Listen to his screams

I am glad my parents aren’t alive to see this. I had not listened to the 911 tape of the murder of Trayvon Martin until tonight. I had intentionally avoided it. I couldn’t take it. My son could have been Trayvon Martin. My father could have been Trayvon Martin. My sister’s boys could be Trayvon Martin. My ‘nephew’, Jayvin, could be Trayvon Martin.

It’s the screams. Listen to them. Really listen to them. The terror reaches out through the speakers and grips you by the heart. If you have the least bit of empathy, your mind will be inexorably drawn to imagining the last few terrified moments of this kid’s life as he pleaded to be allowed to live.

When I heard it, all I could think of was my son’s face, his eyes wide with fright, pleading for his life and hoping that someone anyone will come to his rescue. Then the gun shot. Then the second gun shot. Even if one were trying to be ‘fair-minded’ (i.e. pretend that this might not be about race) the second gun shot makes it clear that Zimmerman meant to get himself a trophy. He was going to be the hero who saved the gated community from the young black man. It is bad enough that cops kill black people in the course of routine traffic stops and walk away without even a slap on the wrist. Now, it appears that--at least in Florida--we’ve taken a gigantic step backward and civilians can also kill a black man who is carrying Skittles-of-mass-destruction in his hand.


Imagine that you are there. You’re Trayvon Martin. You are walking home from the corner store with Skittles in your hand and suddenly you face every black parent’s nightmare. Yes, every black parent’s nightmare. For now, right now, I don’t really want to hear white people jumping up with their story of how their neighbors’ brothers’ best friend
knew this guy who was neighbors with this woman, who had a third cousin thrice removed, whose former neighbors’ son went to school with a guy who was randomly shot by a black guy. It’s a genre of ‘karmic balancing act’ tossed into American discussions of race. You are probably more familiar with the genre wherein the storyline is this, “When I was right out of high school, I tried to get a job as Attorney General of the United States and they gave it to some black guy named Eric Holder because they needed to fill a quota.” Never mind that the story teller hadn’t gone to law school. When the subject is job discrimination based upon race there will inevitably be some story where a white person didn’t get a job because ‘they’ had to ‘give it to a minority’. It is inconceivable that a black person might actually be the most qualified candidate for the job. Oh no! If a white person and a black person compete for the same job and the black person gets hired it must be because a quota had to be filled so any ongoing job discrimination is just karmic just desserts for blacks taking so many jobs we aren’t qualified to do in order to fill a quota.

There’s a difference between this hypothetical story and what actually happened. There are no municipalities where a black man could run down and shoot a random white kid, have the police show up and that black man just go on about his idle business. If Trayvon Martin had been white kid, and George Zimmerman a black man I guarantee you that Zimmerman would, even now, be sitting in jail awaiting trial. But since Martin was black and Zimmerman white, the latter gets to go on with his life. I wouldn’t put a $10 bet (much less a $10,000 dollar bet, Mittens) on Zimmerman doing any time whatsoever. IF it goes to trial and IF he is convicted, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if Zimmerman got off with time served in county jail. This guy Zimmerman, against the advice of 911, followed this young black man and killed him thinking he would be thought a hero. He’s not far off wrong.

Oh, he won’t be praised on Red State or anywhere else, at least not immediately. But the fact that he was carrying a gun and is defending himself under the ‘Stand your ground’ law is instructive. Apparently, the men I listed at the head of this piece (and all the one’s I left out) are so deadly that one has to stand one’s ground while following him down the street when he is armed with a pack of Skittles. At some point some conservative commentator or another is going to make a statement to the effect that Zimmerman reacted properly because how was he to know that a black kid walking with candy and an iced tea wasn’t a threat.

The 911 tapes are here (opens new window). Listen to them as many times as it takes for you to internalize this fact; Trayvon Martin is dead because he was black and a male over the age of 8. George Zimmerman is free because Trayvon Martin was black. Listen to his screams. Imagine him backing away from Zimmerman. Listen to the gun shot. Imagine the bullet striking his young body. See him falling to the ground. See Zimmerman taking another shot. You will have entered into the nightmare of every black parent in America.

And I still don’t want to hear any tales or statements of the ‘that could have been anyone’ variety. The shade of Billy the Kid or John Dillinger could walk down the street carrying a suitcase nuke and a AK-47 while wearing a tee-shirt reading, “Ask me about my plans to pillage and kill” and not be seen as ‘suspicious’ while a black kid with Skittles is a mortal threat.

If I Were A Middle Class White Guy

Now, I'm not a middle class white guy, I'm a middle class black woman who grew up upper-middle class (and needless to say black) but sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. So since Gene Marks, the Forbes columnist, feels qualified to tell poor black kids what they should do I think it only fair to tell middle class white guys what they should do.  

So if I were a middle class white guy, I would start early, certainly no later than my junior year of high school, reading deeply in American history.  I would go much deeper than the history that I was taught in high school paying particular attention to how American history looks from the point of view of blacks and Native Americans.  I would read some slave narratives and then work my way up through DuBois and Washington.  I would spend a great deal of time reading the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.  I would watch Glory until I had it memorized and The Color Purple and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman until I had no more tears to shed.   I would ask more questions than I made statements when talking about race so I didn't come off as an entitled jerk who was blind to the realities that others face.

I would take some time studying, in depth, the exploits of the black men who fought in WW II.  I would seek out Invisible Man and Native Son.  I would buy a seat for an entire run of "A Raisin in the Sun".  I would try to familiarize myself with what blacks have said about life in America so that I might have some idea what I was on about.  When I heard a black person talking about racism, I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand or assume that the black person in question was making it up or 'whining'.  I would have a sense of historical perspective, recognizing that 1967 isn't a time what no living human can remember but recent history as these things are measured in most countries. I would recognize that I have a perspective and that while it is the dominant perspective in America, it isn't necessarily the most accurate perspective.  

I would avoid assuming that poor people are poor because of some fault of their own.  If I were a middle class white guy, I would recognize the role that luck and random circumstance played in my own life.  I'm not saying that white people who 'make it' or (if they were born with it) 'keep it' don't deserve what level of comfort they have.  But luck plays a role and I would never forget it.  I would train my brain to think outside of my own context. I would avoid using phrases like 'my black friend' or 'why don't blacks just...'

No sane person thinks that being white is a trip down the primrose path in America.  White people have to get up and go to work just like everyone else.  Whties get laid off, have car accidents, get divorced, have dogs that chew up their remote controls and teenage kids who listen to music their parents don't like or get.  Life happens to white people too, just like it happens to everyone.   But if I were a middle class white guy, I would try to remember the things that don't happen to me because I'm a middle class white guy.  I would, for instance, remember that because I'm white and male, my intellect or competence will be decided after I open my mouth or act instead of having it dismissed before I do either as happens to, for instance, black women.  If I were a straight, middle class white guy, I would recognize that I can marry the person I love and that it was injust that my gay neighbor or lesbian sister can't and that this was an injustice crying out for rectification.  

If I were a middle class white guy, i would stand up and shout everytime I heard another white guy say that blacks just need to 'develop a habit of work'.  I would put as much daylight between myself and the likes of Newt Gingrich as I possible could.  

If i were a middle class white guy the very last thing I would think of myself was that I was in any kind of position to tell poor black kids what it was they should be doing in order for me to think that they 'deserve' success. If I were a middle class white guy, I would do everything in my power from being the kind of middle class white guy who writes articles in Forbes telling blacks what's wrong with them.

 

If I Were A Poor Black Kid - Forbes

I am not a poor black kid.  I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background.  So life was easier for me.  But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city.  It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them.   Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind.  I don’t believe that.  I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed.  Still.  In 2011.  Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.

Whites and Blacks have a different view of race in America? Say it ain't so!

This article definitely falls into the ‘this should come as no big surprise’ category. Saw this over at ‘The Nation’ and, of course, my first thought was ‘and in other news ice has been determined to be cold’. No one should be the least bit surprised that whites think that more racial progress has been made than blacks, on average. As the author, Jamelle Bouie rightly notes, given that a white person could go through their entire life and have no real substantial contact with blacks depending upon their location, it would be rather astonishing if whites and blacks did not, on average, hold wildly different views.
One of my favorite demographic tidbits is the fact that there are roughly six white Americans for every person labeled as “black” in the census. Which means, given the extent to which African-Americans are concentrated in a few geographic regions, that there are large numbers of white people who have minimal to nonexistent contact with black people.
With that in mind, it’s not too surprising to discover the extent to which white Americans have a far more optimistic view of race relations than their black (and even Latino) fellow citizens. According to the latest survey by the Greenlining Institute—“a national…institute working for racial and economic justice”—just 16 percent of whites believe that there is a lot of discrimination in America today, compared to 59 percent of African-Americans and 22 percent of Latinos.
Overall, the institute found, whites have an incredibly skewed view of racial progress in this country. Despite the fact that African-Americans and Latinos earn significantly less money and have less wealth than their white counterparts, only 37 percent of whites believe that blacks make less money than whites, and a small majority believe that blacks’ and whites’ incomes are about the same. Likewise, a majority of white Americans believe that blacks’ health is “about the same” as their own, despite all evidence to the contrary.
The one problem I have with Mr. Bouie’s post, and it is a very small quibble, is this:
In addition to the relative lack of contact between whites and blacks, it’s simply true that elite blacks have achieved an unprecedented level of influence in American life (see: President Obama). Absent contact with everyday black communities, it’s easy to think that African-Americans are doing as well as everyone else.
As a middle-class black person, I do have some problem with the construction of blacks in America either being ‘everyday’ (read poor) or elite (read rich). Are not blacks who have middle class careers and lifestyles also ‘everyday blacks’? Aren’t all of those black college professors, ministers, lawyers, doctors and various cubicle drones also ‘everyday’ and are we not part of ‘everyday black communities’? I understand why black identity has been equated, for the last four decades at least, with poor, urban blacks but I remain unconvinced that this should be the touchstone of black identity. All of that said, Bouie does go on to say that our perception of race in America is not necessarily correct but perhaps more accurate.
It would be interesting to know why so few Latinos (only 22%, less than 10% more than whites) think that there is a lot of active discrimination in modern America. It makes me ponder whether somewhere between the overly optimistic view of whites and the potentially overly pessimistic view of blacks there is an accurate picture of race relations held by Latinos. That view would be ‘yes, there is still racial discrimination but, on the whole, it is not your grandparent’s discrimination

Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License By Louisiana Justice Of The Peace...

...but he’s not a racist, apparently.

(AP) NEW ORLEANS A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else." [Emphasis mine]
Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.
Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.
"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," Bardwell said. "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."
If he did an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.
"I try to treat everyone equally," he said. [Emphasis mine]
I thought that the passages in red deserved particular attention in light of some other musings I have been percolating on the subject of race.
Most germane to this discussion is the following passage from another blogger’s musings on race.
Many people would label a person as a racist for using the n-word, yet I have known many that use it, that have many black friends and hire black people and them well [sic]. Conversely, I know many, mostly liberal whites, who would ostracize people that would ever use the n-word, but who never hire blacks and have no close black friends.

I wonder if the author of the post would consider the justice of the piece a racist, given that he has “piles and piles of black friends” who he generously consents to let “use my bathroom”. This brings up the question of what is actually meant by racism?

My dictionary program (based on Webster’s) defines racism as: the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

Perhaps Mr. Bardwell should go back to school.

The Reality Based Community Approach to Race

The Reality Based Community Approach to Race in America

Race talk, dirty laundry, Bill Cosby and James Watson's Big Racist Mouth

I have not read Amazon.com Come On People but I heard him on Meet the Press two weeks ago. I read his prior book and I've spent the last forty years of my life black in America. Now, up front, I come at this from having grown up in privilege—my parents were academics—but because of an age skew my father, certainly, had not grown up in privilege. My mother's father was a land-owning farmer in Alabama so she had some form of privilege. I say this because I'm about to defend Bill Cosby and I recognize that how one sees what is happening in Black America is colored by one's original class position. So I grew up in suburban Northern California, in the 1970's, in an middle-to-upper middle class neighborhood. My father was an Alpha Phi Alpha, my mother was a Kappa. We had it drilled into us at home and at church, study and community service. Study because we were the generation that was being given a chance, doors had been opened and we were going to be given the opportunity to Arrive, to Be Somebody. Community Service because those of us to whom much had been given by dint of birth much would be asked. My parents drilled into us that we were that talented tenth that Du Bois spoke of.

I say this only to claim my positioning. None of us can look at what is going on and say that Bill Cosby is wholly wrong. Regardless of whether or not you think he should be airing dirty laundry or what emphasis he puts on the laundry, no one can actually state that Cosby describes a set of observations that do not map well to reality. We all know that they do. It would be a mistake to read Cosby as saying that black folks cannot do any better or any different than we currently are . That was what James Watson was saying and we'll get to that tottering old man momentarily. Yes, conservatives of the Bill Bennett variety will look upon Cosby's statement, tie it to what Watson said, and then nod their heads at his sagacity and smile in what they see as their vindication. That's their script, that's their knee jerk reaction. The Left leaning knee-jerk reaction is to stop at that analysis and go no further. Earl Ofari Hutchinson at Huffingtonpost.com demonstrates the position I'm talking about here and here . Is it possible that one can genuinely be concerned about certain cultural issues and not be inherently conservative? Yes, in fact, one can. When I was going to high school in the early 80's, I heard 'why you trying to be white' from other black kids on a very regular basis. We cannot pretend that, for instance, this isn't said to black kids who excel academically.

What's more every black academic knows, because they are there that they have to work harder and actually be smarter than others in order to get any kind of recognition at all. To conform with that reality, and I would submit that there are very few Blacks in America who would suggest that it is better to not attempt to conform to it, while working to change it (it is offense against Justice that blacks are more harshly judged than whites) we must be courageous and complex. Because of how we know how those who, either explicitly or implicitly harbor fantasies that blacks are inferior kinds of Homo sapiens , would seize on any statements that might sound like blacks having to change some internal dynamic as vindication we have to be willing to be brave enough to lay ideas out on the table. At the same time, we have to be complex enough to recognize that the moral stance condemning racism does not rest on the idea that blacks must, as a whole, map some identical metric to whites or some other group. As Stephen Pinker put it, “The case against bigotry is not a factual claim that humans are biologically indistinguishable. It is a moral stance that condemns judging an individual according to the average traits of certain groups to which the individual belongs ¹”. Now, I want to be clear that neither I nor Drs. Cosby and Pouissant are saying that there is something inherent in black folks that creates the kinds of distressing behaviors that can be observed (and I will even concede the point that Cosby was hyperbolic in some of his pronouncements)

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education had the following to say on black high school graduation rates:

In 2006, 85.6 percent of young blacks ages 25 to 29 had completed high school. This was the lowest percentage since 1996. For whites ages 25 to 29, 93.4 percent had completed high school. The drop in high school completions for young blacks in all likelihood is due to the low rate of high school graduations of black males. In 2006, 83.1 percent of black men ages 25 to 29 had a high school diploma. Just two years earlier in 2004, more than 91 percent of black males in that age group had completed high school. Twenty years ago in 1986, 86.4 percent of black males in the 25 to 29 age group had graduated from high school.

For blacks in the 25- to 29-year-old age group, 18.6 percent hold a four-year college degree. This is only slightly better than the rate for black adults as a whole. For whites in this age group, 34.3 percent hold a four-year college degree. This is 3.3 percentage points higher than the white adult population as a whole. Therefore, the college completion rate gap between young blacks and young whites is actually larger than for the population as a whole.

These figures are discouraging and portend a solid and continuing economic gap between the races for the foreseeable future. If, as appears to be the case, the educational gap between young blacks and whites is larger than the educational gap for black and white adults as a whole, it is almost certain that racial gaps in income, wealth, poverty, and unemployment will persist for generations to come ².

In this report, the focus is on how what makes a difference in retaining black students once in college:.

• Clearly, the racial climate at some colleges and universities is more favorable toward African Americans than at other campuses. A nurturing environment for black students is almost certain to have a positive impact on black student retention and graduation rates. Although often troubled by racial incidents, Brown University is famous for its efforts to make its campus a happy place for African Americans. In contrast, the University of California at Berkeley has had its share of racial turmoil in recent years. The small number of black students on campus as a result of the abolition of race-sensitive admissions has caused many African Americans on campus to feel unwelcome. This probably contributes to the low black student graduation rate at Berkeley. The decline in black student admissions and the low graduation rate at Berkeley is serious. It is an important issue to be addressed by the university’s administration.

• Many of the colleges and universities with high black student graduation rates have set in place orientation and retention programs to help black students adapt to the culture of predominantly white campuses. Mentoring programs for black first-year students involving upperclassmen have been successful at many colleges and universities. Other institutions appear to improve graduation rates through strong black student organizations that foster a sense of belonging among the African-American student population. The presence or absence of these programs may have some impact on graduation rates.

• The presence of a strong and relatively large core of black students on campus is important. Among the highest-ranked colleges and universities, institutions that tend to have a low percentage of blacks in their student bodies, such as CalTech, Bates, Middlebury, Grinnell, Davidson, Carleton, and Colby, also tend to have lower black student graduation rates. Black students who attend these schools may have problems adjusting to college life in an overwhelmingly white environment. And these schools are less likely to have a large number of black-oriented social or cultural events to make black students feel at home.

• Curriculum differences also play an important role in graduation rates. Carnegie Mellon University and CalTech are heavily oriented toward the sciences, fields in which blacks have always had a small presence. It continues to be true that at many high-powered schools black students in the sciences often have been made to feel uncomfortable by white faculty and administrators who persist in beliefs that blacks do not have the intellectual capacity to succeed in these disciplines.

• High dropout rates appear to be primarily caused by inferior K-12 preparation and an absence of a family college tradition, conditions that apply to a very large percentage of today’s college-bound African Ameri-cans. But equally important considerations are family wealth and the availability of financial aid. According to a study by Nellie Mae, the largest nonprofit provider of federal and private education loan funds in this country, 69 percent of African Americans who enrolled in college but did not finish said that they left college because of high student loan debt as opposed to 43 percent of white students who cited the same reason ³.

  These statistics, while not encouraging are not as bad as I had feared when I started my response.

1Pinker, S. ' The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”

2http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_b_w_disparities.html

3http://www.jbhe.com/preview/winter07preview.html