BroadSnark

It seems like I have spent my entire life trying to fight off the irrational fears that people have tried to instill in me.

I was advised not to ride the bus in Ft. Lauderdale or I’d get robbed. I was told if I went to Liberty City, I would get beat up. Before I went to Mexico, Estadounidenses told me it was too dangerous. When I was in Playa Chacala, they told me I would be mugged in Guadalajara. When I was in Guadalajara, they told me I would get mugged in Mexico City. In Mexico City, they told me I’d never survive Guatemala.

If I let myself be afraid every time someone told me horrible things about a place or a people, I would never go anywhere or talk to anyone.

The people who were trying to make me afraid weren’t fearful from experience or reliable knowledge.  It was all just rumor, sensationalist news reports, and general fear of the OTHER – especially if that other was poor and black or brown.  People are so ready to believe negative things about poor people of color that you have to assume they want to believe those things, need to believe those things.

Why?

What if that fear went away tomorrow?  What if we all assumed, just for a day, that everyone was doing the best they could to get by.  What if we assumed, just for a day, that poor people aren’t poor because they are less worthy, less smart, less hard-working, or just plain less?  Where would that leave us?

It would leave us with a lot of questions.  It would leave us asking how things got to be this way and what forces are at work keeping them this way.  It would leave us wondering about how those inequities relate to accidents of geography, skin color, and birth.  It would leave us wondering if those inequities aren’t accidental at all.  And it would leave us asking who benefits from us distrusting each other so much.

It’s easier not to think about those things.  Thinking about those things, for many of us, leads to questioning our privileges, our world views, our lives.  And we would rather not do that.  So we just live in fear and try to avoid looking at the everyday tragedies.

But every once in a while, a tragedy unfolds that is so catastrophic that we cannot ignore it.  So Katrina hits New Orleans or an earthquake hits Haiti and willful ignorance becomes impossible.  That’s when our schizophrenia takes hold.

We watch the tragedy unfold on the television and our hearts break.  We imagine the horror that those people are going through.  We send millions of dollars to relief organizations and stay glued to the news reports.  We ask ourselves, why?  How could something so horrible happen?  And we want to know if it could have been prevented.  Most importantly, we want to know if it could happen to us.

Before long, the news reports turn from rescue to rioting.  A little scuffle over some desperately needed food is played on a continuous loop.  Report after report conflates appropriation of the means to survival with, not just theft, but violence.

And all these scary reports happen just in the nick of time.  Some part of the back of our brains had begun to wonder if there was more to the story than just an “act of god.” Perhaps someone mentioned how poor Haiti was and we wondered for a moment why.  But before we had to take any trouble looking into it, those “journalists” showed us what dangerous people we were dealing with, incapable of organization or development.

So you see, this couldn’t happen to us.  We can rest assured that we deserve our privilege.  No need to examine history or economic systems.  No need to wonder why these “acts of god” are so much more destructive when they happen to poor people.  Just pat ourselves on the back for our generosity and move on.

And when the United Nations and the U.S. government prioritize “security” over medical supplies, leaving doctors to find saws in hardware stores in order to perform amputations, there is no need to question that decision.  These are dangerous people.  You are sure of it.  You’ve been told over and over your entire life.

There is no need to read about the history of Haiti.  There is no need to seek out journalists who are actually talking to the people we are supposed to be so afraid of.  There is no need to listen to people on the ground who tell us over and over and over and over and over again that the reports of violence are a lie.

Ignorance is bliss.

I’m not saying that there is no real danger in the world.  I certainly wasn’t going to volunteer to drive a bus through Zona 18 in Guatemala.  But isn’t it time we were a little more skeptical about the daily vilification of poor people of color?  Why is it that so many people found my blog looking for information about which non-profits are trustworthy; yet so few people show anything like that kind of skepticism when it comes to news reports making survivors out to be criminals?

So long as we allow fear to substitute for fact, the status quo will go unchallenged.  And that suits some people just fine.

It’s no secret that race is the central issue for many of the people who oppose Obama (but pretend to oppose his policies).  Glenn Beck has taken a lot of heat for saying that he thought Barack Obama was a racist, but Beck is not the only one.  And now that conservatives are feeling nervous about a torture investigation, even the most polished organizations are getting blatant.

Yesterday’s Morning Bell from the Heritage Foundation was titled Politics Before Justice at Obama’s DOJ.  Agreeing wholeheartedly with their lord and master, Dick Cheney, they claim that Eric Holder’s investigation is only an attempt to attack the previous administration.  Then they go on to cite other examples of where politics has trumped justice with Eric Holder.

Example number one – Black panthers who intimidated voters in 2008 had their cases dismissed.  Example number two – Bill Richardson will not be charged with any crime related to the pay-to-play scheme that was under investigation and which cost him his post in the Obama administration.  Example number three – Holder was said to have pushed for pardons for members of the FALN and Los Macheteros, Puerto Rican nationalist groups.

Are we noticing a pattern here?  Eric Holder dismisses charges against brown people, but goes after the good ole boys at the CIA.  Now the Heritage Foundation is not quite that blunt.  For the blunt version, you need to head over to Free Republic, where commenters are more than willing to spell it out.

True. Most obama advisors hate whites,
but Holder advocates violence and threats against whites,
and has and will continue to use the US Government
to protect those who assault whites
– even at voting booths.

This is the narrative that is developing over the torture investigations.  It is only going to get worse.  There are a lot of people out there who know they broke the law and know they have very slim protection.  They are powerful and they aren’t going down without a nasty fight.

The narrative is already spreading.  A quick search showed coverage in the Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Philadelphia Enquirer.  We better be ready to ridicule this thing out of existence.

Number 1 – The black panther case that the right is in such an uproar about involved two men standing outside a polling place in Phili.  One was an official poll watcher with every right to be there.  Judging by the video below, the only one there scared by the black panther’s presence was the fox news correspondent sent to the polling place to sensationalize.  Although I’m sure Faux News viewers were peeing in their pants at the site of an unarmed black panther.

Number 2 – Bill Richardson was investigated and the DOJ decided not to pursue the matter.  They haven’t said why.  Republicans and Fox News are insinuating that they are letting him off for political reasons, but they don’t know that.  Moreover, as TPM reports, the DOJ isn’t exactly exonerating him.  They just don’t seem to think they have a case.

Number 3 – FALN and Los Macheteros did plan bombings and I don’t condone violence.  But the people pardoned by Bill Clinton (with reported pressure from Eric Holder) had not been convicted of bombings or of any crime where people were hurt.  Moreover, clemency for those individuals was being pushed for by prominent human rights defenders, including Jimmy Carter.  Whether or not you think the pardons were appropriate (and I personally thing presidential pardons are a bad idea), the right is leaving out most of the story when they just say Holder released terrorists.

The kicker to the Heritage Foundation’s email was this doozy of a quote.

Now, as the head of DOJ, Holder’s political decisions are undermining core rule of law concerns including the integrity of elections, ethical governance, and national security. Holder reports directly to his boss, President Barack Obama. Someone needs to be held accountable.

Can you believe those guys can actually write that?  It’s like they live in a parallel universe. The people who testified before congress that the Supreme Court was right to stop the 2000 recount are worried about the “integrity of elections.”  The people who insisted that human rights protections didn’t apply to people not in our territory are worried about ethical governance?

They are right about one thing.  Somebody needs to be held accountable.

I was listening to a podcast a bit ago when one of the guests said something about her “blood,” meaning her family. Every time I hear people talk about their family or ethnic group as their blood, it makes me cringe.

As someone who was adopted, I can tell you unequivocally that blood does not mean a thing. There are plenty of biological parents out there who have not done anything for their children. There are plenty of lovers out there whose bond is stronger than the bonds they have with their biological family, whether they had lifelong relationships with that family or not.

And truly, it’s a bit insensitive to speak in terms that make the relationship between this country’s 1.6 million adopted children and their parents seem less connected and less real.

Another thing I find truly offensive about talk of “blood” is where the talk stems from. Using the word blood to refer to relationships started in the middle ages. Talk of blood was talk of inheritance, aristocracy, and hereditary privilege.

As Benedict Anderson points out in Imagined Communities, Europeans believed that a persons stature in life was related to their blood. They brought these ideas of aristocracy and supremacy to all the lands they colonized.

European ideas about blood continue to saturate the minds of people in this country. Many people still believe in the one-drop rule, the blood of an African being so powerful that the tiniest amount makes them black (and inferior).

And talk of blood to denote family is a culturally centric notion of family. Many cultures have defined family as only those connected through the mother. Some trace lineage by the father. In some groups, children belong to everyone.

I know there are people whose only close relationships are biologically related to them. So I can understand how they might believe biology is the source of that bond. But it would be nice if people took a step back and thought about what they are really saying.

Some time ago, a friend of mine told me about an interview she listened to where a Muslim American was talking about integrating into U.S. society. He said that Jews were a model of how a group can overcome the prejudices against them and integrate.

My friend thought it was interesting given the animosity between Jews and Muslims. I thought it was interesting because I don’t believe Jews necessarily represent a model of integration that new immigrants should follow.

I thought about that interview after I watched Joseph Dana and Max Blumenthal’s appalling video of white supremacist American Jews in Jerusalem. (Warning: This video is offensive in the extreme and not work safe.)

I was shocked when I watched the video, not because I deceived myself into thinking there were no racist Jews. I’ve certainly met some. I was shocked because the young adults in the video so willingly and brazenly adopted the stereotypes, language, and threats of white supremacists (with the ubiquitous appropriated blackness of American youth to boot).

Had I exhibited this KKK-like behavior, my father would have kicked my ass. It isn’t so much because he thought racism was wrong (although he did). It would have been more because of his sense of self. I don’t believe he thought of himself as white, at least not completely. Most Jews of his era didn’t.

He was born in 1929. He was 29 when the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple was bombed by white separatists. He was 35 when Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were found dead. He may not have been marching with Martin Luther King or identifying with the people who did, but he certainly wasn’t identifying with white supremacists either.

So what happened?

The people in that video clearly spent much of their lives in the United States, Somewhere along the way they became white. They embraced the worst aspects of the United States – the racism, the hatred, the violence.

The video was posted on many websites. Granted, many of the websites were focused on Israeli issues, but these kids clearly had many years in the states. People commented on what the video meant about Israel. Almost nobody commented on what the video meant about the United States.

One commenter on the Atlantic did get to the heart of the matter:

This is not really about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is about American bigotry, for us Americans to think about and deal with. While these Jews too often move to Israel and contribute to the problems there, it’s a fundamentally American problem that needs to be thought about and dealt with by Americans. What about America is making this happen? How is the rubric of classic American racism changing? How do we deal with it differently? What does it mean when a historically marginalized group produces bigots who migrate to the right wing?”

What it means is, they assimilated.

This week a violent anti-semitic and racist walked into the Washington DC holocaust museum and killed an African American security guard. Does anyone believe the shooter cared whether or not he was shooting a Jew or a black person?

So sadly ironic for that act of terrorism to happen the same week as this video of white supremacist Jews shows up on the internet. So sadly ironic for that act of terrorism to happen the same week as responses to that video like this one from 50 cent’s website:

where were good all days when hitler ruled the world all theses pig jews should b dead now

That is assimilation we do not need.

Another thing we do not need is low expectations. So many of the comments to the video were along the lines of “that’s how drunk kids act” or some such bullshit.

No.

That’s how thoughtless, heartless, little monsters act. And if they are old enough to be out at a bar drinking, they are old enough for us to stop calling them kids and start expecting them to act right.

We don’t need immigrants to assimilate. We don’t need more Americans to identify with the worst aspects of the dominant culture. And we don’t need such low expectations for ourselves that we blow these things off. We need immigrants (and native born) to challenge the dominant culture. We need people who challenge the hierarchy, racism, classism, and violence.

One of the people I follow on twitter linked to this story with the comment that it was racist. The article is about an African American couple in Chicago (John and Maggie Anderson) who have decided to only buy from black owned businesses for one year. It’s called the Empowerment Experiment and WOW do some white people have their panties in a bunch over it.

A typical comment goes something like this – If a white person said they were going to buy only from white owned businesses, then it would be racist. So the other way around is racist too.

Bullshit.

Newsflash. Most white people do only buy from white owned businesses. In fact, a whole lot of non-white people buy from only white owned businesses. In fact, even the woman who started the buy black experiment, who lives in a predominantly white suburb, said in her NPR interview “none of my money went to black businesses last year.”

I lived in Santa Cruz, California for six years. Santa Cruz residents have a very strong preference for supporting locally owned businesses and keeping money in the Santa Cruz community. Santa Cruz is 90% white.

The number of black owned businesses is so small that the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t even put down a percentage. It just says “S: Suppressed; does not meet publication standards.” Hispanic owned firms also get the big “Suppressed.” In other words, those “Buy Local” bumper stickers around town may as well say “Buy White.”

Does that mean I think people in Santa Cruz are wrong to support local businesses? No. Because, like the couple that decided to buy only from black owned businesses for a year, the intent is to spend money in a way that supports a more just world.

Does that mean there should be no discussion about those kinds of choices? No, because the local store may be owned by the grand puba of the KKK. And a black entrepreneur could be selling products made in a sweatshop.

But those are thoughtful discussions that reasonable people ought to be having. Instead, what we get are comments like this gem over on the Famuan:

Hey bmc if you told 10 white people about this stupid ebony experiment, 10 out of 10 would boycott anything black. weather be shoes of shaq, or golf clubs of tiger, stupid music of kanye. And obviously because of your childish fatherless culture way of thinking your missing the point, by the way because of this story I have boycotted anything black, Look the black community needs to stop acting like thoughtless neanderthals, stop acting childish and at least pretend you have a daddy, As someone has said made a very great valid point.. get off this Hip Hop prison jail metality culture, dont cry about what white people say, and change your so called black communitys flaws

I know I’ve been around too long to be surprised at this kind of shit, but I can’t help it. You’d think people would at least have the sense to be ashamed of their ignorance.

The irony is that addressing what the Anderson’s see as a flaw in the black community is exactly what they are trying to do with the Ebony Experiment. As well-off black people who “made it” and left their blighted inner-city neighborhoods behind, they felt they were part of the problem. Their experiment is about seeing if, by spending their money in the black community, they can help those struggling black communities.

They aren’t advocating that every black person buy only from black people. In fact, they repeatedly call their commitment “extreme.” Their extreme measure is meant, not only to start a conversation, but to collect real data that shows how individuals can make a difference by changing their spending habits

One commenter on the Wall Street Journal said

Right now I buy based on convienence and price. I know nothing of the owner and nor do I really want to concern myself with this issue of his color his politics or his lifestyle.

That’s the real problem. If we all just buy based on convenience and price then we support some truly heinous things, all in the name of saving a few minutes or a few bucks. What if that cheap thing was made by children or slaves? What if the company who grew your bananas poisoned its workers? What if that Coca Cola you love so much is only cheap because goons beat labor organizers to death?

What if our not paying attention to who we buy from ensures a large portion of Americans remain in perpetual poverty?