[Peace-discuss] Flag flap

[Ricky Baldwin]

Mockery and sarcasm are not helping anyone understand
what is after all a deadly serious issue: racism.  And
as a fellow white Southerner, Carl, I have to tell you
that it seems you dismiss these questions far too
lightly.  I say this as someone who agrees with you
about 98 percent of the time.

I believe there's obviously a lot more at stake here
than whether Dean or Clinton or Sandra or Carl or I
have committed "thought-crimes" -- or "sins" for those
who prefer.  At issue is the extent to which white
people, particularly those in positions that have
ramifications for many others, are wearing a kind of
racial blinders -- and to what extent those blinders,
whether conveniently or not, reinforce a complex
structure of racial division and inequity -- one that
helps rationalize wars of conquest and subjugation.

I suppose I should say that when I was a kid, I used
to have 'Rebel' flags around.  (That flag was, after
all, never an official flag of the Confederacy, yet it
has enjoyed a popularity in the hundred-plus years
since as an emblem of resentment over a number of
things, including the civil rights movement as well as
Northern snobbery.)  I dislike confessionals, but I am
the example I know best.  I never considered Rebel
flags to be racist when I had them -- but I always
knew it had something to do with my race.  I knew my
black friends didn't like them and I knew why.  I
suppose I just thought they were 'oversensitive' or
something, which I later discovered was precisely
where my racial blinders began.

Do I think Dean is a racist?  I don't know if he is,
but I'm sure he needs to explain himself now.  It
seems his statement was likely not so much a
revelation of hidden animosity as one of his famous
stumbles over an issue he has never seriously faced. 
But the problem is precisely that this convenient
ignorance among whites is a primary support for racial
injustice.  It's just so easy not to look under the
carpet if you believe, perhaps in the back of your
mind, that you have nothing to gain and everything to
lose by doing so.  (I would argue that most whites are
also harmed by racism, but most don't see it that
way.)

I do think that what Dean was probably trying to say
is correct: that ordinary folks, regardless of
ideology, have an interest in universal health care
and other social programs.  The problem is his
depiction of 'ordinary.'

What Dean said to people of color, in my opinion,
consciously or unconsciously, is something like: "I am
speaking for the ordinary person, who is not you,
although I may be for you, too, without feeling that
you are important enough to say so."  In fact, he is
also saying: "I will go out of my way to embrace
someone who is white and hates me, and may be racist,
moreso than someone who isn't white who is more likely
to agree with me."  (This last is something we in
AWARE should also be wary of, in my opinion.)

I doubt, perhaps naively, that any of that was what
Dean meant, and I think Dean can explain himself and
make his point even stronger if he will.  And I think
not to do so now would send another message, that he
doesn't care if black folks are offended -- the
convenient subtext, perhaps unintended, being that
they are, after all, oversensitive.  (Ironically, in
my experience, white folks are the most touchy when it
comes to racism.)

But I think the reason it's important for AWARE to
take this discussion seriously is that we face quite a
hurdle, not just as AWARE, or as part of the anti-war
movement, but as a part of a scattered and deeply
divided opposition to the destructive rule of powerful
elites.  Racism -- the structure of racial injustice
as well as the persistence of racial blinders -- is a
big part of what divides us and renders us
ineffective, over and over.  (Considering our
obstacles, I think it is nothing short of amazing that
we and others in other fragments of opposition have
accomplished what we have, but it is obviously not
enough.)  It screams for attention, as we have noted
before, all the more in a movement like the current
anti-war movement with which black Americans agree in
higher proportions than whites, yet whites still
dominate the movement.

The only example I can think of that is more
illustrative is that during the anti-apartheid
movement many US cities had two anti-apartheid groups:
one white, and one black.  Chicago did.  These groups
typically did not work in tandem or in anything like
mutual respect, but often in an atmosphere of
patronizing, egoism and distrust.  The irony is, I
think, obvious.

What to do about this problem is a longer discussion
and a process, and I think we are on the right road
generally.  Unfortunately, I think the road is long
indeed, and torturous, marked by pitfalls, and
progress is by no means uniform.  We are also nowhere
near a point where we can afford to take the issue
lightly.

And, by the way, I think it was pretty clear what
Sandra meant, too.

Ricky
--- "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
wrote:
> I am shocked, Sandra: we all know you should have
> said "Native
> Americans"...
> 
> 
> On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, Sandra Ahten wrote:
> 
> > Last week I said that my niece and nephew
> shouldn't "behave like
> > Indians."  -- Certainly a racist comment made by
> someone probably
> > about as racist as Dean is... someone who tries
> hard to overcome what
> > has been socialized into me... and who has good
> intention (like Dean)
> > but is still racisit and has to be able to admit
> it in order to
> > overcome it. Sandra
> > 
> 
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