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Thankgiving and the Conundrum of Cultural Racism

Every time I try to write about culture, I end up stuck with a lot of big words. For instance, the word conundrum. A conundrum is a problem for which the solution is a matter of conjecture. In other words, we can only guess at how to resolve a conundrum.

Our white supremacist culture is a conundrum. I’m not talking here about the culture of cross-burning and white sheet-wearing. I mean culture as in the collective racist beliefs of our society  reduced over generations to common sense.

Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines culture:

a : the integrated pattern of human … Read more “Thankgiving and the Conundrum of Cultural Racism”

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Race v. Class

One of the perennial debates among liberals is the one over which is the more powerful organizer of social and economic inequity – race or class. To those who believe that class is fundamental, racism may be important as a moral issue, but is only strategically significant because it gets in the way of working class unity across race.

Those folks, well-intentioned though they may be, are wrong. They’re wrong because they’ve bought into an interpretation of history that overlooks the structural dimensions of racism, and the roots of American capitalism in slavery and native genocide. Here’s what I mean.… Read more “Race v. Class”

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The Durability of Race

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the death of racism. Many believe that as the global demographics change and Generation Y rises, racism will fade in significance. Some even suggest that what we are witnessing in the Obama backlash is just death throes.

That argument ignores history.

Here’s what I mean.

Neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor the abolitionist movement were enough to end slavery. Slavery was defeated in a Civil War that was fought not over race equality nor just for the cuase of freeing slaves, but over federal authority. The cynicism at the root of the “war … Read more “The Durability of Race”

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Why Don’t We Racially Profile Whites?

A while back I wrote a post called White Identity Politics. In it, I wrote:

Whiteness has a political meaning as much as does Black or Asian or any other racial category. In order to define non-Whites as inferior and deviant, Whites needed to be defined as superior and normal. By claiming the category “normal,” Whites imagined themselves outside the racial paradigm they had created. But, in fact, they were and are at the center of it.

I was trying to make the point that while Whites seem to think of themselves as raceless, they in fact are the … Read more “Why Don’t We Racially Profile Whites?”

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Adidas Shackle Shoes

Just in time for Juneteenth, Adidas announces a new shoe design scheduled to hit stores this August.  It’s a shoe with a shackle, so you too can experience a bit of the fun of serving on a chain gang.

The caption beneath the image of the shoe reads: “Tighten up your style with JS Roundhouse Mids, dropping in August. Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles.” An article on Indiewire.com suggests that the whole shackle and chain thing is potentially racist. I’ll take it one step further and say that the shoe with the … Read more “Adidas Shackle Shoes”

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Job Creators or Profit Makers?

Lately a debate about corporations as “job creators” (usually in contrast to government regulation as a “job killer”) has been waging in the media. I’m guessing that most of you can see through the hype to the real issues at stake. But, just in case, here’s my take:

Businesses are job creators, but only in the sense that they hire workers to facilitate making stuff or delivering services that make them money. They don’t create jobs for the sake of providing employment. Creating jobs is just a means to an end, and the end in question is profit.

Profits are … Read more “Job Creators or Profit Makers?”

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Race Basics

A  friend of mine sent me an email with a link to an article entitled, The History of Race… And Why It Matters.  The article tells the story about how race was invented out of whole cloth, at a time when African and European immigrants lived in relative harmony in North America, purely for the political purpose of justifying race slavery in the colonies.

This was news to her. She had no idea that long before the Civil Rights Movement, there was a time when Black and white people in North America lived together in integrated communities. They married … Read more “Race Basics”