The Republic of T.

Time Warp

It's stuff like this that blows my mind. It makes me stop to check my calendar, to make sure I have't falled through some sort of wormhole and landed back in 1954 instead of 2004.

Some of you may know I've recently moved to Kentucky and I'm new to the mindset here. I work out of my new home. We're getting a lot of work done on the house.

A few weeks ago, my wife called the guy who installed some tile flooring in our bathroom to ask if he knew any contractors in the area. "I sure do," he said. "He's local and he does good work. But I should let you know he's a colored guy -- is that a problem?"

We were floored.

Being an African American in post-Civil Rights America, I know there are probably alot of things I just never hear or see because racism has gone undercover in so many ways. I'm sure there are statements made and jokes told when everyone in the room is white, that are never uttered when there's a person of color in the room or known to be within earshot.

Don't get me wrong. I was born in the south and spent the first 25 years of my life living there. (I live in Washington, D.C. now, and I don't care what anyone says—D.C. is not the south.) I've heard the "n word" and had it applied to me more than a few times.

Still, It really shocks me when I hear about stuff like this. Are these people like the guys who stepped out of the jungle a decade after WWII ended, still thinking there was still a war on?

GOP Campaign Solgans for AAs

Over at AMERICAblog, John has listed the top seven GOP campaign slogans to reach out to African Ameircans, sent in by his readers.

My favorite:

Vote for us. Some restrictions may apply.

Close second:

Republicans... we're not just racists anymore. We hate everybody.

GOP Lawmaker,"Suppress the Vote"

Well, somebody finally said it out loud; it's better for the GOP if fewer blacks vote. In this case, it was a Michigan GOP Lawmaker who spoke aloud what some of us already knew was the 'pubs unspoken sentiment.

Democrats on Wednesday denounced a Republican lawmaker quoted in a newspaper as saying the GOP would fare poorly in this year's elections if it failed to "suppress the Detroit vote."

State Rep. John Pappageorge, R-Troy, acknowledged using "a bad choice of words" but said his remark shouldn't be construed as racist.

Pappageorge, 73, was quoted in July 16 editions of the Detroit Free Press as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."

"I'm extremely disappointed in my colleague," state Sen. Buzz Thomas, D-Detroit, told reporters Wednesday during a conference call. "That's quite clearly code that they don't want black people to vote in this election."

Blacks comprise 83 percent of Detroit's population, and the city routinely gives Democratic candidates a substantial majority of its votes.

How many different ways are there to interpret the representative's comments other than racist?

In an attempt to explain, the representative only seemed to dig himself in deeper.

"In the context that we were talking about, I said we've got to get the vote up in Oakland (County) and the vote down in Detroit. You get it down with a good message. I don't know how we got them from there to "racist,"' Pappageorge said. "If I have given offense in any way to my colleagues in Detroit or anywhere, I apologize."

Only a Republican would defend the notion of "getting the vote down," and the idea that America is better off if fewer people vote.

Missing and Missed

I hope I never go missing, because I seriously doubt that—with the exception of my husband, family, friends, and perhaps some of the readers of this blog—that many people are going to get seriously worked up about finding me. Why? Because I'm the wrong color and gender. People like me dont' get much press when we disappear.

Two bright, ambitious students at the main state university disappear in the same town, under similar circumstances. One of them becomes “an inescapable name and face,” in the words of The Greenville News. The other is largely forgotten. No one can say why with absolute certainty.

But there is one unavoidable difference between the two cases:

Dail Dinwiddie is a white woman. Shelton Sanders is a black man.

Chandra Levy. Elizabeth Smart. Lacie Peterson. You know their names. You know their faces. You know, because when they disappeared, the world stopped, and the eyes of all media turned to the search for them.

I remember the furor here in D.C. over the disappearance of Chandra Levy. It was inescapable. It was a daily item on the local news and national news. I remember remarking at the time that if Ms. Levy had been a young black woman, her disappearance wouldn't receive nearly as much attention as it did. After countless local news stories about Levy's disappearance and the finding of her remains, the local news here in D.C. finally did a story on the countless number of people who had also disappeared from the D.C. area, but who didn't make the evening news. It was no surprise that the majority of the families who attended an event to draw attention to the disappearance of their loved ones were of color. (Most also appeared to be of limited economic means, but gender and race still seem to be the trump cards when it comes to a disappearance getting lots of media attention.)

But "when was the last time you heard something about a 23-year-old black female who was missing on NBC or 'World News Tonight'?" asked David Hazinski, a former NBC News correspondent who teaches broadcast journalism at the University of Georgia.

"I think in general we just really don't hear about Latin or black or Asian people who are missing,"he said. I'm not sure why."

…"It's all about sex," said Clark, vice president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. Young white women give editors and television producers what they want.

"There are several common threads," Clark said. "The victims that get the most coverage are female rather than male. They are white, in general, rather than young people of color. They are at least middle class, if not upper middle class."

…When it comes to police stories, Clark said, there is "this perverted, racist view of the world. White is good; black is bad. Blonde is good; dark is bad. Young is good; old is bad. And I think we can find versions of this story going back to the tabloid wars of more than a hundred years ago."

It's tempting to label this a failure of the media and leave it at that, but I think it goes somewhat deeper. On one hand, it may be said that the media shapes public concerns. But on the other, it can also be said that the media reflects the public concern. They report on particular stories because of the way the public responds, and when a young, attractive, white, middle class woman goes missis, for some reason the public response is many times greater than it is if just one of those qualifiers is different: and that qualifier is race—the darker you are, the less a chance your case has of getting the spotlight if you go missing. If you ask me, I think it's because on some level we still value or de-value people based on their skin color, and the darker you are, the less you are valued.

Invisible.

We did our grocery shopping this evening, which is nothing much to report. We went to the Giant grocery store near our home, which has a predominantly African American clientele, from the surrounding neighborhoods.

We'd just paid for our groceries and were on our way to our car, when we spotted two men and a baby on their way in; it was pretty obvious that they were two relatively new gay dads. My husband can be rather outgoing at times, and I figured he would try to make contact with them and at least say hello, since they were two gay dads who most likely lived in the same general neighborhood as us. I was thinking the same thing, that it would be nice to at least acknowledge each other and say hello.

But when we walked by them, within a foot or less, we got no acknowledgement at all. They were riveted instead on some exchange going on bewteen some unsupervised kids in the parking lot. It seemed odd that they could miss us; two men who also had a kid. At least it seemed odd to me at first, until I took a minute to think about it.

When we were in the car and on our way home, the hubby mentioned how the couple of gay dad's failed to even acknowledge us. I hadn't quite formed the thought in my head yet when I heard myself responding to his observation, saying that if Parker and I had been white, it's more likely they would have seen us, and that in that setting—an urban, predominantly African American setting— our son and I were invisible. The color of our skin meant we were there, but not seen. I realized that the reason I said it before I finished thinking it is that I've gotten used to being invisible because of my race in many different situations, with many different people. I didn't, deep down, expect it to be much different even with two other gay dads.

It saddened me a little to realize that my son will probably know the same kind of invisibility at times in his life.

I don't think race is the only issue in this situation, though. Since we've become parents we've made efforts to connect with other gay and lesbian parents, and surprisingly our attempts have failed more often than they've succeeded. I can count on one hand the number of other gay couples with children that we see or communicate with regularly, on a social basis. It may sound somewhat bitter and stereotypical, but I think it's at least in part because gay men are incredibly cliqueish, and being parents doesn't appear to change that very much. So, the two gay dads may not have seen or acknowledged us because we're not from their circle. So, we were doublely invisible.

Anyway, it's just a random observation from our day.

Bush and Black Folks

It doesn't surprise me that Bush has turned down an invitation to speak at the NAACP's annual convention.

President Bush declined an invitation to speak at the NAACP's annual convention, the group said.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People expects more than 8,000 people to attend the convention, which opens on Saturday.

Democratic challenger John Kerry accepted an invitation to speak next Thursday on the final day of the convention, the NAACP said.

Bush spoke at the 2000 NAACP convention in Baltimore when he was running for president.

…White House spokesman Jim Morrell said Wednesday that the president has spoken about "equal opportunity and equal rights for all Americans" in many public places.

I was at the NAACP convention in 2000, when candidate Bush and candidate Gore each came to speak before those gathered. They spoke on different days, and the difference was like night and day. On the day Bush spoke, he entered from off stage to polite applause, shook hands with those seated on dias onstage, and gave a speech that was only occasionally interrupted with applause. After his speech, more polite applause, and Bush was gone.

On the day Al Gore spoke, the scene resembled something like a revival meeting. Gore entered from the back of the house, coming down the aisle shaking hands with those in the audience. The crowd was cheering; theme music blaring. People were reaching over one another, getting out of their seats, running into the aisle and down to the foot of the stage to shake hands with Gore before (and after) his speech. And while Gore is not necessarily a consistently good public speaker, on this occasion he gave a rousing speech, tinged the the cadence of a southern preacher, engaged the audience in a little "call and response" and easily got the audience cheering and even brought many to their feet at certain points. He left with the same fanfare he came in with.

It's no secret that Bush received a small percentage of the African American vote in 2000. It's no secret that the wrongful disenfranchisement of many African Americans in Florida helped create the electoral mess that ended up with the Supreme Court appointing Bush to the presidency. And if you ask me, it's no secret that Bush and his party have decided that they don't need African American voters, at least not in large numbers. Add to that the reality that Bush's conservative base is predominantly white, and will alienate many African American voters on a number of issuess, and it's understandable that the administration and the Republican party won't go much beyond symbolic measures when it comes to African American voters.

Of course, that's assuming that they even want to appeal to African Americans. I know I've been involved with various organizations in which people have wondered why more African Americans don't join them. What these organizations usually fail to ask themselves is what they themselves are not doing on issues that are serious concerns for a great many people in African American communities. (I say "communities" because I'm aware there is no monolithic, nationwide African American communities, and that needs and concerns differ from one area to another.)

Basically, if you build it, they will come. If you don't have a representative number of African Americans in your movement, then chances areyou aren't addressing their issues and concerns in a way that is reaching them. From what I can see, the Republican party and the Bush administration isn't serious about reaching large numbers of African American voters. The evidence is all in their approach. After all, the first step is to just show up.

The Course of Human Events

Via Negrophile.

Remember Essie Mae Washington-Williams? The daughter Strom Thurmond had with his family's black domestic servant? Well, she's back in the news, in a way that may have Strom and some other long deceased Confederates spinning in their graves. I'm not sure what to make of this but Ms. Washington-Williams is seeking to join the Daughters of the Confederacy. And apparently, she's elligible.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a biracial woman who stepped forward last year to acknowledge that she was the daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, now wants to join the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization of descendants of soldiers who fought for the South in the Civil War.

Evidently she is eligible: Senator Thurmond, once a fierce segregationist, was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a similar group for men. Ms. Washington-Williams, a 78-year-old retired teacher who lives in Los Angeles, also plans to apply for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Black Patriots Foundation, which honors black Revolutionary War fighters. One of her two sons will apply to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, her lawyer said.

The announcement, which was made this week, was in keeping with the confounding nature of a story that some said was emblematic of racist hypocrisy in the South, but which produced no apparent bitterness on the part of Ms. Washington-Williams. Her mother, Carrie Butler, was a maid in the Thurmond family home in South Carolina and was 16 when she gave birth to Ms. Washington-Williams. Mr. Thurmond saw her about once a year and gave her financial support, she has said.

…Ms. Washington-Williams is joining the Confederate organization not to honor the soldiers that fought for a Southern way of life dependent on slavery, but to explore her genealogy and heritage, her lawyer, Frank K. Wheaton, said yesterday. In applying, she claims an honor that can be bestowed only on someone of her lineage, he said, and she hopes to encourage other blacks in a similar position to do the same.

In a statement, Ms. Washington-Williams said: "It is important for all Americans to have the opportunity to know and understand their bloodline. Through my father's line, I am fortunate to trace my heritage back to the birth of our nation and beyond. On my mother's side, like most African-Americans, my history is broken by the course of human events."

"Broken by the course of human events." You can say that again. Of course, Washington-Williams isn't much different from any number of African Americans—especially those from the South—in how her genealogy is affected by "the course of human events." Go back far enough into the genealogy of many African Americans and one will encounter dead ends and indelicate dealings.

It Figures

Via DCSOB.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a slight detour on the way to the Metro, walking for three blocks along Constitution Avenue to see how big the crowds for the Reagan procession were. Not as big as the crowd on Broadway when the Yankees won the World Series in 1996, but not bad considering the short notice and awful heat.

But one thing about the crowds stood out. If you take out the office workers walking on the street behind the waiting masses and the police officers watching the crowd, I counted only three non-white people in a three-block stretch that contained hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people.

Cosby, the Cab Driver, and Me

Boy did I get an earful. After checking email and doing a bit of blogging, I was running late this morning; late enough to justify taking a cab, but not so late that I couldn’t duck into Whole Foods to pick up a snack for later in the workday. Once I made my purchases, I hailed a cab and was on my way to work. We only got a couple of blocks when the cab driver, who was also black, asked me what I thought of recent remarks of Bill Cosby, which have been alternately praised and panned in the media lately.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today

I'd have posted this one earlier, but I was running late this morning. It was 50 years ago today that the Supreme Court handed down it's Brown v. Board of Education ruling, striking down segregation in public schools, and the notion of "separate but equal."

It's impossible not to note that this anniversary falls on what is destined to be another historic day: the day that same sex marriages became legal in the state of Massachusetts.

Of course, George W. Bush did what was expected of him. Conservatives stand in exactly the same place they did 50 years ago; on the wrong side of history. Why? Because conservatism is not about change, at least not progressive change. Conservatism is not about equality. It's about keeping things the way they are, or—worse yet—making things the way they used to be. No one who believes in equality under the law can possible settle for either of those options.

But nevermind those who want to return the bad old days. For at least one day, in one state, it's reassuring to see love triumph over bigotry and hatred.