Tim Wise speaks in Oakland: anti-racist activist

Even with the election of President Barack Obama, America is still plagued by racism, according to author Tim Wise. The anti-racist activist was in Oakland last week discussing his most recent book, "Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama."

Students packed a Laney College classroom Wednesday, Feb. 3 Tim Wise lecture, part of the campus' Black History Month lecture program.

Wise -- who is white -- said the recent economic downturn, fear over health care reform, the changing demographics of America, and the election of the first African American president in the U.S. has caused great anxiety for white people in America. The rise of the “Tea Party” demonstrations and much of the backlash against the Obama administration is due to a perceived loss of “white privilege.”

"For the first time you actually have to realize that America’s not just about white folks,” Wise said, referring to the luxury of America being seen as a nation for white people. “When all of a sudden that changes, an awful lot of people aren’t ready.”

“All of a sudden you have a white America” no longer “totally convinced that everything’s going to be okay. He added that the economic collapse has caused many white people to feel as if they are “losing” the country and wanting “their” country back. “They’re talking about going back to the day when they were the norm. They could take it for granted that they were the norm.”

During the question and answer period, his advice on confronting subtle or subconscious racism was confrontation, critically. He said some whites may not be conscious of their racism, but by asking questions or critiquing racist remarks and statements, people who are not overtly or intentionally racist, will improve.

“You don’t want to just jump on them, you want them to think,” Wise suggests.

Read the complete article or watch a video recording on TheBlackHour.com.

Tom Hayes: Consequences of "gotcha politics" aimed at Senator Reid

Melissa Harris-Lacewell offers an excellent perspective in her piece "What Reid's Race Gaffe Tells Us About Inequality" today at The Nation. Nobody's surprised that the opposition party would leap on such a gaffe, but if they really want to accomplish change they'd be focused on more than one politician. The focus has clearly been a virtual frenzy - a "tar-and-feather the heathen" first, ask questions later approach - the sort of "gotcha" that McCain and other prominent GOP members famously claim to oppose.

Is Senator Reid above criticism? Absolutely not. His choice of language reveals something of his social context and the resultant view of the world. Clearly conversations about race in his circle are lacking, and his experience is insulated from the way most Americans live.

But creating what political theorist Nancy Fraser calls, "a difference-friendly world, where assimilation to majority or dominant cultural norms is no longer the price for equal respect," isn't what the elite right-wing strategists or the supporting talk-show punditocracy is calling for, (or presumably hoping to achieve.) Their goals appear much less lofty: attack the party of the President to weaken his political influence, one member of Congress at a time.

Naturally some of GOP politicos and voters are applauding the response to the gaffe. But rather than the tactics Americans who want to reclaim moral high-ground while rebuilding the leadership role for their country on the world stage need to succeed, these reveal a willingness to return to the arrogant do-anything, say-anything tactics of fear for short-term political advantage that most Americans voted to curtail in 2008.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Eyes on the Prize :: A call to action

An open letter to activists:

I will stipulate that racism is something to deal with, to confront, when and as you encounter it. It's far more insidious than the misinformation campaigns being waged against specific legislative proposals.

However, progressive activists would do well to remember that the President has three things atop his agenda: improving Education, moving closer to Energy independence (which overlaps many policy areas, from the environment to national security,) and Health Care/Insurance reform. These are issues we can more readily rectify legislatively than the relatively intractable nature of individual bigotry.

So, consider that on a national level, injecting racism into the dialog may distract your attention and diffuse the effectiveness of activists and progressive politicians by redirecting time and energy away from legislative goals. The new administration took office, as they all do, atop a mandate from the voters.  The opposition writes its own mandate, and adopts tactics meant to impede the will of the majority.

In conversation, partly precipitated by former President Carter, President Obama has made it abundantly clear he's not going to allow racism to alter his focus and priorities.

To rail against those they fear is a tactic of the opposition; witness the actions in DC on Saturday. Distraction is surely another component of that "opposition strategy." I'm not by any means condoning racism; I've written at some length about it, how the once anti-slavery Republican Party of Lincoln became the home of the most closed-minded white racists in the U.S. and how that undermines our lives and our communities, in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. I know that I'm not going to change the hearts and minds of very many (if any) white racists rapidly, and that conversation isn't the key - proof is.

Do you seek change? Advancing constructive alternatives to create or encourage the change you desire is the important use of our time. Politics, as has been observed by wiser men than I, is the art of the possible; the work of enlightened, committed activists enhances the possibilities for those they support.

The necessary response to individual racism "in the room," in our day-to-day lives, isn't the same as a conversation at a national level.

President Obama's skin color doesn't matter at all; it's no more relevant to how he governs than your hair color is to how you pay your bills. There will always be those who distrust somebody who is "not like me" or "not like us."  They are emotionally attached to that belief - and few on either side of such issues bother listening to anything that's not consistent with their mindset.

Demonstrating that a man who's father is from Kenya is working for the greater good of us all without considering ethnic backgrounds, that a politician isn't just working for the rich or those "like him," but for all Americans, is the way to win the hearts and minds of those open to change. There will always be others disagreeing - and adopting whatever tactics they believe will advance their beliefs (or their ratings.)

Are you going to let those who intend to undermine any progress, those whose goal is not merely to voice their opposition but to dictate the topics and tone of our national debates, take your eyes off the prize?

Work to achieve what you prioritize.  I submit that racism is something to deal with, to confront, when and as you encounter it, but like any other hot-button issue that we react to viscerally, it can be used to distract, to dominate the media, and to chase our work out of people's minds. If you think I'm right, let's get the health care insurance reforms passed so we can turn to the other important issues of the day in a timely way.

Tom Hayes: Fiscal conservatives looking for new dance partners

During the latter part of the 1900s and the Bush years the GOP often seemed one solid, united front of like-minded folks. It's actually nearly as diverse a coalition as the Democratic party, built around a core of old-money, anti-regulation businessmen that, at times, has held its collective fiscally conservative nose to take advantage of voters that just don't feel comfortable with the Democrats (and liked the sound of lower taxes.)

To their great delight at the time, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered any states that were bastions of white racism in the mid-1960s to the GOP for electoral purposes - largely what we call the "old south." The GOP wielded that sudden influx carefully, and with discipline over the following decades became deft at appealing to this constituency while carefully avoiding any overtly racist public statements.

As Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Professor of Politics and African-American Studies at Princeton University, noted regarding President Carter's recent observations about racism:

"There is something particularly compelling when Southern white men identify, name, and condemn racism. America can never forget what it sounded like..." to hear LBJ say something similar while he was President:

"What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome."

Nobody noticed more, or denied it more vehemently, than racists themselves. LBJ knowingly drove white racists to abandon the Democratic party en masse, and most turned to the GOP, where many have remained. While there are other factors that lead people to criticize President Obama and/or his initiatives, assuming racism is not a factor for some of Obama's detractors is either naive or self-delusional. For racists to think they've managed to conceal their beliefs from most of the rest of us, that we just plain don't realize what's going on, is hubris so blatant it beggars my descriptive powers.

Where will the GOP go now?

To the consternation of the fiscal conservatives in GOP, the Bush~Cheney administration's actions spending to fund their fruitless hunt for Osama bin Laden and the disingenuous hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq have driven many moderates out of the party while crippling the financial might of the country, and they are left with the "not ready for TV" tea-baggers and some barely disguised racists as key parts of their voting base in many areas. The various ratings-driven, faux-histrionic "conservative" pundits are not solidifying the GOP power in the coming election cycle any more than the hypocritical shenanigans of Mike "Spanky" Duvall, Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, or Mark "Don't cry for me, Argentina" Sanford, which have yet to fade from the public's memory.

Ironically, fiscal conservatives have to hope for a kindred spirit in President Obama, who is considerably more socially and economically moderate than he is painted by the media. For Obama has no choice but to spend given the state of the U.S. economy as he starts his first term: the impact of the unfunded military spending and the credit and financial crisis will reverberate for years, possibly decades. While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner takes point in the media limelight, with the President intent on bringing fairness to the Health Insurance industry, the dances taking place off-camera in D.C. must be truly epic.

Are the "Obama's foreign born" folks being racist?

I'm not sure most of the people who are harping on this "birth certificate" issue even believe it's true; I think they're mostly looking for something to badger the winner with. It's amazing what people will do when they're feeling bitter.

Are there racists among them? I assume so, but I'm not sure what fraction it is, let alone if it's the majority. As for the rest of them, logic isn't at issue with most in this situation. It's an emotional response, just as many reactions are in the political arena. There were nut-cases dogging every President in recent memory, forcing them to spend time and attention on trivia - taking their time and energy away from the larger problems facing the people of this country.

Many of them, in this case, have trouble feeling any sort of sense of commonality - or community - with the duly elected former Senator for any number of reasons: some because he's not white, some because he's a Democrat, some because they think he's trying to impose socialized medicine, some simply because they thought we were doing well under the previous administration.

Right or wrong isn't at issue - logic won't change their position; they aren't open to debate, they aren't even listening. Sadly, it's the same sort of "we vs. they" thinking that is so easy to see as problematic in places like the middle east, but when we're caught up in it ourselves we lose our objectivity. It's great in a game of bridge, or as a fan at a sporting event, but inappropriate and counterproductive in this case.

So they pick something to hammer away at, something that doesn't sound - on the surface - like they can't abide a Democrat, or a man who's not another good ol' white guy, or whatever their particular thing is, in the White House. It's a mantle of plausible deniability, distancing their words from their true objection. As such, they're no more objective, or amenable to logical discussion of facts, than the Emperor in the parable that teaches us (or at least tries to) about keeping our perspective.

It doesn't take mental illness, or racism, to account for what's going on. All one of these conspiracy theorists needs is to be a little bit stubborn: pleased to believe that you can't call them anti-black, or anti-Democrat, while they hide behind the story that there's something suspect about a guy who beat out their guy.

In due time some will realize, like the emperor with the "new" clothes, that they've not got even one scrap of evidence to hide behind.

Some few may even expand their view, and decide our President is a lot more like them despite having parents of different colors, and a lot more interested in their welfare than, for instance, a Saudi prince.

But the man's only been in office about 7 months, and that's not a lot of time to win over the opposition while he's busy trying to dig us out of the hole the economy fell into during 2008. He's adopted an ambitious agenda: health care reform alone would be a major task, but he's working international diplomacy, education, and climate reform as well. He's got supporters who think he's not moving fast enough on their own top priority, be it civil rights for gay couples or reforming and regulating Wall Street.

The extreme cases, of course, will remain unswayed no matter how much success Obama has. Like extremists for other points of view elsewhere, they will make a lot of noise because they crave the attention more than anything.

"Obama not American" believers: are they just racist?

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You know, I'm sick of racists. Just plain tired of em. You know who they are - or maybe they're you. People who are really upset that America elected Barack Obama, a black man, as president but since they feel they can't say so without the anonymity of the Internet, they craft other means of expressing their anger, like hanging on the to the crazy idea that President Obama's not an American citizen.

Even when there's a birth certificate:

Obama's birth certificate

Driven by racism

You know, some contend that racism is a mental illness and if you followed this story you'd get hard evidence to back that claim. It doesn't matter than President Obama's been through election after election, that he has a proven birth certificate, and that his birthday was listed in the Hawaiian newspaper where he was born, nope.

It's not enough for a small group so angry that the President's not white, they've hyped themselves into having faith the president's not American. They get up at meetings and yell and scream and generally talk crazy talk, hoping someone will listen, but then only the site Free Republic, which is conservative, does.

Think about it.

Have you seen a large number of blacks saying "Obama's not American?" Of course not. You've only heard one black guy: Allan Keys and as much as I personally like him, have observed him use white racism for his own purposes yet cry when someone's being racist toward him and employ a steady diet of nutso conservatism as a tool to achieve his own political ends.

Keys loves playing the "harmless-to-whites-black-guy" role, a black catholic who blindly sides with Israel only for political score points, all the better to raise money for some future campaign. Alan's angry that Barack was the first black elected official to score with whites; he's jealous because he's tried to get elected to something so many times and lost time and time again; Barack's success just pisses him off.  Obama beat him for the Illinois Senate in 2004, and now he's President of The United States, and Alan just can't take it.

Alan's the crazy brother you tolerate and like, even as you feel sorry for him, and I do. When racists want to say they're not racist, they hold up their Alan Keyes puppet for show.

Oh brother. Oh, God, save us from these people for they no not what they do. They include Rush Limbaugh, who's wickedly stupid statements on this are so entertaining, I can see why he gets $400 million because while some believe this guy, others love to listen to a great mental train wreck. Only Limbaugh would get it wrong by stating Obama lacks a birth certificate and that Liberals don't love God.

I do and I'm Liberal.

But back to the main point, FactCheck.org has seen, and reportedly touched the birth certificate. Period. Obama was born in the U.S.A.  Of course, some people want to believe otherwise, but then while they claim to believe in God, they've certainly got the Devil in them.

Racism: The Mental Illness I Will Not Stop Talking About

What's interesting about the Internet are the different audiences and their responses and characteristics, especially on the issue of race and racism, a problem that is on the constant collective mind of the African American community and people of color in general because historically we've been the most negatively impacted by it.

I don't claim to be the spokesperson for the Black community and such a designation would be the stuff of comedy. But what does vex me and really egg me on to continue to raise the issue of race and racism is the number of racist acts that are "done" in society, how some would have us believe society is colorblind, and those who try to stop me from talking or writing about race.

Those who speak of being "colorblind" are the stuff of humor to me, and do so only in the matter of talking about how people are judged by their skin color, which means they do see color, otherwise they would remain silent. The fact is, everyone makes a determination of how they will treat someone based in part on their skin color. What's unfortunate are those who want to silence people like me. I call them the "people under the stairs" who don't want to be seen and don't want you to be heard especially if you dare talk about race.

This point of view is particularly evident at SFGate.com and it's not the fault of the editors or the managers, but the particular brand of commenter -- nasty -- that's active. Some commenters believe I'm supposed to be a "journalist" who gives both sides of a story but I've noticed they only make that claim when I write something they don't like. My raison d'etre is to give an opinion, have a pulse, and shake you up, hopefully to cause you to do something to change the World around you in a good way.

That's why shining a light on racism is so important.

Much of racism today is institutional. In other words there are common habits in society that you are used to and don't question, but many people of color are harmed by in some way. Some of those institutional actions are, for example, how a movie star is created by an entertainment and public relations consortium. (Zac Efron) Other institutional actions include assuming someone of color may be a bad or corrupt politician even if that person has a stellar record. It has also been a factor in how students are graded by teachers. I can go on and on.

Racism is a mental illness that must be curbed. It's judged as such by some like Dr. Alvin F Poussaint, who state's that for one to (my example) risk their own job as a waiter by the act of throwing a plate at a Black person because the waiter hates Blacks indicates the presence of a mental illness. Because the question is how far will that person go?

Society will not change if we sweep this issue under the rug. Race and Racism is to be talked about, not ignored. That - in part - is what I'm here for. I will not stop writing or talking about race or racism and I will not be silenced. But I will listen to the voices of those who disagree, as long as they do it agreeably.