Fighting For Our Lives

Sometimes, I feel as if we're all headed for hell in a handbasket. Sometimes, I don't see the point of trying anymore. I look around at the pain and the confusion and the alienation and I start to wonder if life on earth is just going to become impossible at some point, given those who seem to have the power to define and the fact that the rest of us don't act as if we have the foggiest clue what to do about it.

I read the news and I feel like crawling under the bed. I look at the lives of the people I know and I wonder if any of them are ever--really--happy. I watch a woman hitting a child across the car seat from her, not once, or in one flurry of slaps, but over and over and over and over--sequence after sequence--as she steers her car around the corner in heavy traffic, oblivious that her violence is being observed by a total stranger in the car creeping along behind her. And I wonder what will become of that child and how it will someday use what it is learning. I think about my mother struggling with Alzheimer's. And all the folks who used to make good money, but now can't find a job. And I think about the old folks and mentally ill who can't afford the medication they need to live a decent life--or even live at all.

Even when I teach--and maybe especially when I teach--I'm increasingly, incredibly aware of the human condition. I walk into a classroom and look at thirty or fifty or one hundred and fifty expressionless faces, at the ready, and wonder if one of them is the one who will shoot me (as an anonymous student once threatened to do on the telephone in the middle of the night) or try to cause me some kind of trouble because they don't like what I say or they don't want to know it. I wonder if one of them will kill themselves on my watch--without ever telling me that they're considering it. I wonder how many are struggling with drugs or just found out they're pregnant or will learn tomorrow that they've acquired a disease for which there is no known cure. I wonder which of the women got beaten up by her "boyfriend" last night, which of the men is working two jobs on top of going to school in an attempt to keep his father and mother from hitting the wall now that they're both ill. I wonder which of them will lose their scholarship this semester and be relegated back to the ranks of those who will not earn enough to survive. I wonder which of them live their every moment in gut-gripping anxiety because if they don't get all A's (no matter what), they'll incur the rage of a father who holds not only the purse-strings, but their sense of self-worth, in his authoritarian hands. I've long since learned that every one of them has a story. Every one of them, no matter what they look like, have things going on in their lives--or have had or will shortly--that will mark them as humans in a difficult world.

Sometimes, they wait to see me one after the other outside my office. Sometimes, they approach me after class (starting on the first day of the semester), saying, "You seem like someone I can talk to." Sometimes they call me so I can't see their face. Sometimes, they don't even want to admit what the problem is, so they'll approach me with another problem or situation or concern.

"I'm not sure I can pass your class," he might say, looking worried. "I'm used to teachers going through the book page by page, talking about it. I don't know if I'm taking the right notes." But in truth, it may be that he doesn't read well. Or write well. And he has to pass the class to play his sport at the school to which he wants to go. Which is--to his mind--the only way he's going to get out of the abject poverty in which he was raised. And he's six foot four and a man and he can't just admit how weak his skills are off the court or how frightened he is that he's going to be stuck in the ghetto. And I can't ask because it might not be true or he might not tell me, but if it is true and he won't tell me (for fear I'll rat him out), then the game is over before it's begun. And he'll disappear mid-semester and I'll have lost him. Forever.

I look at the woman who's come back to school, who's shaking in her boots because she's twenty or even thirty years older than the others, embarrassed at her fear, embarrassed at not having done it already, unsure she can do it, caught in a new employment market that is going to push her out if she doesn't have the credential. I look at the kid with the dream and no food money. I look at the one who's taken the class three times already in an attempt to make the A that's necessary to get him into the course of study he's longed to enter since he was fifteen. I look at the one who's translating everything I say into some other language in her head, determined to make it because her degree from somewhere else isn't meaningful here, even with years of experience.

I listen to a woman tell me off because she isn't doing well in the course and it's months before she admits that her emotions are really about her fear on a new and more professional job and her attempts to be a good mommy while her husband does his year in jail. I look at the couple who's breaking up because she's already successfully made the shift to the university and he's still struggling with D's at the community college, not wanting to face that both his college career and his relationship are probably hopeless. And I watch the bright, but odd ones, collecting the giggles of their classmates, pretending not to notice and not able, in any case, to be any different than they are.

Needless to say, with my rather focused interest in and understanding of racial issues, I'm especially sensitive to the struggles of my students of color. The other day, for example, I looked out over my classroom at a group I had only seen four times so far, and I was suddenly hyper-conscious that fully six or so out of the 28 students were African-American males taking a summer sociology course and on their way to another school in the fall to play a sport. At the college level, at least at community colleges and state schools (the only ones with which I'm familiar), there are always a few athletes--male or female--in the class. At one point, I spent four years teaching at FSU where you knew the male athletes because, no matter what their sport, they filled the doorway. But to have half dozen in more or less the same circumstance suddenly reminded me (once more) of why I do what I do in the way that I do it.

Almost instantly, in spite of the fact that my lecture of the day was on research methods (not one of my spicier offerings), I started finding ways to reach out to them. You can't be sure you'll ever see a student again (regardless of where you are in the semester). In fact, I often operate when I speak, in school or otherwise, out of the idea that, if I never see these people again, what would I have wanted to say to them? And I started fighting for their very lives.

The fact is that I don't even remember now what all I managed to work into the lecture. And it was appropo to all of the students anyway--more or less. And I worked hard not to look overly at the young men in question when pouring out my heart, telling what I know about life, using how sociological research captures causal chains to offer them tools for better understanding that many of their problems are not so much personal as social. Encouraging and empowering them to go another step, to hang in there, to recognize that the strength that brought them this far can take them all the way, I was terribly aware of what I was doing. But you rarely get a signal from them--not when it's going on.

Then, on the way out of the class, one of the young men to whom I'd been particularly speaking walked past me casually, handing me a folded piece of paper and proceeding out the door. I knew what it was. I've gotten many such notes through the years.

"I really enjoy this course," it read, "and I wanted you to know that the way you teach highly encourages me to be here. You kinda got me thinking of switching my major to becoming a sociologist. Thanks for being a great instructor. You are very appreciated. Real talk, you're the best I ever had."

And then I knew I had been heard. Again.

See, it's not about me. It's about them. All the ones who need to know it's possible, who need to believe there's hope. They can take that little speech, those words of truth, and parlay them into a leap to the sun. I've seen it happen over and over. It amazes me every time. That I get to participate in their process. That I get to show them how to stretch their bow. That I get to give them sustenance, sometimes before they even know they're hungry.

European-American youth who may have always known they're going to do this and be that and have those things that make them what they've always known they'd be--they have problems, too. And I work with them one on one endlessly, when they need me, but they often have other support mechanisms, as well. Not always, but often. And they have the social benefits of their racial privilege. Still, even they have the capacity to surprise me.

Yesterday, as I mulled over the note I had received the day before, I got an email from a former student, a young European-American man who was raised in a fine home in a particularly beautiful and wealthy setting, the son of a powerful father, with basically nowhere to go but up. Very bright, he spoke almost not at all, but he came within three points of earning all the possible points in the course, and then asked me politely at the end if he might contact me by email sometime. I assured him that he could. And here it finally was.

"I just wanted you to know," he wrote,"that what I learned from you touched me deeply, and you may have taken me one step closer to finding out what I want to do with my life. I'm not sure, but I think I may want to write or somehow communicate on as large a scale as possible--always on my subject of choice: institutional injustice, that of our country in particular...After one of your classes when you were lecturing about the state of affairs in this country...I went down to my car, started processing that information with my life experiences and cried. I wasn't even really sure why...I have always had to do what I have to do and have rarely done what I wanted to do. I have just put my philosophies and creativity on hold...[Y]our class brought a piece of me out and I thank you..."

So, there it is--Black or White. I am socially reproducing myself as a conscious European-American. I am--to the extent I am capable--being a bridge of hope across which people of color can walk to their next destination. And when the world is too much with me, I am, always, saved by the students I'm trying to save. And that's the way it works, I guess, because, in the end, maybe we're all just fighting for our lives.

Well...Nazi's Love Uniforms (gulp)

Just when I thought the news couldn't get any weirder or more depressing, the New York Times (here) with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center (which you'll find on my links list), has just left me stupified. Apparently, according to a military investigator's report, the military (and most especially the Army) now has what may be thousands of rabid racists roaming the streets of Iraq on our nickel, learning how to use sophisticated weapons on our nickel, and practicing house-to-house missions on our nickel so they can learn how to do the same thing in the future right here in the good old U.S. of A. when they finally "cleanse" our nation of the "undesirables"!!

What!? my brain screamed (as I contemplated the $7000 bill I just got from the I.R.S. because of a mortgage deal that went south). I wanted to believe that the Times was mistaken. After all, they've had their problems in the past. But there it is, in the paper and on the SPLC website, with names and everything.

"The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, 'Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members.'"

Now, what is this telling us? First of all, it's telling us that the U.S. population isn't supporting the war on Iraq enough to sign up to fight. Well, we knew this, right? Otherwise, why would recruiters be routinely staging humongous dog-and-pony shows on college campuses and fighting in court for the right to continue? And why would we see them charging across Walmart parking lots in poor neighborhoods to tempt young men of color like so many uniformed dope boyz with quotas to meet? And why would ads in Jet magazine--every week--encourage parents to talk their children into signing up? Okay. So that's old news, I guess.

And I've always known that neo-Nazis and other kooks get their training in the military. Where else are they gonna get it? It's not like you can sign up for "How To Blow Stuff Up 101" or "Advanced Killing" at your local community college. (And I know the directions are available on line, but not with hands-on, state of the art instruction and unlimited opportunities to practice--while you're getting paid.)

But this stuff about the recruiters and the officers knowing and letting it slide? Oh, oh, oh, please tell me this is new! And how is it explained? According to Mr. Barfield:

"They don't want to make a big deal...about neo-Nazis in the military because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."

Uh huh! We'd certainly hate to think those parents who are so carefully being enlisted to enlist their young would be uncomfortable. Not better to get rid of the psychos. Oh, no! Better to just keep 'em a secret from the parents!

It's a cinch they're not a secret from the Iraqi's for very long. According to Barfield, "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad. That's a problem."

No. Kidding.

I mean, I can see where it would be difficult to keep the locals convinced that you're there to "bring them democracy" when you have spray-painted messages popping up in public places--in English--calling them and other people of color pejorative names. But hey! An Army's gotta do what an Army's gotta do! If the Commander-in-Chief says throw some more logs on the fire, who's gonna tell him no?

Actually, this little issue caused some excitement a decade or so ago, too. Timothy McVeigh, it turned out, who was executed for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City, first espoused his right-wing philosophy while serving in the Army and found his sidekicks among the ranks of fellow soldiers, as well. Then, while we were still smarting under this revelation, another incident came along involving the dishonorable discharge of nineteen neo-Nazis in 1996, after three European-American paratroopers were convicted of randomly murdering a Black couple--to win tattoos, no less! The result was a crack-down on racist and extremist activities in the military. It's a little scary that there even had to be one. I mean, did none of these guys have tattoos going in? But at least, the Army was moving in the right direction--at the specific instruction of Washington, I might add.

But you know how it is. Time goes by and quotas must be met. Then, as other countries (who never did really ante up a whole lot of troops, especially not for long term warfare) started bringing their troops home (what a concept!) and we ran out of the 50,000 green card holders we talked into becoming soldiers, some things just had to be done. Winking at crazies as they sign on the dotted line appears to have been one of them.

In an article in Resistance, the hyper-racist National Alliance's magazine, Stephen Berry, a former Special Forces officer who now serves as the organization's "military unit coordinator," urged skinheads to join the army and insist on serving in light infantry units.

"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war. It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed'...As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."

Good to know...I guess...

*gulp*

And I would assume that we can expect the military to take some kind of immediate radical action concerning this most serious matter. Especially in the face of all the torturings and murders and gang rapes and all that keep implicating U.S. soldiers in general in Iraq and making them infinitely less safe than they would be otherwise. Surely, the Army would want to strongly and instantly distance itself from any practice of allowing Nazi's and their ilk into the U.S. military or ignoring their activities once identified, right?

Right?

When Yo' Right, Ya Know Yo' Right!

Well, I'm irritated as hell, having tried repeatedly--and I mean repeatedly--to publish the following links all pretty and neatly hidden behind the word "here," but blogger has refused to allow me to do it that way. It's taken me hours to remember, of course, that I can just publish it looking all crazy. Guess that's my OCD kicking in. Anyway, here are some links I recommend checking out. The post may not be tidy, but it'll get the job done.

Jay has an excellent rant on what African-American workers and undocumented Latino workers have in common here.

The Piscean Princess gets off writing about how she is not her hair here.

Skyscraper electrified me with her poem about how she is a walking mini-revolution here.

And Glenda very creatively reminds us to get real, stay real, and celebrate the truth regardless and maybe especially because of what's going on around us here.

Posting For Peace

Glenda has called on her readers to post for peace today. It's the 4th of July--Independence Day--after all, and there are more of us than you might think who don't instantaneously connect the making of war with the making of greatness. I am regularly made heartsick by what I see going on in our nation and in our world, as you know. Some of you seem to get a little bummed out from time to time about my critical concerns related to race. But I am not critical because I got out of bed on the wrong side on a given day. I am not critical because I am afraid of power. I am not critical because I have issues or I want to be on top. I am critical because I love life--in all its forms. I love babies (even when they smell funny). I love birds and trees and butterflies. I love fresh-faced, eager students. I love drill teams with drums. I love stand up comics and spoken word artists. I love big city web designers and folks growing watermelons in patches of rural Florida. I love people willing to memorize lines and get up on a stage, risking possible humiliation, to entertain or to teach or just to connect with the rest of the human race. I love life. Even when it doesn't look like me. Even when it doesn't speak my language. Even when it has a different way of talking to God/dess.

See, the fact is that I'm alive. And the life in me calls out to the rest of life on the planet. Despite the way I may be seen from time to time, I do not think it's all about me. I think it's all about Me. That is to say, I think, you and I and the butterflies and the drill team members and the babies and the people in Iraq and Iran and Darfur and Palestine are me. I'm not somehow "up here" while you or him or her or it is somehow "down there." And once that idea gets up in your head, you can't say "ho-hum, they're bombing (again)." You feel the bomb hit and you scream in your soul and agonize over the Grand Ignorance of it all.

A couple of days ago, I came across a reference to "the hundredth monkey effect," a phenomenon first observed by Lyall Walson in the 1950's on an island where he and some other scientists were studying macaques (a type of monkey) and later popularized by Ken Keyes, Jr., in a book on the topic. Apparently, the scientists were dropping sweet potatoes on the beach for the macaques to eat. The macaques liked the sweet potatoes, but didn't like the taste of the sand. So, over time, a few of them learned and taught each other to wash the potatoes in a stream before eating. Eventually, however, (the process took over a decade) when the hundredth monkey learned the technique, the entire macaque population took to using it and almost immediately macaques on other islands--even distant islands--took to using it, as well, with no way to imagine how the information had been communicated. Thus, the term "critical mass" was coined.

So, I'm posting for peace today. Maybe I'm not the 100th monkey. Maybe only the forty-second or the eighty-sixth or the third, comparatively speaking. But I doubt that the macaques were counting. I doubt that they were shooting for an ultimate result. The ones who carried their potatoes to the stream were probably not blogging about it at the time or even trying to drag their friends down to the water. They were probably just washing their food and enjoying how much tastier it was without the sand.

And all those macaques grinding their teeth on that gritty sand--not realizing that it could be otherwise--just thought that's what they had to do to survive. Until critical mass was achieved and then they made the shift as if they couldn't have done it before.

Glenda called for posting for peace. In the interest of peace (world and otherwise), I'm calling for:

* an end to the war in Iraq, bringing the troops home now;

* immediate release of all political prisoners currently held anywhere in the world (including Guantanamo Bay and the U.S.) as a result of the decision-making of any branch of the U.S. government;

* an end to U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and any other lands that have not requested it (which, to my knowledge, includes everywhere we have perched a military base); and

* immediate economic and philosophical commitment to: fair trade practices world-wide; cessation of all violence against women and children; safety, opportunity, and respect for all people of color; and a massive re-organization of the U.S. "justice" system (including all prisons and jails) with the expected result of mass immediate releases of non-violent prisoners and the placing of drug addicts into appropriate facilities.

That oughta get us started. We don't need to eat sand. There's a better, more excellent way to live. Come on down. The water's fine.

Divided We Fall

The other day, I picked up a weekly newspaper expressly because one of the headlines on the cover was the question: "Is it racism?" You know me, there's no way I could walk past that one. So I took it upstairs, read the little article and decided to write this post.

The article was really just a short page dedicated to describing a young European-American man's struggles primarily with his own perception of things. He doesn't like to stop at a late night convenience store near his apartment any more, he said, because, after dark, it's full of scary-looking Black guys with gold teeth and saggy pants. But on this particular evening, he goes on, he wound up stopping there anyway and was invited more than once (by one of the scary-looking Black guys) to buy drugs. He asks his readers if he's "racist" for wanting to avoid the guys at the store and if the dope man is "racist" for assuming he was looking for drugs. I hardly know where to begin.

First of all, if you'll recall from this post, I don't believe anybody without the power to define their own and other's lives can be racist. So, I wouldn't see the guys with the grills as racist, in any case. Intimidating, possibly. Maybe even irritating, depending on how you feel about drugs and how much coming and going it brings to that section of the neighborhood. But not racist.

Still, in this case (hang onto your hats here, kids), I don't see the article writer as necessarily racist either, at least not for wanting to avoid the party. See, he may be a racist (I think all "White" people are, even the ones who struggle daily to renounce their racial privilege, as I do), but the reason he doesn't want to go to this particular store any more is because he's afraid. Duh!

Now, what's interesting about this is that, were the parking lot (and inside) of the store in question being haunted by other European-American males, looking tough, even a little psycho maybe, and accosting customers trying to sell stolen property (or drugs--what the heck?), would the writer have wondered why he was uncomfortable? I doubt that he would have written the piece. And if he had, I suspect it would have taken an entirely different tack. He might have ranted about what's happening to his neighborhood. Or to the city in general. Or he might have berated local law enforcement. Or he even might have talked about how lack of jobs has more and more young men looking for alternate ways to support themselves. But he would either not have been afraid (and if not, why not?) or he would have known and admitted he was afraid. He wouldn't have written an article asking whether or not he was being "classist" to look askance at these youth for being up in his world making him uncomfortable.

My point is this: White folks are scared to death of Black folks. Not just after dark, either. And not just the ones with gold teeth. White folks know the history and they know that the history goes on. And they know that they benefit from it and they know that African-Americans are hurt by it. And they know that if they were Black, they would be pissed off. You know what I'm sayin'? And that makes White folks scared of Black folks.

They don't admit it. Even to themselves. But Black folks know. That's why some angry young Black males will push. Because they know White folks are scared. And there's a certain base level of gratification for powerless people of color watching a White guy ready to pee his pants busily trying to pretend otherwise out of concern that the smell of fear will be the deciding factor on whether or not he pays some awful price. The scene is really the pay-off and good for days of chuckling afterwards. As offensive as this might seem to some European-Americans, if it keeps the rage from boiling all over us, we should probably count ourselves lucky and leave it at that.

But White supremacists are always talking about how dangerous African-Americans are to the "good (White) citizens" of U.S. communities. And, God knows, if I looked Black, I'd be dangerous because I'd be one of those who are pissed off--and for what I maintain are perfectly good reasons. But the fact is that, as reasonable as rage against the White power structure and its oppressive practices is, the majority of Black folks, by and large, are not threatening anybody--not even each other. It's really quite remarkable when you think about it, after all African-Americans have been through and continue to face on a daily basis. And White people know. They know. They know. They know. (Hel-lo! Do we not all live in the same nation, even if we don't live in the same culture?)

Last night, I watched a beautifully done Czech movie entitled "Divided We Fall." It was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film of the year 2000 and I could certainly see why. It's a story about a couple in Eastern Europe who hide a Jew during the Nazi occupation and the horrified extents to which they have to go in the attempt to pull it off successfully. The story line, script, and direction were excellent, but the actors were phenomenal, not just because they made me believe them, but because they took me there--to the time, the place, and the incredibly complicated circumstances.

There are few people in the U.S. over the age of fifteen who haven't been exposed in some way or other to information related to the heinous crimes committed against the Jews in Nazi-held countries during World War II. Even the knowledge that Jews were not the only ones to suffer (at least seven million others died, as well--gypsies, homosexuals, members of the resistance, among others) in no way mitigates that particular nightmare of Jewish existence for more than a decade, while much of the world just watched--including the bulk of their neighbors and the communities around them. Which is what the drama of "Divided We Fall" is all about. It's about how some of the community collaborates with the Nazis, even though they are not themselves "bad" people. And how some are so terrified that they'll scream "Jew! Jew!" at the sight of one rather than risk being thought to be sympathetic. And how some just hide behind shutters and try to stay out of the way in the attempt to survive personally, regardless. But, as I already mentioned, the main couple in this film decide to do the unthinkable, putting their lives in mortal danger to save one man, the son of their former boss, the only local Jew to escape and return after the rest of his family is already dead.

The couple has wildly mixed feelings about the process in which they find themselves and emotions run high at one point or another for various reasons (I don't want to spoil it for you--it's a really decent flick, if you don't mind subtitles). Still, the most disturbing thought that wiggled its way into my mind as I watched it had really nothing to do with the Jews or World War II or even Europeans. It had to do with one man who had already suffered unspeakably unexpectedly finding the staunchest kind of allies in two people with everything to lose by reaching out to him.

In more than one unnervingly intense scene, the look on that young Jew's face went straight through me. He wasn't asking for anything. He knew the position he was in. He knew the couple was infinitely better off without him in their lives. And they knew it, too. And it kept occurring to me that this scenario, this precise excruciating horror was played out thousands of times in Nazi-occupied Europe. Many times in this same way, even when all lost their lives because of it.

And then (could you see this coming?) I began to think about other, heart-breakingly similar expressions on the faces of young Black men standing in handcuffs beside a patrol car; young Black mothers trying to figure out how to support their children when the safety net of social assistance has ripped apart without warning; elderly people of color, pushed aside all their lives and praying--still--for grace to keep believing.

Oh, I know that in the U.S. in 2006, there are no concentration camps per se (though if you've never walked down a tier in a maximum security penitentiary and looked into the eyes of the men and women there, how would you know?). I know there are no mass gas chambers and no creamatoria. But there were two and one-half centuries of slavery. And then the better part of another century of Jim Crow. And the continuing trap of the projects and the ghettos. And the on-going reality of always being portrayed by the society as being less than--being "Black"--even when the African-American is a surgeon or a saint.

The fact is that Jews suffered the Nazis for less than two decades, horrendous as the situation was. But African-Americans have suffered White supremacy (different from the Nazis in what way again?) for more than three centuries. And while there have been allies, they are like those in "Divided We Fall," often riddled with their own fears and conflicts and compromises about their stance, and far fewer than have been so desperately needed to support the multiple millions left, sometimes literally, hanging in the wind.

When it's over, and White supremacy will someday be over, one way or the other, who will be ashamed to face their neighbors, I wonder? Who will remember their own humanity and weep? And who will smile across the great divide, knowing they did nothing more than what was right; that the cost, however great, was worth it; and that all they did was only what they would have hoped for from another had they been the one in hiding, had they been the one called "Black"?

One doesn't have to fear one's allies.

Saving My Soul

All my childhood and up into my teens, I lived in a family with a profound commitment to the kinds of church settings that are deeply concerned with saving people's souls. Until my parents joined a church with slightly less dramatic overtones, I was treated on a regular basis as far back as I can remember to a steady diet of mind-bendingly emotional appeals known as "altar calls." If you grew up Episcopalian or Catholic, you may have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you've ever sat (or stood--sometimes interminably) through a really full-tilt boogie altar call, just the mention of the term will bring back a graphic memory. If you've experienced as many of them as I have, you may have mixed feelings about the memory: the backdrop of organ music intended to stir the hapless sinners, the singing of hymns about coming home (verse after verse, over and over), the bowed heads of an entire congregation, and the pleading entreaties of a preacher or evangelist who would often come down from the pulpit, mopping his brow with a big white handkerchief, to stand in front of the listeners and meet the men, women, and children who stumble, weeping, down the aisle.

I was an altar call retread. My parents were at best, horrifyingly critical, and at worst, criminal in the various types of attention they showed me and my four younger brothers and sisters. They did the best they could, I know, given the nightmare childhoods they survived themselves. And I don't fault them any more. Hell, the more people I meet and the more students I have, the more I'm not sure anybody in the U.S. had an Ozzie and Harriet family life. But regardless of the factors involved, I was more easily moved than the average kid--or maybe I just needed to be comforted--but over those years before I could opt out of the church-going (which I largely did at my earliest opportunity), I "went down the aisle" like someone who was trying to make the Guinness Book of World Records. I was seeking redemption from my sin, my wrongdoings, my badness (whatever I perceived that to be at the age of ten). I was trying to get my soul saved.

This is not a minor issue for one spoon-fed hell-fire and brimstone from birth (I guess it was) and suffering enough in this life to be infinitely sure that I did not want to suffer for eternity, as well. I didn't want to leave any stone unturned or run the risk of accidently forgetting to confess a "sin" that might cost me my mansion in Heaven.

By the time I left home, however, I was more ambivilent about the process and, will just have to trust that the multiple times I answered the call as a child did the trick because my spiritual development has taken on a different tone these days. And I think of my soul in terms less likely to be savable with a quick trip down the aisle on a Sunday evening and more likely to require some day-to-day effort on my part.

Now, I don't mean to disparage anyone's practice of religion, but most of these posts just kind of write themselves with me along for the ride (and to punch the letters on the keyboard). Besides, I'm given to long introductions sometimes and when I thought about the topic I'm about to discuss, this is just the way it began.

I am a sociologist. Which makes it sound a little like I'm introducing myself at a twelve-step group: "My name is Changeseeker and I'm a sociologist." But I'm not only a sociologist. And it could be (and I'm sure would be, by many sociologist's standards) that I'm not primarily a sociologist. A sociologist is a scholar, right? A highly trained individual committed to publishing their research in peer-reviewed scientific journals. A person with a broader view than the average. A person who takes things everybody already knows and puts them into language nobody can understand. And that isn't me. I am highly trained, no question about that. And I have a broader view--some people think too broad. But while I never turn off my radar and I suck observations out of the air everywhere I go and while I've finished one book and am simultaneously working on three others even as we speak, I'm not one of those "objective" social scientists who works so hard at not having a perspective, they miss noticing that they already have one.

And sometimes that confuses folks. So I think I should probably set the record straight.

To do so, I will first have to write a little bit about William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was born in Massachusetts in the early 1800's, and according to Wikipedia, was an abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. Garrison had my skin tone, but he was early and utterly committed to the abolition of slavery and across the board justice for people of color. When he established his own newspaper, The Liberator, at the age of 26, Garrison wrote, referring to his stance against slavery:

"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity? I will be harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to sound a moderate alarm...but urge me not to use moderation on a cause like the present...I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD."

Four years later, he was very nearly lynched in the streets of Massachusetts, and after he was arrested to protect him from the mob, he wrote on the wall of his jail cell:

Wm Lloyd Garrison was put into this cell Wednesday afternoon, October 21, 1835, to save him from the violence of a 'respectable and influential' mob, who sought to destroy him for preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine that 'all men are created equal.'"

For twenty more years, Garrison continued his war on the immorality and injustice of White supremacy, with little support. But eventually he developed enough of a following that more than 3000 people in Framingham, Massachusetts, cheered him on at a 4th of July celebration when he burned a copy of the Declaration of Independence as a protest against the peculiar institution he had fought for so long.

Ultimately, speaking at a celebration honoring the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which officially freed all slaves in 1865), Garrison was received by a standing ovation that lasted several minutes and then he said: "I am unspeakably happy to believe that the great mass of my countrymen are now heartily disposed to admit that I have not acted the part of a madman, fanatic, incendiary or traitor." It must have been a satisfying moment for Garrison. How could he have imagined that 141 years later, I would still be seen by many as a nut case for saying nothing more than that White supremacy is an unnatural, unmitigated attack on the dignity of human beings everywhere, regardless of their skin tone? Can you imagine what would happen if I burned a copy of the Declaration of Independence a week from Tuesday? They'd send me to Guantanamo, if I lived through the riot.

How sad for the memory of Garrison. How his memory drives me on! But I'm not committed because I'm trying to save Black folks, any more than Garrison was. I am, like all my spiritual forbears, simply trying to save my soul. And convinced that it takes more than a prayer and a promise to do so.

See, the bottom line is that I believe my mission in life (yes) is to grow spiritually and be useful. Growing spiritually, you'll note, comes first in that sentence. And to the best of my understanding so far, if I grow spiritually, I'll be useful. So I'm not trying to beat out anybody else and win (whatever that would look like). I'm not trying to fix anything per se and most certainly not the entire world system--all on my lonesome. I am simply doing my little part, whatever that is at a given moment, to move myself in a more healthy, more responsible, more conscious direction, recognizing that others may or may not fully appreciate my process or even, God help us, their own.

My teaching, my books, my speaking, my counseling, my meditation, my conversation, my swimming laps--whatever I do is about that process for me and I'm just following my gut and seeing where it leads. That's the reason I tend not to argue. What would be the point? I'm not trying to force my will on anybody else. I'm just telling the truth, like Garrison, loudly and without apology. We all have our little roles to play. I'm playing mine.

Credit Where Credit Is Due*

While browsing my usual blog-reads this week-end, I stopped by Hysterical Blackness, as I often do (here) and read an account of a U.S. Senate resolution a year ago that apologized for that body's failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation even when seven Presidents requested specifically that they do so (see this site.) Apparently, the good Senators of previous decades preferred to filibuster rather than risk their constituents not having the freedom to attack and even murder African-Americans (and most particularly African-American men) at will without risk of legal consequences. I would most certainly have known about this when the resolution passed had I not been seriously ill and awaiting surgery last June, but even a year later, I'm grateful to find out about it now.

On the surface, it might not be immediately apparent to some folks why lynching needed to be prosecuted as a federal crime. But the fact is that, as long as states got to decide whether or not a "crime" had been committed, they seemed to keep deciding that it had not. And it wasn't just in the South either. One photograph most of us have seen, for example, was taken at a lynching in Marion, Indiana (remember?). It seems bizarre to most of us now, but it was often standard practice to take photos, turn them into postcards, and mail them out to all your relatives and friends to brag about your presence at the event in question, scrawling across the back of the card statements like "we know how to treat 'em here!"

So you can see how inconvenient it would have been for ordinary White folks to have to worry about some big time federal agents nosing around what just wasn't any of their business.

When Harry T. and Harriette Moore died in their beds as a result of their house in central Florida being bombed on Christmas eve in 1951, everybody knew the Klan did it in retaliation for Harry's work with the NAACP. And everybody knew who the Klan members were. Susan Carol McCarthy, who spent her girlhood around many of the principals, including Moore, recently authored a very intriguing novel about the occurrence entitled "Lay That Trumpet In Our Hands." Still, while the feds were chomping at the bit to do something about it, they couldn't--because murder isn't a federal crime and the state just didn't feel it could make an adequate case against the very important (and very powerful) "gentlemen" who formed the leadership of the local Klan implicated. You get the picture.

Anyway, so the Senate's long-standing unwillingness to intervene in this process on behalf of their constituents of color finally became more or less moot with the establishment of the concept of the "hate crime," but not before thousands and thousands of African-American men were horrifically and sometimes publically tortured to death, generally without any repercussions of any kind for the perpetrators. The official statistics are more than 4700 between 1882 and 1968 (keeping in mind that where no body was found, no lynching could be declared; lynchings are still occurring; and sometimes, such as in the case of Malcolm X's father, the death might be called a "suicide" in spite of the fact that his head had been bashed in and his body placed on a railroad track). Still, using even the very conservative figure of 4700, it averages out to about one per week for 86 years, with incidents appearing in all but four of the states in the union.

So an apology--at the least--was overdue and in order. And while many of the Senators didn't care enough to be present for the voice vote, for which there are no records as to who voted how, 89 out of the 100 of them eventually decided to go on record as co-sponsoring the resolution with Republican Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. I thought it only appropriate that the ten who decided not to go on record as co-sponsoring the resolution, under those circumstances, ought to get recognition for their...um...shall we say "oversight?"

It is true, of course, that it was a voice vote (and how very convenient of the Senators to give their brothers the option of an "out"--something the victims of lynchings did not receive). Consequently, we can't prove the following Senators voted against the resolution, which passed, in any case. But we know for a fact (thanks to this site.) that they were the only ones out of 100 that chose not to co-sponsor the Senate resolution apologizing to lynching victims and their descendents for not enacting legislation that might have saved at least some of their lives by establishing a clear expectation of sanctions for the egregious crimes committed against them. In alphabetical order, then, the Senators who do not appear on the list of co-sponsors are Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Thad Cochran (R-MS), John Cornyn (R-TX), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Trent Lott (R-MS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), John E. Sununu (R-NH), and Craig Thomas (R-WY). Just thought you should know.

*This post is dedicated to the memory of those unfortunate souls of color who died in terror at the hands of White murderers and to the victims' descendents who will ever bear the sorrow of that horrifying experience.

Ya Can't Win For Losin'

When I was small and something didn't go the way my parents wanted it to, they would shake their heads sadly and say to each other: "Ya can't win for losin'." I basically understood them to mean that no matter how hard you try and no matter how things look as if they're going in a positive direction, they never, in the end, turn out well.

Now, obviously, this wasn't true for them and eventually, I knew it. I mean, we started out in the mountains of Kentucky in a house across a vacant lot from a coal mine. And by the time I was in high school, we were in northern Illinois, living in a three-story house with a working fireplace and wall-to-wall carpeting (not minor accoutrements in the early 1960's).

But the saying stuck in my mind and I thought of it again today as I opened my new Jet magazine and saw the stunning young Togolese beauty queen who was named Miss World Cup in Germany the first of this month (see this.) Weird, huh? During World Cup matches, footballers of color are spit on, while "fans" make monkey noises and throw bananas onto the field. But Miss World Cup is a warm caramel color with a broad nose and large, dark brown eyes.

I'm sure that there are some who read my last post who would find this a wonderful thing. "See?" I can just hear them saying. "Things are getting better!" And that might be true for Togolese student Edwige Madze Badakou, who beat out 31 other contestants to win $2,500 and the use of a convertible for a year. But one can't help but wonder what this might or might not mean to a world class soccer player who's wiping some stranger's spit off the side of his face as he takes his position during a crucial moment in the game.

I know that this is going to make me look like somebody who can't see the positive even when it has a big red neon arrow pointed at it, blinking on and off. But the problem is, in my opinion, that White folks feel guilty about letting Black folks get brutalized, so they do things to make themselves feel better and give themselves an excuse to look the other way when the Hitler banners are unfurled. Like voting for a Black beauty queen.

Don't get me wrong. She's gorgeous. But that's not my point.

People of color (Africans, African-Americans, Asians, and a whole raft of other indigenous peoples, such as the Native Americans) have always earned their share of the awards, distinctions, and accolades, even when they didn't get them. The first thing you notice when you start studying real history (and herstory?) is that since White males had the power to decide what got published and disseminated, then White males got all the credit for everything, even if they didn't actually do it. Or it just didn't get reported at all. Tidy, huh? And, over time, in the United States, at least, people of color actually began to believe the hype themselves, waiting to "someday" be "allowed" to achieve something, when people just like them have been achieving all along.

Anyway, so here's this lovely young woman who had just as much right to win as anybody else, but there's no real way to know how many votes were cast "in solidarity" with people of color in the face of the vicious racism that blights the World Cup competition or because some White voter feels guilty about not doing anything else about it. The point isn't whether or not she should be or deserves to be Miss World Cup. She has as much right to be in that position, certainly, as any White queen who ever served because she met the Euro-centric standards of beauty that held such contests in their thrall for so long. The point is that her election can be used to placate White guilt that footballers of color still have to deal with violent attacks on themselves by White people during soccer matches. And that puts a whole new spin on "Ya can't win for losin'," huh?

I'll bet if the officials shut down the match the second a banana hit the field, that crap would cease. I'll bet if the officials had to pay 5000 Euros to every footballer that got spit on, the Hitler youth would stop being allowed into the games. But while on the one hand, Miss Badakou is enjoying (and rightfully so) her moment in the sun, official responses that would be strong enough to stop demonstrations of oppression against people of color at the event over which she ostensibly "reigns" are unlikely to occur. I wonder if it's hard to maintain her regal smile from time to time, watching her brothers continue to suffer because of their skin tone when it's the same as hers.

A World Cup...of Hate?

I first heard about this when France's Thierry Henry, arguably one of the best soccer players in the world, got international accolades for talking Nike into bank-rolling a Stand Up/Speak Up campaign against rampant racism at the matches. But I was totally unprepared for the recent rash of news media discussions about the extent and boldness of the activities--still common--that made the campaign necessary.

It's World Cup time, from what I can gather. God knows I'm not tuned into or turned on by sports of any kind really, but the competition began last Friday and will continue until July 9th, with matches in multiple European countries featuring the best "footballers" in the world (including some from the U.S.). The reason I know this information is that I have actually read a couple of lengthy pieces on it, but you know by now, of course, that if I'm writing about it, the subject is not sports--it's race.

Apparently, soccer (called "football" outside the U.S., hence the reference to "footballers" above) has a history of drawing hyper-emotional fans (remember the bloody free-for-alls they finally had to crack down on a couple of decades ago in England?). Well, the powers-that-be finally got the fisticuffs under control more or less, but over the past couple of years, they've begun to admit that there's another little problem they probably should deal with. Racist groups and individuals make the matches hellish for footballers of color. Simon Kuper, a British sports columnist, says "It was seen as all good fun and part of football culture and accepted for a long time." Hmmm. Let's take a look at the good fun he's talking about.

Thousands of fans screaming monkey noises and throwing bananas onto the field when a Black player is trying to make a kick. Entire groups unfurling pro-Hitler banners, complete with swastikas, and using intricate choreography to form human swastikas or even the face of Der Fuhrer in the stands. Teaming up to spit on Black players. Sounds like a barrel of laughs to me. And keep in mind: we're not talking about occasional instances here or certain countries or a few particular people. We're talking about routine attacks.

"In a stadium of 60,000, it's easy to be anonymous," says Jerome Champagne of the Federation Internationale de Football Association. But I've seen photos of young men being allowed to hang a big swastika banner by the fans seated behind them--and their faces in full view. What's up with that? Champagne knows. "The main issue," he goes on, "is not racism within soccer, but racism around soccer." No lie.

So the footballers organize in groups with names like "Kick It Out" (in Britain) and the "Never Again Association" (in Poland), both part of a network called Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE). And there are fans--such as those who formed "Arsenal Against Racism"--who have joined them. Thierry's Stand Up/Speak Up campaign sold four and one-half million black and white wrist bands, raising five million Euros (more than six million dollars!) for anti-racist projects in eleven countries.

Nevertheless, Kuper tells us: "You can still hear people say, 'Oh, it's all good fun." Being spit on is good fun? Hitler is good fun? Gee, and all this time, I liked reading. Just look what I've been missing!

My point is that the Hitler youth and the spitters may represent a relatively small group, comparatively speaking. But they're not the ones calling it fun. They're not doing it for fun. They're doing it to spread an agenda of racist hatred. I understand them. They're sick and, if they're allowed to, they will bring us to mayhem, at least, and destruction, if they can. But the ones that scare me are the "ordinary" people who call it "fun." Would they laugh at being spit on or called an animal? Would they find these situations "fun" if they were happening to their children? Of course not. So what is their agenda?

We still have Nazi's in the U.S. They leaflet campuses on a regular basis in this country. But overall, many European-Americans purport to believe that all that bold and ugly racist stuff is behind us. They might watch the craziness at the soccer matches and pat themselves on the back as being from a nation where that isn't currently happening. But most of them still wink at racist jokes, look away from racist activities in the work place, and would not consider seeing themselves as allies of people of color. So they are probably not much different, in the end, from the Europeans (who look like them) and ignore the "fun" while people of color continue to have their spirits lynched in the name of a sport.

Passing and Crossing (Oh, My!)

A few weeks ago, I backed into an interesting dialogue here. It started with a post by Rachel S., who's also a sociologist and also blogs often on race at Rachel's Tavern. And part of what the discussion was about had to do with "transracialing," a concept I had never heard of before.

Actually, there was considerable back and forth about what transracialing is. One comment suggested that it was just what they call it when an individual or couple adopt a child of a "race" different from their own. But a more expansive view suggested that transracialing might be similar to transgendering, that is, when a person crosses the gender divide and "becomes" (either literally by surgery or to some lesser extent) the "opposite" of the category in which they originated. Now the point was made that people are born biologically gendered, but the point was also made that society does apply--with a heavy hand--characteristics and expectations related to the perception of each gender. And then, of course, there are, in fact, a healthy handful of folks convinced enough that sometimes biology errs that they have surgery to change their bodies, if they can afford to.

"Race," on the other hand, is only as biological as it can be physically perceived. That is to say, many African-Americans have "passed for" White, sometimes for their entire lives. And one Californian writer who had been raised as and married Black, discovered in his fifties a few years ago when he had a DNA test that his family actually had only some Native American blood and no African-American heritage at all. He was not pleased. Apparently, his people (located in Louisiana where he was raised) just didn't like White folks and had features and skin tone that allowed them to pull off living on the "colored" side of town--so they did, with all the attendant difficulties accompanying that decision.

So, after reading everything the others had to say, I started mulling over what I think about the idea of transracialing. "If 'passing,' 'Watermelon Man,' and 'Black.White.' (the recent television show) are all transracial in nature," I commented, throwing in my two cents. "What about European-Americans who wear oversized clothes low on the hips, speak various Black vernaculars, and/or dred-lock their hair? Or to get even more subtle, what about European-Americans who prefer rap, jazz, or R&B or who go to Black clubs and maybe hang out with Black friends (primarily)? And certainly 'transracial' might be construed to include European-Americans who have reached a point of being bicultural in every area of their lives, even to the point of blending their families and birthing biracial children?" Am I, then, I wonder, "transracial" rather than "bicultural" as I have typically referred to myself in the past?

I can affect with great facility what is often perceived as typical Black speech patterns and body language. I have an African mask in my living room and buy mixed c.d.'s and shea butter soap from guys that sell their products from card tables. I own 150 books on racial issues, most of them written by people of color. And I performed in a spoken word event two weeks ago, for goodness' sake. I have been laughingly referred to by Black friends and students from time to time as the "Blackest person I know." But what does all that mean, in the end? I don't know yet.

Anyway, I was still mulling over these questions when I made a trip to another city to see a play this past week-end and wound up spending Saturday afternoon with an African-American extended family that was celebrating the youngest grandchild graduating from high school. It was a fair-sized group, with people coming and going all afternoon, a mother-lode of the most wonderful food in the old guard Black southern tradition, and just enough bottle-tipping going on to appropriately oil those with a mind to get oiled.

Before going to the celebration site, however, I had the pleasure of spending an hour or so privately with the 72-year-old matriarch of the family, who happened to be White--German, in fact (rather than European-American)--a woman who married an African-American soldier while he was in her country and then eventually returned here with him in 1959. They had a family. He eventually left the military and joined the post office. They built a beautiful little home on a good-sized hunk of land and basically lived the "American Dream." Except, of course, that it took them so long to get the Army to let them wed that they wound up with two children before they could finalize the matter. And even then, they had to sign a paper promising never to try to live in Florida as man and wife...!?

She had plenty to say about adventures such as having to travel separately--him in the car with the children and her with the baby on the train--whenever they needed to pass through the southern United States. But overall, it all sounded less dramatic than it might have, given some of the stories I've heard or read. Nevertheless, it was truly fascinating to me to be sitting in her house, filled with Black family photographs, with African artifacts here and there, and with a large painting of African-Americans picking cotton on the wall over her head--while she herself is not a person of color. Seventy-two-years-old, with her German accent still readily apparent, and with her husband passed on now for some years, she would fit handily in any European or European-American setting, but she has surely become transracial, if anyone has.

She doesn't speak Black vernacular. She doesn't affect Black mannerisms. Yet, when I commented on the painting of the cotton-pickers, she only replied with the name of the one who had given it to her, rather than making any attempt to explain it. It is part of her world now, no matter what she looks like. And it's as simple as that. No matter what word we put on it.

Perhaps, as one of the commentors to Rachel's post suggested, "The act of 'trans-'ing is an attempt to insert agency and self-definition into categories which socially don’t seem to be founded on these." In other words, people through the ages and into the present, however hard the attempt is made to squash them into socially-constructed categories, will, like water, seek their own level. They will, without apology, define themselves, even if they put themselves in harm's way for doing so.

And Les, who can be found here, wrote, "Being black is therefore not just a skin color but also an ethnic identity. I think this is an important distinction. A person who is visually black is recognized as such whenever [he or] she deals with anyone. A black-looking person is identifiable as such before [they] move or open [their] mouth. It is not an invisible identity. However, somebody who has been accepted into the black community may have black ethnicity." Hmmm.

*nods slowly and thoughtfully*

Holla.

Abolish The "N" Word

A friend of mine I don't get to see as often as I'd like tipped me this week to a film clip presentation that can be seen at www.abolishthenword.com It's intense and may be upsetting to some folks for its graphic images and statements, but I highly recommend it. I had to chase the words a bit because, on my little computer screen, they kept falling above or below what I could see without moving to catch them, but after a couple of times, I had clearly gotten the message. Again, I'm warning: it's strong...

"Suicide Is Painless...la LA la LA la LA la"

A few weeks ago I heard of a book about suicide bombers, such as the ones we've become so mesmerized by over the past couple of years in the Middle East. Apparently, Robert Pape (in "Dying to Win: the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism") suggests that suicide bombers pop up as a last ditch effort to get rid of forces that have occupied their land. It's an intriguing thought, when you consider that the U.S. military is supposedly "liberating" country after country over there rather than "occupying" them. Of course, if the military doesn't leave when they're done "liberating," then the people who have been "liberated" may, in fact, feel "occupied." Not much gratitude, I guess.

Anyway, as I thought about this idea since, it occurred to me that I've repeatedly come across statistics of late about young Black males killing themselves. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, for example, reported that between 1980 and 1996, the suicide rate for 15 to 19-year-0ld African-American males more than doubled. The Black Mental Health Alliance reported that the actual figure for that period represents a rise of 146%. And another source I saw, but can't relocate, claimed that if the age group was broadened to include Black males to twenty-four years of age, the rise in suicide rate becomes nearly 250%. The situation gets even more dire when you add the fact that some social scientists are now discussing the idea that many of the so-called homicides of one young Black male by another are probably masked suicides, where a desperate and struggling young man just puts himself in a position to be killed--so that he can die.

Obviously, this is a heart-breaking situation. But once I had both of these thoughts jockeying for position in my mind simultaneously, I began to imagine what the implications might be. What if young Black men are killing themselves, not because their land has been occupied, but because their minds have been taken hostage by racist forces that have set up camp and refused to leave and they don't see any way less radical to free themselves.

Reminded of the song "Suicide is Painless" (the "MASH" t.v. show theme song written by Mike Altman), I looked up the lyrics and found:

"The game of life is hard to play.
I'm gonna lose it anyway.
The losing card I'll someday lay,
so this is all I have to say:
suicide is painless,
it brings on many changes;
and I can take or leave it, if I please.

"The sword of time will pierce our skins.
It doesn't hurt when it begins,
but as it works its way on in,
the pain grows stronger...watch it grin..."

So what am I trying to say with all this morbid talk of death and desperation? Well, one thing is that I do believe in some kind of kharmic unfolding: that what goes around comes around for societies, as well as individuals. Everybody says they believe some version of this thought. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" says the Christian Bible. "Do not to others what you wouldn't want done to you" says the Jewish Torah. "Whatever you send into the lives of others comes back into your own" was my mother's version.

"Well, I'm not making anybody kill themselves," Mr. White Bread protests petulantly.

No, Mr. White Bread, but you're helping to maintain and benefitting from a system that makes young people want to. And believe me, it's the same thing.

A dead youth may not hold you responsible, but if you believe in God or a Source of any kind from which the above named principles may have emanated, then you better watch your back. Because every dead child is an indictment against us collectively and even individually, if we are not actively involved in changing the status quo.

We watch the suicide bombers in the Middle East as if our President and our military and our torturing interrogators and our tax dollars were not specifically perpetrating the horrors of occupation on innocent victims of our war machine. And we watch the suicide rate of young Black males rise as if it somehow had nothing to do with the fact that we won't provide them a decent education, and we won't hire them to do a decent job, and we incarcerate them at our earliest opportunity, and tell them as often and in as many ways as possible that it's all their fault. I just hope they don't start taking people with them when they go. But we may have it coming, if they do.

Who's Gonna Liberate America?

They had come to turn in their final exam essay papers and they stayed to talk with each other and with me, sitting sideways or on top of the desks as if to make sure that a viewer would immediately recognize that they were only temporarily perched and not required to be there. It doesn't always happen, but it often does and I have learned to expect the possibility. It's fun to see who'll stay this time and where the conversation will go. I'm just a willing participant, along for the ride in these cases. It seems to be their way of disconnecting from a context in which they have felt safe and to which they apparently feel beholden. I am, inevitably, humbled by this process and never leave before they do, no matter what. I feel as if I must make sure that they are ready to let go or know that they don't have to, whichever it is for them. Last night, the topic was the juvenile justice system.

It probably happened because I'm teaching a course on Adolescence and Delinquency in the fall, a course for which a number of them have already registered. Or maybe it was because several of them either do now or have worked with "at risk" kids in one way or another, while a couple of others had been in the system themselves. The process of this closing discussion is always, somehow, magical to me. And must be for them. Why else would markedly "busy" young people choose to "hang out" with a teacher for nearly two hours when they don't have to? Why else would they actually apologize to the group when they get up to leave the space?

Anyway, one of them, an African-American man in his twenties who'll graduate this summer, came in during the conversation and stayed, putting in his two cents from time to time, but clearly waiting, marking time until the others left. It didn't surprise me when he walked me across the campus as I headed for my car and it took almost no encouragment for him to begin talking about what was really on his mind.

He's been in my classes before. And he'll finish his degree without question in just a couple of months. But it's not really school that captures his best attention these days. He's a bright and highly capable young professional in his field and he longs to be given his head, to be allowed to run with the other bright young professionals. Besides taking senior-level college courses, K. transports youth in the foster care system for a paycheck, manages a sizable student-run business on campus, and is finishing a professional internship, as well. He had left the student-run business at one point, yearning to expand his wings and explore his mettle elsewhere, but they begged him to return and he did, not a little discouraged by the way things have been going anyway.

It seems that he applied for a position he really wanted in his field, a position he felt strongly he was ready to do and wanted to prove himself doing. But not only did he not get the position, but when he met the man who did, a man he actually had to teach a few things, he was seriously disappointed. How could they have chosen this man over him, he wondered? This less competent, less prepared, less motivated man--how could he have gotten the brass ring while K. was stuck with continuing his preparation?

Then, in New York, K. met the head man of the organization in which he was interested. The man recognized his name immediately, he said, volunteering that K.'s resume was on the head man's desk even as they spoke, but there was no subsequent contact after that. And K. was left in the dark again, discouraged.

When he went in to work his internship, he was not only loaded for bear in terms of the useful capabilities he had already developed, but he quickly committed to working twice the hours of the other interns, only to find himself being sent out for coffee or lunch and otherwise being told to "slow down--it'll come." And now the internship is over and they "can't afford to hire him." And he feels as if he's back at Square One. All dressed up and no where to go.

It's not that he doesn't understand that he has to pay his dues. He's paid so many dues, in fact, that academic advisors are now telling him not to put everything on his resume that he has actually already done because it's liable to keep him out of the "entry-level" positions to which he's probably going to be relegated for a while, maybe a long while. Still, he's a thoroughbred in the prime of his youth. He's feeling his oats and he's ready to run.

I said all the things he needed to hear. And he said he felt "better," might play some ball. But what we didn't talk about--either one of us--was his worst fear (and mine): the effect his skin might be having on his situation. Maybe it's not connected to all the dead-ends and the "slow downs" and the "leave-it-off-the-resumes," but what if it is? After all, I'm the one who told him that African-American men are four times more likely to be unemployed than European-American men--at every educational level. What's he supposed do with that knowledge as he walks to the plate for his time at bat?

Then he started telling me about how he used to play basketball as a middle school boy, wanting to be a pro ball player until he faced the fact that his height was going to preclude that. He didn't try to put the story in context for me, but I already know the context. He was, in essence, asking me what a young, gifted, and Black man is supposed to do about his access to the work place when he's just too short or too slow or otherwise unsuited for the only positions those with the power to define will allow someone who looks like him to fill. And I have no answer for him. And he just has to sit at the starting line, with all that power under the hood, burning the rubber off his tires against the pavement without being given the signal that he can put his motor in gear.

A couple of months ago, in a discussion about the way the United States military is mobilized, supposedly "bringing democracy" to countries all over the world, K. once verbalized a crucial rhetorical question: "Who's gonna liberate America?" And the fact is, K., I don't know.

A Day Of Silence

Something weird happened to me today. I willed myself not to speak from nine to five. Not to whisper. Not to grunt. Not to hum or sing or make a noise with my mouth at all. And it was weird.

The way it happened was that students all over the country called for this day to be a Day of Silence in solidarity with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people in the U.S. who are forced to be silent about their identity in the face of general disapproval of their personhoods and general disavowal of their equal rights under the Constitution. Some folks seem to conveniently forget that the U.S. Constitution clearly protects the rights of every citizen. Some folks want queers to shut up. Want differently-abled people to stay at home. Want women to keep their eyes on the ground. Want people of color to be invisible except as needed.

So, anyway, I decided (I guess you could see this coming) to participate.

I was informed that participation would require wearing a black t-shirt advertising the event and the commitment not to speak for eight hours, no matter what. So, I picked up my t-shirt and a stack of cards conveniently provided to hand to people during the course of trying to handle the affairs of a day without speaking.

When I woke up this morning, I took care of one business matter early, so that I could move into the rest of my day. And by the time I had showered and donned my shirt, I found myself becoming acutely aware of something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Something strange. A new, more intense understanding of something I hadn't yet really absorbed: the feeling of "difference."

Now, I've always been different on some pretty unapologetic levels. For example, there aren't a lot of women who've chosen to be as bold as I have, considering my socialization as a middle-class, mid-western White girl. And there aren't a lot of college professors who once spent five years on welfare. And there aren't a lot of White folks who've made even a good attempt at renouncing racial privilege, let alone a lifetime commitment to doing so daily. I'm different.

I breast-fed my babies--one of which was bi-racial--till they quit (my son was nearly four). I married more people than some people have dated. I got de-funded in grad school for writing about a topic that makes some sociologists twitch--no mean trick. I teach everything I've learned and not just the text book. I'm trying to be the change I want to see in this world (a la Gandhi). And I quit my day job just when I was beginning to look half-way normal year before last. I'm different.

But when push comes to shove, on a given day in public, the average person on the street won't see me as a threat. Especially if I don't open my mouth. I may not look my age, but you can look at me and tell I'm on the back nine. And I may not look rich by a long shot (my less than late model car is still badly dented eighteen months after some irresponsible driver crunched into it in a Walgreen's parking lot). But my favorite store is Dillard's and it's more or less obvious by assessing my clothes. I might be walking with, talking with, or variously greeted by one or more people of color more or less often, but someone who didn't know me would be more likely to think I'm a social worker than that we're up to something. So the fact is: I can pass. And regularly do. Not on purpose, because I like nothing better than to catch ordinary folks off guard and give 'em something to chew on. But just moving through my life, that's not immediately apparent.

In fact, last week-end, a couple of young African-American men raised the issue of the title of my book on race, which is Reduced to Equality: My Odyssey to Renounce Racial Privilege~and Find Myself. "You can't renounce racial privilege," they charged. "And even if you could, you could also just decide to pick it up again, if you wanted to." But the deal is that while I may not be able to renounce the so-called birthright of people who look like me, I can, nevertheless, spend my life on a daily odyssey to do so. And, of course, some White folks take it pretty hard when you move in that direction, so it's not only not easy to "change back," but it's actually easy to find yourself in limbo somewhere in the middle at some point feeling as though you may no longer belong anywhere.

I had a class to deal with this morning, but it happened that I had already planned a speaker for that time period, so I thought I was home free. I told my students on Monday what I'd be doing on Wednesday and prepared them a bit for the speaker (who had nothing to do with sexual orientation). Then, this morning, I entered the classroom and discovered that he would be fifteen minutes late.

Hmmmm.

So, I led a discussion without speaking a word. "Clap once for yes," one of the students called out, "and twice for no." Which I did, also scrawling across the board half-thoughts they seemed to follow with no problem. And the speaker came. And was amused, I think, by my commitment. And I answered questions after class and even in my office by writing on a pad, I swear, and never said a word.

My daughter didn't believe for a minute that I could pull it off. I have a serious reputation for being what we could call very talkative. In fact, the only way I learned to let other people get a word in edgewise once I got old enough to realize that I needed to do this occasionally was by holding my lips shut with one or more of my fingertips. But I went all day--hour after hour--without a peep. Even when I was in my department chair's office. Even when I ordered an oatmeal cookie and a cup of coffee to wash it down. Even when I went to the library to watch a video. Until two women wouldn't shut up in the media section of the library while I was trying to focus and I asked them to move, which they did. I was so upset with them that I completely forgot what I was trying to do and didn't even think about the fact that I spoke until this very moment.

Crap. And I tried so hard.

The reason I felt a need to write this, though, was that somewhere in the middle of everything, walking across the campus, it occurred to me that I felt weird. I felt as if I was wrapped in cotton, that I could hear people talk and birds sing and noises made, but I was just part of the scenery. I could have been a lamp post or a concrete bench. I was unnecessary to the pulsation of life on the planet. I was somehow shut in on myself.

The other t-shirt wearers became my only allies, the only ones who could really see me. We often hugged. We always waved. While I was not in any way disrespected for my silence by non-silent campus-dwellers (quite to the contrary), I still felt outside the vale. I felt my difference in a whole new and wholly visible way.

When I was invited to write something I've been called on the Wall of Shame (which was scheduled for destruction later), I signaled that I'd come back. I had to warm to the idea a bit. It seemed such a private matter. And when, a few minutes later, I was "told" that the pejorative didn't have to be about sexual orientation, I took the wide magic marker and wrote with bold letters "nigger-lover" in a blank space. Tears welled up in my eyes and I couldn't look at faces. I hurried away from the "wall," knowing they understood and glad that the fate of the "wall" was already sealed.

By the time I left the campus, ninety minutes before time was up, I was exhausted and looking forward to going home to my little apartment. I still didn't intend to speak until five o'clock, but I just wanted to be where the silence wouldn't be so deafening, the difference so heightened. With this new level of consciousness, I tried to imagine what it must be like to look African-American, to be utterly, critically aware at all times of my "race" in a country where that means so much. As I walked to my car, past the chattering, laughing "others," I felt my lips knitted together and remembered an African student telling me once that his outsider status had made him feel that his tongue was rooting itself to the top of his mouth from disuse, that until I had called to him from my porch, he was thinking of killing himself.

The point is that being "different" is a function of who has the power to define the norms. As long as White, protestant, heterosexual, middle class and upper class men fill that slot in this country, then those who don't fit into those categories will stand, to one degree or another and sometimes greatly, on the outside of the circle. And that makes for a lot of folks.

It's after five now, and I'm released. It feels almost embarrassing, this ability to let go of my difference, to return to being my middle class, able-bodied, White-looking, educated professional self when so many will go to bed tonight and rise tomorrow unable to step outside the bodies, the selves that mark them in others' eyes and in their hearts as unacceptable or, at least, as different. But my experience with being different for this one infinitesimal set of hours is still hanging palpable, like a soiled suit of clothes in the corner of my bedroom, where it will hang for the rest of my life.

The Reality Check Is On The Front Page

Until now, I have chosen not to write about the fourteen-year-old boy who was beaten and kicked to death by a group of White men January 6th in a so-called "boot camp" (how apropos!) in Bay County, Florida. I have also chosen not to write about the rape of an African-American dancer at a "party" in Durham, North Carolina, March 13th, where members of the Duke University lacrosse team were unwinding after a grueling week of being...well...whoever it is men like that perceive themselves to be.

Initially, of course, the fourteen-year-old boy, whose name was Martin Lee Anderson, was said to have died of sickle cell complications--after the beating that was (fortunately) caught on videotape. (Just how stupid do you have to be, one might wonder, to beat and kick a child to death in a group in front of a camera you unquestionably know exists?) And initially, of course, the rape victim--a young single mother of two who pays for her college courses dancing at parties (which is not as wildly uncommon as one would imagine)--was raped again in the media.

Some people in polite U.S. society (whatever that is in the face of our national love affair with violence against people of color everywhere in the world, including Florida and North Carolina) look away from these types of incidents, mumbling about young boys that get in trouble and young women who "shouldn't be" at an all-male party. I looked away--as much as I could--because reports like this give me a gut ache. My throat shuts. My tongue swells as if I might vomit. My tears clot. My teeth clench. I really, really want to see somebody get hurt. And that's not a way I like to feel. It never changes anything.

Now we hear that students from three schools are sitting in at the governor's office up in Tallahassee, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are scheduled to show up, and the FDLE chief--the top dog in this matter (hand-chosen by Governor Jeb Bush several years ago and the guy who actually established the particular boot camp in question, interestingly enough)--has stepped down. Also, we hear that, in spite of the fact that DNA tests ostensibly did not implicate the guys on the team, the coach has been fired, the remainder of the season scrapped, and two of the players (named Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty--no comment needed, I'm sure) have been arrested and charged with a string of serious crimes. And so we watch it all unfold in the daily news.

But glad as I am that "something's being done" and that it's not being "swept under the rug" on these two occasions, I know this doesn't mean that "progress is being made." It means that for whatever reason, these two incidents are going to play themselves out in public and something will happen (whatever that is), but a child will still be dead and a young mother's psyche will still be shattered (like to imagine how her final exams will go this coming week?). A mother and father will still be devastated and two children will still be raised by a woman whose fifteen minutes of fame are of her half-clad body on a burning cross. And people of color everywhere in the United States will still be left knowing that on the right day in just the right situation that victim could still be them.

No matter what happens, there's no reason to believe that these are the only similar incidents that have occurred this spring or that these events are not being repeated behind closed doors--and closed minds--even as I write these words. And there's absolutely no reason to believe as yet that rape and murder by European-Americans against helpless victims of color are not going to continue as a direct manifestation of White power in a nation not gone mad, you understand, but mad at its conception.

Europeans created this nation by stealing land from the Native Americans already on it and then making it rich by forcing millions of Africans to work fourteen hour days seven days per week for 250 years--without pay. And now White folks--who pat themselves on the back as if they have done something good--conveniently ignore the obvious: that their history has never really stopped. It continues to crop up like a relentless plague of weeds carrying a poisonous flower. It's indigenous to the culture. And it's going to take more than good intentions--or a couple of high profile legal cases--to get rid of it.

Another high profile case last year involved a European-American dance teacher who left the scene of an accident in Tampa, Florida, in March of 2004 after killing two children and maiming two others (all from one African-American family). When the dust settled, Jennifer Porter wound up with house arrest, probation, and community service work. And after a little sputtering, those still alive went on living. These new cases and the others already in motion and the ones that will be reported tomorrow or the day after that or next month will, more than likely, go more or less the same way. It's painful. It's depressing. And it's wrong.

Every once in a while, some particular case (such as the one in Jasper, Texas, involving White men who dragged an African-American man to his death behind a truck) is resolved, by hook or by crook (no pun intended), in some appropriate legal manner. But that's not the answer to this puzzle. We have to go all the way back to the root cause of our mutual dilemma. It's mutual because, while African-Americans are still being brutalized, European-Americans are staying insane. And which is more monstrous: being a victim or being a perpetrator? The rapists and murderers who actually carry out the crimes are not, repeat, not, repeat, not operating in a vacuum.

Yevtushenko wrote that he was a "Jew" at Babi Yar (the scene of an anti-Semetic massacre in Russia). John F. Kennedy told the German people gathered at their infamous wall that he was a "Berliner." And no matter what I look like, when a person of color is attacked by a White person anywhere in the world, I will see myself as attacked. There is no other way to restore myself to sanity.

Hustle and Flow

Back in my thirties, when I was on welfare for five years, before I got my bachelor's degree and my Master's degree and the additional 82 graduate level hours I earned at FSU working toward my Ph.D., when somebody asked me how I was making it, somebody African-American usually, since a European-American wouldn't ask, I used to reply, "I hustle." And they would invariably laugh out loud. Not like they found it funny, but like they found it funny that I would use that word. It seemed as if maybe they thought I wouldn't know how to hustle. Or maybe that a White person wouldn't ever really have to hustle--even a White person on welfare. Or at least that if I was, in fact, somehow "hustling," that they couldn't imagine me using the word appropriately. They laughed as if the word itself sounded funny coming out of my mouth.

But I knew the word. By that time, I had been fully bi-cultural for at least several years and crossing the color line back and forth for more than a decade. I meant "hustle." I was living on barely over $300 per month and a handful of food stamps, after all, and even after I moved into subsidized housing (which was just one part of my hustle, once my friend Esther showed me how to get in), I was endlessly living on the edge. So any given day, I was liable to be "working it" one way or the other. Because I had to. White or not. My kids needed shoes. My son needed money for school projects. There were birthdays and Christmases and Easter baskets. Not to mention laundry to be done and toilet paper and toothpaste to be bought. Three hundred dollars just wasn't gonna do it. So I hustled.

Sometimes, I hustled a man, somebody I was dating who wanted my undivided attention. I didn't think of it as degrading. I just needed to cover all my bases, that's all. The utility company didn't want to hear about my rickety old junker breaking down. Heck! The car itself had been the result of a hustle. And God knows, I needed it, even if the driver's seat was tipped hard to the left as the floor disintegrated underneath it. I had responsibilities just like every other adult, Black or White. And whatever it took within reason, I met them.

It didn't stop when I got off welfare either. For seven years of grad school, I hustled my way through student loans and financial aid and assistantships and summer jobs and endlessly through family and friends and boyfriends and even a husband or two. Even after I left school and went to work full-time, it seemed as if I was always a dollar or two (or more) shy of where I wanted--and often needed--to be. I had teenagers to support and inflation to deal with, of course, as well as the tendency to make an odd choice from time to time. And everybody gets a bad break now and then, such as being laid off from a great job after only six months because of programmatic cut-backs--two days after my druggie son and his girlfriend "had to" move in without jobs themselves. I mean, it was always something.

And for the most part, it still is. Granted, I chose to quit my day-job eighteen months ago to write, a choice that a number of my friends and acquaintances considered crazy. But I'm used to living on a wing and a prayer most of the time anyway and I was just taking a calculated risk, trying to hustle my way into the place I think I really belong, if you catch my drift.

Still, I remember one winter in northern Illinois back in the day going to a Community Action Agency to ask for help with my utility bill. I was crying the blues, I guess, whining about whatever my current struggle was (hustling, hustling) when the European-American woman caseworker on the other side of the desk said abruptly, "Well, at least you're White, so you don't have racism to deal with, too."

I was shocked. Shocked that she would speak to me like that when she was supposed to be a "social worker." Shocked that she would speak to me about how being White makes you special when she was White, too. Shocked, as a matter of fact, that she would talk about Whiteness at all, since only Black folks talked about White folks being White back then. And shocked, I think, that she did this with no apparent emotional investment at all. She was just saying it straight out. It shut down my hustle like a glass of cold water in the face.

Anyway, all this went through my mind a few weeks ago, after I had a conversation with a young African-American student who was telling me about his fledgling business in the entertainment field. He was explaining how it's against the law to post flyers in public, but that the cops will allow them in the Black community if you don't get caught putting them up. So they go out after dark to post advertisements about their next event. They dress in black, in cheap shoes, and without a watch or a wallet or even a jacket, so as not to tempt the local roadboys, who might be out marauding.

"You can't look like you have anything or they'll getcha," he said. "And you can't ride a bike after dark or you'll wind up in a fight. The rule is: if you can't defend what you have, you don't deserve it."

I looked into his eyes, as he matter-of-factly recounted the adventure. "In a capitalist society," he finished, "money is the equalizer." I didn't know if he was talking about himself or the roadboys...or both. And I was busy processing what he and his friends have to do to take their shot at getting a piece of the pie when he added the clencher, the follow-up to the social worker's challenge to me so long ago: "Bein' Black," he said, "is a hustle."

And suddenly, I got it. Why they always laughed when I used the word, I mean.

See, I work hard. Everybody works hard. We really don't have a choice. Even hustling is hard, hard work because you have to stay on top of so many things at once and the pay-off is frequently disproportionately low and sometimes nonexistent. But the difference for this young man and most of the other young Black males in their senior year of college in 2006 in the United States is that, as they pass the major milestone of college graduation, a milestone that regularly puts White youths on the track to success immediately, they're still having to skulk around their neighborhoods in the dark, hedging their bets against an unsure future. Something I've never had to do before. And might well never have to do in my life. Even when I'm on welfare. It's all about options and, while Black may be beautiful ("Say it loud: I'm Black and proud!"), being Black is still a serious hustle.

My Reality Check Bounced

Last night, one of my students wore a t-shirt to class that read "my reality check bounced." Needless to say, I loved it. I often feel that I'm free-falling through some surreal existence, careening off the walls as I descend further and faster down the rabbit hole. I asked where I could get one, though at this stage of my life, I might not wear such an item even if I purchased it. Been there, done that--you know.

Anyway, this morning, as I shuffled through the slips of papers in my "blog file" (articles, quotes, idea shreds that skitter through my mind as I go through my days), I noticed the words "reality check" with quotes around them and remembered last month when I heard them used in a different way.

I had told an African-American co-worker about an incident in my neighborhood that sounded like a Jim Crow encounter. She was horrified, but fascinated, the way we often are while passing a nasty car wreck. And we agreed that it was very unsettling. People in the U.S. want to believe that the more violent demonstrations of racist oppression are in the past, few and far between, or at least happening somewhere--anywhere--else. "The North" points at "The South" and "The South" retorts that "The North" just sweeps their dirt under the rug, while California blames their problems on the immigrants, and police seem free to do as they will, no matter where they are.

A couple of hours later, out on the campus, I was speaking with an African-American man who sells products during the weekly Bull Run bazaar, and my co-worker came up to us. After greeting the man, who she's apparently known for a long time, she turned to me and said, "You know, I really wish you hadn't told me what you told me."

I protested, feeling terrible. "I tried not to, but you kept wanting to know..."

"I know," she said. "But I just wish I hadn't, that's all. I've been all upset ever since. I can't get it out of my mind."

The vendor looked from one to the other of us blankly, obviously interested.

And her statement to him--said very pointedly--was: "It was nothing. Just a 'reality check'..."

"Oh!" he responded immediately, without any other information being imparted, shaking his head quickly from side to side and raising his hands, palms out, in front of his chest, "Then I don't even want to know..."

I wanted to erase myself from the tiny group the way I erase a word from the blackboard. Just vaporize and disappear without fanfare. I was ashamed. Not ashamed of having told her, though I won't make that mistake again. People of color have enough to deal with. I was ashamed of being "White" in the presence of two human beings who continue to be treated not only differently than people who look like me, but who are routinely presented with information proving that painful and disgusting things--even life-threatening things--still happen to people just because they look like them. Perpetrated by people who look like me.

I don't hate who I am. I hate what some people who look like me do in the name of our shared skin tone. Particularly when you consider that they do those things because they are insane with the need to believe that they are somehow superior to others. How in the hell can a person be so crazy that they can imagine that brutalizing others proves that you're a person of superior worth?!?

I was ashamed because it is 2006 and one well-established middle class African-American speaking to another well-established middle class African-American on a university campus where young people of color are all over the place can still invoke the demons of White supremacy by simply using the words "reality check." With instant recognition. I know when it started, but when will it end? And what will it take to end it?