http://community.nytimes.com/comments/india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/being-comfortable-in-your-own-skin-tone/?sort=oldest&offset=2
New York Times
Comment #27
Ethical Democracy
New York
September 25th, 2011
1:50 am
Beauty & Inferiority
India is a vast crowded complex space where numerous, seemingly conflicting stereotypes (and ideals) persist.
That's Democracy -- thirty-one centuries in the making. Give or take a few.
Where else would you have Fair and Lovely makeup, side by side with celebrating the birthday, as a national holiday, of Krishna the dark blue God of Love?
I'm an atheist, don't use beauty products, just juxtaposing contrastive ideals by way of illustration.
The author (see her article below) claims and I quote \"Over a decade of living in North America – where tans are pursued and Halle Berry is a beauty icon – helped that. Far away from the subcontinent, obsessed with Victorian ideas of beauty, it was refreshing to be part of a society that embraced a wider spectrum of skin tone.\"
Really? Even Aretha Franklin and more recently, Beyonce pretty much went blond, or do you think their hair color and skin tone are a happy accident? To uphold the US, the epicenter of racist ideology of Whiteness, is just plain ignorant and a gross distortion of racialized discourse in the US.
And, yikes, have you never heard of the racialization of the Black Irish?
Yes, they have white skin. But black hair! A Black Irish woman at London's Heathrow airport was detained, (she claimed to me), because she was Black Irish. That was in the mid-1980's, so, way before Islamist hysteria following 9/11.
People use many strategies for constructing The Other.
Suck it up , Suryatapa, you really speak from class privilege and therefore Power (dark brown though you may be), so stop being superficial, focus instead on maternal and child malnutrition in your writings, make fewer blow-dry (you have a hair problem too?) visits to the beauty salon (most Indians, including me, and I live in New York, have never been inside one) get over it, live your own life, think your own thoughts be receptive to disparate perceptions, misguided though some obviously are, be HUMYN and don't blame it on India and Indians.
Please don't let your next article be about the big boobs of Indian goddesses and how inadequate that makes you feel!
Take responsibility for constructing your own mindset.
It's not that you \"do not compute.\" You cant compute.
Or rather, you choose not to.
Harsh -- but sometimes truths are inconvenient.
Dr. Chithra KarunaKaran
City University of New York [CUNY]
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/being-comfortable-in-your-own-skin-tone/?hp#preview
The article follows:
New York Times copyright
Being Comfortable in Your Own Skin (Tone)
By SURYATAPA BHATTACHARYA
Suryatapa at the age of six in her childhood home in Siliguri, West Bengal.
I am Indian – but after more than 15 years of living abroad, some aspects of Indian life feel fresh, if not new or altogether welcome.
Three months ago, I wandered into a salon in Kolkata with my mother and came face-to-face with a prejudice I hadn’t had to deal with in all the years abroad.
The beautician insisted she could remove my “deep tan.”
But my dark skin was not the result of a tanning bed disaster – I was born with it.
Lady with pink talons and bright pink lipstick: I can lighten you up by several shades.
Me: No.
Lady: You are roaming in the sun too much.
Me: Don’t touch my face.
No one in India seems to think it unusual to try to slap some bleach, or a herbal equivalent, on my skin to reveal a whiter me. It is mildly irritating when it comes from my beloved aunts, and maddening when strangers suggest my dark skin is something to be “fixed.”
Being dark made me feel self-conscious.
As a kid I had several nicknames that stung. Darkie, Blackie and Kaalia (pinched from the title of a Bollywood film, about someone with dark skin). My color defined me and it stuck. A friend from school sent me a message on Facebook recently. It read: Kaalia, remember me? When I pointed out that it was insulting, I was called out for being “too sensitive.”
“We called you that with love,” he said. Like that should justify the hurt.
In Bengali, the word phorsha (fair) is used interchangeably with beautiful, and with family it was no different. Well-meaning aunts and their neighbors worried about my marriage prospects. Perhaps, they suggested, a little less sun exposure, or maybe a few extra layers of sandalwood paste or a homemade concoction that the neighborhood swore by?
But I was a problem child. You couldn’t drag me home from playing outside and even back then, I wouldn’t let anyone touch my face. The aunts sighed but never really gave up.
To be dark in India is not necessarily to be invisible. Instead, in this country, it is everyone’s business to correct it or cover it up. The personal is open to public opinion, whether it makes you squirm or not.
Few Indians seem to be comfortable in their dark skin. The matrimonial classifieds every weekend ask for or offer prospective brides who are never described as dark; at best (or worst) they are “wheatish.”
So it is no surprise that a multi-billion rupee market in fairness products thrives in India. Bollywood superstars such as Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra are complicit in the act, appearing in airbrushed, whitened versions of themselves, urging you to pick up a tube or two of the latest product. From lotions and soaps to whitening underarm deodorant; every body part it seems is could be a few shades lighter.
In a moment of adolescent weakness, I too was convinced to go on a regimen of drinking milk with crushed turmeric. Urban legends abound of how turmeric and milk, with their blood cleansing properties, had turned someone’s friend’s sister into a fair maiden – so I gulped down this vile concoction, gagged and never touched it ever again.
As an adult I’ve become much more comfortable with the color of my skin.
Over a decade of living in North America – where tans are pursued and Halle Berry is a beauty icon – helped that. Far away from the subcontinent, obsessed with Victorian ideas of beauty, it was refreshing to be part of a society that embraced a wider spectrum of skin tone.
So when I moved back to India, I was surprised and offended all over again, as I confronted people who still think porcelain skin is the epitome of beauty.
The last time I visited my parents in West Bengal, I paid a visit to the hairdresser. As I instructed the hairdresser on how to blow-dry my hair, the lady in the chair next to me seemed intrigued by my conversation. After several furtive glances she could no longer help herself and asked: “Do you do tanning?” I was dumbstruck and could barely stammer out a surprised “no.”
In retrospect, her assumption says a lot about how Indians equate skin tone with beauty, confidence and social standing. To her, my dark skin was incommensurate with me – a confident professional in a fancy salon.
I do not compute.
Suryatapa Bhattacharya is the India correspondent for “The National” newspaper.
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Showing posts with label race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label race. Show all posts
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Social Justice, Whiteness & Discursive Restraint: A Case Example in US Democracy
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
My NYTimes comment
September 17th, 2009
3:53 am
Comment #93.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 17th, 2009
8:36 am
(scroll all referenced URLs below my comments)
Using RACE as a Political Weapon against We the People
President Obama is making the right decision by refusing to get drawn into the so-called race debate.
What debate? This is no debate. It is a cynical attempt, by some inside and outside Congress, to destroy healthcare reform.
It is WE the People who will pay the price, if healthcare reform is not enacted.
A majority of Republicans would like to USE RACE to scuttle Obama's healthcare agenda. That is what one Republican, Joe Wilson, did when he insulted the President, on primetime national TV in an unprecedented shoutout, inside Congress.
But here's the issue. Joe Wilson has the healthcare I want.
Both Clyburn and Carter EXPOSED Wilson and Co. and the hate agenda of some Americans both inside and outside Congress. Actually Maureen did it first. Dowd led the way.
Let us keep our Eyes on the Prize -- FAIR healthcare for ALL Americans, with no one left out.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------
My NYT Comment #132.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16dowd.html?sort=oldest&offset=6
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
12:07 pm
Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina shouts "You lie" on primetime national TV, to President Obama while Obama is addressing the joint session of Congress on his proposed Healthcare plan.
Wilson is White, Obama is Black.
Wilson is advised by some of his Republican colleagues to call Obama to "apologize".
Wilson calls the White House and conveys his apology to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. Emanuel informs Wilson his apology is "accepted" by the President.
The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, discusses and passes a Resolution of Disapproval on Wilson's accusation against the President
Former President Carter, white, male and Southern like Wilson, asserts that Congressman Wilson statement was "based on racism."
Wilson's performance of whiteness can be explained most comprehensively through the Theory of Systemic Whiteness. Without using a rigorous theoretical explanation, statements like Wilson's, as well as the statements and actions that follow, will continue to be seen as unusual, atypical, incidental. When viewed through the lens of Systemic Whiteness, we see race as performative and structural, indispensable to US civil society and its particular trajectory of democracy. We see whiteness as a system of Power exercised over unadmitted others. WE undestand Toni Morrison's comment that Bill Clinton was the nations first black president. WE can understand why powerful middle aged white men in the Republican Party did not think he was qualified to be President because Clinton satisfied every Black stereotype -- poor, working class, raised by a single mother. With all those self-fullfilling racialized stereotypes, why should he be allowed to be president? Strip him. Now, that's the power of systemic whiteness.
Q. Is discursive restraint essential to advance social justice in Ethical Democracy, or will ethical practices advance precisely because of the absence of discursive restraint in the public sphere?
more.......
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NYTimes Comment
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
6:17 am
Discursive Restraint & Democracy
Maureen I think you were the first reporter in the entire country to pick up on, and analyze the racial subtext of Joe Wilson's \"You Lie\"
verbal assault on President Obama, in Your earlier \"Boy Oh Boy\" column. I think you gave Clyburn the boost he may have needed, to follow up with that successful Resolution of Disapproval that passed today in Congress 240 - 179.
Even former President Carter made his assertion that Wilson's comment was racist, AFTER your column. Good going, thanks, your antiracism, not to mention drawing scathing attention to boorishness disguised as candor in public service, is appreciated.
Persuasive persistence pays, that is Discursive Democracy at its best -- and it made Wilson pay.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://Et6hicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
=================================================================================
New York Times copyright
Op-Ed Columnist
Boy, Oh, Boy
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 12, 2009
WASHINGTON
Skip to next paragraph
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Maureen Dowd
The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind.
Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.
But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.
The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.
I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.
I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.
But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.
“A lot of these outbursts have to do with delegitimizing him as a president,” said Congressman Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the South Carolina delegation. Clyburn, the man who called out Bill Clinton on his racially tinged attacks on Obama in the primary, pushed Pelosi to pursue a formal resolution chastising Wilson.
“In South Carolina politics, I learned that the olive branch works very seldom,” he said. “You have to come at these things from a position of strength. My father used to say, ‘Son, always remember that silence gives consent.’ ”
Barry Obama of the post-’60s Hawaiian ’hood did not live through the major racial struggles in American history. Maybe he had a problem relating to his white basketball coach or catching a cab in New York, but he never got beaten up for being black.
Now he’s at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension. Even if he and the coterie of white male advisers around him don’t choose to openly acknowledge it, this president is the ultimate civil rights figure — a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe.
For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.
The state that fired the first shot of the Civil War has now given us this: Senator Jim DeMint exhorted conservatives to “break” the president by upending his health care plan. Rusty DePass, a G.O.P. activist, said that a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was “just one of Michelle’s ancestors.” Lovelorn Mark Sanford tried to refuse the president’s stimulus money. And now Joe Wilson.
“A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we’re part of the union,” said Don Fowler, the former Democratic Party chief who teaches politics at the University of South Carolina. He observed that when slavery was destroyed by outside forces and segregation was undone by civil rights leaders and Congress, it bred xenophobia.
“We have a lot of people who really think that the world’s against us,” Fowler said, “so when things don’t happen the way we like them to, we blame outsiders.” He said a state legislator not long ago tried to pass a bill to nullify any federal legislation with which South Carolinians didn’t agree. Shades of John C. Calhoun!
It may be President Obama’s very air of elegance and erudition that raises hackles in some. “My father used to say to me, ‘Boy, don’t get above your raising,’ ” Fowler said. “Some people are prejudiced anyway, and then they look at his education and mannerisms and get more angry at him.”
Clyburn had a warning for Obama advisers who want to forgive Wilson, ignore the ignorant outbursts and move on: “They’re going to have to develop ways in this White House to deal with things and not let them fester out there. Otherwise, they’ll see numbers moving in the wrong direction.”
Recommend More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on September 13, 2009, on page WK17 of the New York edition.
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NYTimes copyright
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16dowd.html#bozoanchor
Rapping Joe’s Knuckles
By MAUREEN DOWD
The pressure from House Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, on Joe Wilson to apologize was a rare triumph for civility in a country that seems to have lost all sense of it.
CNN copyright
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/15/wilson.resolution/index.html#cnnSTCText
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives on Tuesday formally admonished Republican Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting "you lie" during President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last week.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, shouts "You lie!" during President Obama's speech Wednesday night.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, shouts "You lie!" during President Obama's speech Wednesday night.
The House passed a resolution of disapproval on a 240-179 vote that was mostly along party lines, reflecting the Democratic majority in the chamber. Twelve Democrats voted "no," while seven Republicans voted for the measure. Five representatives, all Democrats, voted "present."
According to the Office of the House Historian, it was the first time in its 220-year history that the House has disciplined a member for speaking out during a presidential speech in the chamber to a joint session of Congress.
During debate on the resolution, Wilson called the measure a waste of time and failed to apologize to the chamber, as demanded by House Democrats.
"When we are done here today, we will not have taken any further steps toward helping" the nation deal with urgent challenges, said Wilson, of South Carolina. "It is time that we move forward and get back to work for the American people." Video Watch House members debate the resolution »
He and other Republicans noted that Wilson apologized to Obama immediately after the speech, and that the president accept it. Asked after the vote if he apologized privately to House leaders such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Wilson told journalists it wasn't necessary.
"In my view, by apologizing to the president, the most important person in the history of the world, that applied to everyone," Wilson said.
However, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said Wilson's refusal to apologize to the House for his disrespectful behavior to the chamber required admonishment.
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The issue, he said, "is whether we are able to proceed with a degree of civility and decorum" that Congress requires.
The House resolution was the mildest form of discipline the chamber can exercise for misconduct on the House floor.
"Whereas the conduct of the Representative from South Carolina was a breach of decorum and degraded the proceedings of the joint session, to the discredit of the House: Now, therefore, be it resolved that the House of Representatives disapproves of the behavior of the Representative from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, during the joint session of Congress held on Sept. 9, 2009," said a text of the resolution posted earlier on Hoyer's legislative Web site.
Before debate on the measure began, one Democrat said the disrespect shown Obama by Wilson never would have happened to a white president.
"It only happened when this country elected a president of color," said Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia. Another noted the heckling of the president in the House was unprecedented, and the chamber needed to enforce discipline in order to maintain civility. Video Watch Johnson comment on why he supports the resolution »
"No president has been subjected to that type of treatment on the floor of the House of Representatives, and if we go down that road, then it's the law of the jungle, and I think that's just wrong," said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.
However, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called the resolution "piling on."
In the debate, Boehner and other Republicans acknowledged the mistake by Wilson while citing his military career and how his four children also served in the military. They noted that he already had apologized to Obama and accused Democrats of a partisan stunt intended to deflect attention from what they called increasingly unpopular health care legislation. Video Watch Boehner talk about health care, support Wilson's apology »
"The American people want less politics and more jobs," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana.
In closing the debate, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House Majority whip, noted that all Americans, especially schoolchildren, learn about civics and government by observing the House.
Clyburn, a former schoolteacher, said failing to enforce House rules against Wilson's outburst would send the wrong message.
The House Democratic leadership agreed to move forward with the vote after meeting to discuss the issue Monday evening, according to two Democratic leadership aides.
Kristie Greco, a spokeswoman for Clyburn, said the discussion at Monday's meeting was about "how this speaks to the breach of decorum alone, and not addressing the issue sets a precedent for bad behavior."
"We're not the British Parliament for a reason," Greco added. Video Watch combative politicians in other countries »
Wilson on Sunday described his loud retort to Obama's statement that illegal immigrants would not be covered under the Democrats' health care bill as "a town hall moment." But he made it clear he would not apologize on the House floor.
"I called immediately, I did apologize, but I believe one apology is sufficient," he said.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the episode "unfortunate" and told reporters at her weekly news conference, "It's time for us to talk about health care and not Mr. Wilson."
But when Pelosi met with Democratic leaders later that day, her colleagues argued that unless Wilson apologized on his own, they would want a formal vote on a resolution of disapproval, according to several Democratic sources.
On Tuesday, Pelosi refused to comment on the resolution to reporters outside the weekly Democratic caucus meeting, saying that journalists should be focusing on the health care reform issue.
Other Democrats offered their thoughts.
Johnson said Wilson's comment amounted to a "wink" of approval to right-wing extremists who have brought highly charged language and imagery -- such as posters depicting Obama with a Hitler mustache or as an African witch doctor -- to the health care debate.
"He [Wilson] did not help the cause of diversity and tolerance with his remarks," Johnson said. "If I were a betting man, I would say that it instigated more racist sentiment feeling that it's OK -- you don't have to bury it now."
Johnson added that failing to rebuke Wilson would bring increased racism in the public discussion on health care, saying: "You can bring it out and talk about it fully, and so I guess we will probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again riding through the countryside intimidating people."
"That's the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked, and Congressman Wilson represents it," Johnson said. "He is the face of it, and that's why I support the resolution."
To Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, a member of the moderate Blue Dog Democratic coalition, the issue was simple: "He has not apologized to the House for the embarrassment he brought" to the chamber, Altmire said.
Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Wilson's violation of House rules was "egregious enough that it warrants an apology on the floor." Without that, the resolution of disapproval is called for, she said.
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On the Republican side, Rep. Steve King of Iowa began circulating a letter among House Republicans last weekend urging Wilson not to apologize on the House floor.
The letter stated, "We urge that you hold your ground against those who seek partisan advantage and reject all demands for additional redress. When the president of the United States accepts an apology, no observer has an additional claim."
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CNN's Deirdre Walsh and Lisa Desjardins contributed to this report.
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Associated Press/Yahoo News copyright
Jimmy Carter: Wilson comments 'based on racism'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090916/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_heckling_carter;_ylt=Ai9mfZisPYyC1O81svEugZW2GL8C;_ylu=X3oDMTMxNTlrZ3R1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwOTE2L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX2hlY2tsaW5nX2NhcnRlcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNqaW1teWNhcnRlcnc-
By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer Greg Bluestein, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 39 mins ago
ATLANTA – Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act "based on racism" and rooted in fears of a black president.
"I think it's based on racism," Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."
The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.
"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."
Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, was formally rebuked Tuesday in a House vote for shouting "You lie!" during Obama's speech to Congress last Wednesday.
The shout came after the president commented that illegal aliens would be ineligible for federal subsidies to buy health insurance. Republicans expressed their disbelief with sounds of disapproval, punctuated by Wilson's outburst.
Tuesday's rebuke was a rare resolution of disapproval pushed through by Democrats who insisted that Wilson had violated basic rules of decorum and civility. Republicans characterized the measure as a witch hunt and Wilson, who had already apologized to Obama, insisted he owed the House no apology.
Wilson's spokesman was not immediately available for comment, but his eldest son defended his father.
"There is not a racist bone in my dad's body," said Alan Wilson, an Iraq veteran who is running for state attorney general. "He doesn't even laugh at distasteful jokes. I won't comment on former President Carter, because I don't know President Carter. But I know my dad, and it's just not in him."
"It's unfortunate people make that jump. People can disagree — and appropriately disagree — on issues of substance, but when they make the jump to race it's absolutely ludicrous. My brothers and I were raised by our parents to respect everyone regardless of background or race."
South Carolina's former Democratic Party chairman said that he doesn't believe Wilson was motivated by racism, but said the outburst encouraged racist views.
"I think Joe's conduct was asinine, but I think it would be asinine no matter what the color of the president," said Dick Harpootlian, who has known Wilson for decades. "I don't think Joe's outburst was caused by President Obama being African-American. I think it was caused by no filter being between his brain and his mouth."
Harpootlian said he received scores of racial e-mails from outside South Carolina after he talked about the vote on Fox News.
"You have a bunch of folks out there looking for some comfort in their racial issues. They have a problem with an African-American president," he said. "But was he motivated by that? I don't think so. I respectfully disagree with President Carter, though it gives validity to racism."
Carter called Wilson's comment "dastardly" and an aftershock of racist views that have permeated American politics for decades.
"The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state," he said. "And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect."
___
Associated Press Writer Seanna Adcox in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.
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New Yorker magazine copyright
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/10/05/1998_10_05_031_TNY_LIBRY_000016504?printable=true
New Yorker comment by Toni Morrison on Clinton as the nation's first Black President
Comment
Thanks to the papers, we know what the columnists think. Thanks to round-the-clock cable, we know what the ex-prosecutors, the right-wing blondes, the teletropic law professors, and the disgraced political consultants think. Thanks to the polls, we know what “the American people” think. But what about the experts on human folly?
by Toni Morrison October 5, 1998
Keywords
Newspapermen;
Communications;
Lewinsky, Monica;
Clinton, Bill (Pres.);
Washington;
Adultery;
African-Americans (Blacks)
This summer, my plan was to do very selective radio listening, read no newspapers or news magazines, and leave my television screen profoundly, mercifully blank. There were books to read, others to finish, a few to read again. It was a lovely summer, and I was pleased with the decision to recuse myself from what had become since January The Only Story Worth Telling. Although I wanted cognitive space for my own pursuits, averting my gaze was not to bury my head. I was eager for information, yet suspicious of the package in which that information would be wrapped. I have been convinced for a long time now that, with a few dazzling exceptions, print and visual media have thrown away their freedom and chosen jail instead—have willingly locked themselves into a ratings-driven, money-based prison of their own making. However comfortable the prison may be, its most overwhelming feature is loss of the public. Not able, therefore, to trust reporters to report instead of gossip among themselves, unable to bear newscasters deflecting, ignoring, trivializing information—orchestrating its minor chords for the highest decibel—I decided to get my news the old-fashioned way: conversation, public eavesdropping, and word of mouth.
I hoped to avoid the spectacle I was sure would be mounted, fearing that at any minute I might have to witness ex-Presidential friends selling that friendship for the higher salaries of broadcast journalism; anticipating the nausea that might rise when quaking Democrats took firm positions on or over the fence in case the polls changed. I imagined feral Republicans, smelling blood and a shot at the totalitarian power they believe is rightfully theirs; self-congratulatory pundits sifting through “history” for nuggets of dubious relevancy.
I did not relinquish my summer plans, but summer is over now and I have begun to supplement verbal accounts of the running news with tentative perusal of C-span, brief glimpses of anchorfolk, squinting glances at newspapers—trying belatedly to get the story straight. What, I have been wondering, is the story—the one only the public seems to know? And what does it mean?
I wish that the effluvia did add up to a story of adultery. Serious as adultery is, it is not a national catastrophe. Women leaving hotels following trysts with their extramarital lovers tell pollsters they abominate Mr. Clinton’s behavior. Relaxed men fresh from massage parlors frown earnestly into the camera at the mere thought of such malfeasance. No one “approves” of adultery, but, unlike fidelity in Plymouth Rock society, late-twentieth-century fidelity, when weighed against the constitutional right to privacy, comes up short. The root of the word, adulterare, means “to defile,” but at its core is treachery. Cloaked in deception and secrecy, it has earned prominence on lists of moral prohibitions and is understood as more than a sin; in divorce courts it is a crime. People don’t get arrested for its commission, but they can suffer its grave consequences.
Still, it is clear that this is not a narrative of adultery or even of its consequences for the families involved. Is there anyone who believes that that was all the investigation had in mind? Adultery is the Independent Counsel’s loss leader, the item displayed to lure the customers inside the shop. Nor was it ever a story about seduction—male vamp or female predator (or the other way around). It played that way a little: a worn tale of middle-aged vulnerability and youthful appetite. The Achilles’ heel analogy flashed for a bit, but had no staying power, although its ultra meaning—that Achilles’ heel was given to Achilles, not to a lesser man—lay quietly dormant under the cliché.
At another point, the story seemed to be about high and impeachable crimes like the ones we have had some experience with: the suborning of federal agencies; the exchange of billion-dollar contracts for proof of indiscretion; the extermination of infants in illegal wars mounted and waged for money and power. Until something like those abuses surfaces, the story will have to make do with thinner stuff: alleged perjury and “Lady, your husband is cheating on us.” Whatever the media promote and the chorus chants, whatever dapples dinner tables, this is not a mundane story of sex, lies, and videotape. The real story is none of these. Not adultery, or high crimes. Nor is it even the story of a brilliant President naïve enough to believe, along with the rest of the citizenry, that there were lines one’s enemies would not cross, lengths to which they would not go—a profound, perhaps irrevocable, error in judgment.
In a quite baffling and frustrating manner, it was not a “story” but a compilation of revelations and commentary which shied away from the meaning of its own material. In spite of myriad “titles” (“The President in Crisis”), what the public has been given is dangerously close to a story of no story at all. One of the problems in locating it is the absence of a coherent sphere of enunciation. There seems to be no appropriate language in which or platform of discourse from which to pursue it. This absence of clear language has imploded into a surfeit of contradictory languages. The parsing and equivocal terminology of law is laced with titillation. Raw comedy is spiked with Cotton Mather homilies. The precision of a coroner’s vocabulary mocks passionate debates on morality. Radiant sermons are forced to dance with vile headlines. From deep within this conflagration of tony, occasionally insightful, arch, pompous, mournful, supercilious, generous, salivating verbalism, the single consistent sound to emerge is a howl of revulsion.
But revulsion against what? What is being violated, ruptured, defiled? The bedroom? The Oval Office? The voting booth? The fourth grade? Marriage vows? The flag? Whatever answer is given, underneath the national embarrassment churns a disquiet turned to dread and now anger.
African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President’s body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and body-searched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear: “No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and—who knows?—maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us.”
For a large segment of the population who are not African-Americans or members of other minorities, the elusive story left visible tracks: from target sighted to attack, to criminalization, to lynching, and now, in some quarters, to crucifixion. The always and already guilty “perp” is being hunted down not by a prosecutor’s obsessive application of law but by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks.
Certain freedoms I once imagined as being in a vault somewhere, like ancient jewels kept safe from thieves. No single official or group could break in and remove them, certainly not in public. The image is juvenile, of course, and I have not had recourse to it for the whole of my adult life. Yet it is useful now to explain what I perceive as the real story. For each bootstep the office of the Independent Counsel has taken smashes one of those jewels—a ruby of grand-jury secrecy here, a sapphire of due process there. Such concentrated power may be reminiscent of a solitary Torquemada on a holy mission of lethal inquisition. It may even suggest a fatwa. But neither applies. This is Slaughtergate. A sustained, bloody, arrogant coup d’état. The Presidency is being stolen from us. And the people know it.
I don’t regret my “news-free” summer. Getting at the story in that retrograde fashion has been rewarding. Early this week, a neighbor called to ask if I would march. Where? To Washington, she said. Absolutely, I answered, without even asking what for. “We have to prevent the collapse of our Constitution,” she said.
We meet tonight. ♦
end of New Yorker copyrighted comment
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NYTimescopyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/us/politics/17obama.html?hp
As Race Debate Grows, Obama Steers Clear of It
By JEFF ZELENY and JIM RUTENBERG
Beyond posing a distraction, the race issue could further strain the president’s broad but tenuous coalition.
(My NYT comment in response to this article, appears above
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New York City
My NYTimes comment
September 17th, 2009
3:53 am
Comment #93.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 17th, 2009
8:36 am
(scroll all referenced URLs below my comments)
Using RACE as a Political Weapon against We the People
President Obama is making the right decision by refusing to get drawn into the so-called race debate.
What debate? This is no debate. It is a cynical attempt, by some inside and outside Congress, to destroy healthcare reform.
It is WE the People who will pay the price, if healthcare reform is not enacted.
A majority of Republicans would like to USE RACE to scuttle Obama's healthcare agenda. That is what one Republican, Joe Wilson, did when he insulted the President, on primetime national TV in an unprecedented shoutout, inside Congress.
But here's the issue. Joe Wilson has the healthcare I want.
Both Clyburn and Carter EXPOSED Wilson and Co. and the hate agenda of some Americans both inside and outside Congress. Actually Maureen did it first. Dowd led the way.
Let us keep our Eyes on the Prize -- FAIR healthcare for ALL Americans, with no one left out.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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My NYT Comment #132.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16dowd.html?sort=oldest&offset=6
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
12:07 pm
Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina shouts "You lie" on primetime national TV, to President Obama while Obama is addressing the joint session of Congress on his proposed Healthcare plan.
Wilson is White, Obama is Black.
Wilson is advised by some of his Republican colleagues to call Obama to "apologize".
Wilson calls the White House and conveys his apology to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. Emanuel informs Wilson his apology is "accepted" by the President.
The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, discusses and passes a Resolution of Disapproval on Wilson's accusation against the President
Former President Carter, white, male and Southern like Wilson, asserts that Congressman Wilson statement was "based on racism."
Wilson's performance of whiteness can be explained most comprehensively through the Theory of Systemic Whiteness. Without using a rigorous theoretical explanation, statements like Wilson's, as well as the statements and actions that follow, will continue to be seen as unusual, atypical, incidental. When viewed through the lens of Systemic Whiteness, we see race as performative and structural, indispensable to US civil society and its particular trajectory of democracy. We see whiteness as a system of Power exercised over unadmitted others. WE undestand Toni Morrison's comment that Bill Clinton was the nations first black president. WE can understand why powerful middle aged white men in the Republican Party did not think he was qualified to be President because Clinton satisfied every Black stereotype -- poor, working class, raised by a single mother. With all those self-fullfilling racialized stereotypes, why should he be allowed to be president? Strip him. Now, that's the power of systemic whiteness.
Q. Is discursive restraint essential to advance social justice in Ethical Democracy, or will ethical practices advance precisely because of the absence of discursive restraint in the public sphere?
more.......
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NYTimes Comment
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
6:17 am
Discursive Restraint & Democracy
Maureen I think you were the first reporter in the entire country to pick up on, and analyze the racial subtext of Joe Wilson's \"You Lie\"
verbal assault on President Obama, in Your earlier \"Boy Oh Boy\" column. I think you gave Clyburn the boost he may have needed, to follow up with that successful Resolution of Disapproval that passed today in Congress 240 - 179.
Even former President Carter made his assertion that Wilson's comment was racist, AFTER your column. Good going, thanks, your antiracism, not to mention drawing scathing attention to boorishness disguised as candor in public service, is appreciated.
Persuasive persistence pays, that is Discursive Democracy at its best -- and it made Wilson pay.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://Et6hicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
=================================================================================
New York Times copyright
Op-Ed Columnist
Boy, Oh, Boy
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 12, 2009
WASHINGTON
Skip to next paragraph
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Maureen Dowd
The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind.
Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.
But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.
The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.
I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.
I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.
But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.
“A lot of these outbursts have to do with delegitimizing him as a president,” said Congressman Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the South Carolina delegation. Clyburn, the man who called out Bill Clinton on his racially tinged attacks on Obama in the primary, pushed Pelosi to pursue a formal resolution chastising Wilson.
“In South Carolina politics, I learned that the olive branch works very seldom,” he said. “You have to come at these things from a position of strength. My father used to say, ‘Son, always remember that silence gives consent.’ ”
Barry Obama of the post-’60s Hawaiian ’hood did not live through the major racial struggles in American history. Maybe he had a problem relating to his white basketball coach or catching a cab in New York, but he never got beaten up for being black.
Now he’s at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension. Even if he and the coterie of white male advisers around him don’t choose to openly acknowledge it, this president is the ultimate civil rights figure — a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe.
For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.
The state that fired the first shot of the Civil War has now given us this: Senator Jim DeMint exhorted conservatives to “break” the president by upending his health care plan. Rusty DePass, a G.O.P. activist, said that a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was “just one of Michelle’s ancestors.” Lovelorn Mark Sanford tried to refuse the president’s stimulus money. And now Joe Wilson.
“A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we’re part of the union,” said Don Fowler, the former Democratic Party chief who teaches politics at the University of South Carolina. He observed that when slavery was destroyed by outside forces and segregation was undone by civil rights leaders and Congress, it bred xenophobia.
“We have a lot of people who really think that the world’s against us,” Fowler said, “so when things don’t happen the way we like them to, we blame outsiders.” He said a state legislator not long ago tried to pass a bill to nullify any federal legislation with which South Carolinians didn’t agree. Shades of John C. Calhoun!
It may be President Obama’s very air of elegance and erudition that raises hackles in some. “My father used to say to me, ‘Boy, don’t get above your raising,’ ” Fowler said. “Some people are prejudiced anyway, and then they look at his education and mannerisms and get more angry at him.”
Clyburn had a warning for Obama advisers who want to forgive Wilson, ignore the ignorant outbursts and move on: “They’re going to have to develop ways in this White House to deal with things and not let them fester out there. Otherwise, they’ll see numbers moving in the wrong direction.”
Recommend More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on September 13, 2009, on page WK17 of the New York edition.
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NYTimes copyright
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16dowd.html#bozoanchor
Rapping Joe’s Knuckles
By MAUREEN DOWD
The pressure from House Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, on Joe Wilson to apologize was a rare triumph for civility in a country that seems to have lost all sense of it.
CNN copyright
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/15/wilson.resolution/index.html#cnnSTCText
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives on Tuesday formally admonished Republican Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting "you lie" during President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last week.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, shouts "You lie!" during President Obama's speech Wednesday night.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, shouts "You lie!" during President Obama's speech Wednesday night.
The House passed a resolution of disapproval on a 240-179 vote that was mostly along party lines, reflecting the Democratic majority in the chamber. Twelve Democrats voted "no," while seven Republicans voted for the measure. Five representatives, all Democrats, voted "present."
According to the Office of the House Historian, it was the first time in its 220-year history that the House has disciplined a member for speaking out during a presidential speech in the chamber to a joint session of Congress.
During debate on the resolution, Wilson called the measure a waste of time and failed to apologize to the chamber, as demanded by House Democrats.
"When we are done here today, we will not have taken any further steps toward helping" the nation deal with urgent challenges, said Wilson, of South Carolina. "It is time that we move forward and get back to work for the American people." Video Watch House members debate the resolution »
He and other Republicans noted that Wilson apologized to Obama immediately after the speech, and that the president accept it. Asked after the vote if he apologized privately to House leaders such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Wilson told journalists it wasn't necessary.
"In my view, by apologizing to the president, the most important person in the history of the world, that applied to everyone," Wilson said.
However, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said Wilson's refusal to apologize to the House for his disrespectful behavior to the chamber required admonishment.
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The issue, he said, "is whether we are able to proceed with a degree of civility and decorum" that Congress requires.
The House resolution was the mildest form of discipline the chamber can exercise for misconduct on the House floor.
"Whereas the conduct of the Representative from South Carolina was a breach of decorum and degraded the proceedings of the joint session, to the discredit of the House: Now, therefore, be it resolved that the House of Representatives disapproves of the behavior of the Representative from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, during the joint session of Congress held on Sept. 9, 2009," said a text of the resolution posted earlier on Hoyer's legislative Web site.
Before debate on the measure began, one Democrat said the disrespect shown Obama by Wilson never would have happened to a white president.
"It only happened when this country elected a president of color," said Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia. Another noted the heckling of the president in the House was unprecedented, and the chamber needed to enforce discipline in order to maintain civility. Video Watch Johnson comment on why he supports the resolution »
"No president has been subjected to that type of treatment on the floor of the House of Representatives, and if we go down that road, then it's the law of the jungle, and I think that's just wrong," said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.
However, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called the resolution "piling on."
In the debate, Boehner and other Republicans acknowledged the mistake by Wilson while citing his military career and how his four children also served in the military. They noted that he already had apologized to Obama and accused Democrats of a partisan stunt intended to deflect attention from what they called increasingly unpopular health care legislation. Video Watch Boehner talk about health care, support Wilson's apology »
"The American people want less politics and more jobs," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana.
In closing the debate, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House Majority whip, noted that all Americans, especially schoolchildren, learn about civics and government by observing the House.
Clyburn, a former schoolteacher, said failing to enforce House rules against Wilson's outburst would send the wrong message.
The House Democratic leadership agreed to move forward with the vote after meeting to discuss the issue Monday evening, according to two Democratic leadership aides.
Kristie Greco, a spokeswoman for Clyburn, said the discussion at Monday's meeting was about "how this speaks to the breach of decorum alone, and not addressing the issue sets a precedent for bad behavior."
"We're not the British Parliament for a reason," Greco added. Video Watch combative politicians in other countries »
Wilson on Sunday described his loud retort to Obama's statement that illegal immigrants would not be covered under the Democrats' health care bill as "a town hall moment." But he made it clear he would not apologize on the House floor.
"I called immediately, I did apologize, but I believe one apology is sufficient," he said.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the episode "unfortunate" and told reporters at her weekly news conference, "It's time for us to talk about health care and not Mr. Wilson."
But when Pelosi met with Democratic leaders later that day, her colleagues argued that unless Wilson apologized on his own, they would want a formal vote on a resolution of disapproval, according to several Democratic sources.
On Tuesday, Pelosi refused to comment on the resolution to reporters outside the weekly Democratic caucus meeting, saying that journalists should be focusing on the health care reform issue.
Other Democrats offered their thoughts.
Johnson said Wilson's comment amounted to a "wink" of approval to right-wing extremists who have brought highly charged language and imagery -- such as posters depicting Obama with a Hitler mustache or as an African witch doctor -- to the health care debate.
"He [Wilson] did not help the cause of diversity and tolerance with his remarks," Johnson said. "If I were a betting man, I would say that it instigated more racist sentiment feeling that it's OK -- you don't have to bury it now."
Johnson added that failing to rebuke Wilson would bring increased racism in the public discussion on health care, saying: "You can bring it out and talk about it fully, and so I guess we will probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again riding through the countryside intimidating people."
"That's the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked, and Congressman Wilson represents it," Johnson said. "He is the face of it, and that's why I support the resolution."
To Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, a member of the moderate Blue Dog Democratic coalition, the issue was simple: "He has not apologized to the House for the embarrassment he brought" to the chamber, Altmire said.
Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Wilson's violation of House rules was "egregious enough that it warrants an apology on the floor." Without that, the resolution of disapproval is called for, she said.
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On the Republican side, Rep. Steve King of Iowa began circulating a letter among House Republicans last weekend urging Wilson not to apologize on the House floor.
The letter stated, "We urge that you hold your ground against those who seek partisan advantage and reject all demands for additional redress. When the president of the United States accepts an apology, no observer has an additional claim."
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CNN's Deirdre Walsh and Lisa Desjardins contributed to this report.
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Associated Press/Yahoo News copyright
Jimmy Carter: Wilson comments 'based on racism'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090916/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_heckling_carter;_ylt=Ai9mfZisPYyC1O81svEugZW2GL8C;_ylu=X3oDMTMxNTlrZ3R1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwOTE2L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX2hlY2tsaW5nX2NhcnRlcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNqaW1teWNhcnRlcnc-
By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer Greg Bluestein, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 39 mins ago
ATLANTA – Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act "based on racism" and rooted in fears of a black president.
"I think it's based on racism," Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."
The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.
"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."
Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, was formally rebuked Tuesday in a House vote for shouting "You lie!" during Obama's speech to Congress last Wednesday.
The shout came after the president commented that illegal aliens would be ineligible for federal subsidies to buy health insurance. Republicans expressed their disbelief with sounds of disapproval, punctuated by Wilson's outburst.
Tuesday's rebuke was a rare resolution of disapproval pushed through by Democrats who insisted that Wilson had violated basic rules of decorum and civility. Republicans characterized the measure as a witch hunt and Wilson, who had already apologized to Obama, insisted he owed the House no apology.
Wilson's spokesman was not immediately available for comment, but his eldest son defended his father.
"There is not a racist bone in my dad's body," said Alan Wilson, an Iraq veteran who is running for state attorney general. "He doesn't even laugh at distasteful jokes. I won't comment on former President Carter, because I don't know President Carter. But I know my dad, and it's just not in him."
"It's unfortunate people make that jump. People can disagree — and appropriately disagree — on issues of substance, but when they make the jump to race it's absolutely ludicrous. My brothers and I were raised by our parents to respect everyone regardless of background or race."
South Carolina's former Democratic Party chairman said that he doesn't believe Wilson was motivated by racism, but said the outburst encouraged racist views.
"I think Joe's conduct was asinine, but I think it would be asinine no matter what the color of the president," said Dick Harpootlian, who has known Wilson for decades. "I don't think Joe's outburst was caused by President Obama being African-American. I think it was caused by no filter being between his brain and his mouth."
Harpootlian said he received scores of racial e-mails from outside South Carolina after he talked about the vote on Fox News.
"You have a bunch of folks out there looking for some comfort in their racial issues. They have a problem with an African-American president," he said. "But was he motivated by that? I don't think so. I respectfully disagree with President Carter, though it gives validity to racism."
Carter called Wilson's comment "dastardly" and an aftershock of racist views that have permeated American politics for decades.
"The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state," he said. "And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect."
___
Associated Press Writer Seanna Adcox in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.
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New Yorker magazine copyright
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/10/05/1998_10_05_031_TNY_LIBRY_000016504?printable=true
New Yorker comment by Toni Morrison on Clinton as the nation's first Black President
Comment
Thanks to the papers, we know what the columnists think. Thanks to round-the-clock cable, we know what the ex-prosecutors, the right-wing blondes, the teletropic law professors, and the disgraced political consultants think. Thanks to the polls, we know what “the American people” think. But what about the experts on human folly?
by Toni Morrison October 5, 1998
Keywords
Newspapermen;
Communications;
Lewinsky, Monica;
Clinton, Bill (Pres.);
Washington;
Adultery;
African-Americans (Blacks)
This summer, my plan was to do very selective radio listening, read no newspapers or news magazines, and leave my television screen profoundly, mercifully blank. There were books to read, others to finish, a few to read again. It was a lovely summer, and I was pleased with the decision to recuse myself from what had become since January The Only Story Worth Telling. Although I wanted cognitive space for my own pursuits, averting my gaze was not to bury my head. I was eager for information, yet suspicious of the package in which that information would be wrapped. I have been convinced for a long time now that, with a few dazzling exceptions, print and visual media have thrown away their freedom and chosen jail instead—have willingly locked themselves into a ratings-driven, money-based prison of their own making. However comfortable the prison may be, its most overwhelming feature is loss of the public. Not able, therefore, to trust reporters to report instead of gossip among themselves, unable to bear newscasters deflecting, ignoring, trivializing information—orchestrating its minor chords for the highest decibel—I decided to get my news the old-fashioned way: conversation, public eavesdropping, and word of mouth.
I hoped to avoid the spectacle I was sure would be mounted, fearing that at any minute I might have to witness ex-Presidential friends selling that friendship for the higher salaries of broadcast journalism; anticipating the nausea that might rise when quaking Democrats took firm positions on or over the fence in case the polls changed. I imagined feral Republicans, smelling blood and a shot at the totalitarian power they believe is rightfully theirs; self-congratulatory pundits sifting through “history” for nuggets of dubious relevancy.
I did not relinquish my summer plans, but summer is over now and I have begun to supplement verbal accounts of the running news with tentative perusal of C-span, brief glimpses of anchorfolk, squinting glances at newspapers—trying belatedly to get the story straight. What, I have been wondering, is the story—the one only the public seems to know? And what does it mean?
I wish that the effluvia did add up to a story of adultery. Serious as adultery is, it is not a national catastrophe. Women leaving hotels following trysts with their extramarital lovers tell pollsters they abominate Mr. Clinton’s behavior. Relaxed men fresh from massage parlors frown earnestly into the camera at the mere thought of such malfeasance. No one “approves” of adultery, but, unlike fidelity in Plymouth Rock society, late-twentieth-century fidelity, when weighed against the constitutional right to privacy, comes up short. The root of the word, adulterare, means “to defile,” but at its core is treachery. Cloaked in deception and secrecy, it has earned prominence on lists of moral prohibitions and is understood as more than a sin; in divorce courts it is a crime. People don’t get arrested for its commission, but they can suffer its grave consequences.
Still, it is clear that this is not a narrative of adultery or even of its consequences for the families involved. Is there anyone who believes that that was all the investigation had in mind? Adultery is the Independent Counsel’s loss leader, the item displayed to lure the customers inside the shop. Nor was it ever a story about seduction—male vamp or female predator (or the other way around). It played that way a little: a worn tale of middle-aged vulnerability and youthful appetite. The Achilles’ heel analogy flashed for a bit, but had no staying power, although its ultra meaning—that Achilles’ heel was given to Achilles, not to a lesser man—lay quietly dormant under the cliché.
At another point, the story seemed to be about high and impeachable crimes like the ones we have had some experience with: the suborning of federal agencies; the exchange of billion-dollar contracts for proof of indiscretion; the extermination of infants in illegal wars mounted and waged for money and power. Until something like those abuses surfaces, the story will have to make do with thinner stuff: alleged perjury and “Lady, your husband is cheating on us.” Whatever the media promote and the chorus chants, whatever dapples dinner tables, this is not a mundane story of sex, lies, and videotape. The real story is none of these. Not adultery, or high crimes. Nor is it even the story of a brilliant President naïve enough to believe, along with the rest of the citizenry, that there were lines one’s enemies would not cross, lengths to which they would not go—a profound, perhaps irrevocable, error in judgment.
In a quite baffling and frustrating manner, it was not a “story” but a compilation of revelations and commentary which shied away from the meaning of its own material. In spite of myriad “titles” (“The President in Crisis”), what the public has been given is dangerously close to a story of no story at all. One of the problems in locating it is the absence of a coherent sphere of enunciation. There seems to be no appropriate language in which or platform of discourse from which to pursue it. This absence of clear language has imploded into a surfeit of contradictory languages. The parsing and equivocal terminology of law is laced with titillation. Raw comedy is spiked with Cotton Mather homilies. The precision of a coroner’s vocabulary mocks passionate debates on morality. Radiant sermons are forced to dance with vile headlines. From deep within this conflagration of tony, occasionally insightful, arch, pompous, mournful, supercilious, generous, salivating verbalism, the single consistent sound to emerge is a howl of revulsion.
But revulsion against what? What is being violated, ruptured, defiled? The bedroom? The Oval Office? The voting booth? The fourth grade? Marriage vows? The flag? Whatever answer is given, underneath the national embarrassment churns a disquiet turned to dread and now anger.
African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President’s body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and body-searched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear: “No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and—who knows?—maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us.”
For a large segment of the population who are not African-Americans or members of other minorities, the elusive story left visible tracks: from target sighted to attack, to criminalization, to lynching, and now, in some quarters, to crucifixion. The always and already guilty “perp” is being hunted down not by a prosecutor’s obsessive application of law but by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks.
Certain freedoms I once imagined as being in a vault somewhere, like ancient jewels kept safe from thieves. No single official or group could break in and remove them, certainly not in public. The image is juvenile, of course, and I have not had recourse to it for the whole of my adult life. Yet it is useful now to explain what I perceive as the real story. For each bootstep the office of the Independent Counsel has taken smashes one of those jewels—a ruby of grand-jury secrecy here, a sapphire of due process there. Such concentrated power may be reminiscent of a solitary Torquemada on a holy mission of lethal inquisition. It may even suggest a fatwa. But neither applies. This is Slaughtergate. A sustained, bloody, arrogant coup d’état. The Presidency is being stolen from us. And the people know it.
I don’t regret my “news-free” summer. Getting at the story in that retrograde fashion has been rewarding. Early this week, a neighbor called to ask if I would march. Where? To Washington, she said. Absolutely, I answered, without even asking what for. “We have to prevent the collapse of our Constitution,” she said.
We meet tonight. ♦
end of New Yorker copyrighted comment
----------------------
NYTimescopyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/us/politics/17obama.html?hp
As Race Debate Grows, Obama Steers Clear of It
By JEFF ZELENY and JIM RUTENBERG
Beyond posing a distraction, the race issue could further strain the president’s broad but tenuous coalition.
(My NYT comment in response to this article, appears above
====================================================================================
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Friday, May 9, 2008
Signed Editorials -- Hillary's Race
May 9th, 2008 10:44 am
ALL NYTimes editorials should be signed.
When a Times editorial anonymously advises Clinton to drop out of the race, because of her alleged use of racial code words we should know who on the Times is advocating this position. Since the topic is Race why should the racial membership of this particular Times editorial writer be concealed?
Or is this Times writer claiming to be immune to racial signifiers? I know I'm not immune and I know from experience that I am usually at the receiving end of racial signifiers in my everyday personal and professional life in racialized US society.
See, my name and affiliation(s) are clearly indicated in my post.
Transparency and the free flow of information are vital ingredients of media and civil society discourses in democracy.
The world knows that U.S. democracy has taken a severe beating in the Bush years. The Times is not immune from such pressures because it is a part of US society. So be open and transparent when you advocate any position. WE know what Hillary said. But we don't know who on the Times said what they said in this column.
Dr. Chithra KarunaKaran
City University of New York
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
see NYTimes Editorial below on Clinton and Race
Sen. Clinton and the Campaign
There is a lot of talk that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now fated to lose the Democratic nomination and should pull out of the race. We believe it is her right to stay in the fight and challenge Senator Barack Obama as long as she has the desire and the means to do so. That is the essence of the democratic process.
But we believe just as strongly that Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones. We believe it would also be a terrible mistake if she launches a fight over the disqualified delegations from Florida and Michigan.
The United States needs a clean break from eight catastrophic years of George W. Bush. And so far, Senator John McCain is shaping up as Bush the Sequel — neverending war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich while the middle class struggles, courts packed with right-wing activists intent on undoing decades of progress in civil rights, civil liberties and other vital areas.
The Democratic Party must field the most effective and vibrant candidate it possibly can. More attack ads and squabbling will not help achieve that goal. If Mr. Obama wins, he will be that much more battered and the party will be harder to unite. Win or lose, Mrs. Clinton’s reputation will suffer more harm than it already has.
She owes more to millions of Americans who have voted for her (and particularly to New Yorkers, who are entitled to expect that if she loses, she will return to the Senate with her influence and integrity intact).
In addition to abandoning the attack ads, Mrs. Clinton must drop her plans to fight to seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan, which defied the Democratic Party and moved up the dates of their primaries. A lot of people voted in Florida anyway, but Mrs. Clinton should not pursue this nuclear option. It would make the Democrats look unable to control their own, just when they want to make a case that they can lead the entire nation.
Both candidates have been vowing in the last two days to unite the party, and Mr. Obama could do more to rein in his anonymous campaign aides and other supporters who spend their days trashing Mrs. Clinton.
The undeclared superdelegates should stop their coy posing. With few exceptions, there is no reason left (other than the hope of making back-room deals) for those whose states have voted to keep their positions private. The rest should state their allegiance as soon as their primaries are held in the next few weeks.
There is a lot that Senators Clinton and Obama need to be talking about in coming weeks, starting with how they will extract the country from President Bush’s disastrous Iraq war. A robust debate about health care and the mortgage crisis would remind all American voters of what is at stake in this year’s election. It would also prepare whoever wins the nomination to be a better debater and campaigner in the fall.
We endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and we know that she has a major contribution to make. But instead of discussing her strong ideas, Mrs. Clinton claimed in an interview with USA Today that she would be the better nominee because a recent poll showed that “Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.” She added: “There’s a pattern emerging here.”
Yes, there is a pattern — a familiar and unpleasant one. It is up to Mrs. Clinton to change it if she hopes to have any shot at winning the nomination or preserving her integrity and her influence if she loses.
===================================================================
Friday, October 19, 2007
Did Watson Demean Scientific Reasoning & Ethical Democracy?
James Watson, in a recorded interview with The London Times made comments (see quoted excerpts below) about the intelligence and ability of Africans that are not supported by any scientific data whatsoever.
Q. Why did Watson, a famed molecular biologist, celebrated Nobelist for his double helix DNA observations and reported findings, make these scientifically unsupported statements? What theoretical framework(s) can we utilize to critique Watson statements to better comprehend and situate his claims? (see below my Theory of Systemic Whiteness on this blog as a possible theoretical framework)
Q. Why do Watson's scientifically unsupported statements not only about so-called race-based differences in intelligence but also his statements about the evolution of cognition and reason, women's "beauty", heteronormativity, body mass index, libidinal energy and other topics feature on my blog which ponders and attempts to make progress in unpackaging ethical democracy as a lived practice? What does the lived practice of Ethical Democracy have to do with James Watson and his unsupported claims about race, intelligence and ability?
Q Is the ethical pursuit of free speech and secular humanism severely or even mildly compromised when a scientist or a politician or a student or a teacher, in making claims or offering opinions, fail to critically examine their own personal lifeways and their own personal worldview?
excerpt from AP' s Malcolm Ritter -- news report on James Watson's 'apology'
AP excerpt begins:
..............London's Science Museum canceled a sold-out lecture he was to give there Friday. The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said his comments "represent racist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact.... That a man of such academic distinction could make such ignorant comments, which are utterly offensive and incorrect and give succor to the most backward in our society, demonstrates why racism still has to be fought."
In the United States, the Federation of American Scientists said it was outraged that Watson "chose to use his unique stature to promote personal prejudices that are racist, vicious and unsupported by science."
And Watson's employer said he wasn't speaking for the Cold Spring Harbor research facility, where the board and administration "vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments."
Watson is in Britain to promote his new book, "Avoid Boring People," and a publicist for his British publisher provided this statement Thursday to The Associated Press:
"I am mortified about what has happened," Watson said. "More importantly, I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said.
"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have. To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."
Watson's publicist, Kate Farquhar-Thomson, would not address whether Watson was suggesting he was misquoted. "You have the statement. That's it, I'm afraid," she said.
A spokesman for The Sunday Times said that the interview with Watson was recorded and that the newspaper stood by the story.
Watson's new book also touches on possible racial differences in IQ, though it doesn't go as far as the newspaper interview.
In the book, Watson raises the prospect of discovering genes that significantly affect a person's intelligence.
"...There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically," Watson wrote. "Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
Watson is no stranger to making waves with his scientific views. In 2000, in a speech at the University of California, Berkeley, he suggested that sex drive is related to skin color. "That's why you have Latin lovers," he said, according to people who attended. "You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient."
Some years earlier he was quoted in a newspaper as saying, "If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she doesn't want a homosexual child, well, let her."
"Jim has a penchant for making outrageous comments that are basically poking society in the eye," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said Thursday.
Collins, who has known Watson for a long time, said his latest comments "really ... carried it this time to a much more hurtful level."
In a brief telephone interview, Collins told The AP that Watson's statements are "the wildest form of speculation in a field where such speculation ought not to be engaged in." Genetic factors for intelligence show no difference from one part of the world to another, he said.
Several longtime friends of Watson insisted he's not a racist.
"It's hard for me to buy the label `racist' for him," said Victor McElheny, the author of a 2003 biography of Watson, whom he's known for 45 years. "This is someone who has encouraged so many people from so many backgrounds."
So why does he say things that can sound racist? "I really don't know the answer to that," McElheny said.
Biologist and Nobel laureate Phil Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who's known Watson since 1971, said, "I've never considered Jim a racist. However, Jim likes to use statistics and observations to provoke people, and it is possible that he is provoking people by these comments."
Calling Watson "one of the great historical scientific figures of our time," Sharp said, "I don't understand why he takes it upon himself to make these statements."
Mike Botchan, co-chair of the molecular and cell biology department at the University of California, Berkeley, who's known Watson since 1970, said the Nobelist's personal beliefs are less important than the impact of what he says.
"Is he someone who's going to prejudge a person in front of him on the basis of his skin color? I would have to say, no. Is he someone, though, that has these beliefs? I don't know any more. And the important thing is I don't really care," Botchan said.
"I think Jim Watson is now essentially a disgrace to his own legacy. And it's very sad for me to say this, because he's one of the great figures of 20th century biology."
Associated Press writers Thomas Wagner in London and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this story.
end excerpt
Q. Why did Watson, a famed molecular biologist, celebrated Nobelist for his double helix DNA observations and reported findings, make these scientifically unsupported statements? What theoretical framework(s) can we utilize to critique Watson statements to better comprehend and situate his claims? (see below my Theory of Systemic Whiteness on this blog as a possible theoretical framework)
Q. Why do Watson's scientifically unsupported statements not only about so-called race-based differences in intelligence but also his statements about the evolution of cognition and reason, women's "beauty", heteronormativity, body mass index, libidinal energy and other topics feature on my blog which ponders and attempts to make progress in unpackaging ethical democracy as a lived practice? What does the lived practice of Ethical Democracy have to do with James Watson and his unsupported claims about race, intelligence and ability?
Q Is the ethical pursuit of free speech and secular humanism severely or even mildly compromised when a scientist or a politician or a student or a teacher, in making claims or offering opinions, fail to critically examine their own personal lifeways and their own personal worldview?
excerpt from AP' s Malcolm Ritter -- news report on James Watson's 'apology'
AP excerpt begins:
..............London's Science Museum canceled a sold-out lecture he was to give there Friday. The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said his comments "represent racist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact.... That a man of such academic distinction could make such ignorant comments, which are utterly offensive and incorrect and give succor to the most backward in our society, demonstrates why racism still has to be fought."
In the United States, the Federation of American Scientists said it was outraged that Watson "chose to use his unique stature to promote personal prejudices that are racist, vicious and unsupported by science."
And Watson's employer said he wasn't speaking for the Cold Spring Harbor research facility, where the board and administration "vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments."
Watson is in Britain to promote his new book, "Avoid Boring People," and a publicist for his British publisher provided this statement Thursday to The Associated Press:
"I am mortified about what has happened," Watson said. "More importantly, I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said.
"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have. To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."
Watson's publicist, Kate Farquhar-Thomson, would not address whether Watson was suggesting he was misquoted. "You have the statement. That's it, I'm afraid," she said.
A spokesman for The Sunday Times said that the interview with Watson was recorded and that the newspaper stood by the story.
Watson's new book also touches on possible racial differences in IQ, though it doesn't go as far as the newspaper interview.
In the book, Watson raises the prospect of discovering genes that significantly affect a person's intelligence.
"...There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically," Watson wrote. "Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
Watson is no stranger to making waves with his scientific views. In 2000, in a speech at the University of California, Berkeley, he suggested that sex drive is related to skin color. "That's why you have Latin lovers," he said, according to people who attended. "You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient."
Some years earlier he was quoted in a newspaper as saying, "If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and a woman decides she doesn't want a homosexual child, well, let her."
"Jim has a penchant for making outrageous comments that are basically poking society in the eye," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said Thursday.
Collins, who has known Watson for a long time, said his latest comments "really ... carried it this time to a much more hurtful level."
In a brief telephone interview, Collins told The AP that Watson's statements are "the wildest form of speculation in a field where such speculation ought not to be engaged in." Genetic factors for intelligence show no difference from one part of the world to another, he said.
Several longtime friends of Watson insisted he's not a racist.
"It's hard for me to buy the label `racist' for him," said Victor McElheny, the author of a 2003 biography of Watson, whom he's known for 45 years. "This is someone who has encouraged so many people from so many backgrounds."
So why does he say things that can sound racist? "I really don't know the answer to that," McElheny said.
Biologist and Nobel laureate Phil Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who's known Watson since 1971, said, "I've never considered Jim a racist. However, Jim likes to use statistics and observations to provoke people, and it is possible that he is provoking people by these comments."
Calling Watson "one of the great historical scientific figures of our time," Sharp said, "I don't understand why he takes it upon himself to make these statements."
Mike Botchan, co-chair of the molecular and cell biology department at the University of California, Berkeley, who's known Watson since 1970, said the Nobelist's personal beliefs are less important than the impact of what he says.
"Is he someone who's going to prejudge a person in front of him on the basis of his skin color? I would have to say, no. Is he someone, though, that has these beliefs? I don't know any more. And the important thing is I don't really care," Botchan said.
"I think Jim Watson is now essentially a disgrace to his own legacy. And it's very sad for me to say this, because he's one of the great figures of 20th century biology."
Associated Press writers Thomas Wagner in London and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this story.
end excerpt
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