Reagan to Nixon to Trump

As this points out, there's a direct line from Nixon through Reagan to Trump. Same tactics, different faces.

Here in Arkansas, so many of my students have been taught that Reagan was a great president, and a hero who saved America. When I point out he was -- like Trump -- a grifter who was bent on filling the pockets of the 1%, a president who destroyed the American middle-class, they can't think what I mean.

Often we hear that the Southern Strategy was just a tactic, a way for Nixon and then Reagan to get votes from (racist) Southern white men. And I'll agree that was a tactic they used. But it wasn't just a tactic. Just as Trump is racist to the core, so were they.

then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had sided against the United States. “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Nixon gave a huge laugh.

Anyone who is surprised by this revelation hasn't been paying attention.


See also this, bc it ain't just Trump.

Racism in America

Here is one of my earliest memories, one I have never, ever admitted to anyone.

I was four years old. My family had just moved out of New Orleans proper -- in New Orleans, we lived in a trailer park in Gentilly, which was near the interstate overpass, and very close to the Community coffee factory. Every morning I would wake on the lower bunk of the bunkbed I shared with my older brother (my little brother had the crib) smelled roasting coffee. I still remember how wonderful that smell was.

But Here in Arkansas, We've Got Poor White People

AKA the "Where's my privilege, huh? HUH?" argument.

AKA as the argument that makes me roll my eyes and sigh.

Not because it's a good argument. But, like every argument trotted out by a freshman or a libertarian or a toddler, it's one of those arguments that is difficult to refute not because it's a good argument -- it's a terrible argument* -- but because to refute it, you practically have to re-educate the person in question from the ground up.

It's not an argument that can be refuted with sound-bites, in other words.  And in general, people making this argument are only going to used to arguments made in sound-bites and bumper stickers.

So, you know, I'm already discouraged.


Part I: "What are you even talking about, delagar?"

More than once this semester, I've had a student, in class or in person, argue with me that white males are the ones who face real discrimination these days; or that white people in general are the ones facing real discrimination in our current economy.

Some Links on the Protests

These are from LG&M, where the bloggers are doing good work.

You Know Who Else Took Part in Hunger Strikes?

More about Mizzou

Jonathan Butler and Mizzou

ETA: See this link as well, from the Guardian.

The Campus Race Protests...

The comments over there are also very much

As Much as I Hate to Keep Attacking Rod Dreher....

So you've all heard of Ben Fields and how he assaulted that black child.

You know all the circumstances.  How the girl is a recent orphan.  How the entire contretemps started over the girl getting out her phone in class, and then refusing to surrender the phone. (I'll admit I have some sympathy here -- I know how essential my kid's phone is to her mental well-being, and no, I do not exaggerate, not even one tiny bit. She, too, would probably risk arrest rather than give up her phone, and she has two living parents.)

Ain't No Racists Here

Dr. Skull taught Frederick Douglass in his WLIT today, and got into a discussion of racism with his class -- a road, as you know, that I too have gone down, often, in these parts.

His white students, he said, insisted racism was no longer an issue in America today. His black students laughed in disbelief.

Which brings me to this video: Part one, Part two. Required viewing, I think, for every American with his or her white privilege intact.

The best, and worst, moment, I think, is the kid who walked out -- who can't take surrendering her white privilege for two hours on a Saturday morning; and who quotes Martin Luther King Jr. while she does it.

As if.

Why Can't 'They' Learn to Talk Right?

Right being white, of course.

I didn't make it to the PCA this year after all, having busted my foot and my finances simultaneously (my insurance being the sad item that it is); I had intended to present my paper on RaceFail09 there, talking about why Characters of Color are under-represented in SF/F world and why Writers of Color are under-represented on the SF/F bookshelves and in the SF/F magazines.

I was to be on a panel with other papers on similar topics, including one being given by my buddy Zelda, who has been working for several years now on the effects of ignorance of or prejudice toward Black English among school teachers and administrators on the continued low literacy levels of black children in the Delta region of Arkansas.

Anyway, this paper (correct me if I'm wrong, Zelda!) was about how, rather than hyper-correcting and failing students out of the standard classroom, teachers could use knowledge of Black English to increase literacy in black students (who make a majority of students in the public schools in the Delta).

Sadly, since I wasn't there, Zelda was on her own when she was attacked by an elderly professor who was of the Black English isn't a language school of thought, who accused her of being a liberal professor filled with the bigotry of low expectations. (Not in those words.) She held her own, citing him linguists who know otherwise-- Zelda takes no shit off of no one -- but I feel bad anyway. If I had been there, at least we could have both argued with him.

All of by way of saying: Here, cool, look at this! (Hat tip Heebie at Unfogged)

The "up" as in "all up in my place" is one I have heard not only among my black students, but among my white students too. "Don't come getting all up in my Kool-Aid, now," being my personal favorite. But, as Zelda likes to remind my students when she comes to give the lecture on Black English to my HEL class each semester, most of them, whether they know it or not, actual speak a version of Black English too.

Racefail Coda

I'm presenting my paper on racism in the SF world/in SF publishing in April at the PCA, and doing research for that paper in what few spare moments I can find -- anyway, today I came across this essay by Samuel Delany.

Read the whole thing, as they say, but here's a key paragraph:

Since I began to publish in 1962, I have often been asked, by people of all colors, what my experience of racial prejudice in the science fiction field has been. Has it been nonexistent? By no means: It was definitely there. A child of the political protests of the ’50s and ’60s, I’ve frequently said to people who asked that question: As long as there are only one, two, or a handful of us, however, I presume in a field such as science fiction, where many of its writers come out of the liberal-Jewish tradition, prejudice will most likely remain a slight force—until, say, black writers start to number thirteen, fifteen, twenty percent of the total. At that point, where the competition might be perceived as having some economic heft, chances are we will have as much racism and prejudice here as in any other field.

Overheard in the Local Harps Grocery Checkout Line

So, this was charming.

Guy: (Speaking to a young woman wearing a Hard Rock Cafe Munich teeshirt): So, you been to Germany?

Woman: Uh, I was born there.

Guy: (A slight considering pause.) You Jewish?

Woman: (Outraged.) No!

Guy: (Nods, as in, well, okay, then.)

(Random coversation about wonders of living in Germany ensues. Meanwhile dr. delagar is restraining herself. Though just now she cannot remember why.)

Don't Be So Touchy

Dr. Laura Schlessinger tells Black Woman.

B/c when you're a rich white Republican woman you know The Rules, including who is allowed to use what language with whom.

I think what irks me about this most is that everything Dr. White Woman lectures her caller about is exactly the problem with her slice of our country -- they're convinced people, especially black people, voted for Obama only because he was black (yet clearly none of them voted for Bush or Reagan or were going to vote for Palin simply because they were white, oh no); they claim to see no difference between language being used by people in power and people who are disempowered, yet they would be the first to get all pissy if someone spoke disrespectfully to a judge or a police officer or a teacher, or, fuck knows, to them (note how Dr. Schlessinger jumps all over the caller for interrupting her); and they pull that "no sense of humor" like a fucking knife.

Yeah.  Because it's funny when people continually attack your race or your sex or your disempowerment.  I know it always cracks me up.

More on the good doctor, if you can take it.

My Hero Ta-Nehisi Coates

This.

More Fun With Teabaggers

I've got three or four of these people in my, ah, I guess you'd call it social circle.

And, you know, they're "not racist."  They just care about teh country!

Yeah.  

I don't argue anymore.  Way back like a year ago when this Teabagger shit started, I could give them some space to learn.  I could think maybe they were just naive, Fox-News watching toolkits who didn't know better.

But at this point?  If you're still subscribing to this filth and you still have a Sarah Palin sticker on your SUV or in your heart?

You're a hater and a racist.  Give it up.

Mel's Racist, Misogynistic Rant

I'm probably the last person to hear this, but yikes.

I'm not so much surprised by what he says, given what everyone except the Right-Wing Xtians already knew about Saint Mel, as I'm appalled by the comments being made on the page defending him, which are basically to the tune of bitch set him up, bitch had it coming, bitch is a money-grubber.  Yeah, you know what I blame.

Just Getting The Rules Clear

Apparently it is okay in America to shoot people, even unarmed people, even restrained people, in the back if

• you are a police officer
• you are scared of those people
• you only meant to taze them*
• they don't give you instant obedience
• they do give you instant obedience but the situation makes you tense
• it's a big crowd around
• they are black people

*Can we please get rid of tasers now?  How much more abuse do we have to wait for?

Taking Time Out From Being Depressed About BP

To be depressed about RaceFail.

My kid absolutely loved Avatar: The Last Airbender.  After every episode, she would give me lengthy disquisitions on what had happened, her favorite characters, why what was going on was important, why she thought this person had done this thing, why it mattered.  I saw only random episodes, but I read enough critical work on the show to be deeply impressed.  When I heard a movie was being made, I was pleased -- as much for the kid as because we'd have a show we could see together.

However:  Here's why you should NOT go see the movie.

Something That Might Be Funny

If it wasn't making me gack:  Why (some) of the Right-Wing Fuckwits can say it's the Lie-brals who are the racists, not THEM, and even believe with all their Xtian Hearts that this is so.

Who Cares About Those People?

Fred at Slacktivist is talking sense again.

...once a right is denied to any group, it ceases to be a right even for those groups for whom it has not yet been denied, becoming instead a mere privilege. Privileges are much weaker, much more fragile things than rights.

Boosting The Signal

Not the white knapsack -- the black one:

1. If I'm in a group of others who look like me, that is a cause for some kind of suspicion.

2. In order to not cause suspicion, I must be in the company of (mostly) whites.

3. If I move, I can be sure I will likely end up in poor neighborhood whether I want to or not.

4. If I move into a white neighborhood, it will be enough to arouse suspicion with my neighbors.

5. When I go shopping, I can be sure I will arouse suspicion and be followed around.

6. I will be sure that when I turn on the TV, I will most likely see others who look like me as ball players, criminals, clowns or overall failures of society.

This is Why I'm Depressed

Unless you've been living in a cave, you've heard of Stephanie Grace by now. From the same white class/enclave that gave us George W. and his ilk, she decided to enlighten the world last week with her notions of why black people just can't cut it in law school, or any other really competitive ilk. Here's a page outlining what happened then, with links.

Even more depressing than Ms. Grace (a 3L at Harvard Law, you must not forget, about to graduate, the product of years and years of expensive, highly honed education at what is supposed to be America's best schools) and her sad nonsense, though, are the comments being made on the piece. Apparently it is still 1951 in America. Or 1851. Apparently white folks will never have anything but their white skins to make them feel worth anything in this country.

See also this for Jesse Taylor's comments on the topic.

And this, for an old paper but a good one.

Well, Of Course They Aren't Racists....

Here's your must-read blog post of the day.

My favorite bit:

Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about.