Are White People in Denial?

Great Debates
181

And yet if you read what I wrote instead of reacting blindly and irrationally, you’ll see I never claimed or implied to have been victimized by anything. Not even in this thread, where someone asked us to supply our most recent example of overt racism, did I say that my race has hurt me in some way. But you can’t see that, can you? All you can see is what you want to see.

Perhaps this is the #1 problem facing discussions about race in this country: the mere fucking acknowledgment that government-sanctioned racism was actively practiced during my parent’s lifetime has to be belittled as a wail of victimization by the Racism Denier club. Yours is the attitude of someone who is so emotionally invested in the idea that racism is a lie and an exaggeration that you have to ascribe imaginary positions to those who disagree with your ideas. Good show.

Why does history bother you so much? Everything that I said in that post you excerpted is true. My generation is the first generation to be born in a society that at least professes to be color-blind. This is history 101. So anytime anyone acts as if blacks are flawed because they aren’t as rich and educated as whites, I will remind them of this fact. Anytime anyone acts as if it’s wrong to even talk about racism and its effects on society, I will remind them of this fact. Anytime anyone acts as if racism was only relevant centuries ago, I will remind them of this fact.

Should we spin history so that whites can feel good about themselves? Going by your reaction to what I wrote, it seems like you’d rather me to do just that. Sorry, I can not oblige.

182

Actually, I would simply ask that you consider honoring the past, not live in it.

183

It seems clear to me that with all these institutional racists running around it should be fairly easy to spot one. How about…

1) The Arts, Sports and Entertainment
Fifty years ago actors like Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee couldn’t have found lodging in most hotels. Today, actors like Angela Bassett, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman are treated like royalty. I dare say that Halle Berry has the capacity to out earn her white counterparts. Many receive critical acclaim for their work, and are considered the best in their craft. It’s not simply that some “Hollywood Elite” has blessed them. White America attends movies with black actors in droves. Many black actors have become directors and creative writers like Spike Lee have a ready outlet for their work. Even the content is radically different. Inter-racial relationships are common in both TV and the movies. Racism is dealt with in an unflinching way. A recent movie that had an inter-racial relationship as it’s main plot line, actually portrayed the blacks as the racists. Go figure.

Among the top 50 highest paid athletes, half are AA in spite of the fact that AAs make up about 12% of the population. In sports like baseball, football and basketball they are overrepresented based on their population. White baseball fans routinely vote for black players in the All-Star competitions, and sports gear of black athletes is bought in massive quantities by whites of every stripe. The highest paid athlete, Tiger Woods, like most athletes, receives the bulk of his earnings from endorsements from white corporate America for hawking their products. Woods, in particular, plies his craft in a sport historically played by whites. Further, he is stalking the legacy and record of one of the sport’s greatest players, The Golden Bear. Yet Woods has acheived the type of reverence reserved for players like Wayne Gretsky and Michael Jordan. (who in* retirement* still makes more than $30M/yr) As blacks have gained parity with their white counterparts more and more have entered the management ranks after their playing careers are over. This year the Super Bowl was coached by 2 black coaches. Sixty years after Jackie Robinson was spat upon, you’d be hard pressed to find a white basketball fan who wouldn’t hawk his car to play a game of one-on-one with Michael Jordan, or some paunchy white executive who wouldn’t take out a second mortgage to play a round with Tiger.

Only Sports has spawned more millionaires than Music. Sixty years after blacks blindly signed away the rights to their own music for pittances (which happened to many whites as well) black musical artists have reaced superstar status. Black artists routinely have cross-over appeal and millions of albums are bought up by whites. Black music has become mainstream. Who’d a thunk that Snoop Dog, a cultural cancer and talentless hack, would appear with Lee Iaccoca on a TV commercial? Blacks have successfully acted as producers of their own music and others, and have started record labels, clothing lines and other businesses. What do you think—do you think more white kids are buying “50 Cent”, or black kids buying “Marylyn Manson?”

Of course, here too the cry of “institutional racism” can be heard. Michael Jackson, in defending his behavior, and poor record sales turned on his long time friend Tommy Mottola, saying, in part, …“The recording companies really, really do conspire against the artists,” Jackson said. “They steal, they cheat, they do everything they can, especially [against] the black artists. … People from James Brown to Sammy Davis Jr., some of the real pioneers that inspired me to be an entertainer, these artists are always on tour, because if they stop touring, they would go hungry. If you fight for me, you’re fighting for all black people dead and alive”

A familiar tome? Me thinks so. I’ve chewed up enough bandwidth on this subject. For now, anyone who believes that these industries suffer from systemic racism please indicate this by rasing your hand and say, “I’m clueless.”

And we’ll continue our search for the shadowy institutional racist…

184

Rappers and Ballers: Why Its Clear That There is No Institutional Racism by the raindog.

185

Go raindog go!

186

I think this has turned into the stupidest conversation about race yet on the Dope, and by god, that’s saying something.

187

In book stores everywhere.

188

Quippy, but please dispute at least ONE of the things he said.

189

Why do you suppose that is?

190

Next up, we’ll learn how minstrel shows and performing in blackface prove that the Civil Rights Act wasn’t necessary.

191

I think most people know that black people are widely represented in fields requiring physical talents and charismatic performance (and vastly underrepresented is most white collar fields). Many of those folks who think institutional racism still exists believe that this is rather a symptom of that racism and not evidence of its absence.

Or what **jsgoddess **said.

192

Wow. You actually have the temerity to draw a paralell between a blackface minstrel from the early 1900’s and people like Michael Jordan? Now who’s the racist?

193

Gosh, is it me? Are we finally going to get an answer to that?

194

Richard Parker and jsgoddess, you’re supposed to be debating me, not helping me!

We are to believe that the stunning successes of many black artists, musicians and athletes—many of which receive critical acclaim and have become millionaires— is a symptom of racism?

An open letter to the White Power Structure:

Victimize me, please. Victimize me! (waves hand wildly)

195

I’m not *supposed *to be debating anyone. I’m merely pointing out what you likely already know if you’re at all a part of the dialogue on racism in this country: pointing to the success of rappers and ballers convinces no one that blacks are on a level playing field with whites. You can’t see how laughable it would be to go into a room full of black 4th graders and declare that because Snoop Dogg and Michael Jordan are widely-accepted, that these kids will have all the same opportunities as their white peers?

196

Latest post discusses… something else. Let me tell you why these questions directly address the OP.

Intergenerational transfer refers to the exchange of forms of capital - social, economic, intellectual, and so on - from one generation to the next. Now, no one’s claiming that Whites got tons of good stuff like property and business while African Americans got nothing. I know plenty of African Americans that have property passed down from generations past, as well as White people that inherited debt from their forebears. However… in the aggregate, it’s likely that those benefits, no matter how small, were likely to advantage Whites more than African Americans, until very recently. Desegregation in higher education did not ensue until after Sweatt v. Painter in 1949, and most state universities did not integrate until well into the 1960s or even later. Only a handful of historically Black colleges had the reputation and resources even remotely close to state colleges and universities. My generation are the first to have parents who may have been educated at these schools. (In 1975, something like 75 percent of all African-Americans who attended college went to an HBCU. Today it’s about the opposite.) Also, notice that Black colleges are concentrated in the South. African American students now have more college options available, whereas their parents may not have. So let’s be honest and admit that we are one generation into the possibility of legal access to all of higher education.

I think many Whites are in denial of that fact. Having a college-educated parent means that your income is likely higher, their working conditions are better, that they will likely have a better health plan… and perhaps most importantly, the parents are somewhat versed in the process of applying to college. They know about applying for financial aid, different schools, and so on. They might not know much but they know more than parents who did not attend college. They also can give advice about what to study, where to live, classes to take (and not take)… you get the idea. There are historically a lot more of those parents in White families than there are in Black families. Of course there are exceptions; W.E.B. Du Bois earned a doctorate at Harvard in 1899.

My undergraduate campus, the University of Texas - one of the largest state universities in the nation - had about 1800, or 3% of its student population who were African American. Demographically the state is right around the national average of 12%. Among my peer group, most of us were first generation college students. There were a good number of students who had parents educated at HBCUs, and even some educated at large state universities, but they were in the minority. Most of us had parents with high school diplomas, some trade school or community college. I found that many of my White peers had parents who attended four year colleges - in fact, a good number attended the University of Texas.

Now, do I think that having three generations of college going is a huge advantage? Yes and no. Yes in the respect that college is now an ingrained expectation in such a family, and it’s likely that all of the offspring have had college beaten into their psyche from day one. No, in the respect that I think that one generation can probably influence their kids to do the same. Not talking absolutes here, obviously. But I think this is one example of how many Whites are in denial about the effects of structural and institutional racism. Even if we submit that the institutional structures that supported Jim Crow and favored Whites have been completely dismantled (I don’t but for the sake of argument let’s say it has), there’s still the issue of intergenerational transfer.

197

A “symptom” of racism? That’s not my argument.

Completely irrelevant to the discussion of racism and demonstrating a laughable (and really embarrassing) ignorance of the history of popular culture? Yep.

Next you’ll be telling me that the Holocaust couldn’t have happened because there were Jews in Hollywood.

198

I think you have, too. It appears that you want to deny one phenomenon in this country by atttacking it where it ain’t.

Where in your snipped quotation from Michael Jackson is the mention of institutional racism? Jackson, in his desire to portray himself as victim, accused the shadowy halls of white power of outright racism. I am quite willing to ignore his claims as those of a twit who is simply grabbing at any straw for support.

So what? That some nutcase entertainer wants to drum up support by claiming to be a victim has nothing to do with whether racism of one sort or another exists in the country–and there is nothing in the Michael Jackson circus that argues for institutional racism.

In the other thread you started, you already attempted to pretend institutional racism cannot exist by making a fairly silly claim about what “institutions” can or cannot do. Here you are simply indicating (at length) that many blacks have succeeded in our current society (a point that I do not dispute and do not recall anyone else disputing) in order to argue against a straw man no one has posted saying no black person can succeed in this country.

There have been a couple of posters who have made overbroad claims for the current effects of racism, but in each case, you have chosen to distort their claims to be even broader, then taken their limited claims (expanded by you), and argued as though every poster who has addressed racism is saying the same overbroad claim that you invented by those few posters.

Is racism less of a problem, today, than even 20 years ago? Sure.
Are there blacks racists? Sure.
Are there people, black and white, who overstate the current effects of rascism? Sure. Just as several posters in this thread have pretended that it no longer exists or that is no longer affects any real people.

A better discussion would be the way that it does or does not actually exist and how it can be addressed. Based on the logic that you have employed, so far, we can point to the millions of dollars that C. J. Walker earned between 1910 and 1919 and note that both blacks and women were clearly no longer suffering the effects of any sort of discrimination by 1920.

199

I talked about it as a symptom of racism. I was referring to the disparity between black representation at NASA vs. the NBA. I believe that is, indeed, a symptom of racism.

200

No, actually this isn’t the stupidest.

And by god, that’s saying something.