[***Administrative Note: I'm going to be having some guest bloggers come thru here and bless da God with some featured verses...umm...I mean I'm going to have some guest posters over the next few weeks sharing and caring...and caring and sharing...since sharing is caring. Just a note. If you want to be a guest poster, email me. I'm always up for some entertainment. ***]
As usual, everyday I peruse the daily news sites for the most up to date headlines and news stories. For the most part, the news is filled with stories of the damage done by Hurricane Katrina and the total failure of government, on all levels, and the ensuing fingerpointing and whatnot.
Well yesterday, a poll was released that indicated the racial divide in the perceptions of the relief efforts. As was expected, the perception of the the aftermath of the hurricane pretty much broke down right along racial lines. For instance, 60% of black people polled felt that the government was slow in its rescue attempts because the majority of the citizens were black, whereas only 12.5% of white folks felt that way. Further, 37% of black folks polled felt that Bush was to blame, whereas only 15% of white folks felt that way.
And the capper: does Bush really care about Black people?? A full 67% of white people think that Bush does indeed care, which I can only assume is based on all of the wonderful choices and decisions that Bush has been a party to that have made it better to be black everywhere…
…whereas 21% of black folks think Bush does care, which would be all of the black people (including a lot of church folks) that voted for Bush back in November who decided that since Kerry couldn’t be trusted to handle situations delicate to black existence, like abortion, since our teenage girls can’t quit popping out them kids, and gay marriage since God personally told Bush and everybody else that gay’s indeed shouldn’t be allowed to exist…er, I mean, get married.
I’m of the school of thought of some comedian I heard. Straight people have been screwing up marriage for years, its about time we give somebody else a shot.
Feel free to read the article to see the rest of the poll findings.
The bottom line here is this, black people and white folks interpretation is at odds here.
And it isn’t exactly a shocker. Hell, I’d wager that 6 times out of 10, if the option of race comes up as a problem, a white person will tell you that race isn’t a factor at all. For some reason, and I clearly don’t understand this, white people honestly feel like race doesn’t matter anymore. I almost find it comical since for damn near every situation where race can play a role, it does. Thing is, its usually in white folks favor with the sole exception of being a white dude in a black neighborhood at the wrong time of night.
That’s never in white people’s favor because police just can’t get there fast enough. And we’re faster than white people. The breeding of strong black bucks during slavery ensured that one will last eons.
The funny shit about race is that white people don’t understand why we, and that we means black folks, get stuck on questions of race so much. But if you look at the poll…
“Half of all whites said people who broke into stores and took things were mostly criminals. Only 16 percent of blacks agreed, with 77 percent saying the looters were mostly desperate people trying to find a way to survive.” -from CNN poll
Fact is, race plays such an important part because more than half the time, black people can see the blatant differences in treatment, to include the recent media uproar about the way “looters” were being portrayed depending on color, and shit like that happens often. I’m not even sure its always intentional, just moreso ingrained into the fabric of our perceptions about each other’s race. Blacks are stereotyped and viewed downwards and white folks are always given the benefit of the doubt.
Hell half the time when reading a news article or seeing a story on TV you can tell if the perpetrators are black or white, just from the tone and consequences…
…like this.
Police Find 8 Ohio Kids Locked in Cages
So apparently some parents in Ohio didn’t feel like locking their kids in an attic, basement, or even their room was the lastest trend. Nope, locking 8 of their 11 kids in cages in the back yard was their poison.
These kids were aged 1 to 14 and all adopted or foster children.
So far so good. No hints of color, though the cage thing kind of tipped my hat that these people were white. Black folks just beat the shit out of our kids and make them watch shit like Party of 5 reruns to show what could happen if they don’t act right.
Ah…here we go. Here is what Lt. Randy Sommers of the Huron County Sheriff’s Office had to say. Take a gander:
“Basically, the parents thought they were providing for the protection of the children from themselves and from each other,” said Sommers.
“They thought there was circumstances with these children that warranted the cages at night,” Sommers added, but he would not go into details of what those circumstances were.
Umm…the fuck??? That’s the most understanding motherfucking police officer ever. Shit, he almost sounds like he sees the logic and agrees that maybe, just maybe, these little kids need to be in cages.
Those damn kids need protection from themselves and others. Though putting kids in cages isn’t going to protect them from each other now is it? Or lyme disease or mosquitos or cold or just any old disease? Maybe I’m wrong there. But I’d really like that cop to stop me when I’m doing 90 in a 55 MPH zone.
And if that isn’t proof that these folks are white and that white folks get different treatment, then this paragraph is:
“Police said no charges had been filed against the parents.”
That right there is proof positive of what I’m talking about. The parents picture wasn’t even shown. Let this have been Shalondraniqua and Jesse from Cleveland. Their pictures would have been all over the damn article.
No charges filed???
Hmm…this sounds like neglect to me. If this was black folks, their asses would have been in jail 10 minutes after the cops found out the kids were in cages.
And this is the shit I’m talking about right here. White people wonder why we think race is everywhere?? Because it is. The shit plays out in everything that it can. Perception, action, effort…it’s everywhere. White people expect black folks to get over it and I know some black people who think we should get over race too.
Umm…fuck you if you think that. And I actually really mean that.
Until I can’t read a newspaper article and determine without seeing a single picture the color of a person, or until there is some equality in treatment in all situations, or until black people in one of the poorest cities in America aren’t being turned away after having lost everything, I’m playing the race card.
Affirmative action…I’m like Lil Webbie, gimme that. And until white America can accept the fact that race does indeed permeate everything black people will still be talking and making noise about it.
And as long as polls validate what we are feeling and proving what we are all thinking, white America cannot run from the fact that they play the largest part in shaping race relations.
And if white America doesn’t want to hear that??
That’s what we have Jesse and Al Sharpton for.
“white people honestly feel like race doesn’t matter anymore” WTF? c’mon man they just don’t like to talk about it. Ever heard of “white guilt?” Well its gotten to be to much for them to take. Sometimes its not a conscious effort, but its just like a kid on the playground covering his/her ears and repeating “LALALA I don’t wanna hear it”. And since these articles that use “looting” vs “finding” etc. don’t use the words nigger or darkie, there is PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. They can say “you guys are too sensitive. nobody said you are all thieves”. If we start taking this kind of shit as honesty, we may as well GO DIE!!! (to use a Panamaism)
You know, I agree with you to some extent. A lot of white folks are in denial…a lot. But i’m inclined to believe that some of them actually believe that race isn’t an issue. There is a fine line there though. And I think as far as what I wrote, we’re talking about the same thing because when I say they don’t feel like its a problem anymore, I mean that they find some other excuse as to why things are…just so long as they can pretend it isn’t race. So I do agree with you. And good job with the Panama-ism.
I’m so proud.
People’s perception is based on their reality. And reality is, white folk have NEVER had to deal with the things that we see on a daily basis. So it’s easy for them to bury their heads in the sand…especially those who have grown up in the post kum-ba-yah/We Shall Overcome era and say “see, we don’t lynch y’all anymore…racism is dead”. They don’t see the residual effects that that mindset STILL has in our country, but it’s still there…we know that.
First off excellent blog and having the experience of living both in the US and Europe, I feel that there are some whites who definitely care for blacks but the majority usually want to divert from any issue dealing with race, which is directly or indirectly built into the fabric of every day life and events. I grew up in a catholic church setting being italina/nigerian but currently on my blog, I have a photo of Cesare Borgia said to be the white image of Christ you should see the way folks say color dosen’t matter now-a-days but it mattered before that was exposed right? WTF
Kayne was off on one thing Bush dosen’t care about poor people white, black, asian or otherwise that’s the bottomline.
This would be a wonderful thing for a liberal white erson to read and follow with a mixed-race discussion. I shall print this out and take it down to that Irish pub near Union Station. I’ll pass it out and make the whites talk to me about. Maybe pretend to be a reporter from the Post.
I went to school in Milwaukee and it seems every week kids throughout backwater Wisconsin were turning up locked in dog kennels under the bathroom sink. They were always white and inbred and disgusting people and the news story always mysteriously disappeared very quickly.
What infuriates me…well, among the things that infuriate me:
How in the hell could anyone ever in a million, billion years even begin to think that race isn’t ALWAYS an issue? Always. The statiscs on economics, incarceration, education, health…how could you ever dispute that knowing the reality?
I could be pulling this figure out of my ass, but I seem to remember learning at a point that most sociologists agree that it takes 100 years from a civil rights or other formal legal movement for a minority group to become fully assimilated. If, in the case of black people, that refers to the emancipation proclamation, we’re over 50 years behind. If it refers to the end of the civil rights movement, there are still 50 years to go.
Either way, something is not working and I can’t imagine how anyone could deny that.
What I’m interested in and always at a loss for are real practical solutions at an average-Joe level. Opening dialogue, voting for the right people, increasing funding here and there…I personally find all of that to be a bullshit pretty, newsworthy fix to a dirty problem.
Oh I agree with Poetic..white people know that race matters but since they don’t have to deal with it they continue on their merry way.
I totally agree with Beloved. Like I CLEARLY could have written that. But the only thing I will say is that WE ARE still getting lynched. In the courthouses, in corporate America… anytime you look up and see and when shit like the James Byrd situation in Jasper, TX is still happening… then I daresay it’s still happening in the conventional sense of the word as well.
I wholehearted agree with YOU Panama, that race IS indeed ALWAYS an issue. Absolutely ALWAYS. And as far as I can see, it ALWAYS will be. ALWAYS.
And someone please tell Kajuana that I hate her. I would… but after that comment, I’m clearly not speaking to her. LOL
dammit, Panama, delete that errant fragment in the middle of the sentence… LOL damn you cut and past function!!! LOL
Dang X, what you gotta hate me? I was just tryna have some fun by making people have uncomfortable discussions.