Left of Black S3:E11 | Everyday Racism, Everyday Homophobia

Left of Black S3:E11 | Everyday Racism, Everyday Homophobia

November 26, 2012

On Thursday, November 8, 2012, HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) sponsored Everyday Racism, Everyday Homophobia:  A Symposium on the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Sexuality at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. 

The event featured Jack Halberstam, Professor of English and Director of The Center for Feminist Research at University of Southern California, and author of the recently published Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon);  Marlon Ross, Professor on English at the University of Virginia and author  of  Manning the Race: Reforming Black Men in the Jim Crow Era (NYU Press); Kathryn Bond Stockton, Distinguished Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Utah and author of Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer”; and Sharon Patricia Holland, Associate Professor of English and African & African American Studies at Duke University and the author of the just published The Erotic Life of Racism (Duke University Press). 

The event was moderated by Left of Black host and Duke University Professor, Mark Anthony Neal.

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Left of Blackis a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in  @ iTunes U

Live Symposium: Everyday Racism, Everyday Homophobia with Marlon Ross, J. Jack Halberstam, and Kathryn Bond Stockton

Everyday Racism, Everyday Homophobia:  

A Symposium on the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Sexuality.   

November 8, 2012   1 pm to 4 pm 

A provocative, scholarly, and lively event, "Everyday Racism, Everyday Homophobia:  A Symposium on the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Sexuality,” will take place on November 8, 2012, from 1-4 p.m. at the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies at Duke University.   

Bringing together some of the nation's most urgent thinkers on race theory and gender and sexuality studies, the Symposium is free and open to faculty, students, and the general public.  A reception will follow.  

PARTICIPANTS: 

Jack Halberstam is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. Halberstam is the author Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal (Beacon Press, 2012) and four other books including The Queer Art of Failure (Duke University Press, 2012). Halberstam writes and lectures widely on issues of gender, cultural production, popular music and sexuality and blogs at both bullybloggers.wordpress.com and www.jackhalberstam.com. 

Marlon B. Ross is Professor of English and of African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia, where he teaches courses on British romanticism, African American literature, race, gender, and queer theory, and the cultural theory of space. He is currently completing his second book, The Color of Manhood: Remaking Black Masculinities within and beyond the Civil Rights Era, which examines the figuration of masculine competence as a racialized phenomenon in the domains of labor, political protest, and sexuality across the second half of the twentieth century. He is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lilly Endowment Fellowship.

Kathryn Bond Stockton is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Utah.  Her most recent books, Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer” and The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century, are published by Duke University Press, and both were finalists for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Studies.

RESPONSE: 

Participating and responding to this discussion, and honored in this symposium for her key contribution to this debate, will be Sharon Holland of Duke University, whose searing, controversial, and prescient new book, The Erotic Life of Racism, is a key document helping to define and understand these typically unspoken interconnections between what she terms “everyday racism” and “everyday homophobia,” including the intertwined histories of racial eugenics and reproductive rights.  These recurrent strains in American society also form much of the discourse of critical race theory, transnational studies, American studies, gender theory, queer theory, and sexuality studies.   

MODERATOR : 

Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of African and African American Studies at Duke University. Neal is engaged in interdisciplinary scholarly work in the fields of African-American, Cultural, and Gender Studies that draws upon modes of inquiry informed by the fields of literary theory, urban sociology, social history, postmodern philosophy, Queer theory and most notably popular culture. His books include New Black Man and Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (Routledge). Neal hosts a weekly webcast, Left of Black, produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

AP Poll Suggest 'Rise' in Racist Attitudes

AlJazeeraEnglish

An AP survey measured the reactions of a random group towards black Americans. Fifty-one per cent of those polled admitted to being prejudiced against black people. Al Jazeera speaks with James Braxton Peterson, a political analyst and the Director of African Studies at Lehigh University.

Olympic Inequalities

Olympic Inequalities

by David J. Leonard | HuffPost Sports

In a recent blog post on The Huffington Post, Kelli Goff dared to ask the unthinkable: "Why Are Some Olympic Sports Whiter Than Others?" Noting the obvious and seeking to understand the absence of people of color from many Olympic sports, Goff attempts to answer why Gabby Douglas, Lia Neal, Jordan Burroughs, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Justin Lester, John Orozco, and Cullen Jones are unusual in the white world of sports. While noting class, environment, differential opportunities (I explore this aspect here), and countless other factors, Goff stays clear of racism:

Before the eye rolling begins, this is not a column about rampant racism in sports. But it is an attempt to understand why some sports end up predominated by one racial group versus others, and the long-term social and cultural implications of such segregation on the field, court, or gymnastics mat.

Despite her attempt to push the conversation away from racism in sports (and beyond), there has been ample resistance from readers. The truth is hard to hear. The reason why America's Olympic team is overwhelmingly white, the reason why there are so few athletes of color within many Olympics sports, is the persistent impact of racism, segregation, and institutional violence.

Embodying class inequalities, a history of discrimination, and the realities of residential segregation, many Olympic sports are dominated by whites because the spaces, the neighborhoods, the schools and the very institutions that produce those recreational and elite athletes are racially segregated. Whether swimming, diving, or gymnastics, the pipeline to the Olympics is one where youth of color find difficult entry, if not outright exclusion.

We see the consequences of inequality and segregation as it relates to our high school sports, our recreation, leisure, and play. Research has shown that people of color and particularly lower-income communities have fewer opportunities for physical activity. For example, several studies published within the American Journal of Preventive Medicine(AJPM) found "that unsafe neighborhoods, poor design and a lack of open spaces and well constructed parks make it difficult for children and families in low-income and minority communities to be physically active."

Likewise, citing the study from Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) entitled "F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2010" Angela Glover Blackwell focuses on the structural impediments to a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise. "As the report illustrates, where we live, learn, work and play has absolutely everything to do with how we live. Low-income families of color are too often disconnected from the very amenities conducive to leading healthier lives, such as clean air, safe parks, grocery stores with fresh fruits and vegetables, and affordable, reliable transportation options that offer access to those parks and supermarkets." Communities of color, and America's poor, are disconnected from the very facilities and resources necessary to become a great champion. Access to pools, coaches, gyms, and healthy foods, remains a dream deferred for communities of color, meaning the dreams of an Olympic birth are all too distant as well.

Robin D.G. Kelley described this predicament in "Playing for Keeps," as part of structural adjustment programs and deindustrialization processes that plague poor communities of color beginning in the 1970s. "Play areas -- like much of the inner city -- have become increasingly fortified by steel fences, wrought-iron gates, padlocks, and razor sharp ribbon wire" (1998, p. 196). Noting that in cities like Cleveland and New York City, which each saw closure of between 40 and 50 million dollars worth of recreation facilities in the late 1970s, Kelley argues that play and spaces of recreation have increasingly only been accessible within middle-class (white) suburban communities.

We have witnessed a growing number of semipublic private spaces like 'people's parks' that require a key ... and highly sophisticated indoor play area that charge admission. The growth of these privatized spaces has reinforced a class segregated play world and created yet another opportunity for investors to profit from the general fear of crime and violence. This, in the shadows of Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsed's great urban vision of class integration and public sociability, high-tech indoor playgrounds such as Wondercamp, Discovery Zone and Playspace, charge admission to eager middle -- and upper-class children whose parents want a safe play environment ... While these play areas are occasionally patronized by poor and working-class black children, the fact that most of these indoor playgrounds are built in well-to-do neighborhoods and charge an admission fee ranging between $5 and $9 dollars prohibits poor families from making frequent visits (1998, p. 202).

A study in Great Britain found not only that neighborhoods that are a majority white are 11 times more likely to have "green space" but also "that people's level of physical activity and health was directly related to affluence and the quality of green space."

Evident in these spaces, pay-to-swim spots, gymnastic facilities, and countless other spaces that contribute to the development of elite athletes are inaccessible to poor communities of color. The consequences of restricting play to the well-to-do communities, of limiting access to recreation, and otherwise maintaining a system of de facto segregation when it comes to physical activity, contributes to an Olympic Movement defined by Jim Crow.

Food and differential access is also part of the answer. Studies ubiquitously illustrate the segregation has effectively cut off poor communities of color from affordable healthy food. Scholars in Australia found individuals living in poor communities have 2.5 times more contact with fast food restaurants than those living in upper-class communities. Equally important, the report highlighted that these stores sell a very limited amount of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat, providing ample processed food. According to John Robbins, people of color are more likely to find foods that are high in fat, salt, refined carbohydrates and sugar compared to whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits, and organic foods which are difficult if not impossible to procure within many poor urban communities.

A North Carolina study concluded that only 8 percent of black residents lived in close proximity to a supermarket compared to 31 percent of whites. Another study in North Carolina found that the mere presence of at least one supermarket within black neighborhoods had a positive influence on the reducing fat intake (25 increase versus 10 percent for white neighborhoods). And it isn't just about the type of foods, but the cost as well. The Healthy Foods Healthy Communities report noted that on average those smaller convenience stores/gas stations/corner markets that are commonplace within America's urban centers charge between 10-49 percent higher than chain supermarkets. While commercials during the Olympics promote McDonalds and soda as the diet necessary to become a champion (dare I say "the breakfast of champions"), in reality the lack of quality, affordable, and healthy foods in many communities hurts the chances of becoming an elite athlete.

When you combine these realities with inequality in food, the costs of becoming an elite athlete, the demands of moving across the country in search of best coaches (and the financial demands to do such), the differential in sports available in urban versus suburban schools, and countless other issues, we can begin to see an answer to Goff's question.

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness was just published by SUNY Press in May of 2012.

“Truth to Power:”? No Truth or Empowerment in Jason Whitlock’s Tweet

“Truth to Power:”? No Truth or Empowerment in Jason Whitlock’s Tweet

by the Collective | The Feminist Wire | NewBlackMan

We come together to express our collective disappointment over Jason Whitlock’s recent tweet about Jeremy Lin.  We hope that our voices, our analysis, and our anger demonstrates not only our opposition to this sort of rhetoric but the ideologies and stereotypes that provide a foundation for people like Whitlock to stand upon.  His tweet is a symptom of a larger problem and therefore warrants analysis and condemnation in an effort to transform the very culture that produces these sorts of comments each and every day.

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Perhaps Jason Whitlock is suffering from (L)insanity. Or, perhaps on a much more politically incorrect level, Whitlock is on that bull.

His tweet wraps misogyny, stereotypical phallic fantasy, and race into one awkward 'joke' that provides enough side eye for years to come. Perhaps most disturbing is the crude attempt at humor with little to no purpose and situating it within politics of (ir) respectability. Further complicating (complementing?) the peculiarity of this tweet is the imposition of digital anonymity/privacy of Whitlock and his followers: because I'm behind a screen name (or lack thereof), is it cool to laugh and 'joke' about such sensitive and taboo topics? Is it respectable?

Does Whitlock have (social) responsibility? Damn right. Why wouldn't he? Because, in an offsetting way, Whitlock's crudeness is a representation of the public dismissal of race as a marker of American cultural discourse. And, simultaneously, how jacked it is – Regina Bradley

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Male professional sports, like the military, have long been valued for its ability to allow talent to flourish, in spite of the realities of race and ethnicity.  Professional sports are often viewed as the most natural of American meritocracies, though such opportunity, as it were, rarely extends beyond the field into the realms of management and ownership.  This is not to suggest that racism, sexism, and homophobia are non-existent in professional sports, but that impact is largely muted by performance.

One location where intolerance remains unfettered, is of course, within the arena of commentary where sports-talk radio and the comments sections of sports sites recall the kind of racist, sexist and homophobic rhetoric that many believed went underground generations ago.  Ironically such rhetoric has proved big-business for big Media, creating celebrity in hosts and sports journalists, whose bad behavior is celebrated as “realness” and who somehow think that thoughtful and reasoned analysis and commentary are towing some invisible line of political correctness. 

In this regard, Jason Whitlock is not alone—his now infamous idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic rants are part of his brand, and it’s a brand that apparently serves him and his employer Fox Sports, very well.  Bless them.  And while I feel no real need to compare Whitlock’s recent comments about Jeremy Lin—as misogynistic as they were racists—to the ill-advised comments on twitter by journalist Roland Martin, I would at least expect that the same fervor in which GLAAD demanded that CNN punish Martin, and that many of Martin’s Black peers demanded that Martin be reinstated by his employer, would be deployed to protect a young Taiwanese-American basketball player, who is simply doing his job to the best of his ability within a meritocratic structure that we all claim to value – Mark Anthony Neal

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Appalled. I find myself rendered nearly speechless in the face of the harmful and repulsive comments of Jason Whitlock and many others with regards to Jeremy Lin. We, however, cannot remain silent about such racist and misogynistic comments. Relying upon deeply infuriating racial, sexual, and gender stereotypes to “celebrate” Lin illuminates not only the absurdity of a post-racial society or national, cultural imaginary, but makes apparent the most disgusting and deeply entrenched stereotypes that are foundational to social and cultural discourses on race in the United States. To merely disregard Whitlock’s or other comments about Lin that pivot around deeply problematic racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes as “jokes” or “harmless sports banter” minimizes the dehumanizing nature of such comments. In the same breath that we laud Lin, let us also collectively deplore the words of those who rely upon damaging stereotypes in their commentary - Treva Lindsey

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There are so many levels on which Whitlock's (knee)jerk attempt at satire was sad and wrong; most of them have been covered by others, including the boorishness of greeting a player who's risen to the toughest of challenges by ceremonially unmanning him; the pathetic symbolism of a man whose race has historically suffered because of sexual mythology unleashing the tools of such distortion and degradation on a man of another race that has so suffered; the almost antique misogyny of Whitlock's phrasing and innuendo. So I'll focus on something I haven't seen raised: The enormity of Whitlock's imposition of the darkest stereotypes of the modern celebrity athlete on a young man who clearly is anything but. Lin is humble, hard-working, clean-cut almost to a fault -- and a deeply, deeply devout Christian who has spoken of joining the ministry after his playing days are over.

Forget the ridiculous anatomical slur: The suggestion that he might celebrate a victory he dedicated to God by having random sex with a "lucky lady" is almost certainly what would offend and horrify Lin more.

Now, given that his employers at Fox will likely lose little if any sleep over Whitlock's arrant racial offense, the question I ask is this: Will FSN -- whose sister networks carp endlessly about the war on faith -- punish Whitlock for demeaning Lin's deep, professed Christian beliefs?

If so, I'll take it - Jeff Yang

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Jason Whitlock's tweet brings me back to a time in the early 70's when I was playing on a football team comprised of players from Harlem, the Upper West Side and an Italian Restaurant near Lincoln Center. The only way people could communicate was exchanging ethnic slurs and boasting about sexual conquests, a discourse that reduced me to total silence. It is sad to see how much that atmosphere, so deeply entrenched nearly 40 years ago, still dominates sports journalism and shapes the way men immersed in competitive sports construct their masculinity, irrespective of their racial or cultural background. Needless to say, that atmosphere creates a camaraderie rooted in fear and suspicion on the field. It also promotes violence off the field toward those who are targets, especially women, who are viewed as appropriate subjects of sexual aggression following sports victories, and inhibits real relationships based on candor and trust. In short, it is really bad, and really sad. I had hoped that younger people had moved beyond what I had grown up with, but apparently not. Predatory masculinity is alive and well and living in America –Mark Naison

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At what point will we resist re-assigning markers of difference that have worked to asphyxiate our identities as people of color for centuries? And, when will we realize that our deployment and projection of racial fantasies and stereotyping toward our selected “Others” not only destabilizes our ability to flourish as humans, but also are antithetical to our own personal and political interests? Further, on what occasion will black men and boys construct masculinities that are courageous enough to loosen the yoke of cultural (mis)re-presentations and broad enough to embrace the complex subjectivities of both self and others?

Jason Whitlock’s recent tweet regarding Jeremy Lin is obscene. And for those who want to dismiss it as normal sports talk, shame on you! Whitlock’s tweet is part and parcel of a larger, inter-textual grand narrative on classificatory violence, which aims to categorize things that feel out of place—in order to bring us back into a so-called normal state—or worse, get rid of the “problem” by thrusting it into the realm of “the spectacle.” Does this sound familiar? It should. Herein lies where identities, of both the signified and the signifier, get reinvented. However, in the present age of hyper-social-media, it is also where public discourse turns into a theater of fetishized display, where bodies serve as indisputable evidence for racial, sexual, ethnic, and gendered difference. This is where the signifier hopes to mark himself as “normal.” However, sadly for Whitlock, he too is part of the joke. He too is problematically fixated at a level of genitalia; no longer a black man, but a penis (pun intended) - Tamura A. Lomax

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Jason Whitlock’s tweet fails not only the racism/sexism test but also the satire test. The racism is obvious--though it should be pointed out that the alternatively “positive” and “negative” stereotypes of Asians and Blacks (e.g. nerds v. athletes) have always been designed to complement each other and reinforce white supremacy. I might even be more offended by the pathetic attempt to be funny. It seems that any time someone breaks through a major public color barrier that America is required to go through an initial cycle of exorcising all of the most tired stereotypes before we can adjust to a whole new condition. So congratulations, Jason, you made the list alongside the birthers and Fuzzy Zoeller’s “fried chicken” (he forgot to add “pad thai”) comment about Tiger Woods – Scott Kurashige

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Jason Whitlock might as well have pulled up the corners of his eyes and said, “ching, chong, ching, chong,” like the kids who used to taunt me on the playground as a kid. (And I'm not even Chinese; I'm Filipina).  In less than fifteen words, he managed to dredge up the most tired racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes associated with “oriental” people: the hypersexuality and ready availability of Asian women, and the effeminacy and queerness of Asian men. His comments play into the longstanding techniques of divide and conquer that have pit people of African and Asian descent against each other since colonial times. We have much more to gain in working together to combat white supremacy, not just in the United States, but also across the globe. Whitlock's comment does nothing to encourage the development of these types of solidarities – Theresa Runstedtler

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U.S. racial discourses remain arrested in that primal scene of childhood violence: the schoolyard. For so many of us, the schoolyard “wisdoms” about which Jason Whitlock tweets are not just a bad memory but a daily reality. It is especially painful to hear such “wisdoms” repeated by a black man. Whitlock’s chauvinism denies Jeremy Lin’s body the capacity to represent the nation as well as more obviously the NBA and the high stakes capitalist world of sports celebrity. Bodies like Lin’s can never measure up. But in a sense neither can Whitlock’s. This was the terrible irony that left me feeling more saddened and broken than angry. Whitlock participates in the very logic that demeans his humanity. His comment suggests that he has embraced racist notions of black sexual prowess as the sorry (mis)measure of his own masculinity and self-worth—his fantasies about Lin’s body, inversely reciprocal, certainly speak to such unhappy investments – Hiram Perez

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Jason Whitlock’s racially insensitive tweet about rising Asian-American NBA superstar Jeremy Lin betrays an investment in an impoverished Black masculinity narrative that pivots upon the erroneous and scientifically disproven idea that Black men have bigger penises than every other group. Whitlock’s need to re-establish Black masculine potency vis-à-vis narratives of athletic and sexual dominance suggests the presence of a threat. But why is the presence of an Asian American kid who can ball his ass off so threatening? Perhaps because Lin’s presence in the Black male dominated space of the NBA rightly demands we rethink our tired and dangerous investment in the myth of biological Black male athletic superiority. Coupled with the homophobic tweets of news commentator Roland Martin, it is clear that the logic of hypersexual Black masculinity is dangerous (e.g. lynching, myth of the Black male rapist, etc) not only to Black men but also to other subjugated masculine subjects, be they Asian men, gay men (Black and otherwise) and women, who become the targets of straight Black men’s misguided need to re-establish dominance – Brittney Cooper

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What makes Whitlock’s tweet funny? First, of course, there is the nod to the social construction of Asian men as feminine and sexually passive, which then gets played out in our (oh so necessary) cultural discourse on the size of their penises. So that’s funny. Then, there is our collective racial imagination of basketball as a sport in which Black men demonstrate a certain aggressive kind of masculine performance. So the presence of a Chinese American in this sport demands that he be assessed for his ability to perform race consistent with our imaginations, both on the court and off. He impresses us with his on-court moves, but we are obsessed with whether an Asian male can compete with (naturally) virile Black ballers when it comes to really laying it down. So that’s funny, right? Oh, and of course, we all know women can’t help but fight over dick, especially the dick of a basketball player, which, as we’ve already concluded, is huge because it's black.

Unless…ha ha… it’s not. And what (all) women really want at the end of the night is to be “lucky” enough to score a big dick, so they can feel the “pain.” So Whitlock’s tweet is also about this woman lying there prostrate, sexually frustrated because Lin couldn’t deliver, which, of course, she should have known because he’s Asian. So once again, women are not only insatiable in bed, but are also naïve, particularly about sex. Which just confirms what we already know about women. And that is hilarious, no? – Michael J. Dumas

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It makes me wonder about you, Mr. Whitlock, that you assume Jeremy Lin should celebrate his stellar performance on the court last night by inflicting “pain” on a woman. Is that how you celebrate your tweeting achievements? It is amazing that you could be so unaware of the irony of racially stereotyping Lin’s anatomy and linking it to sexual violence, given the ugly history in which “southern justice” has been justified again and again through fantasies of black men, their genitalia, and their supposed propensity to inflict sexual pain on women. But then again, given your “achievements” as a sportswriter in the past, your cluelessness is not all that surprising – Anoop Mirpuri

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My response is flavored by spending the past few days immersed in a discussion of the liberation that is to be experienced with Post-Blackness. In the age of social media, I remain amazed by the lengths bullies, masquerading as “writers,” are willing to take to demonstrate their ability to use micro-aggressive means to exert their supremacy over others. As a Baby-Boomer, I’m left with questions. Is social media a mechanism used by the socially inept to exercise their “voice” that is impossible in a face-to-face environment? Does some social media exacerbate the breadth and depth of stupidity possessed by the owner? Does it foster stupidity; perpetuate it? I believe that all of the world via the blogosphere is a stage and juxtapose this medium against an old school warning that I received in the 1980s to avoid emulating a colleague who was a wild cannon in the work place because with that person it was always “what comes up, comes out.” But in those days, what you said was only heard by those within hearing distance. Should you think before you tweet? Jason Whitlock’s “performance” at perpetuating racial stereotypes is flawed on way too many levels to begin to articulate – Valerie L. Patterson

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Jason Whitlock, who describes himself on his twitter page as “too honest” and someone who “speaks truth to power” once again showed the power in speaking hurtful untruths based on stereotypes, assumptions, and systemically produced biases.  Jason Whitlock has made an entire career in demonizing Others, disseminating the ideologies of white supremacy, and peddling sexism.  He once refereed to Serena Williams as an “unsightly layer of thick, muscled blubber, a byproduct of her unwillingness to commit to a training regimen and diet that would have her at the top of her game year-round.”  This is the same man, who has described “hip-hop culture” as “nothing more than prison culture,” and who once provided this assessment of black youth:

We have a problem in the black community, and it didn't make its debut at All-Star Weekend Vegas. What was impossible to ignore in Vegas was on display in Houston, Atlanta and previous All-Star locations. With the exception of Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, it's been on display nearly every time we've gathered in large groups to socialize in the past 15 or so years. The Black Ku Klux Klan shows up in full force and does its best to ruin our good time. Instead of wearing white robes and white hoods, the new KKK has now taken to wearing white Ts and calling themselves gangsta rappers, gangbangers and posse members. Just like the White KKK of the 1940s and '50s, we fear them, keep our eyes lowered, shut our mouths and pray they don't bother us. Our fear makes them stronger. Our silence empowers them. Our lack of courage lets them define who we are. Our excuse-making for their behavior increases their influence and enables them to recruit more freely. We sing their racist songs, gleefully call ourselves the N-word, hype their celebrity and get upset when white people whisper concerns about our sanity. And whenever someone publicly states that the Black KKK is terrorizing black people, black neighborhoods, black social events and glorifying a negative, self-destructive lifestyle, we deny and blame the Man. I don't want to do it anymore.

The recent tweet about Jeremy Lin is a continuation of more of the same from Mr. Whitlock, leaving me to wonder if he would be better-suited writing stump speeches for the GOP or better yet keeping his “honesty” to himself – David J. Leonard

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Whitlock's tweet was a cheap shot of the basest proportions. He's an embarrassment to the writing establishment – Oliver Wang

Contributors

Regina Bradley is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Florida State University

Britney Cooper is a Ford Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University

Michael J. Dumas is an assistant professor of Education at New York University

Scott Kurashige is the Director of Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at University of Michigan

David J. Leonard is an associate professor of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University

Treva Lindsey is an assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Missouri

Tamura A. Lomax holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Vanderbilt University is co-founder of The Feminist Wire

Anoop Mirpuri is an assistant professor of English at Drew University

Mark Anthony Neal is professor of African and African American Studies at Duke University

Mark Naison is professor of African American Studies and History at Fordham University

Valerie L. Patterson is an assistant professor of Public Administration at Florida International University

Hiram Perez is an assistant professor of English at Vassar College

Theresa Runstedtler is an assistant professor of American Studies at SUNY Buffalo

Oliver Wang is an assistant professor of sociology at Cal State Long Beach

Jeff Yang is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal Online and can be heard regularly on WNYC 's “The Takeaway.”

Whistling Dixie (the remix): The Southern Strategy in the Age of Color-Blind Racism

Whistling Dixie (the remix): 

The Southern Strategy in the Age of Color-Blind Racism

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In recent weeks, with the GOP establishment coming to the aid of Mitt Romney and because of Newt Ginrich’s efforts to sell himself as an outsider, an increasingly visible narrative has emerged: as the anti-GOP establishment.  Given Newt’s racial politics and his entire campaign strategy, it is hard to think of Newt as anything but the GOP establishment.

At the same time, there has been a growing sentiment about the hegemony of colorblind racism within the GOP.  “Colorblind racism is the new normal in American conservative political thought,” writes Edward Wyckoff Williams.  The “2012 Republican candidates are using egregious signals and dog whistles to incite racial divisiveness as an effective tool for political gain. But when confronted about the nature of their offensive rhetoric, the answer is either an innocuous denial or dismissive retort.”   The codes or dog whistle politics are not new, nor is the denial.  While the audacity of race denial may be on the rise, the clarity of the GOP’s race politics have been on full display.  No secret decoder is necessary especially as we look at the larger history of race and the GOP. 

Like so many of his fellow competitors, Newt’s racial demagoguery, his demonization of people of color, and his efforts to scapegoat have been a daily reality during the 2011-2012 GOP presidential primary. This is nothing new from Newt, who has made his career on the demonization of “welfare moms,”  “illegals” and a “food stamp president.”  In 2007, Newt took exception with bilingual education, announcing: “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.” 

This has continued during the current election cycle with his recycling of the Moynihan report and his policy initiatives focusing on teaching black kids a work ethic.   The language, the policies, and the centrality of race illustrate the profound ways that Newt Gingrich is the GOP establishment.  As the voice box for the racial ideologies and the torchbearer for the GOP’s southern strategy (demonizing people of color in hopes of galvanizing white voters to support a party that doesn’t represent their economic interests), Newt’s denied GOP credentials is almost laughable. 

This is the party of Nixon, whose southern strategy sought to scapegoat African Americans.  This is the same man, who talked about “Negro bastards" who "live like a bunch of dogs" on welfare rolls.  This is the GOP that was led by Richard Nixon, who one said:

Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it's a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he's been in New York," Nixon said. "He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.' So forth and so on.

My own view is I think he's right if you're talking in terms of 500 years," he said. "I think it's wrong if you're talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that's the only thing that's going to do it, Rose.

This is the party of Reagan, who described outrage from working Americans over the sight of a “strapping young buck using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store.”  When not demonizing black men, he spoke about “welfare queens” in Chicago, “who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards and four fictional dead husband.”  This is the same Reagan, who started his presidential campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi with an “ode to state’s rights,” a theme that continued with his defense of segregationist Bob Jones University and his denunciation of the voting right act as "humiliating to the South."  As the patriarch of the party, it is no wonder that racist rhetoric and appeals are central to the 2012 campaign.  

This the party who used Willie Horton, who the Bush campaign portrayed as a dangerous super-predator, lurking in dark alleys, ready to kill and rape.  This is the party of Trent Lott, who at the birthday party of segregationist Strom Thurmond announced, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

This is the party that brought us Barbara Bush, who after Hurricane Katrina, announced:

Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston...What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them.

This is the party that has used ACORN, Jeremiah Wright, and blamed minority homeowners for the recession.  It is the party that popularized Barack Hussein Obama and used “pallin round” with terrorists with great frequency. 

This is the party of Rick Santorum, who routinely demonizes Islam, who has called for a “long war” with Muslims: “What must we do to win [against Islam]? We must educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate.”   This is the party of scapegoating “illegal immigrants,” the criminalblack man, the Arab terrorist; it is the party of fear and division, and one that is “addicted” to race-baiting.

Newt’s campaign, his constant deployment of racial codes, his demonization of communities of color, and efforts to mobilize white voters is representative of the GOP.  The frames, daily rhetoric of racism and demonization, which has been central to Republican politics for the last 40 years, is in fact the basis of his campaign. If it walks like an elephant, talks like an elephant, demonizes like an elephant, and stomps all over other people like an elephant, well he must be an elephant.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop(SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackManand blogs @ No Tsuris.

The Frontstage is the New Backstage: Racism in the Public Square

The Frontstage is the New Backstage: Racism in the Public Square

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Three stories have captured the imagination of social media recently.

A Buffalo High school suspended several members of the basketball team because its members allegedly regularly chant racial epithets prior to each game.  As reported in the Buffalo News, “Tyra Batts, the sole African-American on the Kenmore East High School’s squad,” said “her teammates would hold hands before the game, say a prayer and then shout “One, two, three (n------).’”  Batts, who was suspended because of her involvement in a fight resulting from the repeated use of the N-Word by her teammates, disputed claims that it “was just a joke.” The efforts to defend its usage and to deny the racist and violent history have set off anger and debate throughout the web.   

“Remember all of those debates we’ve had about whether or not the n-word is just another word?,” writes Britini Danielle. “Usually, our conversations dealt with white and non-black rappers and entertainers using the word ‘as a term of endearment,’ but this time we’re heading into the tricky world of high school.” 

Not to be outdone, a P.h.D student at Rutgers University invited her white classmates to a screening of the Disney Classic Song of the South.  An editorial in The Daily Targum describes the circumstances as follows: 

This email invited “her fellow non-racist racists” to a private, guilt-free viewing of 1946 musical Song of the South in her home, where together they could engage in celebratory mocking of stereotyped 1940’s images of southern blacks. This was an event hosted by a “ragtime/minstrel loving fool” who was due “for some rollicking Disneyfied Ole Darkeyism.” The postscript read, “If you do come, hooch is most welcome, as are straw hats and other Darkeyisms. I might even buy a watermillyum if I get enough interest.” It specified who invited guests should bring, given that “I might yell racist things at the TV.” The author of this email articulated the hope that the experience would be a “communion with her shamefully preferred era of Disney.”

The celebration of dehumanizing representations, the efforts to create a segregated space, and the replication of longstanding stereotypes provoked outrage, condemnation, and ample conversation on Facebook and Twitter.  Citing it as evidence of the absurdity of a “post-racial America,” the instance became another moment to protest the persistence of white supremacist ideologies within contemporary America. 

Yet, none of the outrage would compare to the anger, protests, and denunciation that has followed Gene Marks ode to paternalism in Forbes Magazine.  In “If I Were A Poor Black Kid,” Marks provides “advice” that rehashes bootstraps ideology all while playing on longstanding stereotypes about black laziness and disinterest in schooling.   Following in the footsteps of Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump, Marks recycles those arguments that link black unemployment and poverty rates to work ethic and personal choice. 

His comments have produced a strew of commentaries that have condemned the article for its arrogance, paternalism, and overall erasure of structural inequalities.   “Mr. Gene just wants to give us some of that patented #WhiteLove™ that he has laying around the house,” writes Elon James White.  “With a healthy sprinkling, poor ignorant black children can rise above their station into the magical world of reasonable participation in society!  Mr. Marks has a step-by-step booklet for you to get your school game on track, not your wig pushed back ... by poverty.”  James, like so many of the responses, identified the arguments offered in Forbes as not a peripheral aberration but instead a central white racial frame within contemporary culture.  Evident in The Help and The Blindside, reflected in political and academic discourses, and central to white racial framing, the narrative focus on black pathological failures and the potential through better parenting, better choices, and better work ethic, guides American racial discourse. 

Yet, the social media world was abuzz with shock not because of the audacity of paternalism exhibited by Marks but because of the brash openness with his racial arguments.  There are no codes and subtleties here; like Ginrich and Trump a few weeks before, the arguments and the racial dimensions central to the narrative are quite transparent.  As with the situations at Rutgers and the New Jersey High school, the surprise stems not from the acceptance and promulgation of dehumanizing language, but the brazen and open exhibition of this racism. 

These moments highlight the absurdity of claims about a post-racial and the perpetual dealing of the race-denial card.  These moments are reminders, albeit reminders to white America about the persistence of white supremacy within contemporary society.  Yet, beyond illustrating how race matters, these moments demonstrate the ways in which racial discourse and blatant racism has steadily moved out of the backstage into the frontstage. 

In Two-Faced Racism, Leslie Picca and Joe Feagin explore the ways in which racial performances are carried in both the frontstage (integrated and multiracial public spaces) and the backstage (those private/semi-private all-white spaces where race talk and racist ideas reveal themselves in profound ways).  Their research found that the backstage offers whites a place to “perform, practice, learn, reinforce, and maintain racist views of and inclinations toward people of color.  These views and inclinations play a central role in generating and maintaining the overt and covert racial discrimination that is still commonplace in major institutions of this society” (27-28). 

Increasingly, however, the frontstage is replacing the backstage whereupon whites are publicly performing, learning, reinforcing and maintaining their racist views toward people of color.  Evident in college students donning blackface and then putting pictures online, evident in Gene Marks, Newt Ginrich, Donald Trump and their reactionary pals lamenting the laziness of black youth, evident in the usage of the N-word, evident in white-only movie screenings and white-only swimming pools, the lines between the frontstage and the backstage are blurring before our eyes.   In other words, the frontstage is now the backstage, leaving me to wonder what sorts of ideologies, stereotypes and racial talk is transpiring in backstage.  Or maybe, in a “post-racial America,” widespread racism has returned (did it ever leave?) to the frontstage thereby illustrating the importance of challenging and resisting in each and every location.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness will be published by SUNY Press in May of 2012.