If I had any major criticism of the current campaign to fight racism in Duluth it would be that it is simplistic. Its not surprising that it has irritated many and given Mayor Ness the chance to cry out that he is being threatened. You don’t see the Mayor’s President acting like a victim of his righteousness.
I have no doubt that people often mistake their good fortune with their being superior and somehow entitled to it. White people have looked down on those who are not white. Lighter skinned people, have looked down on those who are darker hued. On the other hand, at some points in history lighter skinned people have been viewed suspiciously by the darker skinned people.
When I traveled to Australia last March I heard about the story of an Englishmen who was adopted into a group of Aborigines who thought he was a dead relative. The white skin was a sure sign that he was dead.
Here are a couple of the ironies that the anti-racism campaign seems oblivious to.
A helluva lot of white voters who aren’t all that enlightened on race voted for Obama three years ago because George Bush had made such a hash of things.
The percentage of Americans who deny that blacks have been treated shabbily is vanishingly small.
A growing number of blacks are figuratively being hoisted up on the shoulders of these people for taking the “we can be rednecks too” point of view. Herman Cain is a case in point and so is this black Florida Congressman who joined in the “Send Obama back to Kenya” chorus. I should note though, that Congressman West did not mention Kenya. He was content to send the President to any other nation since, unlike West and Cain, Obama isn’t a very good American. As a black guy I’m sure he realizes how offensive the Kenyan destination is to other Black Americans.
I think a much more compelling campaign would be to stop imprisoning a third of all American black males. To me this sorry condition is simply the last vestige of Jim Crow which accelerated in the Reagan years. Its worth remembering that Ron started his first successful Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi by giving a speech on States’s Rights. That’s where fifteen years earlier three civil right’s workers were murdered for the crime of trying to register black citizens to vote. Giving blacks jail time accomplishes the same thing. Ex cons lose the franchise.
Just how to make our prisons color blind will require more than lectures from goody-two-shoes about white privilege.
