Given that those positions they have to oppose (which admittedly are often strawmen positions) are themselves squarely in opposition to mainstream American cultural values, why would this be surprising? Americans in general pride themselves (I’m not sure whether I should type “ourselves” here, given that I don’t share that pride) on being pull-up-by-the-bootstraps, self-reliant, take-responsibility-for-our-fates sorts. There’s a general disdain toward seeking sociological explanations for one’s situation, as if looking at social conditions constitutes finding excuses.
So when someone like Cosby comes along and delivers a message that’s squarely in line with mainstream American values, mainstream America embraces him.
As for ywtf’s challenge to find a black American who talks about racism and isn’t dismissed as crazy by most white folks, the only way I can meet that challenge is to name folks (bell hooks, e.g.) who aren’t household names. The problem, however, is that right now, I think there are only two black Americans who talk about racism frequently and who are household names among whites–Sharpton and Jackson. And while I don’t share the vitriol toward them that a lot of folks do, both of them have been involved in some pretty serious controversy, whether Brawley or Hymietown, that casts some doubt on their right to be taken seriously as commentators on race issues.
Which, again, isn’t to say that dismissing them while lauding Chris Rock and Bill Cosby is fair or reasonable. I just wish, really wish, that there were a prominent commentator on race issues who wasn’t saddled with charges of anti-Semitism or with charges of supporting an unsupportable case.
The term that is usually used is Sub-Sahara Africans. Considering that Diamond was making an argument that was largely geographical, it seems odd he did not use that. Are you sure he used “Black”-- it’s been at least 10 years since I read that book.
Leaving aside the part about Cleopatra (which you clarified later), it’s also interesting to note that that part of Africa is linguistically linked to the Middle East as well, with the languages being part of the Afro-Asiatic family. Although I think we’re talking about what is usually called East Africa or the Horn of Africa, not Northeast Africa.
The specific chapter is titled (with a bit of irony) “How Africa Became Black.” On the third page of the chapter is an outline map of Africa, labeled “Peoples of Africa (as of AD 1400)” with a caption below it stating “Figure 19.1. See the text for caveats about describing distributions of African peoples in terms of these familar but problematical groupings.” There is a dotted line running just below the Sahara. The portion above the line is labeled “whites.” Below the line, there are two areas labeled “blacks” that are separated by a label “pygmies.” Near the bottom of the map is another dotted line curving around an area near the south end labelled Khoisan. The isand of Madagascar is labelled “Indonesians + blacks.”
Since “Sub-Saharan” would include pygmies and Khoisan, my guess is that he simply chose a term that was clearer to his general audience which still allowing him to distinguish them from the other two groups.
His text in that chapter specifically addresses the reason why people in the U.S. tend to think of “Africans” as “black” when the continent is actually host to five separate gross ethnic divisions. He specifically notes that the “blacks,” themselves, are actually several very diverse peoples. The chapter then goes on to take a look at the various ways in which geography aided or hindered complete assimilation by any group of the other groups.
All this is true, but I think it’s noteworthy because this praise and celebration is disproportionately applied to black people.
When a black person stands up on a podium and lectures to the masses on self-reliance and bootstrap pulling, they are treated like the Second Coming. When a white person does it, they are usually called a Republican. In other words, conservative views expressed by a black person seem to receive bi-partisan support from whites. It is not this way with white people.
I don’t think it’s this simple. It bothers me that when Cosby was quietly giving millions of dollars a year towards the improvement of education for black kids, he wasn’t embraced in the same way that he was embraced when he was getting on a soapbox. I can’t imagine a white philanthropist being dealt with in the same way, can you?
That’s kind of my point. It’s why I’m convinced that if Martin Luther King was still alive, he would not be treated as the respected figure he is today. In terms of his public image, the best thing that could have happened to him was that he was killed. I can’t imagine him retiring from the movement in 1968, so odds are he’d still be talking about racism. And people would be calling him crazy, whiny, and racist.
Why does he feel the need to racialize Africans in this way, and not, say, East Indians? Most Americans also think of India as being racially homogenous, when it is not. He could have also done a similar lecture on East Asians and Europeans, as well as Native Americans. Why he felt like Africa needed to be singled out in this way, I don’t know.
He even admits to being politically incorrect, but explains that the racial categorization serves a purpose to the discussion. But I don’t agree with him. It is possible to talk about Africans, particularly pre-colonial Africans, without dicing them up into races . If this work had been an exposition on race rather than a discussion about human dispersal, then perhaps the chapter wouldn’t have stuck out like a sore thumb. Maybe if we had been lectured to about “How Europe Became White”, I wouldn’t have felt so uncomfortable.
I wonder if that’s because, for mainstream white folks, it’s the default setting? When a mainstream white guy starts talking about sociological underpinnings of people’s situations, they’re decried as instigating class warfare–viz. John Edward[s] (I can never remember which one wants to shoot the billionaire and which one will talk to the billionaire once he’s dead). My impression is that mainstream American white culture leans far more toward the Hegelian end of the spectrum, whereas mainstream American black culture tends toward the Marx end of the spectrum. Does this sound accurate?
It would be unsurprising if it’s true. Folks like to take credit for success and don’t like to take credit for difficulties. Mainstream white culture is economically more successful than mainstream black culture; of course the folks in a good position want to believe that it’s their personal virtue that’s gotten them there, while folks in a bad position want to believe that it’s not their personal failings that have gotten them there.
I dunno. I can’t think of any white philanthropist in a similar situation, in which they’re castigating a sociological group at the same time they’re helping the group.
This is an interesting point, and I wonder whether you’re right. I mean, of course some folks would be calling him crazy. On the other hand, as I understand it, JFK talked with and negotiated with MLK during the Selma standoff (I’m hoping I’m not entirely off-base here; I’m remembering a documentary I saw a couple years ago). It’s difficult for me to imagine Bush–or even Clinton–negotiating with Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Similarly, although I know about MLK’s infidelities, I do not know about any scandal in his life that calls into question his ability to speak wisely and fairly on matters of race, a scandal on par with an antisemitic slur or a race-based analysis of a case built on fraud (Tawana Brawley). Are there such incidents that call King’s credibility into question? Am I overreacting to Jackson’s and Sharpton’s incidents? Or is analogizing between King and the current figureheads of the civil rights movement flawed?
Perhaps because Africa is, indeed, unique. Leaving aside a pocket of Andaman Islanders, India is much more uniform than Africa. Europe and North Africa are much more uniform than Africa as a whole. The story of the ways in which geography directly affected the migrations of peoples is more clearly demonstrated in Africa than in any other place (although the Americas give a similar lesson in terms of crop dispersion).
I suppose he could have simply left that chapter out, but given the horrible number of people who point to (black) Africans as being innately incapable of establishing civilizations, I suspect that had he left out that discussion he would have discovered many of those people pointing to his book and declaring “See! Even Diamond can’t come up with a good reason why they have failed. It must be a racial problem.” By tackling the issue head on, he continues his thesis that the luck of geography is more important than claims for intelligence or “character” or any of the other traits that are used to exalt Europeans or Asians or to denigrate Africans.
Sweet’s essays should answer most of your questions. Unlike sources in the popular press, these essays have a thorough grounding in verifiable historical records and the latest scientific research.
I don’t see it as the default from my vantage point. As you go on to point out, when a white guy tries to put things in a sociopolitical, Howard Zinn-esque context, people put a political label on him and appraise him accordingly, but it’s not hardly a rare thing for whites to talk like that. You can be a rich white person and still side with the white liberal commie pinko who rails about the effects of generational classism and capitalistic exploitation. You can also be a lower class white person who pumps his fist in agreement with the white conservative who attributes wealth to personal accountability and a Puritan work ethic.
But if we were talking about a black person claiming the “white liberal commie pinko” position except in terms of racism instead of classism? I see bi-partisan condemnation of that black person by whites. On the other coin’s side, a black person claiming the race-flavored conservative position is lauded by whites, again without respect to political lines. Whites have a problem hearing about racism; they have much less problem hearing about classism.
Not me. Jesse was Bill’s “spiritual advisor” during Lewinsky-gate. Sharpton is relatively prominent figure in the Democratic party, so it’s not a stretch to see him being used in a similar capacity. The way politicians relate to Jesse and Al is not a good mirror of how they are regarded by the mainstream.
People make a big deal out of his alleged plagiarism. I suspect that both this and his alleged infidelities would be more than enough reason for people to call him a quack. If anyone looks hard enough, they can find dirt on anybody. So I don’t think it would be all that hard for someone bound and determined to dismiss MLK to find a reason to do so.
I have no problem with him talking about Africans and their patterns of dispersal, both before Europeans arrived and after. So I don’t think the chapter itself was inappropriate. Rather, it was the way he had framed the chapter.
I guess I’m the only person who felt weird reading this chapter. I guess I just like a break from “race matters”, especially when I don’t think it’s relevant.
How can you say he never made it about race, when the chapter is called “How Africa Became Black?” and he mentions “blacks” about eleventy-billion times.
Random excerpt:
Who is this “we” and why does he presuppose that “we” think of Africans as anything other than Africans? If he’s debunking the myth of a monolithic African, why is the chapter called “How Africa Became Black”? Why not say “How Africa Became Bantu”? Doesn’t this educate a “typical white American” more than referring to a poorly defined, politically loaded social construct?
Furthermore, does the typical white American really consider a Pygmy or a Khoisan non-black?
I’m going to throw in the towel because I’m getting worked up about something that didn’t even upset me that much to begin with. I guess I’m just having “black person” fatigue. Is it so hard to understand why sometimes I just want to read a history book and not be reminded that that me and my ancestors have color adjectives applied to them that other peoples don’t seem to get? But in all the history books on my shelves (and I have a lot), I never get this release. I guess they’re all written by white people, for white people.
Probably because Bantu is not congruent with the peoples he was discussing. The people identified as black spoke Bantu languages, but also Niger-Congo and Austronesian languages, while the pygmy people also spoke Bantu.
Probably not, but the story of Africa requires an awareness of the different peoples who either advanced into or retreated from different lands. Which was pretty much one point he was making: that Americans carelessly lump together different groups who are distinct.
He did pretty much the same thing when he discussed the expansion of humanity into Southeast Asia (“How did China become Chinese”), and out across the Pacific (“Speedboat to Polynesia”) where he also discussed the displacement of ethic groups by different etnic groups. He treated Africa no differently. It just happens that one of the words he chose to identify one of the groups is the word currently used to identify those people whose ancestors were imported as slaves to the U.S. I suppose he could have used Negroid everywhere he used black. Somehow I suspect that it would not have made you a great deal happier.
Do you really think “black” and “Chinese” are equally objectable, tom? Do you not see the difference between referring to a people by its geographic/cultural ties, and referring to it based on race?
In my experience, most conservatives treat the Zinnist (heh) perspective with derision to begin with, and usually cheer on an advocate of personal accountability. Praise for Cosby is perfectly consistent with this.
Perhaps your dismay should be directed solely at whites of a more sinister political persuasion?
But I’m not just talking about conservative whites treating Cosby this way so Cosby’s treatment is not consistent with anything I see from whites towards other whites.