"It's not about race..." seems like we here those words spoken more and more often. It could be that we are becoming more sensitive about race relations in the US and might be jumping the gun on seeing race as the source of some of the more problematic issues we are facing today even if they aren't really racially based. Then again it could be that "It's not about race..." is simply an excuse we hope will be taken at face value and allow us to avoid facing up to the fact that we are racists.
I truly believe that most people do not see themselves as racists. They really believe that they don't have any problem with people of other races and colors. Their actions don't support their beliefs however. Could it be that African Americans really don't care about government getting to big or having to much influence over our lives or about big government bail outs and our massive national debt? Could this be why you see so few blacks at tea party rallies?
Is it possible that the tea party rallies are completely free of individuals who doubt President Obama's legitimacy based on the color of his skin? Could it be that the far right is devoid of individuals who would spit on African American Congressmen, but not any other members of Congress were not acting in a racist manner? Could it be that the other members of the far right who defended the individuals who spat upon the members of Congress and said that their actions weren't racist were right?
We are afraid of race in this country. No one wants to admit to being a racist, in this country there are very few adjectives considered more offensive to have used against you. Here in the South we are quick to defend ourselves against claims of racism, not by denying the racism, but by offering up examples of how racism is just as prevalent in other parts of the country. The number of self declared racists in the US is amazingly low and yet racism seems so common.
We seem to only talk about race relations with other members of our own race and then no matter what we say we tend to give each other a pass. White people don't tend to call other white people racist. If you are white and see a black person call a white person racist then the claim can be tossed away as reflecting only how sensitive the African American is or worse reflecting the racism of the African American.
We have avoided having the topic of racism come up when it is really important, when members of different racists are having the conversation, to such an extent that none of us can see our own racism any more. We define racism in the narrowest of terms when discussing the actions of individuals or groups of people who look like us but see racist behavior running rampant amongst those with whom we don't share a skin color. We need to start calling out our friends and family members, our neighbors, our pastors and priests, calling out anyone who thinks less of someone just because of their skin color. Just because someone says "I'm not a racist" doesn't mean we then allow them to say terribly racist things without bringing it up. Do not tell me "I'm not against Mexicans, I'm just for the United States" and then go on to talk about Hispanics in nothing but stereotypical terms and not expect me to call you a racist. I can't make you stop being a racist, we live in a country where you are free to be an idiot, but you should just own up to who and what you are. Then we will see if you can live with yourself.
If there is any doubt that racism is still a problem in our country check out this article, racism exists in every facet of our society but I bet if you asked the well educated judges and lawyers this article is about they would say "It's not about race..."
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Rand Paul and why the Civil Rights Act still matters
Last week Rand Paul won Kentucky's Republican primary for the seat in the US Senate up for grabs this November. Being the candidate widely supported in this race by members of the tea party movement and because he handily beat his opponent the news media gave quite a bit of time to his win as it might signal a shift even further to the right in the Republican Party.
NPR scored an interview with Rand Paul the day after the election and the interviewer brought up a comment he had made in a interview a few weeks earlier to a Kentucky newspaper. In this interview Mr. Paul stated that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was something that he couldn't have supported as it was passed. He said that he agrees with the law in that it ended discrimination by the government but he couldn't agree with a law that forced businesses and private groups to stop discriminating on the basis of race and skin color. His argument, one that is actually not unusual amongst libertarians, is that the government does not have the right to regulate the activities of private groups and businesses. Even though he says he finds racism and racial discrimination deplorable he still believes that in America it is the right of businesses to discriminate if they want to and that we should let the market straighten things out for us.
Since this interview Mr. Paul has given a few others in which he basically repeated what he had said in the NPR and newspaper article, he has given other interviews where he has tried to distance himself from his earlier comments while still not stating they were wrong, and he has done a complete turn around and said that he would have in fact voted for the Civil Rights Act as it was. The interesting thing to me is how many times he has said he was surprised by the uproar his statements created as he didn't think that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was all that important any more. How could one person be so wrong in so many ways.
First of all we should look at his libertarian belief that the government's power should be so limited as to not allow the government to force businesses and private groups that serve the public to serve all persons regardless of race or color. He has stated, and many others share his belief, that the market would favor businesses who didn't discriminate and would bring an end to racial discrimination. There is a small town in Western North Carolina that I visit on a fairly regular basis. It has a population of around 400 people and has only one gas station and one grocery store. If we lived by Mr. Paul's beliefs and the grocery store or the gas station in this town decided to serve whites only then the few minorities that live in this small village would have to drive 30 miles or so to find another gas station or grocery store. Minorities on vacation would have to cross this town off their list, not just as a destination but as a place to pass through as they couldn't purchase gas there and if their son or daughter had to use the bathroom they would have to tell them to just wait, for another hour or so. This town couldn't support another gas station or grocery store, it is just too small. The number of minorities living in this town or passing through are also small enough that not serving these individuals wouldn't create a burden on the businesses great enough to cause them to change their policies. The market wouldn't end discrimination in this case, the market would probably support it. This equation doesn't just hold true in small, remote, towns. Most larger cities are racially segregated to some extent by neighborhoods. What if the African American or Hispanic neighborhoods in your areas started being filled with "No Whites" signs just as the white neighborhoods started filling up with "Whites Only" signs. Can we not all see the return to violence, intolerance, and hatred this would bring? The market is incapable of being an arbitrator of moral issues. The market only understands money, if it understands anything at all. Our recent economic collapse should have shaken our collective faith in the market to the point that we wouldn't have to listen to drivel like Mr. Paul is spewing but the fact that it hasn't shows just one of the reasons the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is still important today, it is important because we, as a society, have a very short memory and could easily fall back into our old practices.
Another reason why the Civil Rights Act is still important became clear to me this week. I was at the main building of the Nashville Public Library looking at photos and documents they have on display as part of an exhibit called "Visions & Voices: The Civil Rights Movement in Nashville and Tennessee, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Nashville Sit-in Movement". The exhibit was very powerful, but one photograph in particular jumped out at me. It showed a young African American woman, Grace McKinley, escorting her daughter, Linda Gail McKinley, to elementary school through an angry crowd who0 appeared to be screaming at the woman and her daughter while holding signs showing their opposition to school desegregation. One of the signs read "God is the author of segregation, Genesis 9: 25-27". The verses quoted had been used many times in the history of our country to justify the keeping of slaves. Apparently the man holding this sign thought that if they were a justification for slavery they would work just as well to justify segregation. This photo, the sign in the photo, they show just how wrong Rand Paul is. If the government hadn't stepped in the school Linda Gail McKinley went to would still be segregated, Mr. Paul says he supports the government taking action to end segregation in that school, but he thinks Linda Gail McKinley didn't have the right, as a human being, to eat at the same lunch counter as the man holding the sign? She didn't have the right as a human being to shop at the same stores as the man holding the sign? She didn't have the right to attend the same church as the man holding the sign? You see, when Rand Paul says that businesses, as a matter of principle, should have the right to discriminate, he is saying that those they discriminate against are lesser people. Statements like the ones made by Mr. Paul make me think he might be a lesser person. He certainly isn't worthy of serving in the US Senate.
One last reason why the Civil Rights Act still matters. Rand Paul may think the Civil Rights Act went to far, but the photo I mentioned above shows that it didn't go far enough. Today individuals are still being discriminated against. They are being discriminated against by businesses, private groups, and even our government. Further more this discrimination is still being wrongly justified by using verses from the Bible just as the man with the sign was trying to do. The Civil Rights Act still matters because America is still a place where discrimination is rampant, people still face discrimination based on their skin color, based on disability, and based on their sexual orientation. The Civil Rights Act matters because it is still a work in progress and until we are all seen and treated as being created equal it will continue to matter.
NPR scored an interview with Rand Paul the day after the election and the interviewer brought up a comment he had made in a interview a few weeks earlier to a Kentucky newspaper. In this interview Mr. Paul stated that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was something that he couldn't have supported as it was passed. He said that he agrees with the law in that it ended discrimination by the government but he couldn't agree with a law that forced businesses and private groups to stop discriminating on the basis of race and skin color. His argument, one that is actually not unusual amongst libertarians, is that the government does not have the right to regulate the activities of private groups and businesses. Even though he says he finds racism and racial discrimination deplorable he still believes that in America it is the right of businesses to discriminate if they want to and that we should let the market straighten things out for us.
Since this interview Mr. Paul has given a few others in which he basically repeated what he had said in the NPR and newspaper article, he has given other interviews where he has tried to distance himself from his earlier comments while still not stating they were wrong, and he has done a complete turn around and said that he would have in fact voted for the Civil Rights Act as it was. The interesting thing to me is how many times he has said he was surprised by the uproar his statements created as he didn't think that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was all that important any more. How could one person be so wrong in so many ways.
First of all we should look at his libertarian belief that the government's power should be so limited as to not allow the government to force businesses and private groups that serve the public to serve all persons regardless of race or color. He has stated, and many others share his belief, that the market would favor businesses who didn't discriminate and would bring an end to racial discrimination. There is a small town in Western North Carolina that I visit on a fairly regular basis. It has a population of around 400 people and has only one gas station and one grocery store. If we lived by Mr. Paul's beliefs and the grocery store or the gas station in this town decided to serve whites only then the few minorities that live in this small village would have to drive 30 miles or so to find another gas station or grocery store. Minorities on vacation would have to cross this town off their list, not just as a destination but as a place to pass through as they couldn't purchase gas there and if their son or daughter had to use the bathroom they would have to tell them to just wait, for another hour or so. This town couldn't support another gas station or grocery store, it is just too small. The number of minorities living in this town or passing through are also small enough that not serving these individuals wouldn't create a burden on the businesses great enough to cause them to change their policies. The market wouldn't end discrimination in this case, the market would probably support it. This equation doesn't just hold true in small, remote, towns. Most larger cities are racially segregated to some extent by neighborhoods. What if the African American or Hispanic neighborhoods in your areas started being filled with "No Whites" signs just as the white neighborhoods started filling up with "Whites Only" signs. Can we not all see the return to violence, intolerance, and hatred this would bring? The market is incapable of being an arbitrator of moral issues. The market only understands money, if it understands anything at all. Our recent economic collapse should have shaken our collective faith in the market to the point that we wouldn't have to listen to drivel like Mr. Paul is spewing but the fact that it hasn't shows just one of the reasons the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is still important today, it is important because we, as a society, have a very short memory and could easily fall back into our old practices.
Another reason why the Civil Rights Act is still important became clear to me this week. I was at the main building of the Nashville Public Library looking at photos and documents they have on display as part of an exhibit called "Visions & Voices: The Civil Rights Movement in Nashville and Tennessee, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Nashville Sit-in Movement". The exhibit was very powerful, but one photograph in particular jumped out at me. It showed a young African American woman, Grace McKinley, escorting her daughter, Linda Gail McKinley, to elementary school through an angry crowd who0 appeared to be screaming at the woman and her daughter while holding signs showing their opposition to school desegregation. One of the signs read "God is the author of segregation, Genesis 9: 25-27". The verses quoted had been used many times in the history of our country to justify the keeping of slaves. Apparently the man holding this sign thought that if they were a justification for slavery they would work just as well to justify segregation. This photo, the sign in the photo, they show just how wrong Rand Paul is. If the government hadn't stepped in the school Linda Gail McKinley went to would still be segregated, Mr. Paul says he supports the government taking action to end segregation in that school, but he thinks Linda Gail McKinley didn't have the right, as a human being, to eat at the same lunch counter as the man holding the sign? She didn't have the right as a human being to shop at the same stores as the man holding the sign? She didn't have the right to attend the same church as the man holding the sign? You see, when Rand Paul says that businesses, as a matter of principle, should have the right to discriminate, he is saying that those they discriminate against are lesser people. Statements like the ones made by Mr. Paul make me think he might be a lesser person. He certainly isn't worthy of serving in the US Senate.
One last reason why the Civil Rights Act still matters. Rand Paul may think the Civil Rights Act went to far, but the photo I mentioned above shows that it didn't go far enough. Today individuals are still being discriminated against. They are being discriminated against by businesses, private groups, and even our government. Further more this discrimination is still being wrongly justified by using verses from the Bible just as the man with the sign was trying to do. The Civil Rights Act still matters because America is still a place where discrimination is rampant, people still face discrimination based on their skin color, based on disability, and based on their sexual orientation. The Civil Rights Act matters because it is still a work in progress and until we are all seen and treated as being created equal it will continue to matter.
Friday, May 14, 2010
The state of my State
So, How is Tennessee doing? Well we have just been ranked in a couple of lists and we now know that Tennessee is the 5th most dangerous state in the country according to CQ Press' annual Crime State Rankings for 2010. I suppose we can take some pride we didn't wind up as number one on that list... like we did on The Daily Beast's list of the most corrupt states.
So, if you come to Tennessee you stand a better chance of getting robbed, raped, assaulted, or killed than you do in all but 4 other of the 50 states and the person who attacks you stands a better chance of not paying for their crime because they are more likely to be able to buy their way out of jail time if they have enough cash? Heck, they might even be able to get the state legislature to step in and take action to protect them. If not some local politician is probably related to them and will be able to help.
Why are things so bad in Tennessee? Well our state government and many of our local governments have been taken over by tea party/birther types who seem to not have a speck of common sense bouncing around in their otherwise empty heads like a marble in a vacant warehouse. There might be some sort of connection there. I am willing to vote all of those people out of office and replace them with progressives to see if it solves any of our problems. All in the name of science of course... not that any of the people currently in power think that science is anything more than just a plot to keep prayer out of school, but you know what I mean.
So, if you come to Tennessee you stand a better chance of getting robbed, raped, assaulted, or killed than you do in all but 4 other of the 50 states and the person who attacks you stands a better chance of not paying for their crime because they are more likely to be able to buy their way out of jail time if they have enough cash? Heck, they might even be able to get the state legislature to step in and take action to protect them. If not some local politician is probably related to them and will be able to help.
Why are things so bad in Tennessee? Well our state government and many of our local governments have been taken over by tea party/birther types who seem to not have a speck of common sense bouncing around in their otherwise empty heads like a marble in a vacant warehouse. There might be some sort of connection there. I am willing to vote all of those people out of office and replace them with progressives to see if it solves any of our problems. All in the name of science of course... not that any of the people currently in power think that science is anything more than just a plot to keep prayer out of school, but you know what I mean.
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