On April 12th, 1964, Malcolm X made a speech before a large gathering on the merits of black nationalism. Below is a one-minute snippet from that speech, discussing the logic of African-Americans supporting the Democratic Party in such huge numbers.

Transcript:

In Washington, D.C., in the House of Representatives, there are 257 who are Democrats. Only 177 are Republican. In the Senate there are 67 Democrats; only 33 are Republicans. The party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and still they can’t keep their promise to you.

‘Cause you’re a chump.

Anytime you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race.

—Malcolm X

Now, allow me to paraphrase Malcolm, to reflect the current state of affairs:

Right now (since January 2009), in the House, there are 256 who are Democrats.  Only 179 are Republican.  In the Senate there are 59 Democrats; only 41 are Republicans.  The party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and nearly 60% of the Senate, and put a black man in the White House, and still they didn’t keep their promise to you.

‘Cause you’re a chump.

Anytime you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party…

Well…I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.

But as you think about it, also consider this: Between 1964 and 2010, how much “Change” has there really been?

(Note: This is in no way meant as an endorsement for the Republican Party. Malcolm was no more forgiving of them. And certainly I’m not. The difference is that Republicans do not even pretend to represent African-Americans, and since at least the advent of the “Southern Strategy” – redoubled through the Tea Party – they have become openly hostile towards African-American interests.)

I must also point out, if it is not abundantly clear to anyone reading this, or who has ever read anything I’ve written, that no part of my decision is about apathy. Quite the contrary, in fact.  And so, if apathy is anyone’s reason for not voting, I would encourage them either to vote, or to truly understand the many legitimate reasons not to do so.

In random order:

1. I don’t support any of the candidates running in my state – that is to say, I oppose all of them
2. I question the wisdom of voting for the lesser of two evils
3. The outcome of the Citizens United vs. FEC Supreme Court case ensured that the next election would be more about money than the last, and indeed, 2010 is breaking all sorts of spending records
4. Republicans, or at least the social conservatives amongst them, openly act against my interests and everything I stand for.
5. Democrats pretend to act for my interests and in favor of the things I stand for, or otherwise remain completely quiet on those issues, and only to shift their position or compromise once in office.
6. In some perverse way I want to sabotage Democrats – who by default are the ones I’d be voting for as the only viable candidates who are even remotely amenable to my interests – just to show people on the left how utterly ineffectual they are and make a case for putting our energy behind actual leftist candidates
7. Along the same lines, I want to see people get what they ask for, and laugh when it blows up in their faces.
8. I refuse to reward any who continue to place the interests of corporations above those of the people – and that would be both Democrats (see ridiculous Healthcare bill, silence on marijuana legalization) and Republicans (see: deregulation, tax breaks, mass privatization).
9. Because I follow the money and don’t like where it leads.
10. Real changes – for the better or for the worst – seem to only ever occur during or in the aftermath of a catastrophe (See: Roosevelt after the Great Depression or George W. Bush after 9/11/2001)
11. Because compromises just aren’t enough for me anymore, which in effect aren’t small victories, but a maintenance of the status quo.
12. Neither party dares to challenge the moral hypocrisy of the Israeli government
13. Not much will change regardless of which of the two parties controls Congress; if a Democratic president and a filibuster-proof majority didn’t change anything, then neither will a Republican majority, which is not at all likely to happen, anyway.
14. My “right to vote”, as determined by my status as a citizen, is undermined by corporate personhood.
15. Not one candidate has the balls to address the issues with any real critical depth, that is, beyond the talking points
16. I am exasperated by the cheeky self-satisfied and utterly disingenuous self-righteousness of liberals (here I mean voters, not candidates)
17. I am exasperated by the raging self-sabotaging ignorance of conservatives (again, I mean voters)
18. Voting continues to be an excuse for people to believe they’ve “done their part” to affect change, even after it’s been shown that nothing has actually changed
19. Not one candidate speaks out against American Imperialism
20. Many of these points presume that my one vote actually makes a difference.  Statistically, it doesn’t.

President Obama: Symbol of a Post-Racial Society?

In the latter weeks of the Presidential election, I had already started to become disenchanted with Mr. Obama.  For the same reasons as most progressives – his steady accommodating shifts towards the right, as he positioned himself as a rank and file Democrat.  Don’t get me wrong.  I voted for him, and I can even say I like the guy, but so far he has not been a President who has lived up to all the “hope”.

In thinking about what his presidency means, with regards to him being the first African-American to take the office, there was much to consider.  So much talk about its historicity, and its symbolism, and the introduction of the term “post-racial” to the common parlance.

It’s mostly nonsense.

There is no doubt in my mind that had Barack Obama been anything other than African-American – even Hispanic or Asian or any other non-white minority – that he would not have won the primary, let alone the overall election.  I do not mean to take anything away from Mr. Obama – he is brilliant, eloquent, right-minded, and every bit qualified to occupy the office of President of the United States.  I mean to say that his ethnicity shone like a beacon to draw attention to his many other merits, whereas he may have been obscured by other Democrats more established around the time that he made his first mark on the public back in 2002.

Let’s not harbor any illusions here.  Mr. Obama’s ethnicity secured him much of the non-white vote – especially amongst African-Americans and Latino-Americans, which make up a sizeable portion of the electorate.  Again I am not saying that the groups voted for him simply because of his ethnicity, but because his ethnicity gained him their attention.  In terms of adequately representing the needs and interests of the non-white demographic, Obama was hardly the best candidate.  That honor goes to Representative Dennis Kucinich, who even had the political chutzpah – no, the balls – to say that he would have a discussion around the issue of reparations.  But Obama was the better politician – he knew how to navigate the waters between left and right so as not to out himself as too much of a liberal like Kucinich, accusations of being a socialist notwithstanding.

And so he won.

But what does his victory mean, really, to people of color?  To me?  Not as much as all the “historicity” and “symbolism” suggests.  In some ways, I feel that his victory may even have set us back, as a nation still struggling with its identity and attempting to reconcile the differences between its disparate ethnic groups.  The idea of a “post-racial” society is nothing short of regressive, because what it does is promote the idea that we are somehow beyond racism simply because we elected an African-American President.  Given the progress that we have made in this country’s 234 year history – full of small hard-fought victories – how could a two-year campaign and election possibly have served to completely eradicate racism?  It’s a ridiculous – and delusional – proposition.

Mr. Obama, throughout his candidacy, worked hard to isolate himself from his identity as an African-American, in that he attempted to remove race from the campaign altogether.  He was astute enough to deliver an excellent speech on race, but it was mostly to resonate with the post-racial idealism of white liberals and to placate white dissent that came in response to the Jeremiah Wright controversy and Obama’s own comments about the “typical white person” during a radio interview.  He made sure to emphasize his blended heritage, to make himself relatable to white Americans, many of whom in their “post-racial” thinking were quick to argue during discussions of race how Obama wasn’t just black, but half-white.

I am not amongst those who have ever criticized Mr. Obama for not being “black enough”.  As a person growing up in this country with his skin color, his features, his name, I have no doubts that he had the full “black experience”, and that he came through it for the better.  It would have, however, been more historic had the first African-American president been a descendant of the enslaved Africans who formed the very backbone of this country.  It would’ve served as a more direct metaphor for “how far we’ve come”.  Still, I will never begrudge Mr. Obama his heritage.

As for symbolism, what exactly does Mr. Obama represent?  He gave white Americans the opportunity to prove – to themselves, at least – that they were not racist, because they voted a “black” President.  But here’s the problem.  In the ways that Obama divorced himself from race during his campaign – such as his clever universalizing of the reparations question – and in how his policies do not reflect any particular concern for people of color, he is the United States’ first African-American President in image only, not in representation.  I do not in any way mean to say that Mr. Obama, or any other person of color, is obligated to act on or even to have such concerns, but if we are talking about how symbolic his presidency is, then he is not an adequate representative of people of color.

Even spectators in other countries have honed in on this:

But it is now time that he lives up to his reputation. Being the first black president does not mean he will automatically champion black issues, or other minority appeals.

His skin colour is slowly blurring into the background of the White House. He is being measured not on his place in history, but on how his reign will affect history.

[...]

Having Obama as a black head of state in the most powerful country in the world will not solve the crises affecting minority populations in the nation.

He is simply the face for a white establishment, who happened to support him to the top because they saw a possibility for a win.

He is, first and foremost, an American President.

— Amy McQuire, National Indigenous Times, Australia

In other words, Obama was “black enough” to be the first African-American president, to allow white people to convince themselves of a post-racial society, but not black enough to rock the boat.  To clarify, this is not a criticism of Mr. Obama himself, but of a society that could elect an African-American president so long as he didn’t call too much attention to his blackness.  Had Mr. Obama even dared to use the word “reparations” during his campaign, he would’ve crashed and burned that instant.  During that reparations question on the CNN panel, only John Edwards had the personal integrity to plainly admit that he would not even address the issue.  Only Dennis Kucinich had the courage to acknowledge that it was an issue worth discussing.  Obama – in what was undoubtedly the right move, politically – danced around it brilliantly.

I am honing in on the reparations issue not because I think it is a pressing issue, but because it is one that highlights the ideological divide between white Americans and Americans of color – regardless of their political orientation.  The candidate willing to address such an issue directly, in a country where white Americans are the majority and still ill at ease discussing race issues, risks political suicide.  It was okay for Dennis Kucinich, who has already found his niche as a hardcore progressive.  But it is for that niche, also, that Kucinich may never be a viable Presidential candidate.

What does it say about a post-racial society that a candidate who wants to discuss the most sensitive issues around race and racism, and our country’s divided legacy, is automatically removed from any chance of being our President?  It suggests a real definition for post-racial:

post-ra⋅cial

–adjective.
beyond discussions of race & racism
Origin: 2008–10, Americanism

Word Origin & History

A term used to describe a society or time period in which discussions around race and racism have been deemed no longer relevant to current social dynamics. Popularized after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States of America in 2009.

There is no question that people of color hoped that Barack Obama might better represent their interests – interests that have been mostly ignored by long succession of white male Presidents.  They certainly did not need a President whose election suggested that their issues were no longer issues at all, that we as a nation had somehow grown beyond those issues – which, in effect, undermines any attempt at discussing them.

The election of a female president would not suddenly resolve gender inequalities or render all feminists movements obsolete.  The election of a gay president would not suddenly mean that the entire county has accepted homosexuality.  The election of a disabled president would not suggest that we do not still have a long way to go with regards to accommodating and fairly treating our disabled citizens.  So why in the world should the election of an African-American man to the Presidency symbolize this country having overcome its deeply rooted history of racism?

You wanna talk symbolism?  It would’ve been symbolic for a white American President to issue a public apology on behalf of the United States for slavery – much like Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Aboriginal Australians.  The mere idea of this apology nearly saw Bill Clinton crucified when he considered it.  In the end, he very cleverly “acknowledged the evils of slavery”, but without issuing any formal apology.  For white Americans, who love to address the issue of slavery and its legacy with the fact that they, personally, had nothing to do with it – they view such an apology as an admission of personal guilt.  They do not seem to understand it as a symbolic gesture.  And it seems to be a matter of national pride – of “patriotism” – to never acknowledge the grievous mistakes your country has made and continues to make.

The apology has been a long time coming, and it will be a longer time still before we ever – if we ever – see it.  Barack Obama cannot and should not be the President to make it, and for his political savvy I am certain he will not.  It would, after all, change what should be a symbolic gesture into an ironic one.

Personally I would have taken another white male President with the courage to have the necessary dialogues around race and racism.  A President who rather than bringing together a professor and a cop for a beer, dared to bring together an entire nation to discuss the issues that continue to divide them.  I would’ve been willing to put off the election of the first African-American for another 20 years in exchange for that kind of President.

While we wait for that President, Mr. Obama can continue to serve as a placebo solution to the problem of race and racism in the United States.  I can only hope that while the country is so busy convincing itself that we have suddenly become “post-racial”, that we do not lose the opportunity to bring about real change in our social dynamics, under the false pretext that such a change has already taken place.

However, considering that poster’s comment, much of what I’ve written below may be plainly misinterpreted, at least with respect to the developer’s intentions.  While I could assume that Bioware intended the game to be open to multiple interpretations, I must also consider the words of Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider, who in response to the lack of darker people in the game world had the following to say:

While there are “dark skinned” people in Rivain, I have no interest in making Ferelden more diverse for the sake of political correctness.

I considered deleting this entire post, but perhaps it is worth leaving here to demonstrate what would be praise-worthy in terms of inclusion in video games, were any developer so inclined to walk that path.

Back in February, in the article Black, White, and Jade: Race in Video Games, and earlier in Ethnic Depictions in Video Games, I talked about a need for video games to become more inclusive with their characters, to depict the same diversity we see in the real world in these imaginary ones. Plainly, this translates to having more non-white characters in video games, particularly as the main characters.  And furthermore to have those characters exist outside of stereotypes.  With the exception of games built from pre-existing properties featuring characters of color – for example, Shadowman – there are very few games with non-white human protagonists.

In Black, White, and Jade, I mention that it is not merely about skin color or other physical features, but also about culture, and about experience. Regarding so-called “black” characters, I said:

What would be required for a character to be considered “black”? Appearance could be one qualifier … dubious due to … the extreme diversity to be found within such a vague and subjective category.

The “black experience” could be another qualifier, as in a situation where a character is forced to face certain indignities [as a result of her ethnicity].

As it turned out, I wouldn’t have to wait too long, and I may even have been overdue in giving proper credit. Bioware, a Canadian company that has risen to high acclaim in recent years for producing consecutive triple-A quality games, also deserves credit for being a trailblazer when it comes to inclusion. Back in 2005, Bioware released a game called Jade Empire, one that took place in a fictional world, but that borrowed extensively – and authentically – from Chinese culture, history, and mythology.  Unlike other Asian-inspired properties that feature white protagonists – the list here is endless, from Kung-Fu with David Carradine to M. Night Shymalan’s whitewashing of Avatar: The Last Airbender – Jade Empire featured an entire cast of Asianesque characters – “esque” only for the fact that the game does not take place on Earth.  It was evident in every detail of the game that Bioware had done their research.

2007 saw the release of Mass Effect, a space opera featuring an ethnically ambiguous main character – Commander Shepherd – who players had the option of customizing to resemble a variety of different ethnicities, and to be male or female.  The majority of the crew were aliens, with special mention to Tali’Zorah nar Rayya (pictured right), whose name, appearance (clearly inspired by Muslim hijab), and accent invoked the Middle East.

Mass Effect challenged norms of sex and sexuality as well, with the possibility for a “lesbian” sexual encounter, and a race of aliens – Asari – who invoked human femininity, but in actuality had no separate sexes or genders.  I quoted lesbian because the aforementioned encounter could happen between a female Commander Shepherd and Liara (pictured left) – an Asari who could be called “feminine”, but who explained that she was not female.  In this, the Asari might also be the closest we’ve come – or will come for a long time – to transgendered characters.

Finally, in 2009, Bioware released Dragon Age: Origins, a high fantasy game in a world populated by the usual suspects – humans, elves, and dwarves.  At a glance, DA:O would appear to be a step backwards for the company in terms of inclusion, because there is nary a dark-skinned or almond-eyed character to be found in the world.  Every character – with perhaps the exception of a random NPC or two – had European features.  It could possibly be argued that one character, Sten (pictured right), for his cornrows hairstyle, was intended to invoke an African-American, but that would be a stretch, due to his otherwise European features.

There was also the character creation system, which again – like Mass Effect – allowed players to create a character inspired by a variety of ethnicities (my character is pictured left).  The only trouble here is that regardless of the look of the character, the families of the character remain constant – and they invariably have a European countenance.  Different world, different rules of genes and inheritance – I was willing to accept some creative liberties, although they could’ve taken a hint from Fallout 3, which demonstrated well how a character’s family can be changed to match the player’s ethnicity choices during character creation.

Thankfully, Bioware did not even attempt – or need – to rely on the weak “hair connection” of Sten, nor the minor concessions of the character creation system.  They also didn’t simply rest on the laurels of creating two inclusive games for the mainstream years prior.  Above I talked about how a character’s ethnic inspiration could come through in ways other than appearance – namely by invoking real human experiences.  This is exactly what Bioware did in Dragon Age: Origins – and much like we saw with Jade Empire, there was clearly a fair amount of research done, or information drawn from a diverse or well-informed design team.

Without flinching from the possibility of controversy, Bioware boldly modeled the Elves of Dragon Age after the American “black experience” – the very thing I suggested back in February.  The Elves, thousands of years before the events of the game, possessed a rich and vibrant culture until they were conquered and enslaved by a human empire.  Fast forward to the present and slavery has ostensibly come to an end – although still practiced in some pockets of the world – but most Elves, living in cities, are confined, by a legacy of oppression, to what are called “alienages” or slums.  Their social status as second-class citizens follows even those that leave the alienages, as happens if you play an Elven main character, with humans marveling at an elf that actually made something of him or herself.

There are other elves, too, not confined to the city slums, who live nomadic lives and remain extremely wary of humans.  They also look down on their city brethren, referring to them as “flat-ears”, and thinking them weak for not casting off the yoke of human oppression.  The parallels between the elven experience and the black experience is not at all superficial, with the game asking some tough philosophical and moral questions around these issues of race and racism.

For example, during a dialogue between my city-elf main character and one of the nomadic elves, she asked me whether or not I thought that humans were generally sorry for their history of enslaving the elves – a question that invokes the idea of “white guilt”.  The potential answers to these questions were even more telling of the care that Bioware put into building this narrative.  I had the option of saying “It depends, all humans are different.” – the enlightened response, for sure – or “I don’t think most of them (humans) think about it.” – invoking the all too common attitude of Americans today of dismissing slavery and its legacy to history, as something not necessary to consider in present day.

The moral question comes when you encounter an elf who long ago was wronged by humans – they killed his son and raped his daughter, who upon realizing she was pregnant, committed suicide.  This fellow – through means I’ll leave for you to discover – continues to punish the humans for what they did way back in the past.  As an intervening party, you need to decide whether or not he is justified in his actions, or whether it is time for him to let go of his hatred.  In this we see the other side of the black experience – how should African-Americans respond to today’s Euro-Americans – with hatred or resentment for crimes of the past, or with the possibility of forgiveness?  This is a question left for every African-American to answer, not just once, but sometimes on a daily basis – and in Dragon Age, the player is left with a number of different ways to address the vengeful elf.

The Elven analogy is only one of many ways that Dragon Age demonstrates inclusion, albeit probably the richest example.  There are also the Dwarves, who use a caste system clearly inspired by India – including the so-called “Castleless”, corresponding to India’s “untouchables”.  There are also possibilities for gay and lesbian sexual encounters, depending upon the gender of your main character and the choices you make in relationships with your teammates.  This marks the first time ever in a video game that we see an illustrated sexual encounter between two male characters, as two women had at least been done before in Mass Effect and in Fear Effect: Retro Helix back in 2000.

Hana and Rain from Fear Effect: Retro Helix

Going further than that, the male companion in question – Zevran (pictured right) – was not a stereotype of the gay male, but a very complex character with a rather Ancient Greek sensibilities about sexuality – partnering with whoever he finds beautiful, regardless of gender.  And unlike many depictions of “gay” male characters in media, Zevran was not defined by his sexuality, but more by his life as an assassin.

In spite of the near unanimously Euro-inspired cast of characters, Dragon Age:Origins demonstrates inclusion of diverse experiences in ways that no game has ever done before.  Bioware has again established themselves as a trailblazer in an industry that so far has shied away from challenging the status quo or tackling tough issues.

One can only hope that in addition to blazing a trail, Bioware has also set a trend, with other developers soon to be nipping at their heels in trying to be more inclusive.

The default impression of the “American” is unquestionably an American of European descent, but due to cultural hegemony and obscurity and the institution of race, this Euro-American becomes simply “white”. Say what you will about American diversity, but the majority of people in this country are still “white”, a disproportionate number of seats of power in public office and industry are held by Euro-Americans, and the most popular media icons are mostly – you guessed it – white.

So what about White History Month? Well, if such a thing were created, it’d only be as a blatant affront to Black History Month, because as I mentioned, the history of America has mostly been told with respect to and with a focus on the actions of Euro-Americans. The only reason there is a need for Black History Month – which I personally wish wasn’t the case – is that history is often been written at the exclusion of the non-white population in any situation, and not only have so-called “black people” been a minority in this country for its entire history, but a marginalized one at that. Text books give lip service to slavery, but often merely as a backdrop to the American Civil War, glossing over 400 years of atrocity to eventually pay high tribute to white military generals and Abraham Lincoln – who, mind you, was more keen on shipping all African-Americans back to Africa than dealing with the difficulties of Reconstruction.

It is not mentioned how the institution of slavery formed the very financial backbone of this country, nor how the wealth of many of the top 1% of individuals and the richest corporations were accumulated on top of a slavery money foundation. After slavery, history books do not pay much attention – if they mention it at all – to the atrocities that continued to take place against African-Americans, such as beatings and lynchings that went unpunished because of the mentality that while no longer slaves, they were still less than human and therefore entitled to less than human rights. Perhaps it is thought that impressionable little minds cannot digest the scope of the crimes committed against African-Americans, but in my opinion, that is the exact impression that they need of this country – i.e. an accurate one.

Anyway, without going much further into the exclusion of particularly “black” issues from mainstream written American history – and literature, and art, and invention, and more – the point is that American History is all too often “white history”. I should mention that the issues of “non-black” minorities get even less attention. Perhaps because their roles were on the whole less significant given their numbers, but mostly for the same reason that black history is relegated to a single month of coverage rather than interspersed throughout the continuum of American history as it should be, and as would eliminate the need for such a month. My focus on black history here is due mostly to the fact that the exclusion of other minorities from the American stage of history has left me with little to no knowledge about their roles. I blame the standardized American education system for this exclusion.

I will say, though, that the American Indians, in spite – or because of their reduced numbers and a need to preserve their history and culture – need as much as any non-white group to be adequately represented in American history. The true story of Columbus should be told. The Thanksgiving myth needs to be deconstructed, if not completely abolished. The plights that American Indians have faced and continue to face in the aftermath of their near physical and cultural annihilation and marginalization needs to be recognized and discussed with as much fervor as anything else.

But as for “white history month”, perhaps there should be such a thing. Not to pay even more attention to those figures who already dominate American history, but to observe a history of this phenomenon called “whiteness”. There are several progressive academic intiatives, all at the college level, to examine this – indeed “whiteness studies” – which I applaud and wish would gain some mainstream attention.

So enough about history. What about White Entertainment Television? I have to ask any person who argues this point what television they are watching. The main characters and the majority of cast members on every American sitcom, drama, and news show are Euro-Americans. WET, as it were, is every television station – except for the ones that obviously, you know, aren’t – and they are few. How much media coverage has Paris Hilton received, and for what? The woman has no talents to speak of, at least none that she advertises, unless we consider her sexual prowess. But I don’t know anything about that; I didn’t see the tape. She goes to jail – sort of – for an everyday crime, perhaps as much because of her illicit celebrity status as the crime itself and the country can’t stop talking about it for weeks. And in the aftermath, all eyes were on Paris as she declared that she was a changed woman, and the media outlets wait with bated breath to report on her next escapades.

Lindsay Lohan’s transition from a kid-friendly actress to a wanton drunk makes headlines. Anna Nicole Smith stayed in the spotlight even before she died – and for what – manipulating old men into including her in their wills? Brad and Angelina’s relationship joys and woes are given far greater attention than their humanitarian efforts in Africa. And which of the Olsen twins will die first from anorexia or drug addiction would seem to be quite newsworthy.

Also worth noting is that while the depravities of these white women seem to bring them greater attention and popularity, instances where non-white celebrities fall from grace are met with such venomous responses. Barry Bonds took steroids, which has become a bigger deal as he approaches the home run record of squeaky clean Hank Aaron. This is ironic since Hank himself received extreme scorn and even death threats as he approached Babe Ruth’s record. Michael Vick – who was overrated to begin with – is getting even more media attention than he deserves, but this time all negative. Paris Hilton goes to jail and she could make a few million “writing” a book about the experience. Meanwhile, Michael Vick allegedly has some dogs fighting one another – something that is disgraceful and rightfully condemned – but not something that should make him public enemy number one.

Now this is a strange phenomenon, because it almost seems as though these African-American celebrities are held to a higher standard than their white counterparts – strange because these standards are certainly not reflective of how minorities are often perceived in the public consciousness. One would think that where a “black man” lives up to society’s expectations that he be a criminal or a degenerate, he would be met with justified nods.  But in truth, it is not that Michael Vick and Barry Bonds are held to some higher standard than Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, it is that their celebrity was resented from the start – at least by some – and their indiscretions have finally given justification to tear them down. Perhaps hesitant to exalt African-American role models as it would conflict with their perceptions of African-Americans in general, these incidents have given racist parents an excuse to recommend wholesome white gentlemen like Peyton Manning or Steve Nash as their children’s new heroes. This, of course, is not to say that these two men aren’t well-deserving of admiration all else notwithstanding.

Going back to television – Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, Dr. Meredith Grey, Tony Soprano, Gil Grissom – the leads of some of the most popular television shows – although it is never said, nor does it need to be said – are “white”. And the media starlets (although a word that rhymes with starlets may be more appropriate) are no different. In fact, it registers in the mind like a beacon whenever this is not the case, and it most often is not, unless it is a show with an all or mostly non-white cast.

I should give special mention to Tony Soprano, as he showcases something important – that where an Italian-American television family isn’t simply “white”, they are most likely in the mafia. And it is that element, and not any Italian heritage or culture that gives them such ample popularity on mainstream (i.e. “white”) television. That is to say, stereotypes appear to be good business.

White dominance of media attention is not mentioned because of what I said before about the default status of Americans and American interests being white as well. So, in light of all of this, what else would an explicitly “white television” station be, other than a racist thumb-at-the-nose at every channel that dares to show anything else? And for those of you who argue for “WET”, I again ask you what television you’ve been watching all this time, but also if it is really necessary to begrudge minorities one or two stations and a handful of programs?

Finally, moving into socioeconomics, the argument of non-white exclusivity as a form of racism is most vehement when it comes to Affirmative Action. It should be mentioned right from the start that as many “white” women have benefited from the program as minorities, but even glossing over that point, why is Affirmative Action not a form of reverse discrimination? Why is it okay to give someone a job at least in part because they are a minority, but apparently not justifiable to hire someone or grant certain privileges to someone because they are “white”? It is hard to even take these questions seriously, but let me address them first with a question of my own: What country do you people live in? In the United States of America, history (as I’ve discussed), politics, economics, indeed everything, favors “white people” – a term I continuously put into quotes due to its spurious status as a term of classification.

No white person ever need fear being pulled over by police simply for being white, or of police adopting a shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality as they reach for their wallets. No white person has ever needed to be concerned about being denied a loan or housing in a certain neighborhood on the basis of their perceived race. White people – in all the places and situations that matter – are evaluated as all people should be – exclusively on the basis of their merits. This is one aspect of what is called “white privilege” or the “wages of whiteness”, but there is much more to be observed that unfortunately goes beyond the scope of this essay.

On the other hand, minorities face this kind of exclusion on a regular basis, and on a scale that is hardly balanced out by a few half-baked diversification initiatives or corporate hiring quotas. Employment applications and contracts often have an “at will employment” clause, which state that employment can be terminated at will by the employer for any reason. Now, for fear of a lawsuit, no company would explicitly state that they are firing someone on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity. But nor do they have to. It is as simple as saying “it wasn’t a good fit” or “we decided to go in a different direction”, and there is absolutely nothing that an employee can do about it, even on a strong suspicion of racist motives.

And a company can give practically any reason they choose for not hiring someone in the first place, just as a lender can be vague in their reasons for denying someone a loan, and a realtor can simply sell or rent the property to another tenant. Perhaps racism is involved in the majority of cases where minorites aren’t given jobs or loans or housing. Perhaps it is involved in very few. But that it is even possible is why programs like Affirmative Action must exist. In an ideal world it would not be necessary, but this world – and this country less so – is hardly ideal. So, again, why can’t we or don’t we give privileges to people on the basis of their whiteness as we do to minorities? News flash: we do – by default – with no need for any laws or special programs.

So by now it should be clear why there is a need in certain rare cases for non-white exclusivity in society – as an attempt to balance things in American life, which regardless of how it is represented in the media and in the public consciousness, is not synonymous with “white life”. White exclusivity would be the default position of virtually every institution where it is not already, were there not systems in place to prevent it.

If this is not clear, because you think that I am making this up, or because you have made up your mind to reject it from the outset, I encourage you to do genuine research on all the things I have discussed for yourself. By no means should you take me at my word, and I am certain that you could find ample material by which to argue against me. But it is because such material exists – in defiance of truth and to further fundamentally racist agendas – that this essay was written in the first place.