This Just In: Racism Solved Overnight!

As you may have heard, America elected its first African-American president to office this week. When the results were announced, I was shocked and incredulous, stunned into a manic silence. Could it be true? Did it really happen?

After the awesome news sank in, I settled back into the daily grind and tipped my ear toward any cultural reaction I could find. And, as usual, the media has decided to grossly oversimplify the profound meaning of this event and break it down into terms that are easier to digest for the American people.

As the news of Obama's victory spread through the crowds on election night, the cameras quickly located the African-American individuals and focused on their jubliance. Through the lenses of the newscasting crews, it was clear that we were supposed to think that Obama's election to office was merely "a black thing." Apparently, black people voted for Obama because he is black and because they want to rule the world.

Obviously, for any candidate to win a national election, both black and white people have to show up and vote for him or her. Both white and black people wanted Obama to win because he was the best person for the job. By attributing Obama's victory to large voter turnout in the black community, his intelligence and capabilities were completely undermined.

It's also a fallacy to spread the notion that only black people stand to benefit from the end of racism. By depicting a crowd of African-Americans celebrating, it implicitly sends the message that Caucasians are not celebrating, and are therefore disenfranchised by the event. This is a common theme of any anti-movement, whether it be rhetoric against the end of racism, misogyny, or classism. Let's all try to remember that equality means a better world for everyone.



Consider this conversation broadcast on CNN right before the news of Obama's victory broke:

Anderson Cooper: I mean, if he [Obama] does become president, and it still is an if, does anyone know what this means in terms of change of race relations in the United States, or perception of?

Bennett: Well, I'll tell you one thing it means, as a former Secretary of Education: You don't take any excuses anymore from anybody who says, 'The deck is stacked, I can't do anything, there's so much in-built this and that.' There are always problems in a big society.

That's right, folks! No more using that silly "racist oppression" excuse. Now that we've elected a black president, our country is officially NOT racist in ANY way, so get over it already!

Dead Black Bear Wrapped In Obama Signs

A news story was released today that reported that a black bear cub had been found in the middle of a college campus. It was shot and wrapped in Obama signs.



When I first read the news, a chill ran down my spine. How can such blatant and violent forms of racism still be prevalent in today's society? Of course, the above news clip features a whole slew of bystanders that speculate that they "think" the statement "might" be racist, rather than political. Wow - ya think?

My second thought after hearing of the story was the sympathy I felt toward Obama. My fiance (a fellow Obama supporter) told me today that many people predict that Obama will be assassinated if he is indeed elected to office. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to absorb the constant harassment and disrespect he receives simply on account of his race, and how much courage he must have to be able to deflect it all.

But then, I realized that Obama is a strong, insightful, intelligent man. And it's kind of like being a feminist - you already know that everyone is going to hate you for taking a stand, but it's your responsibility and privilege to do so. Consider this lyric from Ani DiFranco's great song Crime for Crime:

"They make it even easier
by seeing me as a symbol, and not a human being
that way they can kill me
and say 'it's not murder, it's a metaphor
we are killing off our own failure
and starting clean'"

When you stand up for what you believe in, you have unknowingly made yourself into a symbol. You sacrifice your ego and identity for your cause. Therefore, when people personally attack you, they're really having an emotional response to the issue at hand, not you as a person. Being a symbol takes strength, and I believe that Obama has what it takes.

White Privilege and the Election

This is Your Nation on White Privilege
by Tim Wise, anti-racism writer and activist

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

• White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

• White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

• White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

• White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”


• White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.


• White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.


• White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.


• White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.


• White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”


• White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.


• White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.


• White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.


• White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.


• And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…


• White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Racist Election Commercial of the Day

Check out this new "product" released at the Family Research Council's Value Voters Summit in Washington D.C.:




The box features some of the most blatantly racist comments I have seen in a long time. The likeness to Aunt Jemima, rap lyrics, sombrero, Muslim turban...its like an entire hate-filled emblem. Not to mention that the "makers" of the "product" are absolutely clueless as to why it is offensive.

In response to a question about the box being racist:

"The accusations of racism being an issue - think about Newman's Own or Emeril's food line. Is that racist because he's an Italian, or cause he's a white guy?"

Oh dear God.

Stuff White People Do

A huge portion of my Women's Studies degree consisted of examining racial issues, and I thank God that it was. I'd like to make some sort of statement connecting my lack of racial knowledge to my time spent growing up in a small town in Iowa, but that would imply that if I lived in a larger city, I would have been educated about such matters. Obviously, racism in all its various forms is an American (and global) issue that blinds everyone equally due to its pervasiveness, and that's why it's still such a problem.

Learning about race and sociology at the University completely changed how I view the world. Obviously, I still participate in the benefits of white privilege, because all white people get those whether they want them or not (which, by the way, is an important thing for all whites to recognize, lest we run around with the attitude of "I'm not racist, so therefore solving racism is about changing those other racist people"). But the thing that really gets under my skin is when people assume that racism is a dormant problem that is either already solved, or an issue that we can't do anything to change. The blog Stuff White People Do looks at the effects of white privilege from the point of view of a white dude named Macon D, in order to help people understand the ways in which they're participating in the continuation of racism.


Examples of stuff white people do:

• think they can save the world by buying diapers (those annoying Unicef ads)
• sit quietly in movie theaters, and shush those who don't ("spectatorship is nonparticipatory, silent, and white")
• adopt non-white children ("to express their magnanimity")

I also found it interesting that Macon D states that his goal in producing the blog is to write explicitly about whiteness. He says that

I’ve noticed, for instance, that when I ask white individuals to talk about whiteness, about what their being white means for them, they usually have very little to say, and they eventually end up talking about non-white people instead. White Americans are usually unaccustomed to talking directly about their own whiteness, and when asked to do so, they often shift to discussing it in relation to other races, and then end up talking almost exclusively about those other people instead. ("sit quietly in movie theaters - part two")

Personally, I think the reason that the reason white scholars try to stay away from examinations of whiteness is because they don't want to appear to be reducing the discussion to a white viewpoint. As in, "even though minorities have endured centuries of enslavement and abuse, racism is really all about white people in the end." But if white people are racist, and especially if they are unknowingly so, doesn't the solution to the problem lie in getting them to recognize their behavior as racist, and then encouraging them to change it? It seems to me that instead of white people "learning" to "accept" minorities, racism should be dealt with by demonstrating to whites that they are the ones that are flawed, because they buy into the idea that minorities are "different" in the first place.

Blogs such as Stuff White People Do are so instrumental in drawing attention to the blatant privilege present in our society today. It's good to see that readers are getting all riled up in the Comments section of the posts, because it gives me hope that perhaps there are still some individuals out there who are engaged in an ongoing discussion about racism and classism, and are committed to making a change.