Learning from Conscious Living

When a Drunk Straight Guy Calls His Gay Friend a Fag

"This is the stuff that hate crimes are made of!"

The night was like any other. My straight friend Matt G. and I enjoyed an evening of watching college sports in Charlottesville, Virginia. We were good friends despite having few things in common. I am staunch Democrat who is also a self-conscious and proud gay racial minority, while he is a unapologetic straight male Republican. He is a rental car salesperson. I am a health care professional. We attended rival universities and almost never agree on politics. For the most part, all of that had little effect on our relationship, which had been well-maintained over the years. When issues surfaced, such as his use of "that's gay" for everything and everyone he found repulsive, we were able to discuss it and came to a common understanding. Though his increasing referral to me as "my nig" or nigger was less forgiving especially since he, as a white male, did not in the least care about the history, meaning, or insult of the word. Had it not been for fag, his use of nigger would have most certainly ended the relationship eventually.

Everything changed last night. We were engaged in a silly conversation about what he took for lunch in high school, where we both attended. I told him that he frequently brought a cheese bread pepperoni sandwich, which he adamantly denied. Now, like many of these silly conversations that we have had before, I assumed that cool heads would prevail and never one of us would really get upset. What's the big fuss about, right? It's just a sandwich.

To my shock and horror, he took such offense that he began accusing me of being racist because of the pepperonis. He's only half Italian, though you really wouldn't know it save for the name. Unfortunately, I couldn't say that he was only in a half state of sobriety. By this time, he'd downed eight beers. I conveyed my surprise that he'd really think that I would engage in this type of culturally insensitive banter. Then, as I am trying to reel him back in and maintain some decorum, he hits below the belt (twice). He attempts to connect my cheese bread by stereotypical overtures about Black people eating chitlins.

Then, he begins yelling, "You fag! You fag!" I was in such a state of shock that I avoided eye contact and couldn't quite communicate how deeply I was offended. I maintained my compusure, but it all shook me to the core. Why would a "friend" insult me on so many levels without any regard for my feelings?

I realized that the relationship needn't go any further.

Confessions of an University Professor

In "What Caused the Civil War", a book part autobiography, part history, part sociology, University of Richmond professor Edward Ayers gives us a personal account of his upbringing in Kingsport, Tennessee in the 1960's. At the time of publication in 2005, Ayers was a professor at the University of Virginia.

"In the second grade I had a beautiful young teacher who led us in singing every morning. One song had acting that went along with it: "Stoop down, bend down, pick a bale of cotton." No cotton grew in East Tennessee, and I had never cotton plants, but the song and this teacher made it sound like fun. This teacher liked me, for we shared a high-energy level and a certain dramatic inclination. She chose me to appear with the sixth graders' glee club, putting on a big show for parents. For this show, she covered my face in burnt cork, gave me a tambourine, and made me a tall hat of white cardboard. My job,...was to beat our tambourine along with the songs of the South performed by the bigger kids. At one point, under the hot lights and between songs, I took off my hat for a moment and was surprised - but pleased, I discovered - by a wave of good-natured laughter from the audience. The burnt cork stopped in a straight line across the middle of my forehead, where the hat had covered.

That would have been about 1960. So far as I know, no one at Andrew Johnson Elementary, segregated as it was, had any problems with a minstrel show. The civil rights movement must have seemed pretty far away from the white people of Kingsport at that point. The little city was about 5 percent black, the population carefully segregated. I saw black kids only rarely.

Though we lived in a Republican district in Appalachia and in a quite modern young city, the culture of white supremacy thoroughly saturated us. People I knew did not hesitate to identify bright colors as "nigger colors" and big sedans as "nigger cars." It was not uncommon to see signs that caricatured black men enjoying watermelon. Downtown, signs identified the colored entrances to the Strand and the State theaters around to the side, leading to the balcony. When we white boys fought, we charged that two on one was nigger fun; when we had to decided the last one chosen for ball, eenie meenie minie mo ended with a nigger's toe. When we want to frighten our younger siblings, we told them a big nigger was coming to get them. We thought nothing of it.

Once I read these passages while browsing the history section in Barnes and Noble, I knew that I had to buy it. Ayers' openness is comforting, to say the least, because most historians that I have encountered in academia don't often relate to the reader on such a human and emotional level. In fact, the premise of Ayers' book appears to be less about rehashing arguments over what may have caused the Civil War and whether Reconstruction was a failure, though he certainly outlines various schools of thought. This book really concerns how any historical narrative must capture the human element. It's what Ayers calls "deep contingency".

"(D)eep contingency reverberates throughout the recesses of the social order. To understand deep contingency we must try to comprehend a society as a whole, its soft structures of ideology, culture, and faith as well as its hard structures of economies and politics."

As a deep contingency, Ayers could have delved into the role of racism in American society as way to explain both the Civil War and most certainly the return of slavery in form, sharecropping. Instead, he chose to look at how "Reconstruction may be more useful as a guide to what to expect elsewhere in the world than any other reconstruction in which the United States has engaged." In other words, Reconstruction in the South has its own deep contingencies given the U.S. intervention in the Philippines and the Dominican Republic at the turn of the century, Europe in World War I and II, Japan in World War I, etc. More interestingly, Ayers emphasizes not so much the contingencies themselves, but the lessons we should take from them. In the case of reconstructions, which obviously could include U.S. involvement in Iraq, Ayers offers the following lessons.

• Lesson One: Because they tend to follow wars, reconstructions often becomes a heavy burden to carry. To borrow a phrase from Eckhart Tolle, reconstructions create collective pain bodies.
• Lesson Two: Reconstructions have the effect of creating "cohesion, identity, and solidarity" among the reconstructed people
• Lesson Three: Reconstructions "foster steadfast and violent defenders of the old order"
• Lesson Four: Reconstructions rely on the most powerful of the old order for economic recovery and renewal.
• Lesson Six: "Sixth, in order to be reconstructed, people need to be perceived as needing to be reconstructed. Accordingly, they are often attributed with pathologies, ingrained limitations, and flawed heritages."
• Lesson Seven: "Reconstructions..cannot last long before they seem another form of oppression"
• Lesson Eight: Reconstructions can unleash a Pandora's box, in which different actors and their irreconcilable goals threaten to upend progress.
• Lesson Nine: The end goal of any reconstruction usually involves "freedom," but the meaning of freedom can vary by groups and over time.
• Lesson Ten: Reconstruction can ultimately be its own enemy, especially if the terms of peace and freedom are absolute.

Now, Ayers does answer the question he poses in the title. Ayers calls this inclusive approach, "open narrative".

"What caused the Civil War?" misleads us because it seems such a straightforward question....
Slavery was a profound economic, political, religious, and moral problem, the most profound the nation has ever faced. But that problem did not lead to war in a rational, predictable way. The war came through misunderstanding, confusion, miscalculation. Both sides underestimated the location of fundamental loyalty in the other. Both received incorrect images of the other in the partisan press. Political belief distorted each side's view of the other's economy and class relations. Both sides believed the other was bluffing, both believed that the other's internal differences and conflict would lead it to buckle, and both believed that had latent but powerful allies in the other region would prevent war. By the time people made up their minds to fight, slavery itself had become obscured. Southern white men did not fight for slavery; they fought for a new nation built on slavery. White Northerners did not fight to end slavery; they fought to defend the integrity of their nation. Yet slavery, as Abraham Lincoln later put it, "somehow" drove everything.

Why College Rankings Mean Very Little

I wrote an article a few months back for the Richmond Times Dispatch advising high school seniors on choosing the right college and taking the necessary steps to ensure that their college experience is a success. In that article, I discussed the darker side of college;  the stress, depression, peer pressure, racism and  violence that are often eclipsed by more cheery depictions. My account was honest, but it also failed to mention perhaps the most critical point about college. Choosing the right college should never come down to a student's desire to attend a school because it's an Ivy League, or a top ten, or for that matter, a college that has any kind of reputation. I attended the University of Virginia, which was recently ranked as the second best public university in the nation, but I would not encourage anyone to attend that school especially if you are a racial or gay minority because the University of Virginia, being so steeped in tradition,  has a culture that does little to protect the minority population at that school. This is probably due to the fact that for 145 out of its 181 year history it was nearly an "all-white, all-male preserve, a Southern finishing school." [1]

From 2002 to 2007, I witnessed a number of events that have led me to believe that the University of Virginia has a racist campus. I am not saying that the University itself is racist, but there is everything to suggest that a cloud of prejudice and Southern way of life hangs over every part of that school. In one incident, I was walking to class one day and saw a poster hanging in the corridor of one of the academic buildings that told all Black people to go "back to Africa". What made that worse was that there was a monkey on the flyer. While the African American population protested against such demeaning acts of racism, there was little that the Administration did. In fact, the only incident that the Administration seemed to really react to was one in which a Black female student, who was running for student council president, was violently beaten by a white male who called her "nigger" as he  ambushed  her in the wee hours of the morning. There was also the incident where some white fraternity boys wore blackface and an afro wig to a frat party. Then, there was the incident where a first-year white male called his resident adviser a "nigger-bitch" because she had asked him to stop some behavior that was disruptive. I could recount countless stories like these, but the point is that the University sees these events as isolated and has never taken responsibility for its role in upholding a culture that is thoroughly racist and Southern. Many African American students could not walk in the fraternity district without being called a "nigger" or fearing for their safety.  I have also heard that other racial minorities feel just as uneasy.  Indians, Koreans, Chinese, and Africans have all told me how they tend to stay within their own social circles because of the confrontational environment around them.

But it's not just about the student body.  The faculty has no understanding of the ways in which they promote this culture. I had a professor to tell a class of about sixty third-years that African Americans completely fabricated the historical figure known as Crispus Attucks. As well,  I had a professor, in discussing the Civil War, completely disregard the contributions of African Americans in the war effort. Overall, I only had  five minority teachers out of  fifty-two! The University says that it's taking steps to hire more minority professors, but don't count on it. When it comes to business, all the University can see is dollar signs. In fact, I read a journal article where the dean of admission, John Blackburn, was quoted as saying that accepting more minorities could jeopardize the school's standing, which is one reason I believe why his office gives preferential treatment to out-of-state minority students, because their test scores offset those of in-state minority students, particularly for African Americans.

I say all of that because I think that students should really be weary of these rankings. It seems that the higher the ranking the more you can bet that that University specializes in catering to a small segment of the high school population. It's not just the racial element that handicapped my success, but the class element. The University of Virginia has one of the richest student bodies in the country and this in reflected in U.Va. culture.  It's a culture that I could not relate to and a culture that offended me. I didn't come from money and my parents aren't lawyers or doctors. I don't care much about brand names or extravagant spring breaks in Europe. I am Black, gay, the son of a working family, and a person who just wanted to get an education. I was once asked by a professor why I was so affected by the climate at U.Va. and not other Black students.  The sad thing is that he actually believes that.

Charlottesville, VA- "The Discrimination City"

Having lived in Charlottesville, VA for five years now, I am not surprised in the least at this recent report by the Washington's National Community  Reinvestment Coalition, which concluded that...

Charlottesville, VA  is the worst place in the country when it comes to discrimination against African Americans in home lending!

Recent Racial Incidents in Charlottesville

"No One Wants a Nigger to Be President"

"Medical Center Manager Uses Nigger at Staff Meeting"

"Fuck You Nigger"

"Jaberwoke Targets Black Students"

"University Paper Encourages Intolerance and Insensitivity"

"White Partygoers Wear Blackface"

"Over Half of UVA Asian-Americans Experience Racism"

"Whites and Blacks Face Off Over Superintendent"

Shooting, Flooding, and Rapping. Oh My!

Our nation is preoccupied with a lot of issues right now. Foremost is the tragedy in Blacksburg, which is hitting home for me because I attend the University of Virginia. There's also the flooding that's going on in the Northeast, as well as the fallout from Don Imus.

It's a very stressful time, but I don't think that one issue is more important that the other. While the media will largely concentrate on the shooting spree at Virginia Tech, we need to take this time to appreciate the complexity of American society. We are lulled into complacency and simple mindedness when things run smoothly or predictably. And it only takes one incident for us to begin to realize that our nation has problems that need to be addressed. I don't believe that Don Imus, or the flooding in the Northeast, or the school shootings are isolated incidents.

These events force us to think more deeply about the state of our nation.

Why Rap is the Scapegoat in This Imus Controversy

"It’s about how white men have created a world to fit them like a glove and how they are using rap music as their scapegoat or as a smokescreen."

 

I am so disgusted that this Imus controversy has now turned into a critique of rap music. Instead of exploring the social attitudes and practices that enabled Imus to say those infamous three words, we are now shifting the debate to something that is altogether different. While the degradation of women is unjustifiable in any context, we have to understand that rap artists take part in a hyper-masculine culture. What they do and say about women is based on their need to compensate for a lack of social standing. They try to present the toughest images of manhood precisely because society is constantly questioning the character of poor Black men who grow up in the ghetto. The behavior of rappers stems out of their common insecurity, but it’s not just about their desire to put women down in order to lift themselves up. They essentially want to create a world where they are protected from any and all forces that may threaten their self-esteem, social mobility, street credibility, and freedom of expression. They don’t care for positive images of women, just as they don’t care for positive images of Black men. What they want is power. Power to change their lives. Power to make up for a high school diploma or college degree they never got. Power to access fortune that they would not have otherwise had. The broader context for rap is that it is an industry that does not take anyone into consideration. It’s all about the benjamins. It does not matter to rap artists that young men only think that thug heterosexuality is the only possible way to express masculinity. It does not matter to them that the 70% of rap music consumers are white men who may think that Black women are only good for sex objects.

On the other hand, white men are never the target of the sort of stereotyping that goes on with poor Black uneducated men. When there is a hate crime by a white person against a Black person or other minority, you can rest assure that white men aren’t thinking that society is stereotyping all white men because of the actions of several. Whereas, Black men are constantly have to prove that they aren’t the stereotype. So what it comes down to is a group with power enforced by privilege and a group squeeze between social pressure and powerlessness. That’s why the comparison between Imus and rap music really isn’t comparable.

White men enjoy privileges is society that other groups can’t even come close to competing with. They know that history will present white men in the best light while making other groups including women and minorities as being much less important. They know that they will have the top positions in government, education, business, and the like. They know that the United States is really a country for and by white men and that ultimately we minorities are powerless against them. Imus’ comments, not just those about the Rutgers players, are coming out of a place of empowerment. The vast majority of his listeners were white men who were not used to checking their own power. That’s what this whole thing is about. It’s about how white men have created a world to fit them like a glove and how they are using rap music as their scapegoat or as a smokescreen. It’s no coincidence that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and others appeared on Imus’ show in recent years. They know the importance of appealing to the one group in our society that really controls everything or rather in the places where it counts. Black people don’t got it. Women are working to get, but they don’t have it either. White men are the group that we should be talking about, not rappers. White men are the ones who enabled Imus and who made up the majority of his listeners, NOT RAP ARTISTS.

I have a cold, but nevertheless I have provided the

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Advocate on Behalf of Justice!

Letter to the Editor,

The resolution on slavery before the Virginia legislature is not about how Black people can’t get over slavery as the gentleman from Hanover suggests. Rather, it is an attempt to measure how well or poorly the White race in this country has progressed. The fact that we have such contention over a resolution that would not require the Commonwealth to  really do anything, truly signals to me that the time has not yet arrived when we can trust white folks to faithfully and justly legislate on behalf of any other group than themselves. If the white legislators are full of reject for the atrocities experienced by African Americans, not only in slavery, but also during centuries of discrimination, violence, and second-class citizenship, then what is the big deal? Tell me what is the big deal?! Black folks aren’t asking for much! It’s not like they want that forty acres and a mule. It’s not like they want every white person to apologize. On the other hand, if the white legislators are speaking against this legislation because they wouldn’t dare give Black folks license to think that they are as equal as White people, then I totally understand. Black folks just aren’t afforded the same comfort, equality, freedom, and pride as White folks.

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CLik Magazine: January Issue

This month's issue of Clik Magazine features an interview with Kevin Aviance, a self-described "gay, cross-dressing, high-heel-wearing, runway-walking queen." For those who are not familiar, Kevin survived a recent gay attack by a gang of Black niggas. I just wish that we could get rid of niggas cause they are ruining the rest of us. We can't walk down the street because niggas are robbing us. Niggas are the reason why our cities are looking like shit. The niggas got to go!

What White People Think In Private (Part One)

Black people have a nasty and self-destructing habit of always letting other people know about our problems. Bill Cosby recently came down hard on Black mothers and young kids. John McWhorter has published two best-selling books on how Black America has it all wrong. He believes that we are self-promoting, self-loathing, pretend victims of a white power structure bent on keeping us down. Do I really have to say that Black people generally are not that way? McWhorter probably suffers from what the majority of white people suffers from, which is miseducation and lack of exposure. The strange thing is that White people and almost every other minority group are pretty much tight-lipped on these kinds of public quarrels. When have you ever heard a White person say that some White people are not living up to the standards that white people should in how they live, eat, and breath? While I am sure that one could catch some subliminal messages to this effect, for the most part, white people are especially good in maintaining a cohesive face. Because of this and some other things, Black people don’t see White people as part Irish, part Scottish, part German, part French...You get the point. Black people see White people as White people! (See map below)

Just as White people don’t differentiate between a Black person who has some Indian blood or “good hair” or high yella skin! Due to this, White people often communicate with all Black people as if they are the same. I am not saying that education, verbal skills, or money won’t make them change their minds, only that it is often the case that they will simply see a Black person. As an educated man, I expect people to treat me differently. You know, I should get some more respect or better service or some perk, right? Well, not always. I sense the times when white people watch me more closely or judge me more critically because they expect that I will fail or not live up to "white standards".
Let me turn this around. Put the monkey on its back, so you can really see its face. White people often employ paternalistic maneuvers when communicating with Black people. You know when you see a white person go out of his way to speak to his Black neighbor, the Black woman who cleans her office, or the Black woman who drives her daughter to school? That white person is not doing that because he or she sees that Black person as their equal. In fact, White people have a funny way of establishing that they are more powerful and superior, despite what means they employ to do so (baking brownies, giving Christmas gifts, initiating conversation) and despite whom they are attempting to subjugate (postman, man in office, mother of child’s friend). These things that white people think in private are really so slight that most white people do even realize they are doing it. It’s more or les subconscious…breed into them. They do take any occasion to let you know who’s boss. If they don’t convert you with their niceties, then you will see that they can play hardball. This is when they really turn the heat up! I was having a light debate with one of my classmates today. In responding to my criticism, she suggested that I “put aside the emotion.” Folks, this is codeword for, “I just insulted you and every white person in the room will know that.” You will notice that white people will do this. They will call you “angry”, “emotional”, “dramatic”, “jumping to conclusions”, “over-the-top”, etc as a way to say that you losing your self-control. In other words, by suggesting that you are any of these names, they are really saying that, “You should be like calm, rational White people who are not quick to excite.” And certainly, we know that White people are so not quick to excite…cough cough Michael Richards...Mel Gibson…Howard Dean…Bob Novak….The point is that White people need to get their secrets out of the closet. White people need to come out of the closet, if you will. Hopefully, I’ll do some things to get the locomotive movin…Stay tuned.

Credit: www.handleanger.com, www.blackpeopleloveus.com, www.wikipedia.org, www.chirotips.com, www.emongoo.blogs.com

Forsaking the Ideals of Equal and Integrated Education

I wanted to write this entry on the recent case before the Supreme Court on school districting because I believe that we must understand the profound effects the decision could have on integration in the United States. This is not just about local issues or even the issue of school redistricting policies. Our nation is at a crossroads where we have to decide if we will take the ideal of Brown further or if we will forsake it as risky ideology. The world that the Brown decision promised is one in which schools would be integrated and equal. There are no currents trends that suggest that we are moving in the right direction. School systems across the nation are giving into pressure to allow students to attend the schools nearest to them. White people and more importantly middle class people are continuing to move into the suburbs. Experts are saying that with the disappearance of this vital class in the city, racial balance will be near to impossible and education quality will inevitably suffer. Regardless of the legal arguments, we have to understand that the wrong decision by our Supreme Court could make the situation much worse. Today, over 65% of minorities live in a mostly minority school. While, most whites are living in mostly white schools. Will tomorrow hold a more pessimistic turn of events? Well, that depends. What is sure however is that we cannot expect racial reconciliation and acceptance of our children’s generation, if we ourselves are not willing to take the necessary measures to ensure that they understand what is at stake. The point here is that our work is not done. How pitiful would it be if we fail to educate our children about the legacy of racism? Or if we fail to instill in them values that are essential to functioning in a multiracial and -cultural society? Children who are exposed to only one kind of people, will only know how to get along with one kind of people. An incident recently happened at my college where an African American female had to endure the following. This is the account in her own words. Remember, this is 2006.

 

Early Sunday morning at about 1:15AM, I was racially assaulted by two first-year male (presumably white) residents in Page dormitory.
As I was reporting a VSOC in my room, I witnessed these two residents walk through my hall and then heard them run down the stairwell yelling:

"She's a bitch...she's a nigger bitch! She's a nigger!"

As a third-year female African-American student, I am disgusted. It remains apparent that racial and sexual harassment still persist within the University and that students are both the perpetrators and victims of these crimes.“

There is no doubt that the students who spoke those words did so because they are not exposed to enough people of color. If they were, then certainly they would have never used such hurtful language. The fact of the matter is that this is the sort of children we will create if, even for a moment, we believe that Brown has outlived its importance.