Godheval

Read More »

Not-Sees are those who accuse people of color of being “hyper-sensitive” for daring to notice what are for POCs obvious instances of racism. Not-Sees are people who would deny the legacy of slavery in the United States, and tell African-Americans – disproportionately poor and still denied access to quality education, housing, and employment – that they need to “get over it”. The Not-Sees themselves have, after all.

Not-Sees are people who see nothing wrong with Emily Blunt posing with crutches, or think that Abercrombie and Fitch are justified within their business ethos to reject a model with a prosthetic arm. They are people who think that gay marriage isn’t an important issue, because after all they are not gay, so why should they care? These are the same Not-Sees who would dismiss a transgendered person’s struggle with identity as mere “confusion”, or some sort of intended sexual deviancy.

Not-Sees are people who dismiss the outrage of feminists around the sustained gender inequalities such as wages, the sexual double standard, or the inordinate pressure placed on women to conform to the beauty standard, and to be judged by their physical appearances first, if not exclusively.

Ironically, Not-Sees can even be feminists themselves, Western or white who ignore the particular experiences of women of color, presupposing that the problems women face are universal or at least the same as their own; who would ignore Islamic women’s own voices while railing against the practice of covering.

It would be a wonderful world if there were no pressures on Muslim women at all to don the hijab. Frankly, if every Muslim woman in the world threw off her hijab, refused to be “modest”, and became a rad-fem activist, it’d suit me perfectly.⁴

Not-Sees are willing participants in a culture of willful, sustained, institutionalized obliviousness – people who out of laziness or for the sake of their own peace of mind ignore, shy away from, or attempt to delegitimize issues that do not affect them directly.

«

Read More »

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.

«

Read More »

Considering these things brought me to the idea of designating speakers of African-American Vernacular English as what Education calls “English Language Learners (ELLs), meaning that they should participate in programs teaching English as a second language (ESL).  Thirteen years ago, the Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution that said that “Ebonics” – coterminous with  AAVE – would be recognized as a language distinct from English, and that speakers of AAVE would be eligible for programs geared towards ELLs.  At that time – mind you I was eighteen years old, uneducated, and self-righteous, a dangerous combination – I dismissed the Oakland resolution as so much nonsense.  At that time, and well into my college years, I maintained that there was no such thing as AAVE, that it was little more than slang, or at my most thoughtful  that it was a variation of English that resulted from socioeconomic inequality.  For those reasons I thought it should not be recognized as a language, and I thought that doing so would only perpetuate a situation where African-Americans were not learning Standard American English.

It has been a frequent occurrence of late for me to come to a position in my adult life that is the complete opposite of my position in earlier years, and every time it has occurred I have been able to attribute the difference to the profound ignorance of my youth.  By this I do not mean that I “came around” to an “adult” way of thinking, but literally that I was ignorant – I simply did not have the information needed to even take a position on a given issue.  Such is the case again with AAVE and its recognition as a language.  Imagine my dismay to discover that my own attitudes towards AAVE were rooted in racism – a subtle form of racism that devalues something due to its association with a group of people.  Regarding AAVE not as a language, or worse, as some mutant or inferior variant, stems from the institutionalized idea that African-Americans and their culture are some perversion of humanity or American culture.

If you reject that idea outright, consider how you or others use the word “ghetto” – invariably to refer to something of inferior quality.  And although the term came into use first to describe ethnically homogenous neighborhoods – especially Jewish ones – in the common parlance of today, “ghetto” refers to low-income African-American neighborhoods.  So, if “ghetto” in some way equates to African-American or “black”, and it is used to describe something inferior, then what does that say to you?  Think about it carefully.  It is also similar to the current trend of referring to unfavorable things as “gay” – equating homosexuality with the negative.  AAVE, for its association with African-Americans, is regarded as inferior.

What I failed to understand thirteen years ago when the Oakland “controversy” first made headlines, is that recognizing AAVE as a language did not preclude African-American students learning Standard American English.  This was a misunderstanding shared by Jesse Jackson, who I mention here only for his questionable designation as an important “black leader”.

Jackson said:

“I understand the attempt to reach out to these children, but this is an unacceptable surrender, borderlining on disgrace. It’s teaching down to our children.”

[...]

“They cannot get a job at NBC or CBS or ABC unless they can master this language, and I’ll tell you they can master it if they are challenged to do so.”

These words indicate that Jackson – along with so many others – completely misunderstood the OUSD resolution.  Far from “surrender”, the resolution was empowering to African-American students in a number of ways. As stated by TESOL – the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages:

TESOL affirms that the variety of English known as African American Vernacular English, Black English, Ebonics and sometimes by other names, has been shown through research to be a rule-governed, linguistic system, with itsown lexical, phonological, syntactic and discourse patterns and, thus, deserves pedagogical recognition.

The Board notes that effective educational programs recognize and value the linguistic systems that children bring to school. Their programs use these linguistics systems as an aid and resource to facilitate the acquisition of Standard American English. Research and experience have shown that children learn best if teachers respect the home language and use it as a bridge in teaching the language of the school and wider society. Likewise, if the children’s cultural and social backgrounds are valued, their self-respect and self-confidence are affirmed and new learning is facilitated.

Because language and thought are closely related, the achievement disparity between African-American and Euro-American students, sometimes falsely attributed to genetic differences, likely has more to do with the language disparity.  If African-American students are speaking and thinking in AAVE, but are being assessed academically in Standard American English, then it is only logical to expect that those students would be at a disadvantage – the same disadvantage faced by students of other languages.

Now here you may be thinking that it’s a stretch to compare African-American students who speak AAVE, which is by definition a different form of English, to students from other countries who speak languages completely unlike English.  To say that a student who only speaks Spanish is in the same position as the student who speaks AAVE would be a stretch, and so that’s not at all the point I am trying to make.

The fact – and this is perhaps the essential point of this essay -  is that different students, varying by background, economic status, and other factors, for their differences have different needs.  When it comes to language differences, educators recognize that English-language learners arrive in their classrooms at different levels of proficiency in speaking English.  Most school districts identify and categorize students within different proficiency levels, ranging from “pre-emergent” – meaning that they do not speak any English – to “proficient”, meaning that they have a mastery of English equal to that of native speakers.  There are varying levels between pre-emergent and proficient, such as basic, intermediate, and advanced.  Most districts test their ELLs to determine their level upon entering school, with the expectation that they show adequate progress and within a few years time reach English proficiency.

The Oakland resolution intended to take this same approach with its African-American students, that is, to ensure that they had access to those resources that amend the language disparity between AAVE and SAE.  It is a given that students with no knowledge of English have a special need for English acquisition, but what is taken for granted is that all students born and raised in America should speak and have mastered standard American English, an idea that completely ignores the cultural diversity of the United States, including the different languages that are spoken here.

Beyond recognizing AAVE as a separate language for theoretical purposes, I suspect that were students who speak AAVE as their first (or only) language to be tested for English proficiency the same way as students from other countries, we may find that many of them test below the “proficient” designation.  Ordinarily it is up to parents to tell the school districts whether or not their children will need ESL accommodations, but because those needs may not even recognized by the parents – let alone school administrators – many students are held to the proficient standard even where they are not proficient.  Where AAVE is dismissed as a mere dialect or slang, the needs around English language acquisition are ignored, and the achievement gap is attributed either to economic differences or genetic deficiency.

Thirteen years after the Oakland resolution, even though I find myself doing a 180 degree turn and supporting it instead of denouncing it, there are a few places where my thoughts still diverge, and where I still maintain some of my earlier positions.  The Oakland resolution stated that AAVE has a basis in the the languages of West Africa, particularly the Niger-Congo languages, and it is for that reason that it should be recognized as a separate language and not a mere dialect.  I found this argument difficult to accept thirteen years ago, and I have my doubts about it today, but the difference today is that I recognize it as an argument for linguists, and withdraw from taking any position.  I am convinced still that AAVE is rooted in socioeconomic inequality, in particular, the numerous institutional barriers between African-Americans and access to educational resources.  Starting with slavery, African-Americans were only expected and allowed to learn enough English to fulfill their roles as servants, and propagating into the present with the fact that African-Americans remain disproportionately in the lower economic class, which invariably means diminished access to quality education.

The difference in my perspective now is that I understand that the “hows” or “whys” of AAVE are irrelevant.  Only the “what” is important – that AAVE is a separate language.  Even were we to continue to regard AAVE as a mere dialect, it would not change the fact that a language barrier exists, and that resources need to be directed towards bringing AAVE-speakers to proficiency in Standard American English.

While I am not suggesting that making the necessary connection between AAVE and ESL is a one-shot solution for closing the achievemnt gap, I think that in recognizing and addressing the disparity, we can expect the same positive results shown by speakers of other languages.  To ignore the language barrier, and continuing to attribute achievement differences exclusively to economic – or worse, genetic – causes, is to deny students – and future citizens – an equal opportunity to succeed.

«

Read More »

This is where denial comes in – because in order for someone to want to improve themselves, they have to first accept that there is something wrong in the first place.  For those infected with the white virus, whether they realize it or not, their symptoms are not merely benign but ostensibly to their benefit.

I did not list hatred as one of the characteristics of the white virus, and that’s because it isn’t.  Hatred is a response – a coping mechanism for the fear that is a symptom of the white virus.  Whiteness juxtaposes people of certain features – mostly Western European – against everyone else.

Where those others are seen as a threat to safety or resources, the whiteness virus fosters an adversarial relationship.  Ironically, the only real threat is the white virus itself which, as one of the most formidable memeplexes in existence, reinforces its hold over the infected by encouraging either the assimilation or annihilation of those others.

As its purpose since the onset has been propagation – and again we see this manifest physically and memetically – the whiteness virus instills fear of change most of all.  Change in the form of any shift in the social or political dynamic, in the form of miscegenation, in the form of multiculturalism.

Whiteness cannot thrive in a non-hostile environment, and so its survival as a cultural phenomenon – also manifest in the misguided survival instincts of the infected – depends on conflict between groups, namely any conflict that allows the infected to maintain any real physical, social, cultural, economic, or emotional distance between themselves and everyone else.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so they say, so let us dispense with any “intentions” and be straightforward with what is absolutely essential to reconciliation – the absolute annihilation of the whiteness virus, and the vaccination of the youth against future infections.

If it is not clear that I am speaking metaphorically, let me state plainly that I am, and that I am not advocating any physical action against any group of people.  Even though the whiteness virus has allowed for unconscionable violence on the part of the infected, to react with violence would only strengthen the adversarial climate that allows the virus to thrive.

The ultimate weapon against the whiteness virus?  Information.  But information alone is nothing without incentive.  And that incentive can only come from the infected themselves, by sheer strength of will, out of a sense of right and wrong.

The first stage is always denial.  But it’s about time to move forward.

«

Read More »

I am not a geneticist, or a biologist, or an anthropologist, although I studied each of these subjects superficially. But like you, I have read enough to sustain my argument against the lesser of those who purport qualitative differences between races, and have launched something of a crusade against the entire institution of race. However, when I cross paths with people like you, I recognize that my relatively meager knowledge of genetics, biology, and anthropology may not hold up in a debate. I may be called on the actual scholarship that supports the concept of race and any necessary differences between them. I am not yet up to the task, and would probably call upon Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, and Ashley Montague to bolster my defense, only to get lost in the details.

So, rather than argue with you about whether I am somehow genetically inferior as an “African-American”, whether or not my “race” makes me inherently less intelligent, lazier, or more prone to violence as you have suggested both implicitly and explicitly at different times, I will pose these questions instead.

For all the studies that purport to show the statistical differences in test scores, school performance, degrees held, income, and whatever other American contrivance believed to determine a person’s worth — between African-Americans, Euro-Americans, Asians, and other groups, what is the end goal? Let’s say that the arguments about race and genetics and intelligence come to an end in the face of irrefutable proof that African-Americans (or Mexicans or any other “group”) are on the whole “less intelligent” than Euro-Americans.

Okay, fine. Then what? What will that finding have accomplished? Is the ultimate goal — as seems to be the case in books like The Bell Curve — to justify racism?

And if we’re going to cite genetic/biological/otherwise-inherent reasons for apparent intelligence deficiencies corresponding to race, then shouldn’t we start examining other things, too? Like the far more widespread — spatially and temporally — tendencies of “white people” to conquer, plunder, rape, oppress, steal, exploit, and destroy anything they come into contact with? The “evidence” for this is far more robust than what ill-motivated intelligence testing demonstrates. There is literally no place on earth where Europeans expanded that they did not do one or all of the above — except for Anarctica — which escaped on the basis of its uninhabitability. There were no people to destroy there.

If this is a truism all across the globe and all throughout history, perhaps we should examine “white people’s” genetic predispositions towards complete and utter savagery. And in the end, if the purpose of evaluating “intelligence” is to then make a qualitative assessment between perceived races, or worse to dehumanize one or the other, then let us ask ourselves which is less “human” — being “less intelligent” or being savage and hateful destroyers of peoples and the environment?

Being someone who wishes to abolish the entire concept and institution of race, these can’t be positions that I hold with any conviction. However, within the context of the discussion of race’s validity and qualitative differences between groups, are these not fair questions? I think so.

These questions mandate some new perspective, particularly on what our individual intentions are in even debating race issues. Mine are to see a world where human relationships are defined by our common values, our common goals, our common humanity. And where we differ to learn to understand, appreciate, or at the very least accept those differences.

How about you, Mr. Sailer? What are your intentions?

«