“Look, a monkey! Must be racist.”
Two recent incidents at the London Olympics—really, really stupid incidents—-caused me to wonder anew what it must be like to be black in this country, and to despair. I’m not referring to discrimination, exactly. I think a better term would be “unhealthy obsession.” To be black in America is to be automatically a subject of controversy and conflict, and I assume this is a crushing, almost irreducible burden that makes daily life, happiness and sanity infinitely more difficult for African-Americans than for any other group. It appears that the culture, the media, the public, interest groups and government just won’t ever leave them alone to just live.
Here is U.S.tennis star Serena Williams, and she has just won a Gold Medal in singles tennis. Williams, whose passion and effervescence is almost as attractive as her athleticism, does a little happy dance. Not too much of one—nobody could accuse her of preening or taunting like NFL players after a touchdown. And yet she is criticized anyway, by Fox Sports among others, because what looked like just a happy dance to me was really a version of the “Crip Walk,” a hip-hop move adopted by the notorious L.A. street gang, the Crips, about 40 years ago. Since Serena is black, some saw this as a poorly-timed reference to drug-dealing killers, or even glorification of gang culture. Three seconds of a little jig, and suddenly the Olympics is the site of a race incident—and this is an ethics alarm that should never have gone off.
Or should it? The “Crip Walk” is considered so provocative in some neighborhoods that schools have banned it. From that perspective, maybe critics have a point; it might have been irresponsible for an African-American athlete from L.A. to do the move. Williams—I love you, Serena!—brushed off the controversy by saying, simply, “I don’t care.” Still, a pure moment of an athlete’s joy in victory was marred, because the victor happened to be black.
Earlier we had an even dumber controversy. After black Olympian Gabby Douglas won her gold medal, NBC aired a promotional spot featuring a Capuchin monkey on the gymnastic rings, an ad it had run before to herald the network’s new Fall series, “Animal Practice.” Suddenly the social media was ablaze with accusations that the juxtaposition was racist. Never mind that there would be no reason for NBC to have a pre-planned racial insult ready for a Douglas victory; never mind that the ad had run many times without complaint; never mind that the rings are a male gymnastic event; never mind that there is no reason to associate lower primates with African-Americans unless you are a Ku Klux Klan member, a time-traveler from 1858, or a virulent asshole—political correctness police lurking to find hidden “gotcha’s” in the Olympic coverage pounced, forcing craven NBC to issue an apology for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
The victim of all this was, of course, Gabby Douglas. Even though there is no evidence that anyone was sitting in the TV audience comparing Douglas to a monkey any more than they were comparing Olympics anchor Bob Costas to a baboon, her “defenders” made that comparison anyway, and turned it into a national incident. My God! If I am a beautiful, accomplished, African-American young woman, the last thing on my mind is that my fellow citizens are thinking of me as a monkey—-because they aren’t, and there’s no reason for them to. Yet now I have to be exposed to the slur simply because race-baiting idiots believe that they acquire power and virtue by manufacturing grievances, and if it humiliates me, a young woman. at the one time in my life when I should be happiest, well, what the hell. They don’t care. What matters is to keep alive the agenda that America is hostile to blacks.
The culprits in the degrading of daily life for American blacks are a diverse group. They include unscrupulous media figures like Al Sharpton, celebrities like Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman, and cynical elected officials like Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. Maxine Waters, who have worked tirelessly to send the message to America’s black youth that the public isn’t singing anthems of praise to Barack Obama only because so many white people hate having a black President, though any white President with Obama’s first term results would be regarded as an electoral dead duck beyond resurrection. President Obama has played his part too, helping to racialize the Trayvon Martin shooting, and more recently, signing an executive order that appears to ensure that schools will be either punishing white students for infractions that do not prompt similar punishment of blacks, or not punishing any students at all, because they won’t want to be accused by the Feds of punishing African-Americans “disproportionately.” This guarantees lawsuits and cross-race enmity, when the only question regarding school discipline should be, “Does the student deserve it?” and not “Have we suspended our quota of blacks this month?”
I can’t imagine what it must be like to live in a country where one is always having to either fend off legitimate complaints of special treatment while simultaneously being told that the majority of the people around you are poised to mistreat you because of the color of your skin. I think what I would want is to be left alone to succeed on my own terms, to be allowed to trust my community, my fellow citizens and my own character to allow me to rise or fall on merit, and not to have drum-beating, chanting activists fighting concocted slights and imagined conspiracies that destroy my confidence and undermine my faith in America. But I don’t know how we will ever get to the stage where we can or will leave African-Americans alone, which means that I don’t know what it will take for blacks in America to be able to live like the regular human beings that they are.
Do you?
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Sources:
Graphic: Your Black World
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve always liked Serena W., because she’s an admirable, accomplished, lovely young woman, and not because she’s an admirable, accomplished, lovely young black woman. I think it’s because I’m the father of an admirable, accomplished, lovely young woman, and ALL youung women are also my daughters. I just like them.
This seems very focused on the concern trolls, but seems to gloss over that there really is still racism. While there is racism, calling it out will continue to be necessary, and people will continue to call it out improperly.
I don’t rule out racism, but the concern trolls guarantee that there will always be a perception of racism. The racism is nowhere as pervasive as the race-baiting industry has American believing. When Obama loses, as he richly deserves to do, we will quite probably have race riots, because the tale will have been told and believed that a black man was stripped of the power he deserved to have.
The racism is nowhere as pervasive as the race-baiting industry has American believing.
True, but it’s also considerably more pervasive than the false equality industry has America believing.
When Obama loses, as he richly deserves to do, we will quite probably have race riots, because the tale will have been told and believed that a black man was stripped of the power he deserved to have.
First, Obama is still pretty far ahead in the Electoral College Math. Your statement that he will lose seems to be on no firmer footing than Reid’s statement about Romney’s taxes. Second, your inconsistencies on your judgement of leadership is well known, and makes your opinion on the matter worthless. Third, your suggestion of race riots doesn’t seem to be rooted in, well, anything. How many people predicted race riots if Obama was elected? How many black governers and senators and mayors have lost elections? Were their race riots when O’Malley became mayor of Baltimore? No.
Your statements in this passage are beneath you. They suggest you think that blacks will not honor the democratic change of power. Just like the conservatives wouldn’t honor the change in 2008 and the progressives wouldn’t honor the change in 2000. Your cynicism is getting the better of you.
Obama is not ahead: the polls are absurd. The media is unconscionably representing a close race as a forgone conclusion, when all historical trends and common sense would dictate otherwise. I think the Bradley effect is rampant, because people have been cowed into thinking they will be regarded as racists if they tell the truth. The media cheerleading that bolstered Obama in 2008 (he would have won with fair coverage too) is getting frantic, and it will feed conspiracy, stolen election claims when he loses, unless he loses big. THEN the story will be that America is overwhelmingly racist.
I’m not happy with any of this, but I think this is where we are headed. I sure hope I’m wrong.
Your argument is based on all the evidence we have being wrong. If you didn’t realize, Nate Silver takes the Bradley effect into account in his models.
“All” the evidence? The evidence is hardly consistent. I’m not especially interested in prognostication. My original point was that a white President with Obama’s record would be a despairing underdog now, and that is true. I find it amazing that a candidate can have any viability at all when his re-election campaign ( and performance) so directly contradicts the principles, reforms and aspirations that carried him into office, especially without positive accomplishments to balance out the reversal. But history has surprises, and so does the future: he may win. Everything I know about presidential elections, however, tells me that he won’t. I think this is Carter vs. Reagan redux, with a black Carter. We’ll see.
“All” the evidence? The evidence is hardly consistent.
Okay, “All” was too strong, but you are denying valid evidence because it doesn’t fit your theory.
My original point was that a white President with Obama’s record would be a despairing underdog now, and that is true.
No, that’s your opinion, and it’s an opinion that has already been shown to not be supported by the evidence.
I find it amazing that a candidate can have any viability at all when his re-election campaign ( and performance) so directly contradicts the principles, reforms and aspirations that carried him into office, especially without positive accomplishments to balance out the reversal.
The only spots of contradiction I see are openness vs transparency and the drug war. Everythign else has been on the same message.
Also, no positive accomplishments? Where have you beent he past 4 years? Listening to the media that’s supposedly in the tank for Obama?
But history has surprises, and so does the future: he may win. Everything I know about presidential elections, however, tells me that he won’t. I think this is Carter vs. Reagan redux, with a black Carter. We’ll see.
Except for the fact that this year’s version of Carter is essentially Reagan and this year’s version of Reagan is pushing the relative policies of Hoover.
Citing “everything I know” about a topic is like citing common sense. When you pick a topic that only occurs once every 4 years, and has been greatly changed by advances in technology, the best case scenario is that you’re overestimating your abilities to judge situations and find patterns.
Also, your link about the executive order is putrid. The writer complely glosses over the “not unduly affected” part of the Maryland policy, even though he quotes it. Healso pulls parts of the Executive Order (which he doesn’t cite) out of context to make boilerplate truths appear to be sinister instructions.
Here’s the actual executive order: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/26/executive-order-white-house-initiative-educational-excellence-african-am
I think you fell for confirmation bias on this one.
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You nailed the actual meat of the arguments though. Neither Serena’s dance nor NBC’s promo should have been seen for anything more than a burst of happiness and a slightly clever corporate shilling.
tgt—I substituted your link for mine. For some reason I had trouble finding a better article. Thanks.
But this seems pretty clear to me in the order:
“…reducing the dropout rate of African American students and helping African American students graduate from high school prepared for college and a career, in part by promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools, and by supporting successful and innovative dropout prevention and recovery strategies that better engage African American youths in their learning, help them catch up academically, and provide those who have left the educational system with pathways to reentry;
It is a classic results-based mandate. You DON’T think it will result in quotas for punishment of black students? If a class has 3 blacks and no whites deserving suspensions, what do you think will happen? It’s irresponsible on its face.
the key phrase is “rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools”. Basically, if your procedures lead you to discriminate, you can’t use them anymore. It’s not irresponsible, it’s fixing the problem where it can actually be fixed, instead of band-aiding in quotas at the end.
That phrase can mean anything someone wants it to mean. It will mean quotas, and outright bias based on race.
Well, if you ignore the English language, sure.
I think you are naive, here, tgt. I’ll alert you when you’re proven wrong.
And I’ll call right now that you will make the same analytical errors that you do when talking about single mothers and black v white marijuana arrests.
I have always opposed disparate impact theory, which presumes that policies discriminate merely because of a disparate impact among classes of persons, regardless of discriminatory intent or explicit classifications. .
It is true, of course, that facially neutral policies can constitute discrimination. That stated, the Sixth Circuit had recently discussed the limits of the idea that facially neutral policies can constitute discrimination.
Ward v. Polite, 667 F.3d 727 at 738-739 (6th Cir. Jan. 27, 2012)
Similarly, the mere fact that a “neutral and generally applicable” policy has a disparate impact should not mean it is discriminatory. Only if the policy is not applied in “an even-handed…[classification]-neutral manner” should the policy be considered discriminatory.
I have always opposed disparate impact theory, which presumes that policies discriminate merely because of a disparate impact among classes of persons, regardless of discriminatory intent or explicit classifications.
This is as good as any self refutation I have ever heard.
Similarly, the mere fact that a “neutral and generally applicable” policy has a disparate impact should not mean it is discriminatory. Only if the policy is not applied in “an even-handed…[classification]-neutral manner” should the policy be considered discriminatory.
You seem to be using the word “similarly” improperly. Can you explain where disparate impact is talked about in that case? It’s not in your quoted text, and you, again, have no referential link.
In Ward, the Sixth Circuit cited evidence that suggests that the policy at issue was not applied even-handedly, thus possibly discriminating against Christians, and reversed and remanded to the district court on that basis.
Still waiting for the disparate impact discussion.
I think the point to make with regard to that is that even if a policy has a disparate impact on different groups of people, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the existing policy isn’t the most valid way of selecting for merit. The cause for the disparity could well be outside of the test itself. Or to put it this way; just because Jews are disproportionately represented in the Ivy League schools doesn’t necessarily mean the selection criteria implicitly discriminates against gentiles.
Ward essentially makes this point when it discussed Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, 664 F.3d 865, 868 (11th Cir. 2011) The policy at issue in Keeton was applied in an even-handed manner. And while it had a disparate impact among Christians, the policy did not constitute a burden on religion. By contrast, the policy at issue in Ward appeared to be applied selectively, and it appeared that the disparate impact was the result of selective application of the policy.
If policies that had disparate impacts were presumed to discriminate, Keeton would have been decided differently, or, at the very least, it would have applied strict scrutiny.
Does the language of the decision (that you again, don’t link to) use the term “disparate impact” in the way it’s used in this EO?
Which, while relevant to the overall question, is irrelevant to the comment it replies to. Michael threw out a complete non sequitur response. I called him on it.
Well, you did say you were waiting for a disparate impact discussion. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that so literally. 😛
Point definitely taken.
I’d bite, but it’s a mega-debate, and I have a headache. I just stuck my toe in it, and I promise I’ll dive in soon.
Jack/tgt,
I agree on with you in regards to the race baiting, and with tgt in regards to calling out racism when warranted, but it is almost the default aspect that we look for now. It has become a witch hunt for racism, guilty until proven innocent. Yet we almost completely ignore any race based crimes against whites or any other groups.
On a side note, I have heard at least 4 times during the Olympics “African-American” so and so. What the hell is that? It is just American, that is it, no qualifiers. I have not heard African-pick a country when referring to any other black athlete. I even hear it on the BBC, qualifiers for Americans should rarely if ever be used, it serves no one to break out any group. Seems like many other countries have figured it out, why can’t we?
I agree wholeheartedly. The term African-American is pretty stupid in most contexts.
Jack is spot on over the end result of that so-called “enlightened” policy. Quotas. And more quotas. And another surge of bureaucrats to ensure the word “disparate” is properly interpreted. And another surge of “professional” blacks raking in shekels milking their “peeps”.
What we’re seeing and discussing, of course, is a topic on which whites are forbidden to opine . And that societal attitude itself is a huge part of the problem. One doesn’t need to be black to understand being black in America is more difficult than being white. Eric Hoffer wasn’t black but gave the best advice I’ve every seen on how blacks could go about breaking their cultural and economic barriers by forming construction industry guilds. A suggestion supported even by Thomas Sowell, but then publicly lambasted by other do-gooders because Hoffer wasn’t black ergo couldn’t “understand”. As if only being poor and downtrodden somehow made him irrelevant.
Btw, the mood of the country I see backs Jack over tgt as far as November is concerned.
I see conclusions. I don’t see any support for them.
Yeah, they are my conclusions. Worth maybe 2 cents. But I have a black high school age grandson, and my biggest hope – expressed in writing four years ago – was that Obama would not do such a lousy job that he would be the last black president for a hundred years. I looked at the four factors you mentioned to Jack and just shake my head. This thread is about how we can get past race. We can’t if it’s the only thing that’s talked about.
Unsupported conclusions aren’t worth even 2 cents.
This thread is about how we can get past race. We can’t if it’s the only thing that’s talked about.
I agree, but ignoring legitimate problems also won’t make them go away. Race still has to be talked about because there is still bigotry related to race.
I can’t believe you are arguing who’s going to win the election in early August. We don’t even know who Romney picks as his running mate yet! I mean, what if he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate? Do you think he’d still win?
That’s not exactly what is going on. I was referring to the fact that the Obama divide-and-conquer strategy includes intimidating critics with the ridiculous argument that opposition to the president is based on racism. I wrote, accurately, that a white President with a similar record would be considered DOA, even now. Black allies of the President have said as much, noting that if a white president presided over 14% black unemployment, there would be marches on Washington. I referred to a mainstream media campaign to represent Obama’s re-election as assured, which I regard as irresponsible and seeding future racial discord—if Obama’s election is “assured” and he is in fact defeated, then that will deepen suspicion and the racial divide.
I really don’t think the running mate makes a lot of difference. If it isn’t obvious to everyone that Joe Biden is a dim-wit who is as frightening a prospect for the Presidency as Dan Quayle on his worst day, I have no idea why—how many stupid things does someone have to say in public before we can safely conclude that a man is a bumbling fool? I don’t know that I’d prefer Palin as a President to Biden, but it’s like picking Curly or Larry.
Of course anything can happen between now and the election.
A white President who has brought us out of recession while Europe double dips, all while lowering most people’s taxes? A white president who has advanced civil liberties? A white person who has passed healthcare reform in the face of complete intransigence? Clearly, he has a horrible record.
Jack, your analysis continues to be crap because you pretend that the world, outside the president, is constant.
As for the “mainstream media campaign to represent Obama’s re-election as assured”, that contradicts your own statement from earlier in this thread “The media is unconscionably representing a close race as a forgone conclusion”.
it can’t be both.
I’d like to note that I am not arguing that Obama is going to win, just that Jack’s definitive statement on what will occur is bunk.