Category: Race

More On Herman Cain, “Real Black Man”

By , April 8, 2011 11:34 pm

Herman CainIt’s worth noting that Cain’s “real black man” comment was in front of a Tea Party audience. For those who think the Tea Party and Cain are racially progressive because the candidate asserted his blackness and the audience cheered, think again.

Cain said that he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet if he were elected to the Oval Office. He clarified his remarks, but I don’t think the “clarification” makes him look any better. Cain also agrees with Birther-for-publicity and no-chance-of-running-and-even-less-of-a-chance-of-winning Donald Trump who has doubts about Obama’s birth.

The Tea Party’s problem with race is well-known. There was even a study conducted by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality that looked into race and the Tea Party. The director of the study said it showed, “The Tea Party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race.”

Cain’s xenophobia and racism toward Muslims and Obama is ironic. He is a black man running for president in a movement within a party that has a race problem. At the same time, he asserts his own black masculinity to run against Obama and garner support from that same movement and party.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

See also: Herman Cain Says He’s A Real Black Man, Implies Obama Isn’t

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Herman Cain Says He’s A “Real Black Man,” Implies Obama Isn’t

By , April 4, 2011 6:30 pm

If you don’t know who Herman Cain is, the former head of Godfather’s Pizza who became a GOP hero after embarrassing then-president Clinton in a debate on healthcare, ran for U.S. Senator in Georgia in 2004, and is currently formerly a radio talk show host, might run for Republican presidential nomination.

And compared to Barack Obama, Cain thinks he is a “real black man.”

That’s what Cain said on Wednesday at a Tea Party function in Florida. The mainstream media is scared, according to Cain, that Sarah Palin or Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann would get the Republican nomination for president. Then he said, “[The mainstream media is] doubly scared that a real black man might run against Barack Obama.”

The passage begins about 2:37 in:

This takes Man Up to a different and interesting level. During the 2010 election, Man Up and its variations were used to demean candidates who were accused by their opponents as not having the “cajones” or “man-pants” to be strong and decisive leaders.

Politico reported that, according to Cain’s spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael, he wasn’t “challenging Obama’s racial origin.” She said, ”He was referring to himself in the first person…He was saying that there could be a general election with two black men.” Then why the emphasis on the word “real?” And why bring up race at all? In that one remark, Cain asserted his own black masculinity, while questioning Obama’s.

So, it begs the question: Is Cain a “real black man?” I don’t know, nor would I list qualities for one of any race. But a real man – and by that I mean a mature adult male – wouldn’t brag about how much of a “real man” he is.

See Also:
Man Up And Cry

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Raising Boys To Fight Sexism And Rape

By , March 29, 2011 2:26 am

What could make a group of 18 men and boys gang rape an 11-year-old girl, take pictures and video of the brutal crime and distribute those images to others?

That’s what they’re trying to figure out in Cleveland, Texas where this horrible event allegedly occurred.

So, how do we raise boys to fight sexism and sexual violence and prevent tragedies like this from happening?

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Celebrating Secession

By , December 22, 2010 2:44 pm

South Carolina seceded from the Union 150 years ago this week. The Civil War began soon after that.

This past Monday night, folks at the Secession Gala in Charleston danced, drank and denied that the Civil War was about slavery. They claim it was about tariffs and states rights.

That’s wrong, of course. If you’re not sure, take a look at documents from some of the states as they seceded.

From Edward Bell in the New York Times:

South Carolina: “The non-slaveholding states … have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery” and “have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes.”

Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. … There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union.”

Georgia: “A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.”

(By the way, the Disunion blog on the NYTimes.com chronicles and analyzes the events of the Civil War as they happened 150 years ago. It’s fantastic!)

A couple of weeks ago on “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore took on the folks who celebrate secession and think saying slavery caused the Civil War is politically correct. No, “It’s correct correct.”

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The South’s Secession Commemoration
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See Also:
The Old South Isn’t Folksy or Elegant
Confederate History Month

DJ Hero 2 Mixes Beats And Races

By , October 23, 2010 2:08 am

I’m not a gamer and had no idea there was a video game for DJ-ing. But the DJ Hero 2 commercial got my attention. Not just because it’s a video game I might want to play (which is pretty rare), but because of it’s clear and overt use of race as something people could Mix 2Gether (their spelling).

The ad does two things. It puts race and the possibility of sex in the foreground. There’s the flirtatious steal of the hat and the kiss that gives the guy braces. The commercial also shows race as flexible when the two DJs partially switch skin colors.

It’s said Millenials aren’t as concerned about race as previous generations are. The folks at DJ Hero 2 are probably betting on this. I think they’re a little heavy-handed, though, in putting together the ideas of DJ-mixing and race-mixing. While that analogy might sound offensive, I don’t think the ad comes of that way. In the end, it’s a fun commercial that shows people of different races partying and having fun in ways not often seen in advertisements.

Check it out.

“Mad Men” And Race

By , September 20, 2010 6:13 pm

It’s 1965 in AMC’s “Mad Men” and it has barely dealt with the issue of race. What’s up?

I love the show, but when the issue has come up, it’s usually regarding a client at the ad agency: How they will sell their products to blacks (“Negroes”), why clients won’t hire blacks, etc. There have been very few blacks or any people of color with speaking roles on the show that is set in New York City. In Season 2, Paul Kinsey did have a minor story arc that involved a black girlfriend, but blacks on the show have been mostly in the background: the Draper’s maid Carla, elevator operators or sandwich vendors.

Yes, the show needs to be realistic. The show is about sex, sexism and relationships. It would be tricky, but not impossible, to introduce the issue of race and intelligently combine it with sex: the ultimate taboo when it came to race. So, the writers need to be smart.

In the last few weeks, though, race has become more visible. In last night’s episode, “The Beautiful Girls,” it’s revealed one of the firm’s clients won’t hire blacks. Peggy raises the issue in a meeting, but she was quickly shot down. More importantly, though, she tells a guy at a bar, “Most of the things Negroes can’t do, I can’t do either.” It’s an acknowledgment that the fight for equality is about fighting both sexism and racism.

And then there was the mugger: The black mugger in the bad neighborhood whose face was obscured by shadows that demanded money and jewelry from Roger and Joan. It was disappointing that the first on-screen black character with a speaking part in weeks had to be a criminal. The obscured face made it clear the mugger was just supposed to be a faceless black man to Roger, Joan and the viewers. Was he supposed to be an Invisible Man?

I really hope so. I hope the writers and producers were doing something smart last night and not being lazy. “Mad Men” is an intelligent show. As it moves into the late 1960′s they’re going to have to address the changing nature of race in society and in the lives of the people at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, while continuing to substantively explore the sex and relationships of those people. I hope last night’s episode was the beginning of that.

Photo credit: AMC/”Mad Men”

Race, Class and Obama

By , September 2, 2010 5:50 pm

For anyone interested in racial and ethnic harmony, it’s been a crappy summer.

A quick recap: Arizona’s immigration law passed; the NAACP took on Tea Party racism, and the Tea Party came back in a bad way; Andrew Breitbart took on the NAACP and Shirley Sherrod making all parties involved look bad, including Barack Obama; 1/5 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim in spite of factual evidence to the contrary and none to support it; there’s the controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” that isn’t located in Ground Zero and is more of a community center than a mosque; and Dr. Laura used the word “nigger” 11 times to a black caller.

These moments and the lack of any progress on race show the country isn’t ready to engage and have an honest conversation about how race and ethnicity affect Americans. What’s worse is President Obama doesn’t appear ready to lead the country in this matter. This is a shame because he is the perfect person to do it.

First, he’s already done it before. In a 2008 speech responding to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright scandal, Obama spoke brilliantly about race:

I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams.

United States President Barack Obama makes a statement on the killings in the West Bank after meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, September 1, 2010.  UPI/Ron Sachs/Pool Photo via Newscom

That’s what a lot of the racial and ethnic stories that captured our attention this summer are about (except, perhaps, the Dr. Laura rant): Someone different from me is getting something I’m not. These issues aren’t just about race. They’re about class, immigration and jobs, too. They’re about race and money.

Obama is the embodiment of an American who can and has crossed multiple racial and economic groups and this is the second reason he should be talking more about these problems. He is the son of a white American and black Kenyan. He grew up in a working-class family in Hawaii as well as some time in Indonesia. He attended two elite Ivy League schools in the East, and he was a community organizer in Chicago. His life is a range of race and class in America. It’s multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and spans different geographic regions and economic classes.
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The NAACP Was Right About The Tea Party

By , July 22, 2010 2:03 am

I thought the NAACP was tardy to the Tea Party when the century-old civil rights organization passed a resolution last week “calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.” I agree with their sentiment, but I initially thought it was late. Where was this resolution over the last year: during the protests last summer, autumn and through the healthcare debate and vote in Congress? Bringing it up now seemed to put the Tea Party back in the spotlight. Politically, I thought it was bad timing.

Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founders of Tea Party Patriots were two of many from Tea Party groups who responded to the resolution. They responded, though, as if they didn’t read the NAACP statement. In an opinion piece in Politico, they said, “The latest strike by the left comes from the NAACP, which has resolved that the tea party movement is inherently “racist.” At its most simple, this is a direct attack on the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.”  They continued, “The NAACP has long history of liberalism and racism.”

Then along comes Mark Williams. He’s a Sacramento talk show host and spokesperson for a group called the Tea Party Express. In response to the resolution by the NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – who, to be clear, didn’t say all Tea Partiers are racist, but that there are elements in the movement who are racist – Williams wrote a satirical letter as if he’s NAACP president & CEO Ben Jealous writing to Abraham Lincoln. His argument is that the NAACP is antiquated and racist. His “proof” of that and hook in the letter is the word “Colored” in the organization’s name.

WASHINGTON - APRIL 15: Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams participates in a news conference at the National Press Club on April 15, 2010 in Washington, DC. The news conference was held to unveil their 2010 election targets for the upcoming House and Senate races. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Here are a couple of excerpts from the letter:

We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

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Forgive And Forget

By , July 8, 2010 1:22 am

When public figures break the law or do something very bad, forgiving and forgetting can be two very different things.

Two weekends ago, Chris Brown tried to resurrect his career and redeem himself in the eyes of the public with a tribute to Michael Jackson at the BET Awards. The performance was almost a year to the day since Brown pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna. The first half of Brown’s performance was a dance tribute to Jackson. The second half was Brown weeping to Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror.” He was supposed to sing the song, but Brown appeared as if he couldn’t hold back his tears. I say “appeared” because there are allegations that the tears weren’t real.

Another redemption story came to an end a few hours after Brown’s performance. Robert Byrd – the longest serving U.S Senator in history – died that Monday morning at age 92. Byrd was in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940′s, voted against Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court and filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Then in the late 1960′s, Byrd had a turnaround on race. He supported the creation of the Martin Luther King National Holiday and endorsed Barack Obama for president. How’s that for a switch? A former Klan member endorsing the man who would become the first black president.

Also that same weekend, the world mourned (again) over Michael Jackson’s death. One year after he died, the media and some of the public rehashed the King of Pop’s life, death and money. Though he was never convicted of anything, the allegations of child molestation followed him for over a decade. Those allegations along with the years of strange behavior  - we all know he did, so I won’t list the incidents here – made the Michael Jackson who died into someone different from the one who made hit records. There was one Michael Jackson who was a megastar performer in the 1970s and 1980s and became one of the most famous performers on the planet. Then from about 1993 until his death, he was another Michael Jackson: the guy who once a megastar, but did a lot of weird things and was accused of molesting kids.

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Rand Paul, Businesses and Equality

By , May 30, 2010 6:13 pm

I watched Rand Paul’s infamous interview with Rachel Maddow in which he doesn’t give his complete support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was painful watching the newly-nominated Republican U.S. Senate from Kentucky dance around a direct answer to the question of whether businesses should be able to discriminate on the basis of race. Paul said he is personally against institutional racism, discrimination and segregation, and against those things in the public sphere. He just couldn’t bring himself to say the government has the right to tell private businesses that they’re not allowed to discriminate.

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Everything from banks and corporations to restaurants and bowling alleys would be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, in his view. From his statement about people in wheelchairs working in two-story buildings, it sounds like businesses would be able to treat disabled people differently, too. And, I’ll go out on a limb and say that in Paul’s worldview, they would be able to discriminate on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.

So, according to Paul, prejudice and discrimination is bad, but it would be allowed for private businesses. If he were to be elected as senator, it doesn’t appear he wouldn’t do anything in that capacity to stop it.

I don’t think these views make Rand Paul racist. Nor do I think that the Libertarian or small government movements are racist either. But their antipathy toward the federal government has blinded them so much that they would allow private businesses to discriminate without any legal recourse. If Paul and his supporters put a business’s desire to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation or disability above the need for all citizens to be treated equally, then the movement is flawed.

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