Posted on 07/24/2013 12:09:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Next week I will participate in a racial discrimination hearing against a Manhattan night club that frisked and searched me when I attended on a "Black night" but does not search patrons on mostly white nights.
Last week, I was accused of stealing an iPhone by a white woman in Miami who came up to me and asked if she could search my pockets to find it. It was not a joke or a pickup line.
And just last month, I had to pull out my own iPhone to photograph and report the license plate and medallion number of a taxicab driver in New York's Union Square who refused to pick me up and then drove across the street to pick up a white customer seconds later.
For many African-Americans, I suspect these stories aren't entirely surprising. As President Obama said last week, racism is a daily part of our lives. Like air and water, it's part of the environment in which we live. Yet far too many white Americans still live in denial about its persistence.
That's the conclusion to be drawn not just from anecdotal experience but from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out Wednesday that showed a vast disparity between white and Black perceptions on race relations. The poll, conducted after George Zimmerman was acquitted for shooting unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, found that 52 percent of whites think race relations are "good" in America while 58 percent of Blacks describe race relations as "bad."
The new poll numbers follow similar results from a Washington Post-ABC News poll two days earlier. In that poll, 86 percent of Blacks disapproved of the Zimmerman verdict while only 31 percent of whites felt that way. Even more disappointing is that 86 percent of African-Americans say Blacks and other minorities do not get equal treatment under the law, while only 41 percent of whites think that's true.
So what explains the disconnect?
Years ago, I heard a law professor explain what I call the "magnet analogy." Remember those big red and silver horseshoe magnets from high school? Now imagine you had to walk around the world with a huge horseshoe magnet on your neck. Aside from the heavy burden of carrying the extra weight, you'd quickly see the world a lot differently from those without the magnet.
The first thing you'd notice – there's a lot of metal in the world. Keys, coins, cell phones, even appliances would suddenly get a lot more of your attention. Why? Because the magnet attracts them. But those without the magnet would continue to remain oblivious to the metal assault on your body.
That's the experience for African-Americans every day. We're surrounding and inundated by the metal of racism while those who do not carry the magnet of Blackness remain oblivious to our experience. To them, racism is a thing of the past.
The problem is we need to recognize how new and subtle forms of race bias have replaced the old overt acts of racial discrimination. Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion explains how brain science has identified subconscious racial bias taking place in "nanoseconds" at subliminal levels. "There's something that police officers and college students and George Zimmerman all have in common," she told MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry recently. "And that is that they're more likely to shoot a black man with a wallet than they are to shoot a white man with a gun." They call it "shooter bias."
Unfortunately, our laws and our public discourse haven't kept up with the changes in racism. Many whites are still stuck in the 1960s image of overt bigotry, of Klansmen burning crosses and segregationist governors blocking schoolhouse doors. They may know a parent or a grandparent who still uses the N-word, but as long as they refrain from using it themselves then they can't possibly be racist, they think.
But Paula Deen aside, modern racism isn't really about the N-word. New code words like Detroit, Chicago, "Stand Your Ground," voter ID, food stamps and welfare now carry the same impact with dog whistle messages too subtle to be reported by many in the media. This seemingly race-neutral language allows the majority to engage in public discourse under the mantle of innocence and thus dismiss the vestiges and effects of hundreds of years of legally sanctioned white supremacy. The only racists in this vision are the people who complain about racism.
That's why the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act last month and argued it had outlived its utility. And that's why George Zimmerman's defense attorney Mark O'Mara last week told Fox News's Sean Hannity that his client, a known killer with a long arrest record, was just a "meek, mild guy without a racist bone in his body."
If you kill an unarmed Black boy or fan the flames of white resentment on talk radio, you're a "patriot." But if you help the family of the young Black boy who was killed, you're a "race hustler." To be white in America allows you the freedom to remain oblivious to these distinctions.
Yes, this dialogue must be a two-way conversation. But until white Americans examine their own racial privilege and open their eyes to the experience of Black Americans, they'll never notice the magnet we carry every day.
*******
Keith Boykin is a New York Times best-selling author and former White House aide to President Clinton. He attended Harvard Law School with President Barack Obama and currently serves as a TV political commentator. He writes political commentary for BET.com each week.
Whites are too busy working and taking care of ourselves to worry about you, them and them and them, and those guys and the other guys and you know.
It’s not the race, it’s the culture.
You don’t choose your race, you choose your culture, and the fact is, many blacks at least upon initial appearance look like they subscribe to an inferior culture.
They say profiling is bad, well, how would a black feel if they encountered someone wearing a Confederate Flag T-Shirt? Damn right, they’d “profile”.
” Yes, this dialogue must be a two-way conversation. But until white Americans examine their own racial privilege and open their eyes to the experience of Black Americans”
See crime rate percentages, to fully understand the “black experience”
If blacks were not responsible for over half of all violent crimes, then whites might not think that so many blacks are criminals.
Blacks embrace a culture of thuggery and then bitch that people just assume that they are thugs.
Yup.
People of all “races” know to be wary of the barbarians (of all “races”) who are terrorzing our society from the inside out
THIS IS VERY CREDIBLE. NO WITNESSES. WHEN THERE ARE WITNESSES LIKE WITH ZIMMERMAN CLEARLY HE IS GUILTY. WHEN THERE ARE NO WITNESSES LIKE THIS GUY CLEARLY HE IS TO BE BELIEVED.
I was wondering how long it was going to take to get to the "Dog whistle".
Blacks are responsible for a disproportionate very high percentage of crimes of ALL kinds.
Gosh, why would folks not care to be around them???
How many blacks have taken the time to read Booker T Washington’s “Up From Slavery”?
Young Black Men: 3% of population, 50% of murders.
Blacks should sort this problem out for themselves. Someone a lot wiser than I posted elsewhere the following analogy. “5% of all snakes are poisonous. Since we can’t distinguish one snake from another it is very wise to avoid contact with all snakes.” or words to that effect.
Now if snakes get angry that I shun them, then it is their obligation to clean up the 5% of the poisonous ones.
"It made my heart ache, you know, to see all these beautiful black men in the joint. The warriors should be out there helping the masses. I felt that way, I was real naive. Six weeks I was up there and I talked to the brothers. I talked to 'em, and ... ...THANK GOD WE GOT PENITENTIARIES!" - RIchard Pryor
They will do anything to avoid facing the fact that their pathologies are self-inflicted.
Until they start talking about the crime of Walking While White and getting attacked, robbed, raped or murdered, they have no credibility.
I used to make trips to the Lockheed plant in Ft Worth, TX. Did I ever worry about a black man with a secret security clearance inside the plant? Heck no! But would I walk up to a bunch of black youths in a rotten area nearby and ask for directions to my hotel? Not a chance! Wouldn’t walk up to a bunch of white youths lounging around in a rough part of town, either.
We profile on the totality of what we see. Black man in a suit = not a threat. Black male, 20ish, rough part of town, dressed like a thug = threat.
Failure to profile = early death...
It’s not racism, it’s experience.
Is there a black person alive that doesn’t hate me because some time in their life they perceived they were being picked on?
The same old whining and crying. It never ends./
They all have their black story to tell.
How about all the white people who passed an entrance exam and didn’t get the job or the promotion because of Affirmative Acton.?
Stereotypes and prejudging (”prejudice”) are useful tools
when you don’t have the time, or it would be dangerous to,
evaluate the danger associated with any situation, person, or group of persons.
This evaluation is based on experience, knowledge of statistical risk, and training.
Keith, take a good look around. When even black bouncers frisk you, when even black cabbies and waiters prefer a white customer (because rumor has it blacks don’t tip), when even black cops profile, when even black citizens are nervous when two black teens follow them down the street, when even black comedians joke about black-on-black crime, when black folks who get rich immediately get as far away from other black folks as they can... you know what? I won’t even finish the sentence. I have a feeling you could figure it out if you really wanted to.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.