridges" other than you trying to use the bridge building idea as a guilty trip.
Mr. Coates should feel ashamed of himself for offending your sensibilities that are, again, based on shotty logic you'd prefer see as counterpoints or observations he should take into consideration because...? Because he wouldn't be "building bridges" and lord knows, since you are trying to "reach out" to him, his whole aim should be trying to build bridges to/for you. Damn expressing himself. Damn his own perspective. His mission in life is to build bridges straight to you.
Such is the standard expectation in this bizarro world, upside down idea you've expoused regarding race relations. The absence of those links and, yes, not even a single anecdote where building bridges is something you make obligatory for Whites is telling.
But I guess Mr. Coates should forever be in your debt since you have tried to reach out to little old him and, yes, his every word and post should be about this arbitrary "bridge building" idea it seems you've created, like so many others, as the goal and objective.