My White Problem-- And Ours

>>>>> "tony" == Tony  <[email protected]> writes:

  tony> Mr. Clark, I enjoyed your essay, "My White Problem-- And
  tony> Ours."  Although I disagreed with some of your statements (as,
  tony> I suppose, a White Male, or American Indian Male, at least), I
  tony> do agree with the general timbre of your views.

Mr Taylor,

First, thanks for taking the time to write and to write so
courteously; it's a rare and pleasant treat.

  tony> My (mild) disagreements are two:

  tony> First, I believe our racial problems (in all but the deep
  tony> south, at any rate) stem more from poverty than from skin
  tony> color.  Granted, I've led a very sheltered life in the logging
  tony> camps and small cities of Alaska; but I have noticed that
  tony> school funding, for instance, is divied up not by race, but by
  tony> *economics.* The poorer students have a larger student/teacher
  tony> ratio, shoddier equipment, and fewer advanced classes than
  tony> schools in the richer parts of town.  Education translates
  tony> directly to social possibility.

I agree with most of this, except to say that whatever *fuels* our
racial problems (whether economics or no) they are problems of
*racial* oppression, and so, I think, must be talked about in those
terms.

  tony> I cannot speak for the deep south, of course, since I have
  tony> only been to Kentucky and Florida only briefly, for tech
  tony> conferences.  Granted, during conference events I was startled
  tony> by the ratio of black to white servers, versus the ratio of
  tony> black to white attendees.  Never before had I understood so
  tony> viscerally racial economic disparity.  So perhaps there is a
  tony> completely alien world in my own backyard, with ideals that
  tony> are less than ideal.

You can see things in the Old South (and elsewhere in America too)
like this all the time. I left out stopping to eat 30 minutes up the
road from the souvenir stand, which I describe, at a catfish house,
only to find *every* patron White and every wait person and 'bus boy'
a person of color (save one White waitress actually).

  tony> I do wish we were a little less cognizant of color.  There
  tony> should be no distinction between black or white, or male of
  tony> female; yet I am still shocked that Pat Buchanan (of all
  tony> people) chose a black female running mate.  Strange how we
  tony> notice things like that, isn't it?

Why less cognizant? I don't think the problem can be reduced to
something as simple as 'we pay too much attention to race'.

  tony> And that brings me to the second disagreement-- or perhaps it
  tony> is more of an observation relating to self-awareness.  In your
  tony> essay, you refer to black "folk," but white "people."  And you
  tony> capitalize White in all cases-- to emphasize white privelege,
  tony> and to show you are speaking of a class, I'm sure-- but you
  tony> don't capitalize black.  Usually, things are capitalized to
  tony> show respect, whether it is God, or King, or Country.  I think
  tony> this adds a certain class distinction to the paper which you
  tony> may not intend.

Class doesn't follow punctuation or orthography. *Usually* things are
capitalized to show respect, but not always. I consistenly capitalize
'White' now in order to *problematize* it. I guess that a good deal of
the Monkeyfist audience considers itself to be white, and I want them
to start thinking about the social constructedness of their racial
identity, and about its role in some of our problems. White people
used to capitalize 'black' and 'negro' because they were problems, so
you got lots of pious chattering about The Negro Problem and the like.

  tony> The ultimate goal of antiracism is the annihilation of
  tony> distinction-- that is, people should not be distinguished by
  tony> their appearance, but by their character.  But if we commence
  tony> in thought and language as if there is a distinction of
  tony> appearance, we are fighting ourselves.

Well, you need to give some warrant for that first claim ('ultimate
goal'). I do not think the 'annhilation of distinction' is the right
goal; as I say, I work for an end to racial oppression as a component
of social justice. The 'color blind' thing is different and, I think,
not particularly desirable. If we lived in a society in which equality
and justice were very broadly realized, we might find we'd be able to
talk about ethnicities in interesting and non-hurtful ways. We might
be able to talk about the relative contributions, say, to the creation
of Jazz from black and white and creole musicians -- I don't see how
such talk is *necessarily* racist; after all, black Jazz musicians
have been talking about it for one hundred years or so (and they seem
to have been far more willing to credit the contributions from and of
White culture than Whites were to credit them for *creating* the art
form to begin with).

I don't see how we can do any of this if we want to 'annhilate all
distinction'. Now, that might *not* turn out to be very interesting at
all, but I don't see any reason why not.

  tony> equality.  I only claim that we must watch ourselves (as you
  tony> stated so eloquently in your essay), and must not contribute
  tony> in the slightest to the distinction of racial class.

See above.

  tony> Of course, this is just my opinion.  I could be wrong.  (Thank
  tony> you, Dennis Miller.)

  tony> PS: Thanks for Monkeyfist.  It's a great site, with thoughtful
  tony> and interesting reading.

I'm glad you like it.

Best,
Kendall Clark
-- 
The amount that we owe is all that we have.