Will the Cambridge police incident be a catalyst for honest dialogue about race?

[BirminghamExaminer]

Warning this is quite a long op-ed piece about racism, but I hope you'll bother to read the whole piece and perhaps comment.

Just one day after President Obama's inauguration, a Brockton, Massachusetts man shot and killed two African immigrants and sexually assaulted and shot a third. The shooter was Keith Luke who told police he had been reading white supremacist websites for months and was "fighting for a dying race."

In April, three Pittsburgh police officers were shot and killed by Richard Andrew Poplawski, an anti-semitic and racist extremist given to belief in conspiracy theories.

Keith Luke is not alone among white supremacists who apparently feel the need to fight for a "dying race." Presumably men like Luke and the people who visit such websites feel that the superiority of the "white" race is threatened and never more so than when an African American man was elected as President of the United States.

Men like Luke may seem like the rare exception, mentally ill men with an obsession about vast conspiracies and the 'dying' of the white race. But the irrational fear appears to have crossed into the mainstream. The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor exacerbated the racism that President Obama's election seemed to bring out in some people.

Unfortunately, there are those who take advantage of racial tension, or any sort of controversy for that matter, to advance their own agendas. For example, radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, is often first to register public complaint and stir up racial hatred. It is in Limbaugh's best financial interest to keep his listeners angry and confused.

When Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates got into a kerfuffle with white police Sergeant Crowley of the Cambridge police department, and was arrested in his own home, President Obama weighed in on the subject during a press conference. Limbaugh was quick to stir up racial hatred among his listeners just as he had during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings. Most of Limbaugh's listeners are white people who feel disenfranchised and without any power. They are easily manipulated.

Sean Hannity, a television entertainer, encouraged his viewers and listeners to vote for ways to overthrow the American government. Hannity never showed any propensity for rebellion against the United States Government until President Obama was elected. It is easy to read between the lines.

Tea parties, the brainchild of Libertarians, were taken over by angry white men and to a lesser degree, women, who share one thing in common: their hatred of President Obama though they are unable to articulate why. One can only assume that having a black man in the White House is for many of these people, their worst nightmare come true.

Some racism is implicit.

Earlier this month, Congressman Todd Tiahrt, (R), Kansas, suggested that President Obama and Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas would most likely have been aborted had abortion funding been available for poor women several decades ago. Tiahrt's type of racism is of the implicit sort. It's possible that he wasn't even aware that his stated reasons for his position on funding for abortion is racist.

[MADem]

1. Realistically? No. I do think it will foster a little discussion, and it will nudge police

procedures a step or two towards being a bit less insensitive.

Will it magically herald a Brand New Day? Fuck, no.

These things are incremental, unfortunately. It's a slow process to drag hearts and minds to a sane place, sometimes. Too slow, IMO.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. It is a step in the right direction n/t

[BirminghamExaminer]

3. A step in the right direction is better than a step backwards which is what some seem to want. n/t

[RussBLib]

4. An honest dialogue about race? In this country?

Don't count on it, pal. I don't think we've had an honest discussion about ANYTHING in this country in, well, I can't even remember when. In fact, I don't even know what an honest dialogue would even look like.

We have too much media and too many demagogues to have a real discussion about anything.

[Demeter]

6. Exactly. Welcome to 1984

[Demeter]

5. In a Word, No

Somebody significant would have to die in a horrible way--every 6 months or so, before honesty about bigotry got addressed.

Hell, we can't even get honesty about the fraudulent banks in this country.

[burning rain]

7. More of a hindrance, I suspect.

Although hindering honest dialog re. race in the US is about as redundant as clipping a penguin's wings. Those whites who do not want to see white racism anywhere will take the apparent absence of racism on Sgt. Crowley's part (even if they concede that arresting Gates was unjustified) as an opportunity to claim that all allegations of racism on the part of whites are bogus.


The article is informative as always. Thanks for what you do.

[Igel]

8. Nope.

To have an honest dialogue, both sides have to be willing to let the other side speak honestly and openly, and both sides have to be willing to admit where they're wrong, to engage in both self-criticism and be open to criticism.

That's not going to happen. Both sides see things through the filter of their own biases and perceptions, and there's a strong tendency to see only one's own side as truth, while the other side is hopelessly inaccurate and wrong.

There's no chance for an honest dialog. Not gonna happen, at least not in my lifetime (which is likely to extend another 30 years). Perhaps late in my offspring's lifetime. It'll happen--maybe--when it's no longer important, when only a few dozen people care about it. Mostly the problem will just go away.

[lexanman]

9. sometimes there is not two sides to every story

racism is one of them. There is not bias and perceptions on those who experience racism. It is reality, and to say that minorities are biased because they don't accept racism is absurd. How is a black person who is profiled, or tazered, or imprisoned for a crime he did not commit "wrong"? There are no two sides to racism. Its wrong always. Every time.

The problem won't ever go away because there will always be hateful racist ignorant people