MLK Day: Is America still racist?

MLK Day: Is America still racist?

Happy Martin Luther King Day, a day that is meant to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King.  A day to celebrate the dream and work of attaining equality in America.  A very worthy goal, the first steps are attempting to bring about gender and racial equality in America.  Since Dr. King worked during the civil rights movement of the 1960’s I thought I would ask an interesting question today, does racism still exist in America?

Your answer to that question probably says less about who you are as a person as it does about who you are socioeconomically.  If you are an economically well-off Caucasian, then you probably believe there is less racism in this country than say if you are a poor Caucasian, African-American or Latino American.  Racism in America over my lifetime has gone from being something that was socially acceptable to becoming something that it’s no longer ok to talk about.  The fortunate thing is that the laws have changed and I truly do believe the United States is less racist now than it was when I was born in 1964, but we are far from living in a society based on racial equality.  I’d point to a lot of the recent immigration rules and debates, some of the rhetoric that came out during Obama’s presidential run.

The other night while watching TV I caught an interview that I expected to be mostly fluff but I was caught off guard by George Lucas blatantly addressing racial bias in America.  He was doing publicity for his new movie Red Tails and he said something really surprising.  The story of course is about the famous Tuskegee Airmen, the first black aviators in American military history.  One of the things that has always struck me about this story is how far America hadn’t come almost 100 years after the Civil War.  George Lucas, he of Star Wars creation and fame self-financed this film.  Now no one is going to feel for one of the wealthiest film makers in history for having to spend his own cash, but the reason was a bit shocking.  Lucas said that the reason he couldn’t get major studio financing for a George Lucas, big budget action film was not because of the disaster that was the last Indiana Jones movie, but because there were no major white characters in the film. 

My, and probably your, initial reaction to that is to think damn racist movie people, but after deeper thought I started to change my mind.  Movie people have a pretty good grip on who comes to their movies and spends money.  If they don’t believe that mass white audiences will plunk down money to see a film with no major white characters they are probably right.  I hope they aren’t, and the marketing of this issue and a release date around MLK Day I promise you, are not accidents on Lucas’ part, but it still is addressing a real issue.   Of course how good the movie is will also have serious impact on the box office receipts.  The fact that George Lucas faced this issue however, says that we still have a long way to go in America towardsbecoming the ideal, socially and racially equal society that Dr. King envisioned.  So today, let’s be proud of the accomplishments we’ve made in the last 50 years, but let’s also not forget that we still have a lot of work to do.

American Exceptionalism, so special we have a second face.

American Exceptionalism, so special we have a second face.

When Barack Obama ran for president and it looked like he would win I told people that I wouldn’t be shocked if the margin of victory was not nearly as big as expected, nor would I be surprised if someone tried to assassinate him before he left office. The thing that connects these two assumptions is the idea that there is a level of “secret” racism in this country that most people deny exists, or are unwilling to accept. It is politically incorrect to publicly express any type of racial statement or anything that smells like racism except behind closed doors.  People who are racist, as much as we would like to assume, are not necessarily stupid and so they only express these ideals amongst like-minded individuals and family.

I lived in the South (Kentucky and Tennessee) for 10 years and I never met anyone who admitted to being a KKK member, and yet they marched in the town I was living in right down Main Street. Southerners are taught to be polite in all situations and this applies to racist southerners as well. Y’all come back now, can be followed by some very unfriendly words once the door closes at the shop or store. Now, understand and let me be very, very clear, not all southerners are racist. I know lots of good fair-minded southerners who are as offended by the idea of racism as you or I.   Also, let’s not assume there isn’t plenty of racism in cosmopolitan places like New York, or states with huge non-white populations like California, it’s a nationwide issue.

However, the reason I’m focusing on the south today is because of a story in the news today. Down in Kentucky a girl came home with a new fiancé she introduced to everyone in the small church that she attends. They all shook his hand, welcomed him and congratulated the young couple. The happy couple even sang that day in the choir. It was after that appearance that the pastor told the young lady, who had attended that church her whole life, that she and her fiancé were not welcomed to sing in the choir anymore. You see her fiancé is black and the pastor told her that he didn’t want his young daughter getting the idea that it was ok to grow up and marry a black man.

Now this was offensive enough, but it went much farther as eventually this small parish took a vote that passed 9 to 6 to ban interracial couples from attending the church. The same church where everyone welcomed them, the same church the woman had attended her whole life. When I read stories like this I want to vomit, and I want the commentators on the right to explain to me how this fits into the idea of how America is so damn exceptional.

Here’s the link:  http://abcnews.go.com/US/kentucky-church-bans-interracial-couples/story?id=15065204

Equality, Racism and Gay Marriage

We live in a very different America than the one I was born into, I guess that would be true for all of us, but the year of my birth, 1964, was a significant year for another reason, it was the year the Civil Rights Act became law.  This law ended segregation, it made great leaps in removing some of the mechanisms people used to keep blacks and illiterate whites from voting particularly in the south.  It didn’t eliminate voter discrimination but it went a long way in giving blacks more access to the democratic process.  It has always seemed unbelievable to me that the concepts of racial integration and equal access to voting have only been the law for the length of my lifetime, less than 50 years. 

Even more disconcerting is that anti-miscegenation laws were only repealed by the Supreme Court in 1967.  It is hard to imagine that laws against inter-racial marriage persisted in this country even three years after the Civil Rights Act, and if it weren’t for a Virginia court case may have stayed on the books much longer.   A really sad statement on the way our country thinks and operates. 

On the upside, America did pass the Civil Rights Act and we did repeal the miscegenation laws and over the 47 years of my life race relations have improved in this country.  We have not eliminated racism, far from it, but we have made progress and yes, including having a president of African-American descent.  President Obama’s election makes the standard American Dream, that anyone can be present, an equivalent lie to children of both white and black families.

Even with the progress we have made on race relations, one segment of our society remains openly discriminated against, homosexuals.  The Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) community faces open discrimination in many ways in our society but what I want to talk about today is the refusal to give people in this community the right to marry the people they love.  People put forward a lot of reasons why this shouldn’t happen; they need to protect “traditional” marriage, that marriage is a religious ceremony and God hates homosexuals, that same sex marriage will lead to polygamy or even the right to marry animals, and finally that this will lead to “gay” education in the schools.  None of these arguments hold water and most have been addressed in a piece called, “10 Bad Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage.”

Now I think most thinking humans would find the arguments against inter-racial marriage ridiculous in this day and age.  We think wow, how unsophisticated they were to prohibit people of different races to marry.  The interesting thing is that many of the arguments used to support why inter-racial marriage shouldn’t be allowed, are the same arguments being used to prohibit gay marriage as outlined in a piece on the arguments for traditional marriage.  So I have a feeling our great grandchildren, will look back at us, in the same way we look back on our great grandparents and wonder what the hell were they thinking?

So let’s not let that happen, let’s clear one of the last major hurdles to true equality in America and grant equal access to marriage and maybe our great grandchildren will say wow, our great grandparents got it right.

To Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, kiss my shiny white Irish A@#!

Hello Governor Brewer let’s get something straight, you signed a bill that makes it a misdemeanor to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona so that local and state authorities can deal with the immigration issues your state is facing.  I understand the difficulties that southern Arizona in particular faces in regard to illegal immigration. You’ve taken a lot of static for that decision and your most recent response, a ripoff Kermit the Frog puppet singing reading is fun, is not only ridiculous but hypocritical.  Particularly in light of the fact that you say this action will not inspire racial profiling, of course you must be talking about the amended bill you signed removing the racial profiling language, so I wonder, Governor Brewer, did YOU read the first version of the bill you signed? Remember, reading is fun!

 If you go to this link: http://immigration.change.org/blog/view/frog_puppet_thinks_reading_and_arizona_sb_1070_is_fun you can see the stupid singing frog video and read a quick little snippet by Alex DiBranco where she quotes Arizona State Rep. Russell Pearce, the sponsor of SB 1070 who goes ahead and admits racial profiling was exactly what he had in mind: “Ninety percent of the illegal aliens in Arizona come from south of the border, so it [appearance] certainly may be a factor.”  At least he’s honest, Governor Brewer doesn’t have the same integrity.

I’m sick and tired of politicians on the right, so-called ”conservatives”, using bullshit reasons to be sexist, racist assholes.  I’m not racist, I’m just against illegal immigration they say, taking a break from telling their beaner and wet back jokes to face a camera.   Rush Limbaugh isn’t sexist as he refers to this or that woman as the news chick, or government chick, he’s just joking around, I mean hey. the term femonazi is a term of endearment, please.  Conservatives don’t understand how students wearing US Flag shirts to school on Cinco de Mayo could possibly be construed as anything other than patriotic.  Surely they are not trying to incite Mexican-American students.

Cut the shit, all of you, just stop, THIS IS AMERICA!  You want to be a patriot, aspire to the actual ideals this country was founded on, a nation where those who cannot find freedom or prosperity in their homeland can come and find it here.  That plaque on the statue of liberty is not just for decoration, nor was it ever intended to be conditional.  In this country we take the poor and the displaced as long as we are able, that’s patriotic.  My great-grandfather immigrated to this country from Ireland, you may have heard of a little something called the potato famine, if not, look it up!  When the Irish came to the US they were spit upon, maligned, beaten, killed and discriminated against.  But my people had an edge, we looked a hell of a lot like the people who were already here.  Mexicans and Latinos immigrating here legally or illegally have a much bigger hill to climb based on nothing more than the color of their skin.  These people are just as hard-working as my ancestors were, they come here and they work here to make a better life for their children, just like my great-grandfather and so many other Irish men and women did.  So Governor Brewer on behalf of myself and all of my Irish ancestors, kiss my shiny, white, Irish ass and get off the Mexican’s back!