Neo-Bigots & Neo-Racists
Arn Menconi
Posted: 05.07.2008 / 10:29 AM EDT
Bill Moyer, the journalist and former aid to President Lyndon Johnson, said this week, “Politics often exposes us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I’ve never seen anything like this — this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner (referring to Rev. Wright and Barack Obama). Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said, “beware the terrible simplifiers”.”I grew up on the South side of Chicago in the sixties. The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement were the main attractions for a decade. I went to an integrated Catholic grade school that exemplified the melting pot of Blacks, Whites, Latinos, & Asians. We were all friends and the main industry surrounding our neighborhoods was manufacturing. My friends were of color; my everyday world was children of color. Yet, my parents were racists. Their friends were all white and their everyday world was white. As the sixties moved on, and my block became more integrated, the tension and racism grew to a boiling point. There was fighting and destruction to black’s homes.My friends and I continued live a double life of harmony at school and segregation at home. I slipped between the two worlds confused and increasingly saddened wondering why we were learning to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves at school and church, but were not able to do so at home and in the community.It is the confusion that many children develop when there is a double standard either spiritually, intellectually or emotionally through the adults in their lives. When I was a kid, 20% of the America’s youth were minorities, now it is 40%. In 12 years, whites will be a minority.Last week, SOS Outreach, a non-profit for at-risk youth, conducted a survey of nearly 400 youth around America who passed through our programs over the last three years to determine their involvement in wintersports by being introduced by SOS Outreach. The results will be used for my presentation to the National Ski Areas Association in San Francisco at the end of May. What I was conscious to is how diverse and different families are today than when I was young. Some live with both of their natural parents, others with a single parent, and others with a natural parent and their new spouse. I spoke to Whites, Latinos, African Americans, Asians and Middle Eastern kids. All were great to speak with, curious to experience new things and hopeful of their future. One of the questions was on a scale from 1 to 5, five being the highest, “Do you show respect to kids of a different race or culture than you?” Not one said anything other than 5, perhaps demonstrating that children are better equipped at moral values and life choices than our political pundits and many adults. That is our kids, our future. Not what we are witnessing from the political pundits. In twelve years when I am 61, I will be a minority and these kids who are able to be respectful today towards others of a different race will be running our country. Not those that are filling our minds with the wrong conversation about Wright, but the right conversation about race and harmony. Let’s see if we could model our children’s morality.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Bill Moyer can hang his head in shame if he wants to (want to bet he doesn’t want to–shame is for others, lesser mortals than Moyer) but in this case, the media has nothing to be ashamed of. What is wrong with learning the truth about a candidate? And if that truth is uncomfortable for the candidate, well, welcome to politics, kid. Did Obama sit in that church for 20 years and agree with Wright? If so, he’s just another wild-eyed radical. Did Obama sit there for 20 years and not realize Wright’s politics/theology? If so, he has the brains of a mouse, and is not fit for the White House. Or did he sit there for 20 years, knowing Wright was a kook, but staying in that church because it was politically expedient for him to do so? If so, Obama is just another machine politician out of Chicago.
In the end, of course, it doesn’t matter. People will vote party lines and by November they will have convinced themselves that they are doing the right thing. Here, have another nice cup of politically correct bilgewater.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Whites are not handing the Country over to anyone. Blacks are not an increasing demographic group. As a group, they own practically nothing. There’s more and more Mexicans, millions, but “Hispanic” is a language group, not a race. They don’t own anything either. Besides, The 10,000 best jobs in corporate American almost all belong to WASPs. Most of the real wealth and property in American belongs to WASPs. Not all WASPs, just a tiny minority, such as Gates, Walton, Jobs, Dell, Ellison, Chambers…
May 9th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
“Pure whites” may be a minority before long. But if we flip old racist thinking on its head and legally classify all persons with so much as a drop of white blood as “white” we have it made. Whites will rule forever!
And that would make Obama “white” too!
As a “pure white” soon to be minority I took no offense in Rev Wright’s lively, provocative style. Keeps people awake in church. My father woud have been uncomfortable with it, although his great uncle was a congressman in the 1860’s who was offended by Lincoln’s orders to northern commanders to leave the statu quo alone when they took southern territory (i.e. turn a blind eye to slavery)and considered any state that supported slavery by that very fact to be foreign countries and enemies of freemen everywhere. Nope, Dad was soft spoken, introspective and flamboyant, provocative people unerved him. Mom by nature is compassionate, but also craved membership in the ruling class. A daughter of the depression, she was/is willing to think and say whatever will fit her into the upper class - as she saw it through her era . .. all white.
My mother is 88 and safely ensconced in a skilled nursing facility behind the wall of a 99% white (one or two Asians) retirement community in So. California. In reference to Obama’s run for the presidency she said “I don’t think the country is ready for a foreign president”. [She was afraid of using a racial reference in front of the people who take care of her daily and literally wipe her behind for her as they are ALL “of color” - though none very dark.]
She knows little about the world and cares little. Museums are like department stores - the artifacts either “would look good” in her house or don’t get a look.
She sees the world through the tiny filter of her own preferences and interests. Rather like Shel, I suspect. She can’t handle intellectual stimulation, logical arguments, science programs on TV, controversies, or smart satire. She can’t stand foreign accents because her brain can’t process them. She would consider a strong New Jersey accent a foreign language, but she has never traveled far enough to encounter variations of her native tongue.
Thank heavens I left home to see the world for myself. U.S. coast to coast and much of the Far East. Worked where I was the only “foreigner” and had to find new ways of telling the good guys from the bad guys. To be safe in this world, you need to know how to communicate across cultural lines and how to negotiate survival in any social environment.
Some folks haven’t the experience or skills to do this. They have never come far enough out of themselves and, of course, lack the abilty to appreciate the value of doing so. Unfortunately they also are likely not to recognize how critical it is for “leaders” to have such skills and the courage to apply them.
Obama is his own man, as most of us are. Listen to the man to speak for himself. Where he goes, where I go, where he can might be seen, where I might be seen, does not define the person.
Shel, Charles, have either of you gotten out of your comfort zones to work with other people on any serious matters of concern to the larger communities to which you belong? Have you ever participated in actually solving or making your best efforts to solve a problem big or small in your communities?
Or are you inclined to sit back and critique the efforts of others - post the blog, gripe the gripe, find the excuse why efforts are worth it?
What were the communities and families you grew up in like? What wisedom can you share from your personal experiences? What personal, first hand experiences have shaped your opinions? What “knowledge” can you claim as your own?
Best wishes to all.