[A-List] The Racists Return - Did They Ever Go Away? (2 articles)

[Nadja Tesich]

cb and others,

I would like you or others to explain American racism to me.Not abrastractly
but on a gut level.
It's time for me to understand.
When I came here(against my will) the first thing I noticed was racism then later I saw-class.I did not know either one,born in socialism.
 
I noticed that even various churches were racist and so were the people.
 
I was punished both in high  school and university for having Black friends.
 
At the same time,then and now USA did their propaganda about'freedom and
democracy'.
Nadja
-------------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:31:54 -0400
> From: cb31450 at gmail.com
> To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu; a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu
> Subject: [A-List] The Racists Return - Did They Ever Go Away? (2 articles)
>
> The Racists Return - Did They Ever Go Away? (2 articles)
>
> * The Racists Return (Joe Conason in TruthDig)
> * The Unbearable Whiteness of Being (Mark Naison in History
> News Network)
>
> ==========
>
> The Racists Return
>
> By Joe Conason
>
> TruthDig (drilling beneath the headlines)
>
> August 11, 2010
>
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_racists_return_20100811/
>
> Among the most revealing aspects of life during the Obama
> presidency is the panoply of responses to a black family in
> the White House. What made so many of us proud of our
> country on Jan. 20, 2009, has increasingly provoked
> expressions of hatred from the far right. That is troubling,
> but not nearly as troubling as the behavior of conservatives
> who excuse, embolden or simply pretend to ignore the bigots
> surrounding them.
>
> Last spring, after unruly tea party protesters on Capitol
> Hill were accused of spewing racial epithets at civil rights
> hero John Lewis, an African-American congressman from
> Georgia, conservatives rose up in furious denial. Where was
> the proof? How could anyone suggest that racial prejudice
> lurks behind the festering right-wing hatred of President
> Obama (and his family)? Anger over that episode still
> lingers in certain quarters, motivating the deceptively
> edited video attack on Shirley Sherrod and the NAACP by a
> website called Big Government, Inc.
>
> Even if the alleged assault on Lewis and other black
> congressmen did occur, argued prominent commentators on the
> right, it somehow only proved that there is no racism in
> America worthy of concern. A writer for National Review (the
> conservative magazine that historically opposed civil rights
> legislation) confided that the whole subject made him yawn:
>
> "That these things are even remotely newsworthy leads me to
> one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery,
> then we had Jim Crow-and now we have the occasional public
> utterance of a bad word. Real racism has been reduced to de
> minimis levels, while charges of racism seem to increase."
>
> But this summer has seen several loud and ugly outbursts of
> very real racism-including threats of violence against the
> president of the United States-that go well beyond the
> utterance of any single word. As if suffering from a facial
> tic, leading figures on the right cannot seem to suppress
> their inner Klansman these days.
>
> Advertisement Is there any other way to explain Glenn Beck's
> crazed rant comparing the Obama administration to an old
> movie about a society where apes and chimpanzees dominate
> humans? What did the Fox News host mean, exactly, when he
> shrieked: "It's like the damned Planet of the Apes. Nothing
> makes sense!" Is there any other way to explain the
> grotesque new best-seller by radio host Laura Ingraham, "The
> Obama Diaries," where, among other things, she depicts first
> lady Michelle Obama eating ribs at every meal? Why would she
> feel the need to describe the president as "uppity" by
> putting the word in the mouth of his mother-in-law? No
> wonder Stephen Colbert taunted Ms. Ingraham to her face for
> "hideous and hackneyed racial stereotyping."
>
> Of course, these are only two of the more egregious
> instances in recent weeks of social poisoning that dates
> back well over a year. Symptoms can be seen across the
> country now, even in amusement parks and church carnivals,
> where small children are exposed to this spiritual sickness.
>
> At the Big Time fair held by Our Lady of Mount Carmel in
> Roseto, Pa., last week, a game called "Alien Attack"
> featured "an image of a suited black man holding a health
> care bill and wearing a belt buckle with a presidential
> seal," at which players were encouraged to aim their
> popguns. Anybody who hit the cardboard figure in the head or
> the heart could win a prize. Irvin L. Good Jr., owner of
> Goodtime Amusements, who is responsible for this disgusting
> garbage, denied that the figure represents Mr. Obama. "We're
> not interpreting it as Obama," the inaptly named huckster
> told a local newspaper. "The name of the game is Alien
> Leader. If you're offended, that's fine, we duly note that."
>
> Meanwhile on the New Jersey shore, patrons of the Seaside
> Heights boardwalk could hurl baseballs at a black, jug-eared
> Obama figurine, winning a prize if they managed to smash it.
> As seen in a video posted on the Gawker website, this object
> closely resembles the grinning "lawn jockey" statuettes that
> used to festoon suburban lawns in a less decent era.
>
> Most conservatives were late in taking responsibility for
> their movement's immoral opposition to civil rights. It is
> time for them to step up and denounce the racism that is
> again disfiguring our country in their name.
>
> [Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer.]
>
> ==========
>
> The Unbearable Whiteness of Being
>
> By Mark Naison
>
> History News Network
>
> August 2, 2010
>
> http://www.hnn.us/articles/129497.html
>
> Reading Ross Douthat's column in the New York Times blaming
> Ivy League admissions for the disaffection of working-class
> and middle-class whites made me laugh. As someone who grew
> up in a working class neighborhood and spent large amounts
> of time with working-class whites during my years coaching
> baseball and basketball in Brooklyn from the early 80s to
> the late 90s, I can assure you that among working-class
> Brooklynites, Ivy League admissions NEVER CAME UP when the
> subject of white racial grievances were raised. That
> subject was, and still is, one that upsets white Fordham
> students, but in the ballfields, bars and gymnasiums of
> Canarsie, Bergen Beach, Bensonhurst, Marine Park and Bay
> Ridge, the racial fears of working-class whites were
> overwhelmingly focused on things they experienced on the job
> and fears for their children's safety as neighborhoods and
> schools turned from predominantly white to predominantly
> black and/or Latino.
>
> When my working-class white friends and fellow coaches
> attacked affirmative action-which they did vociferously and
> often-it was about preferential treatment that they saw
> blacks and Latinos getting on the job, especially in the
> civil service. They were convinced that in any government
> agency-whether it was the police department, the fire
> department, the bureau of motor vehicles or the board of
> education-they were going to be passed over for promotion by
> blacks and Latinos with lower test scores. When I told them
> that these compensatory racial preferences, which were being
> steadily undermined by Supreme Court decisions, were far
> less damaging than the discrimination that blacks and
> Latinos still faced in the skilled construction trades, they
> listened, but were not convinced. The fact that they might
> have to get a higher test score than their black or Latino
> co-workers to get promoted to sergeant or office
> administrator irritated them enormously, and easily led to
> self-pitying arguments that "a white man couldn't get a
> break in America anymore." When I challenged them with a
> litany of things blacks went through on a daily basis-from
> job and housing discrimination to harassment by police-they
> listened, but rarely relinquished their deep sense of
> outrage that color conscious hiring was now official policy
> in many government agencies and some private employers.
>
> But resentment of affirmative action was hardly the only
> issue white working-class people I know raised when talking
> about race. Their biggest concern was that their kids were
> going to be beaten up and/or harassed by black and Latino
> peers at Brooklyn neighborhoods and schools turned from
> majority white to majority black and Latino.
>
> Since this is something that happened to me when I was in
> high school (see White Boy: A Memoir) and to many kids in my
> Park Slope neighborhood (see Jonathan Lethem's novel
> Fortress of Solitude), I could hardly tell them that they
> were making these things up, even though my own children had
> overwhelmingly positive experiences in integrated schools
> and neighborhoods. When talking about race, they were prone
> to view the world through the prism of "the glass half
> empty." Whereas I saw neighborhood change as an opportunity
> to create a more open and inclusive society, they saw it as
> a threat to the value of their only asset-their home-and
> something that would put their children and families at
> risk. Were they wrong about this? There was certainly
> evidence, both objectively and subjectively, that their
> fears had substance.
>
> Given these two sets of concerns, about fairness on the job
> and safety in the neighborhood and the schools, it is no
> wonder the working class and the middle class look at the
> changing demographics of American society with some
> trepidation. As whites are in the process of becoming a
> minority, not only in the nation as a whole, but in the
> communities they live in, they wonder if their economic and
> physical security, which were already somewhat fragile, is
> going to be compromised. And when they see a black
> president, they fear that their concerns will easily
> sacrificed in favor of some unspecified "black" or "liberal"
> agenda.
>
> Their fears and concerns when it comes to President Obama
> often take forms that are ugly and irrational, especially
> given the president's history and actual policies, but the
> experiences which fuel their fears are ones that must be
> examined critically. The racial resentments of whites of
> modest means are a complex mix of inherited racist
> attitudes, folk tales, rumors spread by the media and
> through word-of-mouth, and real-life experiences which lead
> them to fear their emerging minority status. We ignore the
> latter at our peril. We need to have a continuing dialogue
> about race with our white working-class and middle-class
> neighbors that confronts their prejudices but allows their
> grievances to be heard.
>
> Only through that kind of dialogue-which should take place
> between ALL Americans-can create the basis of a fair and
> just society in which everyone feels recognized and
> respected irregardless of racial or ethnic background.
>
> [Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and
> History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's
> Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and
> over 100 articles on African-American History, urban
> history, and the history of sports. His most recent book,
> White Boy: A Memoir, was published in the spring of 2002 ]
>
> ==========
>