I’ve been pondering a remark made by the comic Chris Rock and cited by Stephen Taylor over at OTB. I think it has real merit and I’ll repeat the quote here:
to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.†It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
I think there’s merit in that. There are “nicer” white people than there were a half century ago. You only need to look around to see it.
But does that tell the whole story? Isn’t the converse true? I.e. haven’t there been nice white people around for hundreds of years? I think so. My mom and dad were certainly nice in the sense in which I think he means it. Some of what he’s pointing out is simply the result of modern communications and technology. He has more exposure to nice white people than he would have 50 years ago; white people have more exposure to “smart, educated, beautiful, polite” black children. I grew up with those kids so it’s not news to me.
I would also go a step farther. Bigotry doesn’t just take the form of Simon Legree-style cruelty or KKK-style hatred. It has a flip side: paternalism. Whether you’re making excuses for black people or trying to care for them, it isn’t nice. It’s just soft bigotry.
The greatest danger to young black men isn’t white police officers. It’s other young black men. Although I think there’s an argument to be made that’s a result of past racism, I don’t think it’s the result of present racism. The same is true for rates of illegitimate birth among blacks that are higher than those of non-blacks who are similarly poor, rates of substance abuse that are higher than those of poor non-blacks, and lower rates of saving (and higher rates of consumption) than equally poor non-blacks.
That’s the gospel that I see being preached by Tyler Perry. Black men have got to stop abusing their women and children. Racism isn’t making them do it. We need to stop making excuses for prominent black men who do that. Poverty isn’t forcing them. An attitude of disdain for black men on the part of black women isn’t being caused by white racism. Note, too: Mr. Perry’s audience is predominantly black; Mr. Rock’s audience is mostly white.
I don’t know how to solve the problem of racism. I can only hope that time and knowledge triumph and try to act in a caring way towards all people myself. I do know that I can’t solve black people’s problems for them. They must do that for themselves. In a very real sense the most I can do is stay out of the way.
Thanks for including the paternalism point.
Separately, there is racism across the globe and throughout history, and against all races here in the US. Is it disproportionate towards A-As? Yes. But that’s not why the agitators are at it. They are overwhelmingly in it for money, influence and political advantage. They are setting the debate back for their own selfish interests.
I’ll just note that if whites had been nicer in the past & picked their own cotton*, there still wouldn’t be a black President because there would be few blacks in the country.
* Cotton is an anachronistic choice of course, but it illustrates the point most clearly due to cultural reasons.
Over the past 225 years, there have been many people qualified to be president, but only 44 have been elected. There has been only one black presidential candidate, and he won. Therefore, no black candidate for president has ever lost, but at least half of the white candidates have lost.
The racism is in our drug laws and enforcement of the same. If we want to keep young black men in prison, threaten their lives on the streets and kill their employment prospects, it’s about time we came up with something else. Maybe stricter enforcement of jaywalking or of loitering? I’m sure we could come up with something.
I think Chris Rock’s point is accurate but I don’t understand his implication that “progress” in race relations is generally defined as an improvement in qualities among black people. I thought it was a given that the achievement of Obama attaining the presidency represented a change in white attitude. I haven’t read the whole interview so maybe there’s context I’m not getting from this excerpt.
Of course I happen to think that some among those many blacks qualified for the presidency would have made better presidents than Barack Obama. I also think that there are many respectable young black men who have been victimized by police and would make better examples than Michael Brown. In a situation where two groups of people distrust each other, these things matter. It may not be fair that blacks should have to rise above (and publicly condemn) bad behavior among poor inner city blacks, but failure and refusal to do so deepens distrust just as surely as it does when whites fail to distance themselves from anti-black racists.
People of all nationalities, races, cultures, religions, should be able to non-violently protest and earnestly discuss a wide range of differing perspectives relating to all nationalities, races, cultures, religions in this country. As it stands now, though, political correctness has interrupted and corrupted healthy, open, dissimilar dialogues, leaving in it’s wake raw emotions ruling the day, which can then easily dissolve into the destructive chaos now enveloping cities across the country. After all, when you’re “Mad as Hell” you have every reason to loot, burn, and create mayhem. It’s a herd’s way of rationalizing their actions as revolving around justified “revolution,” instead of describing what it really is — crazy dysfunctional behavior.
Even Eric Garner’s family publicly stated they felt his death had little to do with racial profiling and more to do with excessive police force. However, race baiters, political exploiters, and the like turned deaf ears towards this family’s opinions as they embraced the incendiary comments of Brown’s parents — comments which fit in better to the scenario of massive racial bias as being the primary cause of both Garner’s and Brown’s deaths. In this way they could effectively rile people up, enforcing the belief that color continues to be the ongoing onus for black precincts to bear.
Consequently, police indiscretions — involving both too much and too little intervention — are erratically airbrushed, and many of the downsides created by generational poverty, high unemployment, family disintegration, poor educational opportunities, a higher per capita crime rate generating a greater police presence are muted, remaining largely unattended to. What does take front and center stage is the high voltage drama elicited by activating the drum beat of racial animus — selectively interjected and then vigorously stirred into white/back relationships, such as we’ve seen in the Brown/Garner confrontations with law enforcement figures .
What long term good can possibly be achieved by such divisive tactics?
Constance Rice
FWIW, when I saw the diagram of the wound pattern on Brown, the first thing the came to my mind was “panic shooting”.
I have no way of knowing, but what sam described has the ring of truth IMO.
It was an interesting interview, but had a reaction similar to Tastybits. With such a small sample size, how do we know anything?
A recent commenter pointed to the failed candidacy of Al Smith, as evidencing American anti-Catholic prejudice. It seems like there are a lot of problems with this. Herbert Hoover was a very popular person, courted by both parties in his time. The Republicans had dominated the popular vote and electoral college for the last couple of elections. Smith was a Tammany Hall politician who rose to national candidacy in a way that didn’t build national appeal. Finally, the complaint that he was harmed by the anti-Catholic vote in South (per Wikipedia) has to be considered in light of the fact that he only won states in the Deep South, plus Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Of course, if Smith had run in 1932, maybe people would have been less prejudiced.
Who is the Catholic that should have become President then? The name that comes to mind is General Rosecrans, but he too is mired in circumstances that make it seem implausible, independent of religion. Who is the African-American that should have won before Obama? It seems almost cruel to assume that such an opportunity existed.
I thought the most interesting part of the Rock interview was this exchange:
(Though I don’t think I would group Maher’s rants, with Rock and Carlin’s off-colour comedy.)
I think there’s a lot of truth to Chris Rock’s comments, but I also think it’s only part of the story. President Obama is a product of the elite institutions that spawned most Presidents. While it’s progress that elite institutions now let dark skinned people into their club, one of the effects of that is that President Obama is culturally very white; or to put it another way, he’s very much a mainstream late Boomer.
BTW, this is Chris Rock on how not to get your ass kicked by the police:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8
And this famous one (strong content warning):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tkZuLixZOk