I made a mistake by not highlighting this New Yorker profile a couple weeks ago. It tells the story of Alan Rogers a black, gay soldier who's become a rallying point for those seeking the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." When I was reading the profile I kept thinking about how misunderstood African-American patriotism is in this country. Half of it comes from the very human problem of conflating criticism with disloyalty, and then half of it comes from the need to establish an other. The real deal behind defining Barack Obama as "post-racial" or "post-black," is that to accept him as a black man, would cause a crisis of identity for a lot of white people--for if Barack Obama Ivy League grad, brilliant orator, and most importantly unencumbered by racial paranoia is a black man--and seemingly quite comfortable with it--who am I? What is "whiteness" in that context?
But I digress. Alright, not really. That's always been the problem of black patriotism, you see. Because of our outsider status, blacks have been the most consistent agent of change in this country's history. You must understand that this isn't even just about color. The first person to give his life for America was Crispus Attucks, and thus the founding father, in the sense of blood, of this country was a black man. It's true that Frederick Douglass supported the vote for black men over white women--but Douglass was not simply a suffragist, he was the only man of any significance--black or any other color--who even attended the Seneca Falls convention where the movement was born. It's almost unfair to cite Martin Luther King at this point, but suffice to say, to see the Civil Rights Movement merely as an effort to open the doors for blacks is to miss the point.
It's true, as I said yesterday, that oppression isn't, in and of itself, ennobling. But its also true that African-Americans, because their oppression has been so stark and so at odds with the promise and potential of America, have a history of being able to see beyond themselves. It's not the only history mind you, but it's one. From that perspective, Barack Obama really is well within the black tradition, as is Alan Rogers. It is from, one perspective, a statistical fluke that Rogers was black. But from another, not so much.
UPDATE: Stay on topic and keep your cool.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The first person to give his life for America was Crispus Attucks, and thus the founding father, in the sense of blood, of this country was a black man.
Technically, he was one of the first five. I think it's more powerful to note that the founding of this nation involved white and black men standing together, as Americans, against oppression.
"The real deal behind defining Barack Obama as "post-racial" or "post-black," is that to accept him as a black man, would cause a crisis of identity for a lot of white people--for if Barack Obama Ivy League grad, brilliant orator, and most importantly unencumbered by racial paranoia is a black man--and seemingly quite comfortable with it--who am I? What is "whiteness" in that context?"
If a group creates an "other," it doesn't just create one "other," it always creates two. The group they designate as the other, and themselves as relative to the other group. Could be that if you destroy blackness (or whiteness) as a division in the mind, you destroy whiteness (or blackness) too. That might be a pretty good thing.
Whoo, Tel:Deep. Sidetracked me from making the comment I wanted to make, which is to complement Ta-Nehisi on this wonderful blog. In a way, it kinda reminds me of Paul Robeson or something: roaming all over cultural creation, including the art of sports and thoughtful perspectives on politics.
I haven't been caught up in trolls and such, since I've been zooming in through Google Reader, but I think I will try to join in the community you've created here.
Hoo-rah for presenting such a multi-faceted, human view of a black perspective.
African-Americans, because their oppression has been so stark and so at odds with the promise and potential of America, have a history of being able to see beyond themselves
Well put. This post makes me remember how frustrated I kept getting when even respectable media people were describing Jeremiah White as "anti-American," conflating America the contemporary reality with America the idea: if you hate one, you hate both. It seems outrageous to me to think of a kind of social critique that has its origins in the protest against slavery as "anti-American," when I think that's the most robust kind of patriotism: the ability to see our America's potential to be the America that it says it wants to be. The popular idea of patriotism as gratitude seems pretty easy in comparison: how virtuous is it to love a country that you think has provided you with the best possible life? So yeah, it's not that oppression is ennobling, but that when you're oppressed you actually have to identify your ideals, believe in and fight for them, while when you're not you can read, for instance, the Declaration of Independence as just an impressive historical document rather than as an irresistible call to action.
The real deal behind defining Barack Obama as "post-racial" or "post-black," is that to accept him as a black man, would cause a crisis of identity for a lot of white people--for if Barack Obama Ivy League grad, brilliant orator, and most importantly unencumbered by racial paranoia is a black man--and seemingly quite comfortable with it--who am I? What is "whiteness" in that context?
Is that really true? I'm not so sure I understand your logic about how an educated black man with no racial paranoia can cause an identity crisis among white people. The two aren't exactly mutually exclusive intelligence or lack there of isn't a "racial" quality its a matter of environment. I have met more stupid white people than I have stupid members of any other group. That's just the law of averages.
What does intelligence or lack thereof have to do with race?
Well it's hard for me to see this forest for the trees. As a bus driver in a major American city who is verbally abused and threatened with violence (implicitly and explicitly) virtually everyday, and occasionally physically assaulted by young black people I find it difficult to see the greatness in the black community from my seat.
Last week: A loud cionversation between two teenage black girls, one with a baby-"the first time I was pregnant I was going to have that baby, but then Darnell went to prison so I got an aborton. The next time I was pregnant by James and I was going to have that baby, but I found out SheNaeNae was pregant by him too so i got an abortion. This time I'm pregnant by James and I'm going to have this baby even if he does go to jail.
Last night: A guy, Pakistani or Indian probably, rides into the city with me every evening. His wife with a baby in a stroller sees him off at the bus stop and he always falls asleep. I wake him up at my last stop. I figure he's probably working a couple jobs. So downtown three young black guys fuck around at the bus stop leaning out from the curb forcing me to stop away from where I should and then get on the bus laughing. They're dressed well, nice clothes and backpacks and Ipods. They ride my last few stops with me being loud and profane in the back of the bus sitting just behind my sleeping regular passenger and then get off. One of them is now carrying a green plastic bag. I yell into the microphone "wake up!" and the guy gets up. He can't find his lunch. He says it was in a green plastic bag. Now he's off to work without anything to eat.
A couple weeks ago: I'm driving a route that goes into a nice working class neighborhood. It's mixed racially. Probably something like a third each Asian, White and black. I open the doors at a bus stop and see three black girls arounf fifteen hanging near the door. Suddenly one snatches a cell phone from the lap of an Asian teenager and they run away laughing. The Asian girl gets off the bus and stands on the sidewalk. I drive away. Fifteen minutes later a cop pulls me over and tells me a cell phone theft occurred on my bus. As I tell him what I seen the asian girl and her parents pull up in an old Honda Civic. the parents are pissed-how could this happen on public transportation? How? Why? The black girls were well dressed. More than likely they had their own cell phones. They just did it for street cred. To prove their black.
A bus driver friend of mine who is white and married to a black woman bus driver told me this story. At a bus stop he walked to the back of the bus and asked some young black men to stop the usually motherfucker this/nigger that profanity. One told him "you telling me I can't act black?"
In the city I live in the police station themselves at downtown bus stops every day to intimidate the black youth that hang out there. After a series of shootings in the shopping district the business community demanded police protection.
A few days ago our local newspaper reported an incident in which a police officer took a semi-automatic handgun off a teen age black gang member hanging out at a busy bus stop with a couple dozen of his homies. I sometimes drive a route that stops at that bus stop. I admit to feeling fear when i stop there at night.
I'll vote for Obama, but his is not the face that I see in my mind when I hear the word black.
LaFollete,
I think it depends on the context. In the context of this post--one dealing with black patriotism, not the fellowship of races--it makes sense to highlight Attucks as the first. I could be wrong on this, but everything I've ever seen says Attucks, quite literally, was the first to die. It's not like we have instant replay though.
I don't cite that point to assert the primacy of black patriotism, but to point out a tradition--among black people--of giving blood for the promise of America. That tradition doesn't conflict with one of brotherhood and fellowship. In fact, I'm at a lost as to why it's even necessary to assess which of the two is "more powerful." In regards to this post, one was just "more relevant." In another post it might be the other. It doesn't make it either tradition any better or any worse.
Bus Driver,
I don't think any of the black people who read this blog (like myself) nor Ta-Nehisi would condone the kind of behavior you've had to deal. However, black youths are, of course, not the only kids who make scenes, talk loudly on the bus, etc. (and this is a theme I know Mr. Coates has talked about before). The fact that you are still supporting a black man for president and that you're commenting in the thread of a educated black social/political commentator seems to allude to the notion that you understand that there's a diversity within the black community that needs to be appreciated (just as there is in any other community).
re: LaFollette Progressive-- Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek had a good post a few weeks ago about Joseph Ellis's new book on the founding. Ellis talks about five triumphs and two tragedies, one of the tragedies being slavery. According to Ellis, none of the founders really believed that a harmonious biracial future was in the cards-- the most progressive assumed that slavery would eventually wither away and that ex-slaves would either go to Africa or stay in separate communities. I haven't read the book yet but I was amazed to learn this. I always viewed the founding myth with skepticism (eg religious freedom not out of respect for plurality but out of fear of dominance of one Protestant sect over another). But I'd always assumed that abolitionist founders had some views on a biracial society.
Bus Driver: I'd like to say kids will be kids and you probably don't see rich kids shoplifting from the mall every day. But you have a tough job and see more interesting snippets of human life every day than many people see in a year. Still, it's tough to generalize from personal experience, even as broad as yours.
Ta-Nehisi, I've often felt that homophobia has been more acceptable in the poor urban black communities I've been around than in society as a whole. Do you think this is true andif so, why?
This piece reminded of something that Walter Mosely said. He said that if america wants to know why 9-11 happened, they should've consulted black people. And that we have the unique ability to advise our country on its direction.
Beyond TNC's reflections, I highly recommend reading the article for a profile of an amazing man. It's so rare in this age of TMI for someone to be so self-contained. Rogers had many many facets, and by all accounts (the author interviewed different sets of friends), he was completely comfortable with all the parts of his life, he just seemed to not feel the need to let the people in each individual part of his life know about the other folks.
This piece reminded of something that Walter Mosely said. He said that if america wants to know why 9-11 happened, they should've consulted black people. And that we have the unique ability to advise our country on its direction.
Sorry for posting that twice! It's good that people with different perspectives are commenting on this post today. Mr. Bus Driver is experiencing something many genetrifiers deal with. They move into a poor black neighborhood or even near the projects and wind up being disgusted by so many negative images and words. Maybe those who actually become part of the community that they are observing will come to a different conclusion. Its hard to know how people will process their experiences and how they weigh the good and the bad. For instance, many black people who make it out of those neighborhoods act like they hate poor black people. Which is crazy since they were once there too.
Thanks for your response, Ta-Nehisi.
I should probably clarify that I think this is a fascinating and well-written post. I'm not qualified in any way to comment on the nature of black patriotism, but I've been reading your blog with interest for several weeks and I think I get more or less where you're coming from. Your broader point, about the unique role African-Americans have played in pushing America toward actually embodying the ideals it has always professed, is a strong one.
It's a bit of an unearned luxury, as a white midwesterner who was raised to lack an ethnic identity of any sort other than as an American, to see MLK's ideal of a post-racial society as not merely desirable, but truly attainable. I suspect that perspective would have seemed awfully naive on the streets of West Baltimore in the late 1980s, and probably still does.
But to my mind, I don't see any benefit to laying claim to Attucks as the very first man to die in the revolution. The precise order of people shot in the course of a police riot doesn't have much inherent significance. Crispus Attucks wasn't murdered for delivering black grievances against whites (though many others have been) ... he was there, along with his white neighbors, to deliver American grievances against the British Crown at a time when the word "American" had little more than a geographic meaning. It is largely because of the sacrifice made by those five men that the word "American" started to take on a greater significance. And we fought together. As Americans. Founding a big old deeply-flawed, but potentially great, nation that was not premised on ethnic nationalism.
To the extent that my patriotism survives my cynicism... that's it in a nutshell.
bus driver, I'm a teacher who works at an inner-city school, mostly with poor black students. Not only do I work with mostly black kids, but I work with the ones who have been kicked out of their regular middle/high schools. So I know who you're talking about. This is what a lot of people think of as "black."
However, I also worked with rural poor kids for a long time, and lived in a rural town.
There wasn't much difference in either behavior or lifestyle among the two. Pregnancy, drugs, theft, cursing, disrespect for other people all pretty even. The only differences I'd say being access to guns (other than hunting guns, and perhaps culture, but even that not so much. And the white hicks were just as disrespectful of people of different cultures. However, they had less interaction with them, it being the sticks.
What these kids all have in common: poverty. Poverty is ugly. It makes people ugly and crude and uncaring of others, especially others who appear to have it better, or who look different. It always has. Read Dickens.
ps- and not just poverty, but the internal and external chaos that comes from in living in generations of poverty, raised by generations of teenagers who don't know what they're doing, aren't ready to be parents and haven't learned how because their own mothers were also teenagers.
"Crispus Attucks wasn't murdered for delivering black grievances against whites."
And that is precisely the point. In other words, I don't highlight him in an effort to make a point about racism--I highlight him to say that blacks, from the very start, at least symbolically saw something here. It's not a value judgment I'm making. I just think that there is a case for symbolism in the fact that the first guy shot was black. I don't think I'm especially alone in noting that symbolism.
Cnnr
I understand exactly where you're coming from. I grew up in empty (MT) and I can say that ignorance an poverty are directly related to prejudice and bad behavior.
On a side note for all of the talk about homophobia in poor black communities that the Mathew Sheppard Murder took place in Wyoming a state not exactly known for having a lot of diversity.
"It's true that Frederick Douglass supported the vote for black men over white women-"
And why not? They had actually fought for the vote, as in standing up to gun fire and getting shot dead, as opposed to marching with a bunch of other society ladies and going to (a fairly comfortable) jail for a night.
The issue is why white women, or any woman for that matter is considered patriotic if black men are not. Rev Wright is a former Marine and comabt veteran, for God's sake.
Bus Driver's post is instructive in that he represents what I think to be the majority of non-blacks in this country. He's obviously not racist -- after all, he's planning on voting for a black man -- but he sees things as they are. The way things are is that there is a disproportionately large portion of the African American community that lowers the quality of life for everyone else (including other African Americans) through their at times hostile, rude, criminal, and violent behavior.
This is what most non-blacks who live in areas with significant black populations think about when they think about black people -- where can I move where my kids and my property will be safe? Can I afford it? Can I still get to work from there? The idea that we sit around thinking that if Barack Obama is elected president it will change our self-identities is, I think, I case of Ta-Nehesi projecting.
Whites have already wrapped their minds around the idea of a black president. The GOP nomination was Colin Powell's for the taking in 1996. No one was perturbed when Morgan Freeman was cast as a president in that meteor movie, or when Fox's 24 -- which is produced and written by the most conservative folks in Hollywood -- cast not one but two black men as presidents (for those of you planning to make snide comments about my references to film and TV, think again. The lack of negative reactions here is telling.).
"But its also true that African-Americans, because their oppression has been so stark and so at odds with the promise and potential of America, have a history of being able to see beyond themselves. "
The proof of this is in the struggle we see going on in churches and elsewhere to confront homophobia. It's one thing to condemn other people's moral failings and crime and to struggle against that, but it is real achievement to confront your own engrained cultural norms and see an injustice you are committing.
I understand, Ta-Nehisi. Just wanted to make the case for a different way of looking at it.
Different friends have different things to teach me. Jewish friends taught me about my Christianity. Indian friends taught me about the true nature of my un-arranged love for my wife, and my wife teaches me how to be a husband.
Black friends teach me about earning political and social respect rather than just taking it for granted. And they also taught me that everything's better fried, but food is off topic.
(I don't mean to make it sound like my friends are a sociology experiment, but we're talking sociology here.)
This is what makes the black voice an important one in our civil discourse (social respect, not food). Spoken right and heard as a friend, a black voice convicts me of citizenship. Obama does this just right: he speaks from a history of people who have had to work for their citizenship, and as a man without a present father. It convicts me to both be a better citizen and to tell my father how much I love him. Hearing Obama speak made me dig out my grandfather's naturalization papers and remember how proud he was to be an American.
When Obama talks about the Montgomery Bus Boycott as a great moment in American history, not as a great moment in black history, this is exactly what he is doing: Americans fought for equal citizenship, for a better life. They are an American example, but one that wouldn't have been had they been some other color with some other history.
That's why Obama is inspiring white people like me.
This is what most non-blacks who live in areas with significant black populations think about when they think about black people -- where can I move where my kids and my property will be safe? Can I afford it? Can I still get to work from there?
You do not speak for me, Fred. I've lived in the majority-white sticks and I've lived (and now live) in an urban center with a significant african-american population. I'm at least as safe here, and my property is at least as safe, as in the sticks. I like it here and I'm staying. But then again, I'm a lot less delusional about how effin' safe and crime-free things are in the lily-white sticks than you and a lot of other white people apparently are. There are crackhouses in the sticks (not to mention the meth heads), drug-related crimes, domestic violence, child abuse, welfare fraud, B&E rings, vandalism, and all that stuff. It's just that it's white folks doing all that stuff, which doesn't make it as threatening to other white folks as the looooooming specter of Urban Black Crime.
Obama is an interesting character. The question remains in mind how much he actually identifies with African Americans. He is so ambitious that I wonder. If it had been more politically expedient to identify himself as mixed-/post-racial, would he have done so? To what extent has the black community been his step ladder? The black liberation theology of his church probably isn't so far removed from the leftist, anti-white ideology of his mother, who, according to Obama, refused to meet with visiting American businessmen when her Indonesian husband asked her to join him at dinners, saying "they're not my people".
Coates said: "The real deal behind defining Barack Obama as "post-racial" or "post-black," is that to accept him as a black man, would cause a crisis of identity for a lot of white people--for if Barack Obama Ivy League grad, brilliant orator, and most importantly unencumbered by racial paranoia is a black man--and seemingly quite comfortable with it--who am I? What is "whiteness" in that context?"
Again, you pull a Toby Keith. Thanks Mr. Coates, but white people don't need you to tell us what we think.
Jokes about hypocrisy aside, I'm actually fine with cross-racial judgments on state of mind, although the source may, as here, go to the weight of the judgment.
I must tell you, white folks don't sit around and think about what it means to be white. In my experience that sort of introspection and reflection on color/identity is engaged in mostly by blacks and interracials.
I live in an area (sadly for only another month) that's famous in Chicago for being a mixed, multi-cultural area (Rogers Park). In the 3 years we've lived here, there have been three shootings within a 3 block radius of my house, including one where a young man opened fire on the police at 8pm a half a block away.
These aren't the people I'm going to remember.
I frequently walk past groups of young black men standing around in saggy pants and plain white t-shirts speaking loudly.
They've never even been rude, much less threatening, to me.
I take my kids to the local park, and they play with kids of all sorts of backgrounds. They play games together. They don't think anything special of it.
If the negative is all you see, you have not invested enough in where you are.
to piggyback on nolo (see my posts above): "It's just that it's white folks doing all that stuff, which doesn't make it as threatening to other white folks": Exactly so. There's a little bit of xenophobia/bigotry that occurs on both sides in interactions like those on the bus. When you see somebody who looks different from you doing something illegal or offensive, it's reflexive to blame it on the visible difference rather than the underlying problem (poverty, ignorance).
Also, and I say this in admiration: there's a bit of in-your-faceness that goes along with poor black culture, that is not the case with poor rural culture, a "yeah, whatcha gonna do about it?" that comes, I think from a response to historic racism, but also from being urban, where people are up each other's butts anyway. Due to physical space (heck, even in the local grocery store or convenience store, or walmart, it isn't crowded out there in the sticks), and lack of racial tension between poor whites and other whites around them, the poor white crudeness, crime, disrespect, etc. is less in your face. Unless, of course, you're a teacher. Then it's just as in your face, and just as challenging to contend with. I got cursed at just as often, and had as many books thrown around, and and as much property destroyed,and as little self-control/inner-discipline, and as many fights between students, and as many academic and social skills deficits with my poor white rural students as I do with my urban ones. But the "in your faceness" I talk about has one academic benefit that I've found gives my urban students a leg up on their rural equivilants -- it seems to go with a greater willingness to think outside the box/critically, and to question the status quo. Which I can use to help them with critical reading/writing/comprehension.
Coates: "Because of our outsider status, blacks have been the most consistent agent of change in this country's history."
This seems false. Admittedly, much of the change in this country's history was related to African-Americans, most notably emancipation. That said, from a common sense point of view, blacks were heavily disenfranchised for most of the country's history, and to a large extent, still are. To enact change, one must have the power to do so--and generally, that power has lain in the hands of white males. So it seems likely that most change has been enacted by white males (for example, pick a random president).
That said, if we were to account for political enfranchisement and income, it is possible that African-Americans would come in at the top of the list of agents of change. This is still far from obvious, however.
laborlibert writes:
Again, you pull a Toby Keith. Thanks Mr. Coates, but white people don't need you to tell us what we think.
The problem with Toby Keith isn't that he guessed about what black people were thinking. It's that his guess was ignorant and repellent. You don't see all of the white commentators saying "I think black people must be proud to have a chance to vote for a black candidate for president" raising a lot of hackles.
I must tell you, white folks don't sit around and think about what it means to be white.
This is, of course, the primary privilege of whiteness. It's also why the idea that we'll ever be "post-racial" is so ridiculous: "post-racial" is white people's way of saying "every race except ours will stop worrying about race, while we will continue to deny the fact that we have a race at all." White people are never assumed to succeed because they're white, or to fail despite being white, or, if they're very unique people, to be "not exactly white" or "post-white." The opportunity to enjoy the benefits that accrue to whiteness in our society without having to worry about whether you've really deserved them is a pretty significant disincentive to thinking about what it means to be white.
"I must tell you, white folks don't sit around and think about what it means to be white."
To follow up my earlier post, no, we don't. But we do sometimes wonder about what it means to be black ... which is essentially the same thing, since there's that block of separation in the mind.
Black folks are indeed change agents (consider how far ahead the black community has been on political issues which the mainstream then later adopts or moves towards) and barometers of America's political health--I prefer the analogy used by the critical race theorist and legal scholar Lani Guinier of the miners canary...there to alert you to the problems precisely in many regards because he/she/they are most vulnerable.
This string, and these conversations about patriotism and America always bring me back to the power and role of historical memory. We are of the same country, and largely subject to the same political socialization, yet have quite divergent perceptions and experiences of what America is and was because of our divergent experiences.
Furthermore, I would suggest it is in our efforts to come together across that difference where much of the discord occurs: for example, the controversy about Reverend Wright or Obama's patriotism when viewed from a white racial frame, especially a conservative one, was significant and troubling (my God America does wrong! Obama doesn't wear a flag pin! 9-11 could be payback? These ideas are "un-American) while for many black Americans and those who are Othered it was a non-event, nothing of interest because the comments, and by implication, the criticism of this country was nothing groundbreaking or especially perceptive. Like many, I have heard far "worse" and more "radical" politics from my middle class and upper class family and friends (who are black) than anything voiced by Wright, or by extension applied to Obama.
It would a cathartic, and perhaps quite troubling experience, fingers crossed for the best, if white Americans and black Americans really knew what they say about each other in private, and how they memorialize this country in their private thoughts.
Chauncey DeVega
The comments from "Bus Driver", and related, bring up that old saw - just how much - what I'll call incivility - is culture, how much is economic conditions?
For what it's worth, I would say, on a percentage basis, there is more acting out uncivilly - both in speech and in petty crimes - in the black population.
Not that most of the black population isn't civil, because of course, most people are just people, trying to get by, be law-abiding, and do well in the world.
Not that there aren't in poor white communities, youth committing petty crimes, and acting out socially. I've spent time around California Central Valley Hmongs - very poor communities - and there is no doubt the grinding poverty led to a major increase in petty crimes, gangs, etc.
Same thing in smaller, whiter towns - lots of meth related issues.
Funny enough, regarding the Bus Driver story - I had to go out to a training, down south a bit in the city - I always take public transportation in the city - the bus driver was black, and I ended up chatting with him a bit, as I was the last man on. I was asking him - how long was his route - when was he off, etc - and he was telling me how his route was fine, EXCEPT for the "people who don't know how to act right", that would get on around Hunter's Point - and then he told similar stories, and they involved black people.
(OF course the biggest evidence for the fact of larger percentage of participation in youth incivility and acting out, is of course, black on black crime - and the damage that causes for folks).
So - what accounts for the increase, as a percentage, of black folks who are "incivil and act out?", that isn't economically based?
(By the way, for WHITE COLLAR CRIME, I think we'll find there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE - if not a higher pre-disposition in us white folks.)
I'm not sure of percentages - but say that 5% of people commit "uncivil" crime. And say asians commit at a rate or 8%, whites at 11%, and blacks, at what - 12-15%?
I don't have any evidence for this - but looking at Native Americans may be instructive. It does seem, that if your ancestors had SIGNFICANT VIOLENCE perpetrated upon them, then this violence, then this seems to stay in the system, somehow, get internalized, in the descendants.
(Now, this might be bull**it, of course. But I'll finish the thought experiment).
An example of this is why Native Americans continue to experience huge amounts of alcoholism, broken communities, no urge to self-improvement, etc. It seems to be passed down, somehow - beyond simply the economic conditions. CULTURE passes on the "wrecked" condition, onto the children.
The same thing may be happening to African Americans - in the culture's allowance for "not acting right", or politely, "incivility".
Now - how does this get fixed? Who knows? Most people are simply people, and so the vast majority of people you meet are not going to be in that minority of people who "don't act right", no matter the race. And you can be very confident the odds are in your favor - when you meet people, that they won't be part of that minority.
The 1st thing to do, of course, is fix broken communities economically.
But, in the cultural "acting out" aspect, what is there to be done?
I re-read my post above and see that I have not done a very good job of expressing myself through the anecdotes I related.
JC writes: "EXCEPT for the "people who don't know how to act right","
The point I was trying to make above was that most of these young black people DO know how to act right (many of them are from good families and are not in poverty like the young men who stole the lunch or the girls who stole the cell phone in my anecdotes above) but CHOOSE to not act right. And they know that the stereotype that young black men have so carefully cultivated and nourished with their thug clothes and music and behavior intimidates people. And they play to that stereotype on the bus. Yes, most black people act just fine, and some whites do act up, but %80 0f the time that there is a disruption, particularly if it is violent, a young black person is involved.
Bus driving is a job that a lot of black men and women do. It pays a good wage and it's a government agency, that like the post office, is non-discriminatory in it's hiring. I currently live in a mixed-race neighborhood and once shared a house with a black man in a black neighborhood for four years. I play dominoes daily with a regular group of black bus drivers and we've been to one another's homes. I have much more experience with the black community than just driving the bus.
Imagine yourself a bus driver: You (as I have)have been threatened with violence, sucker-punched and spit on in the course of doing your job. Now how will you feel when you pull into a bus stop and there are two dozen young black men in thug clothing waiting to take your bus.
You'll do what I do-you'll judge them on their color clothing and behavior. And you won't be happy to see them.
Ta-Nehesi,
You deleted my comment here too? Because I mentioned Joseph Jett? That's wrong, T.
"which doesn't make it as threatening to other white folks as the looooooming specter .."
Fred doesn't speak for you, nolo, but you speak for white people and know what threatens us. Of course you do.
JC said:
"An example of this is why Native Americans continue to experience huge amounts of alcoholism, broken communities, no urge to self-improvement, etc. It seems to be passed down, somehow - beyond simply the economic conditions. CULTURE passes on the "wrecked" condition, onto the children."
Have you ever spent time on a reservation? ever? White Society views Indians in two ways the "noble Savage" routine which blames all of the evils of the reservation on white people and the "Drunken bum" routine which views Native Americans as basically degenerate. Neither stereotype fits reality.
In the present day many upwardly mobile Native Americans be they Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Blackfoot or whatever move off the reservation and never return. This has a de-stabilizing effect on the rest of the community because those who aspire to be middle class have to move elsewhere to gain their opportunities.In my experience which has mainly been on dry reservations the only institution which has stuck around is the church. Indian churches do a lot of good but they cannot compensate for broken homes, broken schools, and an absence of ecconomic opportunity.
Please don't say that Native Americans have no desire to improve themselves. That is simply a lie. One of my Dad's students (He teaches on the reservation) was voted top sailor in the navy. Several of my friends have escaped and gone to college on the GI Bill as have I. (I'm not Indian but the analogy still holds).
In my honors classes in High School where the population was 50% native American the classes were predominantly middle class white kids the majority of whom have done extremely well. Those of us who weren't middle class and came from the reservation had to fight for admittance into the programs that would set us up for future success.
Life in many respects is a ladder if you start off lower on the ladder you need every bit of hard work and help you can get to make sure you make it higher on the ladder at the end than you started in the begining. "Culture" such as it is is not as cut and dried as you put forward in your argument.
No.
This discussion also ignores the reality that there are some relevant biological differences between different groups. For example, Native Americans can't tolerate alcohol as well as members of other ethnic groups with a long history of alcohol consumption. Similarly, I would bet that there are some relevant differences between the Hmongs and, say, Han Chinese, that help explain the respective ethnic groups' different widely different economic outcomes in the U.S.
Deleted.
Now I'm curious what Bus Driver said in his last comment.
The problem, Fred, with "relevant biological differences" is that nobody is racially pure. Many of the oldest and most prominent families in Virginia trace a connection back to "Little Mother" -- Pocahontas. Very few black Americans don't have a white ancestor somewhere, and I daresay few whites in America don't have, excuse the expression, a nigger in the woodpile. I know my family tree does. Not to mention all the mixing it up we did in England and Europe before coming over here. Miscegenation is the natural state of humanity, and it serves a valuable, beneficial purpose.
In short, skin color doesn't predict a tendency toward alcoholism all that well. Definitely not well enough to make personal judgments about someone.
The second problem is that individual differences always trump trends among founder populations. Just because Amerinds have a higher vulnerability to alcoholism doesn't make any particular person an alcoholic. Maybe he is just on pain medication, but that's not the conclusion people jump to, is it?
Sorn,
Yes, I have. Specifically, Central California, north of Fresno, etc. But I apologize, in the sense that the "improvement" comment was NOT about individuals - much more about the reservations themselves. But I didn't write that clearly.
You raise a very good point, with:
"In the present day many upwardly mobile Native Americans be they Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Blackfoot or whatever move off the reservation and never return"
Which of course makes perfect sense, and is probably a very good reasons why "reservations" themselves seem to not get better, if the best members of a community continue to leave.
JC
The same problem exists everywhere also in the inner cities and in rural America as a whole. Those with promise move those with nothing stay.
The observation lends itself to an interesting question for whoever wants to field it.
The old type of Ghetto was an integrated community with members from all social classes coming together to make an integrated community. Newer Ghettos are no longer communities in the sense of which we understand the term. They do not have the same institutional support structures of the Jewish/Irish/Italian/African-American Communities of 50 years ago. Is it possible that the underclass of the next century will be segregated along geographic lines?
Good post.
Don't tolerate questioning Black folks' patriotism. I get in trouble for saying this, but who cares. I believe Blacks are the truest Americans, because we've fought FOR this country to live up to its creed. Of course, it was out of necessity, but we still fought FOR this country. I don't mean in uniform, I mean, the brutal fighting to make America live up to its myths. And, for our fight, we're despised.
A trip to the American Pavillion at Epcot just reinforced this belief.
Doctor Jay,
Just because everyone may be related if you go back far enough, doesn't mean that there aren't biological differences between different groups today. There are certain diseases common to European Jews, for example; other diseases common to American blacks. Pretending there are no differences between different groups doesn't necessarily help the individuals in those groups.
Has anyone seen Steve Sailer here yet?
@rikyrah you're absolutely right. The Civil Rights movement (which took much longer, and experienced many more ups and downs than is commonly believed)was a tremendous service to this country. More importantly, the dominant form of the movement was based on patriotism -on fulfilling the original promise of the fathers- and beginning the reconciliation from this nation's original sin.
Folks sacrificed their lives by accepting non-violently the horrific violence of the perpetrators. In doing so, they turned the hearts of said perpetrators and won a more lasting victory.