Why it Sucks to Be White: Racism in the Obamanation

Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it's dark.  ~Zen Proverb

When I look in the mirror, I do not see a racist.   I grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood, went to an integrated high school, and send my own kids to a school acclaimed for its 150+ nationalities.‡  Yet I find myself brooding on the issue that has risen to public debate this past week in a series of recent events: Representative Joe Wilson's outburst at President Obama's address to Congress, the 9/12 March on Washington, Kanye West's gaffe at the MTV Video Music Awards, and the beating Monday morning of a white student by black students on an Illinois school bus.  These events and the public reaction to them leave me wondering: what does it mean to be a racist? Am I standing in my own shadow and wondering why it's dark? Are we all racists in the Obamanation?

Let's start with Joe Wilson's indiscretion, the "You lie!" outburst prompted by President Obama's health care speech. I admit I was sympathetic to Wilson's reaction, having launched an "No way!" remark of my own at Obama's assurance that his plan would not add a dime to the national deficit, and a "Are you kidding?" to his calculation that the plan could be paid for by identifying waste, fraud and abuse in the current system.  I believe government-run healthcare will result in inferior, rationed care for all, including the millions of illegal immigrants who currently live in the U.S.  I don't see anything in Obama's plan that addresses escalating healthcare costs, and I question the notion that the moral stature of America can be measured by the provision or lack thereof of universal healthcare. 

It didn't take long for many in the media to characterize Wilson's eruption as evidence of his racism.  Maureen Dowd went so far as to suggest that what Wilson was really saying was, "You lie, boy!", concluding that Wilson, like the outspoken attendees at this summer's town hall meetings, just can't accept that America has a black president. Joe Wilson, under pressure from his Republican colleagues, admitted his outburst was inappropriate to the occasion and its surroundings, and it warranted the apology offered to and accepted by President Obama. But a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus, James Clyburn, insisted on a pound of flesh, urging the House to censure Wilson for the egregious breach of decorum.  What's wrong with this picture? The Congressional Black Caucus, because they are black, gets to attribute racist motivation to a congressman's words. Words that spoken by a white man mean more than if they had been spoken by a black man.  By throwing their considerable moral weight, earned by virtue of their race, behind the rebuke, they succeeded in turning partisan wrangling into hate speech. Am I the only one confounded here?

Then there's the March on Washington by thousands of Americans concerned with the policies and priorities of the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration.  Much discussion followed the event regarding the size and racial makeup of the crowd. I can tell you as a participant that it was big and predominantly, but not entirely, white. I joined the 9/12 protest to demonstrate my opposition to unchecked spending in a time of ballooning deficits.  I found myself among people of all ages, incomes and situations, brought together by our increasing alienation from the Washington powers that be.  Was that anger and opposition bred of racism?  Interestingly, the event peacefully shared the mall with the NCNW (National Council of Negro Women) Black Family Reunion, an event in its 24th year that "celebrates the enduring strengths and traditional values of the African American family."  That event was well attended and almost entirely black.  The Washington Post contrasted the black reunion's themes of family and healing with the crass rancor of the conservative protestors, and quoted a reunion goer as saying that many of Obama's critics are motivated by race and don't even know what they are protesting.  Does the media have the temerity to ask if there's anything inherently racist about an annual Black Family Reunion on the Washington Mall?

Fast forward a day, and we have the story of black rapper Kanye West intruding upon the acceptance speech of award-winning white country singer Taylor Swift, declaring that while Swift may well be talented, Beyoncé had the best video and should have been the winner. Kanye had at least one glass of cognac in him, so alcohol may have had a part in his brashness, but was that all that was behind his impertinence?  We all recall Kanye's accusation that "President Bush doesn't care about black people" at a Hurricane Katrina Relief concert. But perhaps more telling is the music selection Kanye sang with Jay-Z and Rihanna after his spiritless apology on the Jay Leno Show on Monday night.  The three hip-hop artists, dressed in black leather, Kanye and Jay-Z in dark glasses, Rihanna's eyes veiled in gauzy black, performed "Run This Town". Jay-Z raps about Roc Nation, pledge your allegiance, get your fatigues on, all black everything, black cards, blacks cars, all black everything, Jay-Z is the new black caesar. Kanye's contribution is less political, mostly a lamentation on how tough it is to be a superstar having women throw themselves at him all the time. Rihanna concludes the song with an answer to the question, "Who's gon run this town tonight?" with "We gon run this town tonight."  If we're to believe the posturing of hip-hop artists, it seems that the next logical step in the civil rights movement is a black nation.

Which brings me to the most miserable of events in the last few days. The beating of a white student at the hands of black students on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois.†  The video is reminiscent of Rodney King's beating at the hands of white cops, but don't look for its frequent showing on network news.  This kid gets wailed on for being in the wrong seat at the wrong time, and fellow students are either participants cheering them on, or listless spectators afraid they might be next.  As the mother of a high school student, I can tell you this made me mad. Not just at the bus driver who did nothing, but at the police spokesman who retracted his first statement that the beating was racially motivated.  Is a racially motivated crime not plausible when perpetrated by black youths?

And so I ask myself: Are we all racists in the Obamanation? When my children were babies, I was completely sure of their innate goodness. But if "to live is to be slowly born*," then it is our experiences that make us what we are, and who we become is shaped by what we have suffered and by what we suffer upon others. As a mother I have endeavored to choose my words and model my behavior for the good of my children. It has been my job to raise them to be fair, open-minded, citizens. It has also been my goal to make them critical thinkers, quick to challenge and unafraid to argue.  But experience marks us, for good or for evil.

Soon after the presidential election, my oldest son stopped by a 7-11. Several black youths, around his own age, said to him: “Sucks to be white, doesn’t it?”  It does, in fact, suck to be white, if any criticism you make of the current administration is labeled racist, if a grassroots protest of fiscal policies is reduced to racism.  And on the flip side, a black artist’s behavior is labeled bad form, but never challenged as being racially motivated.  And the despicable actions of black youth against a white kid are not called what they clearly were, racist. 

After the election, some declared America a post-racial country. In fact, in the Obamanation, we're all racists, and it sucks to be white.

‡ J.E.B. Stuart High School, Falls Church, VA

†http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jeY5ow3sg

*Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942

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Remembering 9/11 is Medicine for What Divides Us

September 11, 2009.  

Rain complicates the already difficult DC area traffic.  It could be just another September day, but on this day the memories urge me to stop and reflect.  

We all remember where we were that morning.  I was in my kitchen watching the Today show. Just six miles from the Pentagon, I heard American Airlines flight 11 fly low overhead and felt the rumble of its impact.  I was aware that the first and second planes had hit the twin towers in New York City, and now, even closer to home, another attack.  Fear edged out confusion. What was next?  

You wouldn't think it would be easy to forget how eight years ago our world came apart. The images of fire high in the sky splitting a steel tower in half.  The panic in the voices of passengers on Flight 93, telling their loved ones goodbye.  The blurred smudge in a photo, undeniably a man or woman, launched to their death from the breach of a burning inferno high in the sky.  The smoldering gash in the side of the Pentagon where catastrophe consumed an entire aircraft and its 92 passengers and crew members.  Still I must dig deep to recover the sense of panic that I kept at bay in the waking hours after 9/11. The dread and anxiety that surfaced at night when the drone of fighter jets circled the skies overhead.  

Over these eight years, our memories have dimmed.  At first, we were compelled to look, and then we were persuaded to look away. By some consensus the public was not privy to, it was determined we should not dwell on the horror of that day.  We should not be consumed by hatred or motivated by anger, or act upon a desire for revenge.  We should not be goaded into responding to an unprovoked attack without proper thought and consideration.  When it became known that Islamic jihadists were behind the attacks, we were told that we were not fighting Islam, but only its most extreme fringe.  

But over the intervening years, it is not just our memories that have faded.  It is our nation's commitment in the days afterward to our common interest, our shared grief and the solidarity we found with each other in the days afterward.  When I remember the horror of 9/11, I also remember how the arms length that we maintain between ourselves and those who are different from us was somehow lessened.  I remember how the guard we hold up to defend ourselves from unspoken accusations of racism or intolerance was let down just enough to sense that we were all of us Americans.  And it was worth coming together to stop the horror that had visited us from threatening us again.  

Now our grief has waned and the accord that bridged the political, racial and cultural divisions among us has dissipated.  Our urgency has been replaced with war fatigue and our shared clarity of purpose has been undermined by doubt and recriminations.  Some turned on our president, "Bush lied and thousands died!" and others shouted, "Un-american!"  When we looked away from the images of terror, we forgot the enemy that brought that terror to us. And we forgot that we were one nation, indivisible.  We turned on each other, feeding the flame of partisan disagreements until today they burn like a firestorm, nearly out of control and bringing some to ask, "Is America coming apart?" 

I choose to remember that day, in prayer and remembrance of thousands of innocent lives lost. I remember not only the strangers, but two high school friends, grown up, married and with two small children of their own.  I remember Leslie Whittington and Charlie Falkenberg, and Dana and Zoe Falkenberg, a family that was and then was no more.  I choose to remember the fear that fed the pit in my stomach, the anxiety that kept me awake at night, and the justified anger that underscored my support of President Bush's war on terrorism.  

I also remember that when we were down, we came together.  I pray that union will be stronger than our current divisiveness.  Maybe we need to remember 9/11 and who the real enemy is.

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What I Learned on my Summer Vacation

Inside the Beltway, we eat and sleep politics.

Everyone has an opinion and it may not be yours, but we don't mind talking about what we think matters.  For me, I admit it's more than an interest, it's a bit of an obsession.  I read the Washington Post and the Washington Times in the morning, listen to talk radio off and on during the day, watch the evening news on a couple of different networks, and end the day switching through the cable news outlets.  My bookmark tab is full of websites where I can read through stories before they make it to radio, TV or newspapers.  On my bedside table, Mark Levine's Liberty and Tyranny shares space with one of Oprah's Book Club selections.  All in all, I consider myself pretty well informed.  And I have an opinion about what's going on in the country and in the world.

But for the last few days, I've been a fish out of water.  I just got back from visiting family who live about a half hour outside Salt Lake City. And I can report that politics is just not spoken in Park City, Utah. Your latest triathlon results, your next cycling trip, this weekend's climb, last season's snowfall, which trail you just hiked, what road you'd recommend for motor biking. These are the topics that make up conversations among the people I met.  Who are these fit and energized people?  Not the ski bums you might expect, extending their adolescence into adulthood in a winter resort town.  These are 30 and 40 and 50 year old marketing experts, health care administrators and providers, public utility managers, corporate CEO's, insurance agents, graphic artists, commercial and residential construction builders, middle school teachers and education specialists.  

Most of all, these are people who just want to have fun and have figured out how to do it daily. I must admit I'm in awe of their energy, their muscled calves and their commitment to recycling. Still, I'm glad to be home and I can't wait to catch up with my more politically inspired friends. Something might have happened while I was out having fun!

Is the Obamajoker image funny?

When I first saw this image last week, I was delighted.  I pasted it on my Facebook page with the comment "Someone has it nailed!", hoping to provoke a bit of commentary. None. Seems none of my Facebook friends wanted to touch this with a ten-foot pole. 

 

A few days later, I read that some people were offended by the picture.  After all, it shows Obama in white face, referencing the disparaging reality of our collective past, when black men appeared on stage in white face, caricaturing themselves so as to be more acceptable, less threatening, than unmasked black men. Frankly, that hadn't occurred to me.  I saw Obama as the joker.  Batman's nemesis. Heath Ledger's undoing.  The Wild Card in the political deck.

I liked it because it echoed the image of Obama that became so ubiquitous during the campaign -- the portrait not of a politican but of an earnest citizen, computer regenerated, redefining Hope in a single Super Man.  That image, the Obamicon image, has become a part of our collective American psyche. This image, the Obamajoker, takes the Obamicon image and sets it on its heels.

The Obamajoker is a challenge to Obama-mania.  The image asks, "Is he who you think he is?" The Obamajoker is not the purveyor of hope, but of socialism!  "Is this what you were hoping for?"  The Obamajoker gets under your skin, unsettles your stomach, makes you clench your jaw, maybe even haunts your dreams...  Is it funny?  Only if you think these are hilarious times. Only if you can't stop laughing as you watch what is best about America be legislated away in the name of change.

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Why I blog

I blog therefore I am?  I am therefore I blog.