The RaceDoctor Speaks!

Seems like black folks have this one covered this year. Not surprisingly, we voted something like 94 percent for who Rush Limbaugh calls “Barack the magic Negro”. (It's kind of funny on its own, an actually makes more fun of Al Sharpton than That Black One, but coming from the conservative America, I still cringe and got to say, “it's too soon for y’all to joke like that). In any case, you can’t get much more on the same page than voting 94 percent in one direction. (And who are those brothas and sisters who voted otherwise? I would have loved to see the conversation with their extended family at Thanksgiving).

Sadly though, our unity in California played a key role a major political development of the year, the passing of Proposition 8 rescinding court decisions validating gay marriage. My understanding is that black folks voted something like 70 percent to not allow our hair dressers, church music directors, and auntie’s who been living with their “friend” for 30 years to legitimate what we all know is going on. In my mind, this is certainly something that black folks need to really have a dialogue about. And of course, by dialogue, I don’t mean a theatrical or media based chat fest where a few talk and everyone else says “Amen” when they hear something they like.

Going forward, I think the biggest challenge for black folks is not fall prey to feeling an excessive amount of loyalty to TBO. Certainly, given the importance of an almost unanimous black vote to his election, our position in the long line of constituencies wanting something from him should not be at the back. But if TBO does his job in being president of all the people, there should be some tension between the demands of black leadership and the president. To some extent, leaders of an historically oppressed group need to be aware of the need for society to take care of all, but also fight diligently against the possibility (historically grounded) that there group will get the short end. And TBO’s job is to push back, and not give black leaders everything they want. And let’s face it, the level of scrutiny TBO will be under on whether or not he is implementing a ‘black agenda” will likely be intense. I can see the news teasers about this on Hannity’s Show already.

So the bottom line is that too much unity here is a sign of dis-ease. Put differently, if black leaders are not showing frustration at Barack Obama two years from now, they are not doing their job.

American Unity
As far as the nation is concerned, this moment has in it so much promise for at least beginning to heal the divisions that have been such a horrible drag on our progress as a society.

The obvious barrier that has been crossed is the racial one, and I will say more on that in the coming days. But one could argue that the more important barrier that has been crossed is a generational one. My sincerest hope is that this election may have finally put the Baby Boomers fight between sex and drug Hippies and the straight laced types who were publicly against all that is finally over. Whew! That cultural war just SO, SO tired. Let’s remember by electing That Black One, we chose a black man who admitted to smoking marijuana and occasionally doing cocaine. (A lot of progress from the “I didn’t inhale” controversy from Clinton in 1992). We chose his ticket over the ticket that had its vice presidential candidate “raising the roof” to a rap song on Saturday Night Live.

The most significant policy issue that I am expecting more unity on now is around global warming. Even though this was not a function of the 60s cultural war on the surface, my sense is that the idea that human beings were having an impact on millennium long global warming/cooling cycles was rather difficult to accept by people with more of a traditionalist world view. Especially, if the implications were the US might have to create internationalist frameworks that might involve a cutting back of our unabashed emphasis on economic progress based on more and more material acquisitiveness.

So hooray for us! With the cultural was largely behind us, we can potentially move policy on global warming and other issues related to science to a more objective and rational engagement. Stem cell research, abstinence only education are just two of the issues where we might expect better policy debate.

The growth edge: class divisions. With the economic problems – I heard one expert said this is not an adjustment, it’s a “reset” – we conceivably could wrestle with fundamental questions like economic fairness between the top and bottoms of our society. (Wrest your minds from the gutter, that was, mostly, not a lascivious metaphor). Given that the government is going to bail out numerous industries, what we citizens need to start putting on the table are issues around the wage/salary gap that is acceptable. In the past 4 decades, wage gaps between the CEOs and line level workers have grown to levels unprecedented in modern industrial history, here or anyway. Since we seem to be about to start over, and since we just saw the collective results when the expansion of the wealth class combines with a decrease in regulatory structures, perhaps we can really examine what is the level of income disparity that is collectively functional and sustainable.

The RaceDoctor reflects on a fading black cultural nationalist holiday in "post-racial" America
I recently saw and article that discussed the fading of Kwanzaa. I personally always thought that this holiday was great in concept, like so many ideas having to do with “black folks getting their act together. (How many times have we heard “if we could just all [partially self sacrificing and largely unrealistic idea goes here] black folks could support each other the same way the [better off ethnic group – Jews, Asians, etc – goes here}. Followed by the plaintive lament: But we just can’t all get on the same page!

So Kwanzaa always seemed like one of those great ideas: black folks gathering with family, friends, and often strangers, reveling in our bolstered sense of common history, destiny, and distinctiveness. A touching vision, no? No wonder Hallmark made a bunch of money on earth toned cards based on the idea.

But I just never knew actual human beings who really lit the candles, gathered each day to talk about the ideas, and re=changed their lives based on a daily mediation on those Swahili words.

But the concept was very cool.

But now I read that the holiday is fading. That participation is down from a once high of 20 million (quite skeptical of that I am) to just over one million. And that Hallmark, the bellwether of cultural trends, has downsized their Kwanzaa line.

But hey, we just elected That Black One for President. 232 Years of unbroken white rule is coming to an end. So even if the holiday was more theoretical than real, I decided to do my best to revive it. So in the spirit of blah blah, as the spirit moves me, I will briefly blog about the implications of some of the Kwanza ideas in “post-racial America" for black folks and everyone else.

By refusing an invitation to a debate that has been on the calendar for several months, republican candidates send several clear messages to the black community.  The strongest message is that “your votes don’t matter.” Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich should be applauded for publicly speaking out in challenging the candidates’ decisions to shun debates for black as well as Latino audiences. It is noteworthy that President Bush said that the eventual nominee should reach out to the African-American community, but he chose to not comment on the candidates’ decision, even though he did comment on the current primary race in other ways.

In addition to being insulting, the candidates’ apparent refusal to debate in specifically communities of color is will have additional ramifications. If the eventual nominee takes the President’s advice and reaches out to communities of color later, many people will remember the current insult.

The fundamental problem is that Republican public officials almost never demonstrate even a basic intellectual and emotional understanding of the way that current and historical racism affects people and society. If they displayed any even partially empathic understanding of the point of view of many black people, many black people would be receptive to their policy positions.

The refusal of the candidates to debate in front of black audiences is ironic, since there are many traditionally conservative positions that have some resonance with black audiences. For instance, compared to whites, blacks are:

• More conservative on abortion
• More likely to think that homosexuality should be discouraged
• More likely to believe that the government should do more to protect morality
• More likely to think it necessary to believe in God to be moral

The media played a negative role in the original trial by framing the issue as though you had to believe that Simpson was innocent and was framed, or that he was guilty and the police did nothing wrong. My personal opinion is that Mr. Simpson did in fact commit the murders, AND that the police committed underhanded tactics in order to ensure a conviction. Given knowledge in the black community that police misconduct is much more common than is often discussed, the media’s framing of the issue tended to enhance racial differences in perceptions. 

As Mr. Simpson has emerged in the news again, some news organizations are publicizing findings that indicate that as many the number of people who think he is guilty has grown from 68% in 1995 to 80% now. Given the well-known racial differences in perceptions around this case, it is disappointing that media outlets seem unwilling to explore what is known about whether the previous racial differences in perceptions may or may not have changed.

My expectation is that people of all types are similarly fatigued by Mr. Simpson and his brushes with the law. It would not be surprising however if racial differences remain about his current troubles. Mr. Simpson has claimed that he constructed his own “sting operation” because the police are unrerponsive to him. Since skepticism about police behavior was one of the strong factors that influenced the racial differences in perception in the original murder case, it is probable that people of color might be understanding of Simpson’s claim of police under-responsiveness.

Although I am a black person who thinks that Mr. Simpson committed the murders, I cannot help but notice what appears to be an excessive amount of anger by white commentators and the white public at Mr. Simpson. If you compare the public opinion about Simpson to other famous celebrity alledged murderers (e.g. Robert Blake, Klaus Van Bulow), there is much less antipathy among white pundits and the general public.

There is a great deal of credit to be shared for this tremendous effort at galvanizing public attention on a very apparent injustice. Internet organizers, nationally syndicated radio hosts, and national civil rights leaders and celebrities should all be very proud of what took place on Thursday.

As these folks and all involve celebrate this success on behalf of the Jena 6, it is important to talk about the most important lessons in this for adapting civil rights era tactics for a 21st century movement towards racial justice and reconciliation. Some lessons important lessons can be learned about how to update these protests.

Proper Linkage to the Underlying Case of Injustice
It was smart of organizers to continue with the rally even after the conviction was overturned. Yet, the day after the rally, a court proceeding about Mr. Bell took place, he was denied bail, and early media reports suggest that no response to this was anticipated by the rally organizers. A prayer vigil with Mr. Bell’s family might have garnered further public attention to this unjust development.

Creativity of Message
A few creative actions by the marchers could have had the effect of communicating important messages to both the town of Jena and the national media. Some potential examples of actions that would might update the message communicated by the rally:

• Putting ribbons representing interracial cooperation at strategic places in Jena
• Sweeping the courthouse steps or the entire downtown to represent getting rid of racism and as a act of service
• Planting a tree of reconciliation to replace the tree that was the original precipitating incident

Improving Media Discourse about Race
Repeatedly, media covering the Jena 6 rally ask town residents and marchers unproductive yes/no questions like: “Is this town racist?” Or “Is the prosecutor racist?” Rally spokespeople and participants need to be trained to leverage this public moment to educate the media about how to deal better with racial issues. Specifically, media asking such questions should be told that this “Racism: Yes or NO?”  question is counterproductive, and spokespeople should teach media to instead ask: How do racial tensions affect this situation?

Educating and Empowering Participants
While the Jena 6 case is particularly egregious, there are sentencing disparities all over this nation. If the march will have maximum impact, the rally should help people become more vibrant members of a network of people and institutions concerned about this issue. So we must ask:  Did the participants leave the march more informed about most compelling facts about disparities, or more capable of raising these issues back home? Are participants more connected to a national communications network of people who can expose other examples of inappropriate police and prosecutorial behavior?