racism

The Washington Post, Rick Perry, and “Niggerhead”: A Confirmation Bias Conundrum

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I'm bending over backwards trying to be fair about this...

The Washington Post splashed a strange front page story across its paper face on Sunday. I have no idea what to make of it, because I am trying as hard as I can to be objective, and the story repels objectivity like my cousin repels women. It is shot through with confirmation bias: what you think of it is hard to separate from what you already believe.

It appears that Rick Perry, early in his career (when he was a Democrat), used to host events at a hunting camp where there was a large boulder that had the word “Niggerhead” painted on it. Ranchers called the camp by that name—-once a common one for rock formations and creeks in Texas and other parts of the country—long before Perry and his father, Ray, began hunting there in the early 1980s. Perry’s father leased the property in 1983, and according to Perry, the first thing he did was to paint over the word on the rock.  Perry says that when he first saw the rock, it was already painted over. But the Post found seven individuals who say they remember seeing the name on the rock during the time when Perry’s father’s name was on the lease. Apparently the old name is still visible through the paint. Eventually, Perry’s family paid to have the boulder flipped over so it couldn’t be read. Meanwhile, the Post says,  “Longtime hunters, cowboys and ranchers said this particular place was known by that name as long as they could remember, and still is.”

What are we supposed to take away from all this? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Actor Morgan Freeman

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Ah, God...you disappoint me.

As long as shameless, irresponsible race-baiters keep attributing opposition to President Obama’s presidency to bigotry, I’ll keep naming them Ethics Dunces.

The latest in this disgraceful parade is distinguished African-American actor Morgan Freeman, who told CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview that the Tea Party and the Republican Party antipathy to the President is motivated by racism, saying…

“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here’…It is a racist thing…it just shows the weak, dark, underside of America. We’re supposed to be better than that. We really are. That’s, that’s why all those people were in tears when Obama was elected president. “Ah, look at what we are. Look at how, this is America.’ You know? And then it just sort of started turning because these people surfaced like stirring up muddy water.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Tavis Smiley

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Tavis Smiley believes in traditional American political values...like those of Boss Tweed.

Tavis Smiley, Black Educational TV’s provocative talk show host, unveiled remarkably shameless and divisive tribalism in his remarks to NBC’s Lester Holt.

“What is the presidency really worth? Is it worth not saying anything? Is it worth being silent when you’re catching the most hell, when you’re suffering the most pain? Especially, when you’re the most loyal part of the President’s base?” Smiley asked, speaking of the African-American electorate’s proper response to President Obama’s handling of the economy.

“That’s not hating on the President, it’s defending your own flanks. And whatever happened to that notion that to the victor goes the spoils? If anybody ought to be looked out for, it ought to be the persons who represent the most significant and the most loyal part of the base. That would be African-Americans.”

That would be Tavis Smiley, at his most irresponsible and racist. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Flying the Confederate Flag…”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Blogger Edward Carney, who writes about the revelations of daily life (check out his blog here) put his finger on a central issue in the Confederate flag debate in his Comment of the Day.  Flying or displaying the provocative banner sends multiple messages simultaneously, and the individual responsible for the flag  is also responsible for the consequence of all of them. Claiming that one means no offense while knowing that one of the messages is unequivocally offensive is disingenuous,  naive, or willfully rude.

Here is the Comment of the Day on the post, “Flying the Confederate Flag..”:

“I’ll say this for those citizens and politicians who insist on flying the Confederate flag at local monuments and public events: at least they can make the argument that it represents history and a set of values that is still acceptable, even laudable, today. They can make that argument, however disingenuous it may be. The same cannot be said of everyone. Continue reading →

Flying the Confederate Flag: Protected Speech? Of Course. Unethical? Absolutely.

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Honor them for their valor if you must, but there was nothing honorable about their cause or their flag.

Once again, emerging from under-ground like a the seven-year locust, a controversy over the flying of the Confederate Flag is raging, this time in Lexington, Virginia, burial place of two Confederate heroes, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. A proposed city ordinance would prohibit the flying of the Confederate banner on downtown poles, and some Southern heritage buffs as well as Jackson and Lee fans are upset. “By all means [Jackson and Lee] should be honored,” said Brandon Dorsey, commander of Camp 1296 of the Stonewall Brigade of the Confederate Veterans. “I look at the flag as honoring the veterans.”

The problem is, Brandon, that a large number of Americans look at that same flag as honoring slavery and racism, and for good and historical reasons. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Stetson Kennedy (1916-2011)

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

And he gave his book to Superman...

Author and folklorist Stetson Kennedy, who died this week,  is another important and courageous American that most of us never heard of. Let’s try to catch up.

After a back injury kept him out of World War II, Kennedy began a lifetime career of crusading against bigotry and what he called “homegrown racial terrorists.” He served as director of fact-finding for the southeastern office of the Anti-Defamation League and as director of the Anti-Nazi League of New York.

In his 1954 book “I Rode With the Ku Klux Klan,” Kennedy wrote that he gained entrance to the Klan by posing as an encyclopedia salesman and using the name of an uncle who was a Klan member. While posing as a member, he learned many Klan secrets that he put to use undermining the organization’s reputation and support. With evidence he snatched from the Grand Dragon’s wastebasket, he gave the Internal Revenue Service what it needed to collect an outstanding $685,000 tax lien from the Klan in 1944, and he helped draft the brief used by the state of Georgia to revoke the Klan’s national corporate charter in 1947. He also testified in other Klan-related cases. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: What Was Unethical About ESPN’s Illustration To “What if Michael Vick Were White”?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

What if Michael Vick were a hippopotamus?

For your first Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz this September, we revisit ESPN’s controversial article by journalist Touré, who was assigned the task of engaging in the thought experiment,“What would have been different if Michael Vick were white?”

Vick, for all you football-challenged readers, is the current star quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles who just signed a $100 million contract with the team and another rich deal with Nike. A few short years ago, Vick was in prison, his NFL and endorsement contracts cancelled, his career seemingly over, because of his conviction on multiple counts of animal abuse charges and running a dog-fighting ring. Since his release, Vick has done all the right things in the public rehabilitation of his image, and his remarkable football talents did not erode in jail. When Vick was being prosecuted, a number of journalists and commentators who should have their brains put out to pasture asked if Vick, who was shown to have personally electrocuted and beaten to death some of his dogs, would have been treated less harshly by the law had he been white. The answer was and is no (or perhaps “no, you idiots”), just as it was for O.J. Simpson. Continue reading →

Memorial Ethics,Part I: Recalling The Martin Luther King Memorial Controversy

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

  (For Memorial Ethics, Part Two, go here.)

[It is almost forgotten now, but when the design of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was chosen back in 2007, there was much unhappiness in the black community. A Chinese artist was chosen to design the memorial, and this raised issues both ethical and ironic. Now that the memorial is completed (the planned dedication this week has been postponed due to Hurricane Irene), it seems clear that critics aimed their objections in the wrong direction: the problem wasn’t the designer, but the design, an imposing piece of classic Socialist-Worker art that would look at home in Red Square. But, hey, there’s lots of bad art in Washington, covering an abundance of styles: the large bust of JFK in the Kennedy Center makes it look like President Kennedy was made out of chewing gum. At least some bad Communist statuary is a change of pace.

The debate over the choice of artist was interesting, and is even more so in retrospect. It is worth pondering as the new monument joins the National Mall. Here is my article on the matter, slightly edited from the original published on The Ethics Scoreboard in 2007, followed by a response from the artist selection’s most vocal critic.]

An intense controversy surrounds the choice of a statue’s sculptor, specifically the Chinese artist whose design was selected by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation to become a major monument to the martyred civil rights leader in Washington, D.C. Continue reading →

Explain to Me Why We Tolerate Illegal Immigration, Again?

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Yes, I'm in a rotten mood today! Wanna make something out of it??

My cranky Saturday continues with an issue that I increasingly find bewildering: the tolerance, denial, and enabling by so many Americans of illegal immigration, although its unethical character cannot be denied or argued away. I know why Democrats support it—pure electoral cynicism—and I know why the business community encourages it—greed. What I don’t comprehend is why anyone else with a modicum of logic, fairness, and common sense isn’t confronting both of these self-serving institutions and demanding real enforcement of anti-illegal immigration measures. Instead, we get outrageous legislation like the Maryland Dream Act, which institutionalizes incentives for aliens to defy our laws. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Day: The Washington Post

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

OK, Tea Party, this should be right up your alley.

“We hope that some members of Congress’s new “Tea Party Caucus” can make it down to the fireworks Monday night. It might be a good time to reflect on the primary motivation for the original Boston Tea Party, which was that Americans should not be taxed by a government in which they had no parliamentary representation. That right to a voting representative is still denied to all who live in the nation’s capital, and some of them must be wondering why members of Congress who so revere the Founders haven’t done something about it.”

—The Washington Post editorial board, in a “footnote” to its editorial about the enduring importance of the Declaration of Independence.

Little more needs to be said. The fact that the citizens of the District of Columbia, who number more than the populations of several states, are unrepresented in the House and the Senate is beyond disgraceful. Yes, there are troublesome issues to be worked out. It is also clear that if the either political party placed a higher priority on fairness and self-government than it did on political considerations, the problem would have been settled by now—after all, the District has been without representation for more than 200 years.

Most of the blame, however, goes to the Republicans, who have been obstructing D.C. representation for the most naked of self-serving motives: it is a predominantly African American, knee-jerk liberal city, and would surely contribute two Senators and one Representative to the Democratic cause. (This is also an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the memory of how the GOP blocked its citizens from the most basic American right will and should keep the District deep blue until the stars turn cold.)

Well, too bad: the fact that most DC residents are Democrats is no excuse for keeping them from meaningful participation in national lawmaking. The Post is exactly right: if the Tea Party has integrity and is true to its principles, it will firmly endorse representation for the District of Columbia. This would also have the beneficial side effect of ending the liberal trope that the Tea Party is racist at its core. The main reason for doing it, however, could be more obvious. It is the right thing to do, and overdue as well.