Letters to the Editor
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Not Yet, Nah
After a paragraph of public opinion statistics:
These findings are evidence of a coming sea-change in America's racial landscape.
Or perhaps they just demonstrate that a complicit fourth estate can very effectively (and rapidly) shape public discourse and influence public opinion.
If the media portrayal of a targeted group is unflattering, comfortable media consumers who don't perceive themselves as members of the targeted group will distance themselves (in self-conception and discourse) from that targeted group.
The media has been presenting the "poor black" as criminal, drug-using, violent, uneducated/stupid, and irresponsible for so long that no one who takes surveys wants to identify with or relate to that population. No matter what color their skin.
Most of the effectiveness seems to be a result of a near-hysterical retreat from honest discussion of "race" as it ties into the class warfare which is being waged. Al Sharpton is presented as a "community spokesman" on TV. What "community" is he representing?
Anyway, I'd say we're nowhere near the post-racial world Gary hints is to come. We've just briefly forgotten some of our tribalist bigotry because, for the moment, money is what matters most. If we ever return to times of more equitably-distributed wealth, race is gonna come roaring right back at us.
Multi-racial identity can help, but it doesn't solve the "problem" of different peoples wanting to share communal values which neighbors cannot tolerate.
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Thanks again Gar,
It is disappointing that Salon continues to publish articles from the usual suspects that produce just pure fluff.
Embarrassing! Begin the article with the compelling start to your thesis "Ever since 9/11" Mention all the black people who boring white people know: Obama, Tiger Woods, Juan Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Rodney King O.J. add in 2 or 3 polls conducted by NPR/PEW...now we have covered all the bases. Really and truly are you still getting paid to write articles and get stoned at concerts simultaneously? See how charming it is to have things summed up so thinly...I pay for my subscription to this, outrageous.
I really like the Ira Glass finish. It takes the cake. Almost as warm and fuzzy as an afternoon of "This American Life", except without any nuance or substance or real dissertation. Just a fuzzy, happy ending that I would have received an "F" for in 9th grade.
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I think you are very much out of touch dude, sorry
If you're seriously arguing that race is dying as an issue in America -- then I invite you to go to one of California's racially segregated prisons.
You can make this same argument to the leaders of Aryan Brotherhood gang whom the California state prison guards have decided to place in charge of all the white prisoners in the white section of the prison.
Or you can make the argument to one of the Bloods or Crips who supervise the black prisoners in the black section of the prison.
The Latino gangs don't talk to the press, so you won't get much out of them.
But you could probably get one of them to tell you what happens to a prisoner when he steps across racial lines and says something friendly to a prisoner of another race.
It's not pretty.
After you've visited our racially segregated prisons, then you should pay a visit to the US Attorney in Los Angeles, who is currently prosecuting a very large hate crime case involving racially separatist Latino gang members who tried to "ethnically cleanse" an East LA neighborhood of all blacks.
Why are Latino gangs trying to ethnically cleanse East LA of blacks?
Because that's how they live in prison. They're made to live that way in prison, and then they come out and expect to live that way outside of prison too.
How can anyone possibly say that race is becoming irrelevant when these kinds of things are happening?
Getting out of our racial mess?
You really must be kidding.
When we have racially segregated prisons, and there is ethnic cleansing in Los Angeles, I don't think we're getting "out" of any mess.
In fact I think we're heading towards the real mess, not away from it.
People like you, Gary, just haven't realized it yet.
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As soon as you spoke of a "black underclass"
you unequivocally showed that race is not dying.
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Hokum
There are comparatively few blacks who are that wealthy: Even assuming that they are famous, would their mere existence really lead large percentages of blacks to reject the idea that blacks are a single race?
This is hokum. A PBS Frontline documentary a number of years ago discussed how blacks had managed to achieve not only the largest number of middle class blacks, but oddly enough, the largest amount of underclass blacks at the same time. Why are there not the kind of distributions seen amongst Caucasians?
The answer is that structural and institutional racism (which are not, as the author believes, anomalous) is out in force and makes upward mobility extremely hard. What you have, from the 1960's onward, is two very separate populations simply continuing along their demographic trends, with very little transition between either. In fact, this is one of the problems with minority recruitment or diversity initiatives that have lack a class or means test. A large portion of "diversity" movements across campuses are simply raiding and pilfering the students who would decades ago have gone to the middle and upper class black haven's of HBCU's. HBCU's now, with the least amount of funding, also have to deal with the population that has 1) the least amount of money to go to college and 2) is least prepared for college.
are no longer willing to simply give every knucklehead in the 'hood a free pass because of "structural racism."
I don't know whats more absurd, the phrasing or the implication. The reality on the ground is a little more complex and stark than simply minding your p's and q's, not doing drugs, and somehow ending up with a nice cushy job with a suburban house. It's like suggesting that Indians down on the rez somehow just keep fucking up to be in their situation for as long as they have been.
The way out of the black-white mess is a shared ethos, not a separate one. If whites feel more connected to middle-class blacks, they will ultimately feel more connected to poor ones.
Again, hokum. People from different class strata very rarely share any concern for those below them. Even during intense events or times when certain identity markets (nationalism, ethnicity, tribal bonds) transcend class orientation, they often quickly dissolve into class factions as soon as said event is over. You can look at the nationalist and independence movements that dominated the Middle East and Africa in the last century and see how after the unifying scourge was thrown out, things instantly plunged into chaos. You can see the echoes in the fracturing of black consciousness across America.
The issue of class orientation is a strong one, and has become even more apparent as the gulf between labor and management has become more pronounced. As skilled trades and other labor-oriented jobs have fled the country, the corresponding amount of management and supervisory positions have not, and can not, absorb the amount of job opportunities lost. Is it any wonder, Detroit, where the UAW once had several proud African American leaders and a cadre of members, has fallen even further into the pit as the Big 3 have slashed jobs, wages, benefits, and pensions? It shouldn't be.
Simply saying that colorblindness will lead the way is being ignorant of very real economic and larger societal factors on the ground.