Politics

Our discussions in class have remained remarkably apolitical. Last week I raised the question as to whether or not people thought reactions to The New Jim Crow would be criticized by conservative families and more accepted by liberal families. This discussion was brief but one response was that the racial issues at hand are moral and not political. I am not saying that the issues are as simple as politics, or that every conservative is ignorant and racist and every liberal is open-minded and progressive. However, I absolutely believe that the majority of complaints would come from conservative parents due to the emphasis on "staying with tradition", which happens to be a tradition of white supremacy. As exemplified by republicans today, conservative Americans are generally open critics about affirmative action, immigration, welfare, and crime. Affirmative action is unfair and takes away from white opportunities- but all of the opportunities whites have taken away from minorities is not in question.  Immigration is clearly a racial issue, if more constituents are of the minority, the white "majority" is threatened. Welfare recipients are commonly criticized by the republican party for being lazy and the image of a black welfare mom is commonly evoked. Everyone needs to be "hard on crime" (this is the most bipartisan problematic issue mentioned here), so racial profiling, unjust sentencing, and minority oppression is OK as long as people are safe. I believe these problematic thoughts are predominantly republican rather than democratic, and that they should be addressed as racist issues. Not every republican is an overt bigot like Don Yelton, or David Duke. However, I believe the racist ideologies within the party are made very explicit with the Duke/Buchanan election. Duke and Buchanan shared "anger over affirmative action, crime, immigration, and welfare moms", but because Buchanan was not directly linked to Nazism or Klan membership, the ideologies weren't question as being racist. As Wise brings up in the following chapter, "A Duke victory would have made it more difficult to distance the party from the racism that had animated so much of its previous thirty years of political activity—from Goldwater’s opposition to civil rights legislation to Nixon’s exploitation of “law and order” themes so as to scare whites about big city crime to Reagan’s deft use of stories concerning mythical black “welfare queens” driving Cadillacs to the food stamp office." (166-167). There is a similar trend happening now, where the tea party was first embraced by many republicans, for being able to ignite more radically conservative ideas, they are now being criticized due to their growing disapproval and more overtly racist ideas.

Institutional racism in and out of schools

I attended an event focusing on hunger in Norristown earlier today. While the talk was on hunger- I couldn't help but think about how much it was also about race. There were two black women from the Hunger Memoirs movement- they shared their story with the audience. Race was not addressed once during the presentation which may very well be problematic. However, one particular aspect of Tianna's story stood out to me. She had become homeless because the project she was living in with her husband and two children had lead paint. Her eldest son got lead poisoning from the walls and has subsequent brain damage. Tim Wise discusses how in school the black students were put on a track lower than the white students, while I do not deny that this is true, there are also other racist institutions at play which only make the problems in school worse, and in some cases do make racial minorities less equipped to succeed in school even without biased teachers. In the case of Tianna and her son, multiple forces were at play which will decrease the success of the young boy regardless of how teachers may treat him. Tianna grew up hungry and in poverty, she had her children early on in her life and received little education. Her son was born into the same racially oppressed position as his mother. Had he been attending school at all, he was likely to be behind the curve due to malnutrition and hunger. Now, he is not only hungry and trying to learn, but due to racial zoning and institutional white supremacy, he was put in an unsuitable home and has a mental impairment due to his close proximity to toxins. Now it doesn't even matter if the teacher was biased necessarily, this young boy is not going to be at the same academic level as his well-fed, toxin-free peers. These outside sources were something that was not addressed in the chapters (first 3.5 thus far so maybe they will be) I read in White Like Me but I feel they are important in addressing the systemic racial institutions at play as well as the bigots and racist institutions in the schools themselves.

Ancestors

My parents are divorced and I only really know the history of my mother’s side of the family.  I took pride in the fact that they emigrated from Hungary and lived hard working lives as farmers. They came here around 1912 as outlaws in the Bolshevik Revolution. My maternal ancestors were farmers in a rural area in Northern New Jersey, which is also where I grew up in a very dominantly white middle and working class area. I know my father’s side of the family was much wealthier than my mother’s, and that they also resided in the north, but I have essentially no information on how long they were there and if they had slaves at all. Whenever people would talk how it is white people’s ancestors who were slave owners and the oppressors that created white supremacy, I always took a sort of silent comfort thinking that my Hungarian ancestors were red-neck farmers who became educated teachers whom spoke out against racism (as my grandfather was actively anti-racist in the 1960’s). I complacently accepted a less oppressive story, because I could afford to. However, I never have even bothered to think about (before this reading) that for one, my father’s ancestors could have been slave owners and two, that even though my maternal ancestors were hard working farmers, that they’re ability to move up in society and even be commended as hard workers, is a result of our white privilege. I am part of a race, and for the majority of my life I have been ignorant to the way it has shaped my life- for the better. My initial reaction to this is that I don’t deserve to be where I am not, as it has undeniably been at the expense of non-white counterparts. However, upon further reflection I do not know if deserve is the right word, or at least am uncomfortable with the guilt that it makes me feel when that which I have been born to is so far beyond my control. Should I still be appreciative of the hard-work of my ancestors, even though it stands on the shoulders of white supremacy? Can I accept this and still be proud of my family, and instead be upset with the fact that hard working non-white families did not get what they deserved? 

Acknowledgement and Where To?

I didn't blog last week and would like to use my credit for attending the Michelle Alexander lecture in lieu of that absence. 

I was raised to believe that all people should be treated equally. My mother also has her PhD in sociology and psychology and informed me of the facts that while equality should exist, the reality is not so. Racial, gender, sexual and economic disparities were all among our family dinner discussions. However, I am a white person benefitting from a historical and current racial project. While I was mildly informed, I did not have the experiential background that made me truly aware of the weight that race has in shaping everyone’s life. This book has provided insight that has enabled me to value the current necessity of racial discourse which I did not previously have.

I still believe that all people should be treated equally, but just that we need to talk about, question, and oppose the racist systems in place today to move towards equality. Prior to this book I would have been in favor of an eventual post-race society. If we could do that, would we be in a post-race society? I doubt it, considering the historical significance of race even if those systems could be abolished over time. I have very limited experience with philosophical discourse (this is my first philosophy class), while I am trying to move past my current limitations, there is still something that irks me about readings such as this. The need to acknowledge race has been made clear, but we are left with minimal direction/opinion as to what we do next. I assume we want racial equality (equality of all kinds for that matter), but even though I am correcting some of my racist biases and indirect racist contributions, is that enough to effect any change? I may be improving myself, but what about everyone else? Where do we go from here?