Well, gee, let me think...

[theotherbaldwin]

About 3 weeks ago, on a message board full of all sorts of intelligent people, a post by someone by someone who I thought really knew better asked for a response. I posted it there, and I'm reproducing his post and my rebuttal here. The post was titled "Am I racist?". It apparently is some kind of stupid e-maill forward that "dares" you to pass it on. I'm doing so only to rebut it. Original post in blockqoutes, my responses in bold.

Someone finally said it. How many are actually paying attention to this? There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Native Americans, etc. And then there are just Americans.

Look, I can randomly list things, too! Watch: There are salad shooters, garlic presses, crockpots, spatulas, microwave ovens, and ice cream makers. And then there's just stuff in your kitchen.

You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You Call me "White boy," "Cracker," "Honkey," "Whitey," "Caveman" ... and that's OK.

But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink ... you call me a racist.

I wonder who this nebulous "you" is. I mean, if it was addressed to an entire, generalized race... or to a single person of one race who is supposed to be a stand-in for all members of a race, that would be, well, racist.

As for the long list of racial epithets... if you address another person like, you ARE a racist. The same goes for the epithets directed to a white person above (though I've personally only encountered the term "White Boy" once in my entire life). To characterize another person in terms that are largely considered hurtful or odious or profanity is to invoke the language of racism. To deliberately use racist language is to be racist.

You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you, so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?

I haven't heard anything about whites committing "a lot of violence" against you-- I'm guessing the "you" here is referring to minorities or other people who aren't  white-- nor do I have any idea who's saying this, nor where you're getting your sources from, Strawy McStrawman.  And just in front of that strawman is a smoke screen for the larger fact that ghettos can be dangerous places to live, and race doesn't have a damned thing to do with it. There are white ghettos. There are black ghettos. There are Hispanic ghettos.

Thing ghettos all have in common isn't skin color, it's BEING POOR. However, it's obvious that when you see the word "ghetto", you think of race, and not being poor. Doesn't that bother you, just a little bit?

You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Yom Hashoah You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi You have the NAACP. You have BET. If we had WET (White Entertainment Television) ... we'd be racists.

Hol-ee crap.

I'm not even sure where to begin here.

The reason there is not a United White College Fundis because white kids looking to go to college have not been denied access in the way that black kids were. Just in case you had trouble navigating the United Negro College Fund's web page (you do name-drop the organization, after all), here is a history of their founding. Aside from helping to balance this inequity today, the UNF is also a key player in keeping these colleges solvent. Just as scholarships based on economic factors help people that have systematically denied access to college ( i.e., poor people), so too has the UNF done the same for black youth.

Black History Month -- tossing that in your litany of "OMG MINORITIES R TEH OPRESSORS!!1!" shows that you don't know how or why it was established. Black History Month grew from Negro History Week in 1926-- African American Carter G. Woodson founded it to counter misinformation and it's been used over the decades as a way to promote understanding and racial harmony.

Why does that bother you so much?

February is also American History Month, Snack Foods Month, Library Lovers Month and Grapefruit Month.

I don't see you foaming at the mouth about Revolutionary War re-enacters, Twinkie-eaters, bibliophiles or getting grapefruit juice in your eye.

If we had a White Pride Day ... you would call us racists. If we had White History Month ... we'd be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites to "advance" OUR lives ... we'd be racists.

Hey, there were white pride days! They were called "KKK rallies". White pride via that orginization was so gosh-darned strong that Southern whites, thoughtt southern blacks didn't deserve to the right vote (despite the fact that the law guaranteed them this right), and murdered civil rights workers in the name of white pride (see the wikipedia entry ).

Hey, if you use The Google you'll see that white pride marches are alive and well.

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that?

Chamber of Commerces are paid for by the dues paid by its members.

If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships you know we'd be racists. There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US, yet if there were "White colleges" THAT would be a racist college. In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists.
You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride you call us racists.

I already covered the history and purpose of the UNF above. I still don't see how a private foundation working to help achieve parity in college admissions would be so horrible. Or racist.

On the Million Man March... if you go to the official website and read you'll find they march aimed to demonstrate: "... the willingness of Black men to atone to God for our shortcomings as men, husbands and fathers; it demonstrated our willingness to reconcile differences at home, school, church, organizations and in the society in general; it demonstrated our willingness to accept responsibility to change our behavior and to strive to make our communities a more decent place to live."

Emphasis in italics is mine.

And there's nothing wrong with being proud of who you are, or where you came from. If you're really all hot and bothered with the fact that so-called white pride parades and the like are looked at as nakedly racist, take it up with the KKK or the Aryan Nation.

You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug-dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society ... you call him a racist.

I am proud. But, you call me a racist. Why is it that only whites can be racists?

Ok, Strawy Mc Strawman, now you're blanketing an entire minority group as thugs and criminals. You're being called a racist being you're talking like a racist. Racism isn't exclusively white-- it's never been, and none of the organizations you cite have said they were.

There is nothing improper about this e-mail. Let's see which of you are proud enough to send it on.

Bull. There are many things wrong with the email you posted-- from the logic with holes so large you could drive a Mack truck through SIDEWAYS to the "I'm not a racist, nosiree" tone that it adopts while simultaneously advocating racist and seperatist points of view.

You getting the vapors that, aiie! there are scholarships for black students and LOOKOUT, HERE COMES BLACK HISTORY MONTH are laughable at best, and defining minorities as those who "... rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us" is disgusting.

So, writer of this email, are you racist?

YES.

DUH.

UPDATE: Matthew Grimm of Matthew Grimm & The Red Smear has a rebuttal of his own. Warning, language makes it NSFW.

UPDATE THE SECOND: Reggie, aka ravenblood , has his own rebuttal to this email/post.

Comments

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

You're just posting this to make me go into the Dark Side and blow up the universe, aren't you? :P

Yeah, um... I think you covered everything quite well. Oy.

[http://users.livejournal.com/erf_/]

I am always saddened by the fact that so many parts of America cannot tell the difference between race and culture.

Or race and class, for that matter. No one actually cares about skin pigmentation--it's about living in one of these neighborhoods, or one of those neighborhoods.

[mia-d.livejournal.com]

this was BEAUTIFUL, thanks :D

[turandot.livejournal.com]

That kind of post reminds me of this conversation in one of my classes last semester a race and culture class...

Prof: "Some people complain about the designation 'Historically Black Colleges'. What does it matter, they say? Why is HBC designation so important? Well... It becomes very important when you realize that most colleges could be designated as Historically White Colleges."
Resident braindonor (a white girl): "But... but... many schools have been integrated for a long time."
Prof: "Really? Well. let's take UT as an example. UT opened its doors in 1883. The first black student to attend UT was a law student in 1952. Undergraduate students would not gain admittance into the school until the mid 60s, following the Civil Rights Act. The exact dates might change, but most state university systems have followed a similar pattern"
RB: "... I don't follow..."
Prof: "In the intervening 80 or so years, where do you think an African American student who had the funds to go to college would have had to go?"
RB: "..."
Prof: "That's right: a HBC!"

It never fails to surprise how many white people who don't realize that kind of distinction are often ignorant, entitled white people (much more attitudinal about their entitlements than the minorities they accuse of acting so). Nor am I surprised you happened upon this piece of trash devoid of reasoning and fact-checking. It's the internet, after all, home of people who live by the motto "speak first, don't bother to check your facts".

[woekitten.livejournal.com]

Most North American colleges and universities (except HBCs of course) were pretty much WASP-exclusive until ... how recently? Even Jews were barred from medical college not that long ago.

[turandot.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, that was pretty much the point of that exchange. The professor went on to mention that Ivies and assorted private colleges have an even poorer record when it comes to allowing minorities to matriculate in them, let alone make a committment to ensure they graduate from them.

[woekitten.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, the old "Boo Hoo, White People Have It So Hard" litany. It kind of stumbles right out of the starting gate:

You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You Call me "White boy," "Cracker," "Honkey," "Whitey," "Caveman" ... and that's OK.

But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink ... you call me a racist.

No, I don't call you anything because I attempt to treat people the way I want to be treated. Why would you want the "privilage" of words like nigger, chink or kike? Oh wait, it's because you're a bitter, whiny asshole. That'll do it.

(Not "you" of course--just this ... narrator. ;)

[paul-le-fou.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. The chain mail was astonishingly ignorant, and was definitely written by one of those racists who thinks they're fair and open-minded (probably because they have a token black guy in their fraternity).

While I agree in principle that all-black foundations and such are unfortunate, they're still a necessity because American culture is still inherently institutionally and psychologically racist. Historical and economic factors make sure of that. The tendency to keep poor people poor and rich people rich in America has hurt blacks more than anyone, and the fact that they're stuck in ghettoes is just because they were forced to start out there.

My addition to this whole thing would be this: There's no "white pride" beyond Aryans and Klansmen, because the entire concept of "whiteness" is a myth. There's plenty of Irish pride, Italian pride, English pride, French pride, and so on and so forth. Many people are proud of where they (or their ancestors) come from, not what color they are. And there's nigh-disgusting amounts of "American Pride" from all sorts of races. The same goes for "blackness" by the way. Most "blacks" in America are indeed descended from slaves brought from Africa, but Africa isn't the only home of "black" people - many, many countries in South America, including Jamaica and Brazil, are home to very dark-skinned people - and even if they are descended from Africans some five to ten generations back, does that make them African? Is an aboriginal Australian still a "nigger" because they have dark skin?

Also, as you said, racism isn't reserved for white people. Any black calling someone a cracker or honkey or whatnot is as racist as any Klansman. The situation is different of course, but that doesn't make it "all right". The same goes for crime and violence, of course - it's up to the individual to rise above it, or there will never be any progress.

[grandbuddha.livejournal.com]

First off, I'm posting a comment because something this epic and something this brilliant deserves a comment.

Secondly, I'm showing off the new User Icon that Nikki found for me, that I feel that you will find, in some respects, amusing.

The final reason is to say that everything here that you have written is painfully true. There are people who are idiotic enough to feel that we're entitled to something just because some other genus of humanity has something that we apparently do not.

That, dear sir, is bullshit.

This details EXACTLY why Black History month exists, and why all the other cultures have their own portion of America as "Little ______"

Notice he's not complaining about "Little Italy" or anything like that. Also, there's no "Crackertown, USA" anywhere... Why? Cause the default civilization of a region doesn't need anything in particular to remind itself of why it's there. China doesn't have a Chinese Appreciation Month because it's "Know why we're here" day every god-damned day there.

Russians too. They know well their dark history. There's no "Russian History Month" in the Ukraine, is there? No.

To want a White History Month in Crackertown, USA is just idiotic.


Otherbaldwin, my friend and brother, thank you for bringing this to our attention. Sometimes, people are just so stupid, that the only thing once can do is post about it. :)

[brunomik.livejournal.com]

The chain letter you post is, admittedly, idiotic and brings to bare no relevant points, but your own comments are so blindly liberal it makes me want to scream.

Thing ghettos all have in common isn't skin color, it's BEING POOR.

Right, and being poor gives you license to commit crimes against the average working man? Ok, now I get it!

The reason there is not a United White College Fund is because white kids looking to go to college have not been denied access in the way that black kids were.

So, I guess being poor isn't enough to be entitled to a free education. You have to be black AND poor. I guess that's fair in some other plane of existence...

Hey, there were white pride days! They were called "KKK rallies".

Before I comment, let me make it clear that I don't believe being any particular race is something to be "proud" of. People should take pride in their actions and the way they conduct themselves. But anyway, you have to admit that it's sort of a slippery slope to assume that just because someone takes pride in being white that automatically means that they want to burn crosses on black people's lawns or hold lynchings.

If you're really all hot and bothered with the fact that so-called white pride parades and the like are looked at as nakedly racist, take it up with the KKK or the Aryan Nation.

By this logic, one should be perfectly justified to consider all black people bad because a portion of the black community is repeatedly involved in violent criminal activity.

I can honestly say that I don't judge a person by the color of his skin. I do, however, make a first-impression judgment based on a) the way one carries himself, b) his use of proper grammar and pronunciation, c) the way he dresses. If you want people's respect, then you have to make an investment in yourself to earn that respect. That includes not wearing a shirt that goes down to your knees and not walking like you have a load in your pants.

Uh...

[theotherbaldwin.livejournal.com]

Have you ever said "I'm proud to be white"?

Or googled white pride (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22white+pride%22&btnG=Google+Search) or white pride march (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22white+pride+march%22&btnG=Search)?


Also.. I wish I could respond to:
ghettos all have in common isn't skin color, it's BEING POOR.

Right, and being poor gives you license to commit crimes against the average working man? Ok, now I get it!

...but I don't think I understand what the connection is. Help me out?

Re: Uh...

[woekitten.livejournal.com]

Black people commit all the violent crimes out there, man! Doi!

Re: Uh...

[theotherbaldwin.livejournal.com]

Hey, watch it, Mike.

Feel free to debate whatever you want, but I'm drawing the line at personal insults.

Re: Uh...

[brunomik.livejournal.com]

Have you ever said "I'm proud to be white"?

Or googled white pride or white pride march?



Ok, first, can you stop with the stupid hyperlinks? you can do a google search. Wow. Can you teach me?

Secondly, did you even read my reply? Here's what I said:
Before I comment, let me make it clear that I don't believe being any particular race is something to be "proud" of...

So, no Shawn, I've never said "I'm proud to be white" because that's a stupid thing to say. And "I'm proud to be black" is just as stupid for the exact same reason - Your race/color/religion is not something you earn or achieve.

As far as the BEING POOR comment is concerned, like I said, I'm happy to be of help to someone who tries hard at life, but is a legitimately unable to pull themself out of poverty, but I'm sick of footing the bill for all the welfare cases out there (regardless of race) who wallow in their mediocrity and don't see a problem with milking off the hard-working taxpayers for a living.

See, the main problem with a lot of the African American organizations, events and whatnot that are in place is that they send the wrong message. That message is "'The man' is holding you down. It's no use trying to make something better of yourself because 'The Man' will always be there with a safety net to catch you before you fall flat on your face". Admittedly, white guilt is a large part of this problem.

If you or I lost everything we owned and were suddenly out on our white male asses do you think there'd be anybody around who'd want to hear us whine and cry? No sir. We know we are responsible for picking ourselves up off the ground and fighting to get what we want out of life. Maybe if other people didn't have that "safety net" called big government to depend on, they'd stop whining and crying about being repressed and be motivated to try and make something out of their life. Millions of people of all ethnicities and colors do it every day.

Shawn, I like you man, but since when were you such a fucking lib??

Re: Uh...

[theotherbaldwin.livejournal.com]

I did.. and you started out with the same position I did-- the entire notion of "white pride" is ridiculous (but not Irish pride or Italian pride or Polish pride of Lebanese pride or whatever, in my view).

But then right after, you say:

"If you're really all hot and bothered with the fact that so-called white pride parades and the like are looked at as nakedly racist, take it up with the KKK or the Aryan Nation.

By this logic, one should be perfectly justified to consider all black people bad because a portion of the black community is repeatedly involved in violent criminal activity."

Mike, the only place I've even seen white pride mentioned, EVER, has been in this racist crap like site like Stormfront, or orgs like the KKK or neo-nazis.

What orginations are YOU talking about?

As for "

.. dude, about two-thirds of total welfare bbeneficiaries are children. Of the parents that are on welfare, close to two-thirds are disabled. So, at most, about one-fifth of AFDC beneficiaries are 'able-bodied' non-workers.

Welfare takes up about a grand total of 2 percent of the budget fedrally. Contrast that with about 22 percent for Social Security and around 18 percent (as of 05) for the military... plenty of middle-class and wealthy Americans also receive assitance in the form of tax deductions for home mortgages, corporate and farm subsidies, capital gains tax limits, Social Security, Medicare-- and yet there seems to be no stigma for that.

Again, I'll ask you to please watch your language-- I know you don't have to resort to name calling (though I've been a liberal since I was a teenager, and my philosphy is something I'm proud of. If I can be happily married to someone who's more libertarian in her outlook, and learn some things in the process,m and have done so without cussin' or name calling, I think you can too.)

Re: Uh...

[brunomik.livejournal.com]

I apologize for cursing in your blog.

I didn't realize it was being monitored by the FCC!

But seriously, I do apologize.

Re: Uh...

[theotherbaldwin.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's not the fact that it was a curse, but a directed curse.

No prob, apology accepted.

Re: Uh...

[woekitten.livejournal.com]

So pray really, really hard to God and if you're lucky in your next life, he'll make you a black man in a Detroit ghetto. Then you'll have all their privileges!

Re: Uh...

[brunomik.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope I at least get to be taller...

Re: Uh...

[turandot.livejournal.com]

See, the main problem with a lot of the African American organizations, events and whatnot that are in place is that they send the wrong message. That message is "'The man' is holding you down. It's no use trying to make something better of yourself because 'The Man' will always be there with a safety net to catch you before you fall flat on your face". Admittedly, white guilt is a large part of this problem.

I would like nothing better than not to step into the middle of this, but on this one assertion, I strongly beg to disagree. While I am not African American, and therefore am not a card carrying member of the NAACP, to give you an example, I feel that you are misconstruing, if only to yourself, its aims.

The organization in question, for one is about advancing (why, "Advancement" is part of the acronym, after all) the position of African Americans within their professional and personal sphere by providing its members a network that helps them achieve outside and above their limited community resources (hence the scholarship funds, and legal help when fighting gross discrimination that is tended to all their members, and so forth). For the other, it is an organization that much like HBC was established at a time where few if any doors were open to African Americans who worked and still work their ass off to advance themselves and their community. The fact that it has not been laid by the wayside says nothing about their own philosophy, and more about the fact that there is still a need for that kind of organization.

Even semi-militant organizations like the Nation of Islam do not "blame the man", so much as advocate a vision of growth and advancement that is separatist, i.e. calls for self sufficient black communities, to the point of refusing government aid and trying to grow the neighborhoods as their own closed circle economies. That is perhaps a philosophy that is diametrically opposed to your assertion of encouraging exploitation of a "safety net" (I put that in quotation marks because Medicaid, SSI and SS are a poor excuse for a safety net - all three combined for a single parent household of 2 or more are not enough to live on).

Most other minority-based organizations fall in between those two extremes. So I have to wonder, where exactly do you get the above quoted idea? TV? Newspapers? One or a handful of conversations you had with one black person you know? Because if the latter, you cannot judge a whole entire race and its social structures based on just one person. If the former, you're letting mass media organizations do all the fact finding and thinking for you, and that's never good.

Re: Uh...

[brunomik.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to respond to this, but haven't had time to put my thoughts into words. I heard something on CNN today that kind of drives home my point.

So we have Michael Vick, who has plead guilty to killed his fighting dogs by such humane methods as hanging and drowning. The NAACP, for some unfathomable reason has agreed to help this monster keep his job in the NFL. They were on TV today responding to a panel's questions. They argued that Vick is a man and men are redeamable so therefore, he shouldn't be fired.

OK, well, isn't Imus a man? Why isn't he redeemable? Rev. Al and the NAACP were calling for his permanent dismissal and he didn't kill anything; he just said something a lot of people didn't like. Yet, in the NAACP's view, Vick should only be suspended for a season while Imus needed to be fired permanently.

Oh, another argument they had was something to the effect of "while lots of NFL fans are animal lovers, others just want to see Vick play". Umm... holy crap! Whether you're an animal lover or not, I think anyone in civilized culture would agree that it takes a real psychopath to breed dogs to rip each other apart and then kill them by torture when they loose.

It's not so much that these activist groups exist that bothers me; it's the ridiculous double-standards they try to pass as moral arguments that makes me want to pull my hair out.

Re: Uh...

[turandot.livejournal.com]

Well, for one, one of them apologized right away (or at least kept his mouth shut when accused of the obvious, and then apologized once he could not longer keep his mouth shut about it), whereas the other kept making excuses as to why something he did wasn't really bad, which actually angered people more about it than would have been warranted if he had apologized when first asked to... or kept his mouth shut until he could figure out a better way to save face. It is as simple as that.

Secondly, I think that the NAACP people know that Vick, given that the other people in his circle plead guilty so to accuse him of being the primary party in this ring of criminal, will probably not play in the NFL for a while. Penalties for animal cruelty are not as great as they should be, but this is a high profile case, and the prosecution is almost obliged to push for jail sentencing on this one. He's not gonna play for years, and they know that. They're just trying to put a face on it as "look, we're not abandoning him, he's one of our own people". It's all empty PR, pure and simple.

Re: Uh...

[brunomik.livejournal.com]

Well, for one, one of them apologized right away (or at least kept his mouth shut when accused of the obvious, and then apologized once he could not longer keep his mouth shut about it), whereas the other kept making excuses as to why something he did wasn't really bad, which actually angered people more about it than would have been warranted if he had apologized when first asked to...

You still have to agree that what Vick did is in a completely different league than what Imus said... right?

Re: Uh...

[theotherbaldwin.livejournal.com]

I saw sorta-related "Standish, get the smelling salts" behavior on one of the ESPN channels. Or maybe Fox Sports. One of the sports shows, at any rate, where everyone came to the "distressing" conclusion that Vick has die-hard fans that are African-American and who don't care what he's done!

Hell, Lynndie England has lots of white guy fans who think what she did was the bee's knee-pajamas (or "it was like a fraternity hazing"), and I'd hazard a wager that none of those fans have ever been on the receiving end of two-hundred years of court martials targeting female soldiers.

Also, you might want to have a look at what the national NAACP said (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2988279):

"Falcons quarterback Michael Vick 'is not a victim' and should be held responsible for his actions involving a dogfighting ring in Virginia, the national president of the NAACP said Thursday.

Re: Uh...

[brunomik.livejournal.com]

Hell, Lynndie England has lots of white guy fans who think what she did was the bee's knee-pajamas (or "it was like a fraternity hazing"), and I'd hazard a wager that none of those fans have ever been on the receiving end of two-hundred years of court martials targeting female soldiers.


Well, does the fact that Lynndie England has supporters make what she did any more right? Of course not. And the same goes for the Michael Vick situation.

I'd hazard a wager that none of those fans have ever been on the receiving end of two-hundred years of court martials targeting female soldiers.

Ok, this is the kind of thing I just simply can't deal with hearing. As a person who happens to be a white male, I refuse to take responsibility for or feel guilty for things that happened to minority groups in the past for which I took no part in. Period.