Adding to my earlier post, I reiterate my main point:

Speech, even hateful and threatening speech, does not excuse violent retaliation.

The question in Jena today:

How much punishment should six African American teenage boys receive from the justice system for their particular offense?

If we are going to argue about proportionality, then we should also examine the disproportionate response from the six teenagers who beat another teenager for being the friend of a racist.

Where is the righteous indignation over that?

I am amused that commentators and reporters keep speaking of the "alleged" victim of the beating. I have heard that phrase all day today.

Exactly what does alleged modify?

Do people question that there really was a beating?

Or do people question that the recipient of the beating was a victim?

Once again, is it implicit that friends of racists who receive beatings get what they deserve?
Last month I commented on the developing drama in Jena, Louisiana. I am re-running that post below, which concentrates on a Newsweek article from the Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue.

Today Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and other Civil Rights leaders and organizations converge on the town to protest the perceived disparate race-tainted justice dispensed in this town.

I am also linking today's NPR coverage here, which gives more background.

The orginal post:


Is the system racist?

From a recent Newsweek exposé:

A Town In Turmoil

"As the new school year approaches, Jena, La., is struggling to move beyond the racial strife that ripped it apart and left the futures of six students in disarray."

Full article here.

The crux of the story: Six black teenagers are charged with beating a white teenager. Authorities have already tried and convicted one of the Jena Six for "aggravated second-degree battery."

UPDATE: On September 6, a Louisiana judge vacated the conviction on the grounds that the accused, a minor at the time of the crime, should not have been tried as an adult.

The back story: According to Newsweek's reporting, a black student violated the "school's unspoken racial codes" and occupied an "area reserved for white kids."

More Newsweek :

"Some white students didn't look kindly on the encroachment: the next day, three nooses hung from the oak's branches.

"That provocation, which conjured up the ugly history of lynch mobs and the Jim Crow South, unleashed a cycle of interracial strife that has roiled the tiny town of Jena. In the ensuing months, black and white students clashed violently, the school's academic wing was destroyed by arson and six black kids were charged with attempted murder for beating a white peer."

On the web photo gallery, a Newsweek caption reads:

"Justin Barker, 18, a friend of the students who hung the nooses, is the alleged victim of a beating by six black students at Jena High School."

Alleged? Wasn't there a conviction? Are we waiting on the appeal before we presume that the beating victim was actually beaten. Is Newsweek intimating that this might be a hoax?

Provocation? Do inflammatory symbols really excuse violent retribution--even if the target was a friend of the racist noose-hangers?

Another caption:

"Jena was 'entirely bypassed by the civil-rights movement,' says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. African-Americans continue to be concentrated in an area called 'the country,' a mix of tidy brick homes and rusted trailers. Whites tend to live in 'Snob Hill,' a middle-class neighborhood with tall pines and manicured lawns."

Wow! The de facto segregation rings true, but my experience with small towns in the South is that most whites are not wealthy and living in genteel surroundings. My hunch is that this glaring and likely erroneous generality (undisputed anywhere in the story) is emblematic of similarly slanted reporting and facile conclusions.

What should we make of all this? What is behind all this turmoil in Louisiana?

"The D.A. is a racist. There's just no other way to explain it," charged one of the parents of the accused. Newsweek does not quibble with that assessment.

On the other side of the country in Palmdale, California:

A black teenager, who attacked and killed another young man (who was white) in 2005, won a reduced conviction (from second-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter). As a result of the reduced conviction, an appellate court ordered the black youth resentenced. Last week, a judge sentenced the perpetrator to four to 11 years (reduced from a seven-year minimum) in a California Youth Authority facility.

The background: The black teenager, 13 at the time, attacked and killed Jeremy Rourke, a 15-year-old white youth after losing a PONY League baseball game.

The reaction to the reduced sentence (which, after considering time already served, will make the convicted teen-killer eligible for release in two years)?

From the LA Daily News:

"[T]he parents of defendant Greg Harris Jr. decried the punishment and accused the judge of racism.

"'Something has to be done about this judge. This is ridiculous,' Greg Harris Sr. said after the hearing. 'Eleven years - c'mon. Adults don't even get that. Personally, we feel he's racist.'"

Full story here.

My Conclusion?

I feel for parents who are quick to defend their children and slow to face the enormity of their trespasses. Certainly we still face important questions regarding race and justice in America--and we should take those matters very seriously.

Having said that, racial insults are NEVER justification for physical assault.

Even more importantly, we must resist the temptation to see racism as a default motivation even when there are more compelling reasons to explain the workings of the justice system.

That is, a boy was killed; it was due to the purposeful actions of another boy. This is a tragedy, but, inarguably, the perpetrator deserves punishment. That is not essentially a story about race.

Note: I intend this essay as part one of a longer conversation regarding race and responsibility. My next installment will feature more hopeful signs (the good news) rather than the mournful stories related above.
Category: Race in America
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Is the system racist?

From a recent Newsweek exposé:

A Town In Turmoil

"As the new school year approaches, Jena, La., is struggling to move beyond the racial strife that ripped it apart and left the futures of six students in disarray."

Full article here.

The crux of the story: Six black teenagers are charged with beating a white teenager. Authorities have already tried and convicted one of the Jena Six for "aggravated second-degree battery."

The back story: According to Newsweek's reporting, a black student violated the "school's unspoken racial codes" and occupied an "area reserved for white kids."

More Newsweek :

"Some white students didn't look kindly on the encroachment: the next day, three nooses hung from the oak's branches.

"That provocation, which conjured up the ugly history of lynch mobs and the Jim Crow South, unleashed a cycle of interracial strife that has roiled the tiny town of Jena. In the ensuing months, black and white students clashed violently, the school's academic wing was destroyed by arson and six black kids were charged with attempted murder for beating a white peer."

On the web photo gallery, a Newsweek caption reads:

"Justin Barker, 18, a friend of the students who hung the nooses, is the alleged victim of a beating by six black students at Jena High School."

Alleged? Wasn't there a conviction? Are we waiting on the appeal before we presume that the beating victim was actually beaten. Is Newsweek intimating that this might be a hoax?

Provocation? Do inflammatory symbols really excuse violent retribution--even if the target was a friend of the racist noose-hangers?

Another caption:

"Jena was 'entirely bypassed by the civil-rights movement,' says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. African-Americans continue to be concentrated in an area called 'the country,' a mix of tidy brick homes and rusted trailers. Whites tend to live in 'Snob Hill,' a middle-class neighborhood with tall pines and manicured lawns."

Wow! The de facto segregation rings true, but my experience with small towns in the South is that most whites are not wealthy and living in genteel surroundings. My hunch is that this glaring and likely erroneous generality (undisputed anywhere in the story) is emblematic of similarly slanted reporting and facile conclusions.

What should we make of all this? What is behind all this turmoil in Louisiana?

"The D.A. is a racist. There's just no other way to explain it," charged one of the parents of the accused. Newsweek does not quibble with that assessment.

On the other side of the country in Palmdale, California:

A black teenager, who attacked and killed another young man (who was white) in 2005, won a reduced conviction (from second-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter). As a result of the reduced conviction, an appellate court ordered the black youth resentenced. Last week, a judge sentenced the perpetrator to four to 11 years (reduced from a seven-year minimum) in a California Youth Authority facility.

The background: The black teenager, 13 at the time, attacked and killed Jeremy Rourke, a 15-year-old white youth after losing a PONY League baseball game.

The reaction to the reduced sentence (which, after considering time already served, will make the convicted teen-killer eligible for release in two years)?

From the LA Daily News:

"[T]he parents of defendant Greg Harris Jr. decried the punishment and accused the judge of racism.

"'Something has to be done about this judge. This is ridiculous,' Greg Harris Sr. said after the hearing. 'Eleven years - c'mon. Adults don't even get that. Personally, we feel he's racist.'"

Full story here.

My Conclusion?

I feel for parents who are quick to defend their children and slow to face the enormity of their trespasses. Certainly we still face important questions regarding race and justice in America--and we should take those matters very seriously.

Having said that, racial insults are NEVER justification for physical assault.

Even more importantly, we must resist the temptation to see racism as a default motivation even when there are more compelling reasons to explain the workings of the justice system.

That is, a boy was killed; it was due to the purposeful actions of another boy. This is a tragedy, but, inarguably, the perpetrator deserves punishment. That is not essentially a story about race.

Note: I intend this essay as part one of a longer conversation regarding race and responsibility. My next installment will feature more hopeful signs (the good news) rather than the mournful stories related above.
The Amazing Emotive Power of Music.

Friday evening traveling south down Highway 6 along the Brazos River bottom. North of Bryan I pick up NPR and Terry Gross and a twenty-year-old interview with Sam Charters, the musicologist. He is talking about traveling the South as a white man during the middle of the twentieth century buying and recording the music of African Americans. In many Southern communities, the mere incident of a white outsider seeking black artists made them objects of suspicion for the local authorities. Charters is an old radical, but his account rings true. He even seems to understand that the cultural chasm was so wide and deep that he never really knew or truly connected with the people he recorded.

I am rolling by old towns, farmland and ancient houses that date back to when cotton was still king during the early twentieth century in Central Texas. As the echoes fly by me at seventy miles an hour, Charters tells the story of his re-discovery of Texas native, and blues legend, Sam Lightnin' Hopkins during the 1950s.

Lightnin' picks and moans:

Mmmmmmmmmm, the blues come down on me
Lord, have mercy, child
Po' Lightnin' can't hardly keep from cryin'
Yes, the blues'll make you cry, I know how you feel
Whoa, Lord have mercy,
po' Lightnin' can't hardly keep from cryin'
Well, I'm just wonderin' will I ever make it back,
to that old native home of mine?
Please, take me with ya when you go, Lightnin'
Lord have mercy


I know a lot of old white guys who will tell you that the way things were back then wasn't right, even as they remain frustrated with the way things are now. Too much freedom now and not enough responsibility.

Our racial history is depressing. Darkness moves over the rolling hills. Was every white person in the South a bastard?

Twenty-four hours later. Same piece of highway. On the way back home. Same country, different musical genre--but not unconnected: Hank Williams and Johnny Cash CDs provide the audio ambience inside my fuel-injected, climate-controlled, junior class SUV.

An oppressed and lost Alabama man moans the blues this time:

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind a cloud
To hide its face and cry


So many of the same problems. Perhaps they weren't monsters. The countryside is springtime green and bright again. I am headed north. Getting closer to home. Sam Charters, raised in a different culture, could not hope to understand the black experience down South back then. What about me? "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there" (L.P. Hartley). Can I ever hope to understand the complexity of race in my ancestral home?
From the NYT today:

Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

"An academic study of the National Basketball Association...suggests that a racial bias found in other parts of American society has existed on the basketball court as well.

"A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that...white referees [call] fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players."

"[The study] went on to claim that the different rates at which fouls are called 'is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.'”

Read the entire story here.

Not until the internet jump page (22 graphs into the story) does the Times acknowledge the obvious but pertinent fact that black players, according to the study, played 83 percent of the minutes on the floor during the period analyzed.

Even after the acknowledgement, the Times never takes the time to analyze what this might mean for the study.

By the way, the first online commenter (4:11 AM) makes this same seemingly manifest point; then, the sentiment is repeated often and enthusiastically among the commenters.

Why did that not occur to the Times?

Why did it not occur to the social scientists?

Stay Tuned...
Two weeks later. The frenzied desire for satisfaction has been accomplished in the Don Imus affair.

Now what?

What did it all mean?

1. Timing is everything. If Imus had uttered the same infamous phrase one week later, it is likely that the forces that combined to bring about his public destruction would have been otherwise occupied. But Imus stumbled into a slow news cycle. America's powerful opinion-making and public-policy setting media elite were bored. Taking down Imus seemed a worthy and appealing thing to do at the moment. In the aftermath of the VA Tech massacre, Imus and his radio fiefdom seems much less consequential. But it matters little that the urgency of mid-April seems oddly dated and irrelevant; the deed is done. We are on to the next cause celebre with no remorse or regret.

2. The surreality of it all grows increasingly pungent with the passage of time. Eugene Robinson observed early on (April 10): "I can accept that Imus doesn't believe he is racist, but "nappy-headed hos" had to come from somewhere" (his full column from the Washington Post here).

Where did it come from? From some dark chamber in the black heart of Don Imus? This awful line of argument misses an obvious point made clumsily by Imus and others.

From where did the ugly remark emanate? The "nappy-headed hos" comment was a phrase borrowed from African American life, which had transmigrated from hip-hop culture to mainstream American pop culture. Imus, who makes his living synthesizing and exaggerating and lampooning American culture, threw the phrase out there with his usual recklessness. "Nappy-headed ho" was in Imus's repertoire because it had become as American as apple pie.

Unlike the atomic-bomb of contemporary speech, the n-word, "nappy-headed hos" originated with black America. And the argument is not merely that African Americans say "nappy" and "ho." Some incompetent Imus defenders conflated the import of the "n-word" and "nappy" and "ho" and proceeded to package them together as somehow comparable. True, for various reasons, individuals in the African American community have co-opted the derogatory n-word (used by whites to convey disrespect for blacks) for their own internal use; notwithstanding, the n-word remains the most potent vehicle to deliver egregious insult to black America.

The Salient Point: the difference is that "nappy" and "ho" are words still relatively unfamiliar to white America. In fact, they are words introduced to pop culture by black America. Even as Imus repeated the "slur," one had the sense that he really didn't quite understand what the words meant.

An anecdotal aside: Imus may be the first white person I ever heard utter "nappy."

Back to the Real Point: Castigating Don Imus for carelessly employing "nappy-headed ho" is tantamount to you spanking your children for picking up curse words that you regularly toss around at home.

Even now, we as a community are still wrestling with the meaning of the phrase. I have heard more than one random person take offense that Imus called the Rutgers players "whores." By that they mean prostitute. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of "ho." No fair reading of the incident leads to the conclusion that Imus meant to insinuate that the ladies in question accepted money for sex. "Ho" is a term of disparagement and degradation applied generically to women. While men are sometimes called "whores" in conversation, they are never called "hos." "Whores" and "hos," at least in this context, are completely different words conveying completely different ideas.

That doesn't get Imus off the hook--but it is a good place to segue into the fundamental hypocrisy and inconsistency of the disparate cultural forces that came together to bring him down.

Next time on Part II:

3. Keeping it Surreal. I will consider the tsunami of hypocrisy from all sides.

4. Imus picked the wrong friends. The conservative movement in American politics houses the true defenders of free speech. Imus's liberal buddies ran for cover in the face of politically protected opposition.

5. Why Imus's apology was cowardly, insincere and foolish. And, in a related matter, why I have not listened to Don Imus for ten years.

More to come...
Category: Race in America
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
The hypocrisy?

The double standard?

The juxtaposition of the Duke athletes emerging from thirteen months of hell against the "scarred for life" Rutgers basketball players?

Will the Imus affair have a chilling effect on speech in the public square?

No comment.
Category: Race in America
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
As a happy consequence of the Okie Gardener's recent post, Obama's Church, I entered into a productive dialogue with a reader/commenter.

Here is a portion of the reader's comment on the post (see the full comment here from "JC") :


"A candidate's church shouldn't be an issue unless it is something truly weird or cultish... something that would indicate that the candidate is not of sound mind or character."

After which, in an offline exchange with JC, I recommended the Gardener's latest post on Rudy's Church (which I feel clarifies what we were aiming for). I also expressed my belief that a candidate's church and his/her relationship with his/her church is a meaningful consideration among many when choosing a president.

JC responded:

Thanks for the note. Actually, I read the post on Rudy's Church, and it didn't address my concerns. It is disturbing to me, that Rudy's estrangement from his church would not be an issue while Obama's Church would become an issue. The Catholic Church has had some huge problems, which I would not consider a problem for Rudy, any more than I would make Obama's black church an issue for him. The only question I might ask, is whether white families would be turned away if they chose to attend.

I in no way meant to suggest that it is inappropriate to consider the church of a presidential candidate, only that we shouldn't hold Obama accountable for the mission statement of his church... especially when, in reality, black Americans face challenges that whites do not. It really bothered me that this reality was ignored (particularly in the comment by Joab), and I actually find it admirable that the church states clearly its "commitment to God", that the church is "unapologetically Christian", and that the church wants to specifically address issues of the black family.

Obama has been impressive in that he does not ask blacks to focus on ways they may have been oppressed in the past... but what they can do now to solve problems in the black community. I don't know enough about him yet... to know for sure whether I think he'd make a good president. I already know that I don't want to vote for Rudy or Hillary, regardless of religious issues, based on what I know of their character traits at this point.

Just to mention something we agree on... I share your admiration for Brian Lamb!

~~Thanks again,
JC


Waco Farmer again: Anybody who admires Brian Lamb is always welcome to this conversation.

Note: As this post concerns race as much as politics, I am classifying it under "Race in America."
Previously, we have enjoyed enthusiastic debates in re the Civil War and its causes (here and here, for example). I have also promised to facilitate an extended "honest conversation on race." As I am rising to that conversation, I am mindful that our peculiar national history must form the foundation for discussion.

That is, Eric Foner has asserted that whites in America are unified by a common history of fighting to maintain freedom (the American Revolution, of course, is not a war to attain self rule--but a war to maintain the tradition of English liberty). On the other hand, Foner reminds us that the black experience in America is truly a fight to overcome slavery and segregation.

With that in mind, as a starting point, please consider this perceptive description of the antebellum business culture of slavery in America by Bosque Boys reader and contributor, Donald Neal McKay:


Guest Blog: Donald Neal McKay

Re: Slavery - What many who think they know the warp and woof of the ethos of slavery, really don't. For people today to get a true grasp on slavery as it became known over the past 6,000 years, I recommend a reading of Marx' Capital. Volume One should suffice for this purpose. Money paid for a labor commodity converts the laborer into something called property. Seeing men were running the show, the labor commodity (black slave, or a woman or a child) was relegated to the niche called property.

When slavery ignited in the South--post 1793--for most plantation owners, slaves were relegated to the level of property; necessary commodity. Slaves were not human beings. Slaves were three-fifths anthropoids. A slave in good health would average $800 to $1200 when purchased at Charleston. A slave who could shoe a horse and blacksmith as a trade was worth $1800, or higher. We're talking money here.

Some perspective: The Wade Hampton Family - I, II, II, IV - amassed from 3000 - 5000 slaves between the South Carolina and Mississippi plantations.

Plantation owners making an investment in human labor power. If a plantation master needed three more field hands, and happened to have on hand two blacksmiths, then one blacksmith was traded for the three field hands. Or, sold outright. This is business, and business suffers little in the way of human entanglements and emotions. Many of my students cannot get this idea through their natural desire to see a human being... a person... dressed in the ratty clothes of slavery.

Unlike the Wade Hamptons (who actually did treat their slaves as human beings and, when a task was performed ahead of schedule - actually paid them!) who became the wealthiest plantation owners in the United States, and later the Confederacy, most plantation owners had to borrow money to make the initial purchase of their slave power.

Moreover, as the records show, most plantation owners were not good businessmen and fell into the pit of debt. Even the Davis' (Joseph and Jefferson) plantations at Briarwood and Hurricane made money only when the slave family (Ben Montgomery, and sons) ran the place. Joseph Davis, at least, grasped the meaningful idea of rotating his crops. Cotton literally sucks the life from the soil.

Northern investors picked up the tab and lent and invested money into most of the Southern plantations, in some states up to 80-90% were underwritten with massive loans. That is why the 17 January 1861, New York Times front page article I previously cited [which spoke to the intention of South Carolina to default on loans and debts due Northern financiers and stock investors] is so very, very, important to the ignition of the War Between the States. To Northern investors, it sure looked like the Southern plantation owner-debtors were going to default on their debts. Straight forward and simple. Northern businessmen and investors experienced panic in their wallets. And Southern plantation owners did not want to be told by Northerners what to do with their property, even if they really didn't own it totally. After all, I suppose in the case of slaves, possession is nine-tenths of the law.
~~Donald Neal McKay


McKay writes and teaches about the "War Between the States," Reconstruction, the Founding Fathers, Federalists and Whigs, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution and the CSA Constitution.
As we turn to the business of electing a new president, we can not help but note that an African American candidate, for the first time in our history, enters the contest as a serious contender to win the biggest prize in American politics.

Britt Hume asserted this week on Fox News Sunday (transcript via RCP) that, "Barack Obama's race was an asset." Is that true? Is Hume right that Obama's race is the key component in his portfolio that explains his meteoric rise? In other words, can you imagine the Obama juggernaut if the candidate presented identical credentials sans his race?

What role does race play in our culture today?

Consider this wire story via Drudge, which highlights a college party on the campus of Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, in which white students held a "Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel."

Are we in danger of losing our balance between two positive values: protecting and pepetuating free and reasonable discourse and embracing racial sensitivity?

An aside: In college, I once attended a "come as your favorite dead celebrity" party in which one of my fraternity brothers arrived as the crucified Christ. It was tasteless, and I was offended. But it didn't make the papers.

The right to free speech generally includes the right to be wrong, imbecilic and vulgar.

Michael Richards. He could have called a white heckler a m-f-ing, a-hole, son of a whore from Hell, and I wager there would not have been any repercussions within the room, much less a national reaction.

Is it rational that certain words elicit such disproportionate reflexive cultural responses?

Should it bother us that the Congressional Black Caucus reserves the right to refuse entry to white representatives?

The Duke Rape Case?

The intense coverage of two black coaches in the Super Bowl?

Joab's House of Blog wonders if the intense focus on race doesn't perpetuate racism:

"When I see Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy I see the head coach of the Bears and the Colts respectively. I do not see two black men, unless someone points out that they are black. Then my focus is directed toward their skin color. Doing that is what keeps race an issue in our society" (read entire post here).

I am not ignorant of the historical realities that bring us to these questions. Notwithstanding, considering the American past, and looking toward a harmonious future, is our present racial reality healthy and just?

These questions only scratch the surface. Please accept this brief post as notice of my intentions to consider this broader topic in greater detail in the weeks and months to come. I welcome your comments and your ideas.