Pam and Mr. Kennedy, a great honor to have you both here at FDL.

Randy and Pam – Welcome to the Lake.

Welcome Pam, and welcome Randall. So good to have you both here today.

Happy to be here.

Welcome everyone. Looks forward to great conversation on this thought-provoking topic. I’d like to start off with a question — Randall, regarding Barack Obama’s candidacy and the public wrestling with this heritage, you cited journalist Debra J. Dickerson’s pretty novel new line in the sand for membership in the black community.

“Obama isn’t black,” [she] asserts, because “in our political and social reality [black] means those descended from West African slaves.” Rather, Dickerson continues, “by virtue of his white American mom and his Kenyan dad . . . [Obama] is an American of African immigrant extraction.”

Given that definition, that’s so narrow that uthenticity and loyalty are a a pretty high bar to clear. What do you think of this addition to the list of “qualifications?”

Hi, Pam! Great to have you here: You are becoming ubiquitous!

Hi, Randall!

With regard to the questions Pam raises — what has the response been to the book, relative to the Obama campaign? It’s great that your book is coming out just as the topic of race is one that the country is going to have, even if it’s quite reluctant.

Aloha, Pam and Randall!

Randall, what was you motivation to write this book?

Randall, I’m not sure if this is OT, but I wonder to what extent those who do not share the goals of the black community use this “sell-out” concept as a divisive wedge that furthers their own goals?

Bullseye Pam, thank you.

“[b]e particularly careful to distinguish between blacks, mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons. The word “black” should be used to describe those persons who have three-fourths or more black blood; “mulatto,” those persons who have three-eighths to five-eighths black blood; “quadroon,” those persons who have one-fourth black blood; and “octoroon,” those persons who have one-eighth or any trace of black blood.”

At no point were enumerators provided with a methodology for extracting this information or discerning these differences.

Our society isn’t much better off today, sorry to say.

I spend way too much time on a Notre Dame college football blog (it costs $100/year). This chat doesn’t even have space to merely survey the range of ethnically insensitive remarks, but I just wanted to mention here that we still have a lot of subscribers who want to know if a recruit is “white” or not. I frequently try to ask them who determines who is “white?” Does Joe Torre qualify, what about ARod, Derek Jeter, Jessica Alba, Halle Berry,… . Anyway I really appreciate FDL hosting this chat.

I don’t think that that definition of blackness is tenable.

There have been many definitions of blackness during the course of American history. Some have focused on appearance. Some on lineage. Some on the reputation of a person in his or her community. For me the most important criterion is a person’s honest self-identification. If a blond-haired, blue-eyed person with “white” parents says truthfully that he considers himself “black” that is fine by me. By the same token, if a dark-skinned person with “black” parents considers himself “white” then that too is fine by me. I want the boundaries of race to be porous and subject to the will of individuals.

Randall is here and is reading and in the process of answering the first posts.

I wonder to what extent those who do not share the goals of the black community use this “sell-out” concept as a divisive wedge that furthers their own goals

I eagerly await Randall’s response, but my two cents is that the problem is not outside forces creating the wedge, it’s within the community to ensure conformity of belief and common goals to succeed, aka peer pressure. Those who are successful are often viewed with suspicion, that the individual’s goals are upward mobility away from the community or worse, actively working against it.

That the schisms that form benefit the dominant community’s power structure (”The Man”) is the by-product this self-defeating hurling of “sellout” so casually.

My take is that a very high percentage of European Americans consider Barack to be “black,” someone who was raised in an African American ghetto. These European Americans, however, are thrilled that he doesn’t speak Ebonics and they wish more African Americans could be “clean and articulate,” [slam at Joe Biden] like Barack truly is.

snark
If Barack can be that way, why can’t they all.
/snark

Beyond that they really don’t care, because (per Pam’s accurate statements above) he’s tainted. He’s clearly not “white,” whatever the heck that is.

I’d like that too, but that’s hardly the whole story. Self-identification is important, but when speaking of society and how race is viewed at that level, how one is identified by others is equally important.

Too many dark-skinned friends of mine have too many stories of walking into (for instance) a suburban clothing store and being tailed by store security. No one asked whether these friends self-identified as black — but their skin color was enough confirmation of ethnic identity for the security guards.

I’m going to dive in here with both feet, when I am done, you can call me a racist if you want to, flame me , I don’t care.
I do not consider myself racist, I give everyone the same chance to demonstrate their honesty and good will.
I have always felt an undercurrent with my friends who happen to be black.
It is never audible, but it is there like an unseen wedge, a watchful mistrust.
It is beyond me how to bridge that divide.People I have known for twenty years, it is still there.
It is incredibly frustrating and I would love to know how to bridge that unseen divide, any advice?

I asked this series of questions in an earlier post of mine that generated a lot of interesting results about people’s perceptions of race — and with it, what constitutes the “black community.” Randall’s book addresses the “dilemma” in the book in a number of ways.

In my post as use the example of Barack Obama, since he is biracial. I am a fair-skinned black person who has to go many generations back (so many we haven’t found the documentation) to find a white relative.

1. Two people who are standing before you, one biracial, one fair-skinned black, and both appear to be black because of their physical features. How would you categorize them?

2. Two people who are standing before you, one biracial person who appears to be black, one fair-skinned black who appears to be white because of their physical features. How would you categorize them? What if the situations are reversed — any difference?

3. In subsequent conversations with them, it can make a race assignment solely on appearance more difficult; how will you weigh:
* the whole “articulate” thing (the Acting White phenomenon playing itself out)
* their perceived level of education
* how they personally identify re: race
* their political affiliation (and/or identification with the perceived leaders of the civil rights movement)
* the amount you identify with them (the cultural commonalities versus the physical differences)

There are no right or wrong answers here — it’s simply a chance to think out loud about how it takes a great deal of deliberate thought to analyze how we view race, class, and culture in our daily lives. What we choose to do about it as a result of that self-reflection is our choice.

A lot of people ask me whether there is much sellout anxiety surrounding the Obama campaign.

There is some. Most blacks are delighted that a black person is contending so seriously and marvelously for the presidency of the United States — not for the presidency of black America but for the presidency of all America. But there are an appreciable number of blacks who view Obama’s popularity among whites as a disquieting signal that perhaps he is attractive to them because he has signaled that he is willing to “play ball” with the white folks and soft pedal if not betray altogether the key needs of black communities. That view is ridiculous given Obama’s record as a civil rights attorney and community activist and given the substance of his votes in the Senate. The existence of that view, however, is a testament to the persistence of the sellout anxiety.

Mr. Kennedy, Pam, when Americans discuss differences between Germans,and French, it’s been my experience that they refer to those as “ethnic,” differences.

Suddenly, when the differences shift to someone who has European ancestors and someone who has African ancestors, now they’re RACIAL differences.

Has this been your experience and do you have any strong opinion either way?

Great question Busted.

I used to post under a different pseudonym, so I know you well and have great respect for your character and authenticity.

I would invite you to consider it’s a process. You’re being here is a great step.

Your being here is a great step.

I have always felt an undercurrent with my friends who happen to be black.

My first reaction: how close are you to these friends? If you are indeed close, having blunt, even emotional discussions about race, while perhaps awkward at first, should be able to help bridge that gap. We all have to acknowledge that it is much easier to be friends with people who are more like, rather than less like ourselves culturally (and that goes for class as well, the other third rail). It takes extra effort to step outside of that comfort zone and a desire to break down those ingrained implicit biases we all have.

Most white people don’t have close black friends (and vice versa) to have these difficult discussions with, and the problem is exacerbated by a PC culture that encourages silence over probing miscommunications and misunderstandings due to cultural differences that may exist.

Thank you.
Pretty high praise!

Hello Pam and welcome, Mr. Kennedy. Thanks for the book; this is a thorny, multifaceted topic that I’ve dealt with all my life as a Black man (and it gets old quick, lemme tell ya!). I think that after actual racism it may be the number one impediment to the improvement of life for Black Americans.

Your African American regardless of where you are from when the police pull you over.

I have been thinking for a while about the topics I address in the book. For one thing, I have been on the receiving end of the sellout indictment because of things I have written. Some people called me a sellout when I defended interracial marriage and interracial adoption in my book Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption. I was also roundly condemned in some quarters because of my book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. A few detractors claimed that my title was a sordid, opportunistic, money-grubbing effort to attract attention. Another experience that prompted me to write the book was my interaction with black students who, in my view, have been all too burdened by a feeling that they must pay heavy racial dues in terms of “giving back to their community” or else justifiably suffer ostracism as sellouts.

Hello Pam. Thank you for making this possible.

Thank you Mr. Kennedy for spending time with us. I recently revisited your interview on City Arts and Lectures on Obama. There was much food for thought and an array of perspectives to consider when looking at Barack Obama and the entire racial and ethnic discourse. I’ll mention one.

Barack Obama isn’t typical of anyone other than Barack Obama. The mother is a powerful influence on a person so he will reflect his mother’s influences, greatly. He lived in Java during his formative years thus was greatly influenced by that culture. His sister, like himself, is mixed race being Javanese and European American. They must have influenced each other greatly. His grandparents influenced him. His multiethnic school influenced him. The result is this unique individual who bears the name, Barack Obama. Add to this mixture his unique personality, intellect, drive that only he has and there are no two like him on the face of the planet.

Can you give us your insight into the many influences that are unique to Barack Obama and how that individual can equally claim any number of groups? Or, can identify with the uniqueness of so many peoples?

I agree with your observation. It seems that to many people “ethnic” differences are less polarizing than “racial” differences.

That is, ( lost for words, if you can imagine such a thing!)
more difficult than just blurting things out.
I have much more in common than I do not, but articulating it is difficult because the minute you bring it up, boom, off they go. It is mutually uncomfortable it seems. How to get close enough to obtain that comfort level seems to be the issue.
Ah well, keep trying, eh?
That we are friends is enough, I know and they know, we have each others backs.

Suddenly, when the differences shift to someone who has European ancestors and someone who has African ancestors, now they’re RACIAL differences.

The difference (IMHO only, of course) is that the physical characteristics that human beings have often used to define race (hair texture, skin color, facial features) are what cause that differentiation. The social construct of race falls apart quite easily because of how tortured the whole thing is. The range of features, hair texture and color in people identified as “black” is so broad that some could just as easily be seen as hispanic, white — or ethnicities within “white.” It’s crazy.

Hi Busted — since you’re jumping in with both feet, so will I. I read your post and had to wonder about what sort of signals you’re sending out to your Black friends, because in your post you seem to have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder: You seem to expect to be flamed or called racist for your views, you give people “chances to demonstrate” things to you…people pick up on this kind of anxiety, and Black folks in particular learn to attune themselves to it.

I don’t want to come off harsh or turn this into psych 101, but those things jumped out at me, and if you’re looking for a good way to bridge divides, maybe check to make sure your end of the bridge is structurally sound. Hope I haven’t offended.

I’m actually mixed myself, but i was adopted by a white couple(that as far as i’m concerned ARE my parents.) I grew up with odd looks my entire life because of that. A gold skinned little girl with thick black, curly hair with two white parents. So of course, i have none of the grounding in the black community. If anything, my ‘grounding’ is in that of canada, because my mom is one. I’ve actually grown up being able to compare the ways i’ve been treated in both countries. I grew up going between them for pretty much most of my childhood life.

Over there? My gold skin means absolutely NOTHING. I was just one kid out of many.Here? I’m expected to speak in ebonics and get strange looks when i don’t. Only those that know me for any length of time relax and totally forget that it doesn’t matter. But i’m not comfortable at all with the black culture that many expect me to be a part of on first glance. It’s another flavor of undercurrent, like Bustedknuckles mentioned. Just from the other side.

I grew up thinking nothing of my skin color. As far as my family’s concerned i could be purple and i’d still be their daughter. I knew i was mixed(mulatto in the legalese), but it was(and still is) the least part of me of all. I’m still of that mindset, and there’s still that undercurrent of ’sellout’ with those that i run across that grew up in the black community. It drives me nuts because i am who i am, my culture isn’t theirs just because of the color of my skin. I’m more proud of my intelligence, and my musical skills than to be part of a culture i have no background in.

Thanks for your note ! I think that fear of betrayal or abandonment is an important and, on balance, a destructive force in black American life. At the same time, I do not want to exxagerate the significance of the phenomenon I address. Lots of black folk who face the sellout indictment rightly dismiss it as a mere nuisance.

When I was in the USAF stationed in Hawaii, I had a couple of Black roommates. We’d joke about how I was trying to get dark enough to “pass” (tanning). But they also understood that as a White man in Hawaii, I was seeing a limited example of the discrimination that they had grown up with

Find new African American friends?

I see your point, but my defensiveness was for the public at large.
There are thousands of lurkers here and the concern trolls are always ready to jump.

Being an Anglo-Saxon, and raised in Hawaii, I’ve learned to adhere to one of MLK’s tenets… Judge one for the content of their character, not the color of their skin… It really works!

In this house we look forward to the day, come next January, when Senator Obama takes the oath of office as the next president of the United States.

Thanks for that.
That was what I was awkwardly trying to say.

Bullseye.

“Lots of black folk who face the sellout indictment rightly dismiss it as a mere nuisance.”

True — I think though that the mindset that it engenders, namely the fear of doing things which make you “seem white” has really blocked off huge areas of opportunity or just plain experience from massive numbers of people, for no other reason than fear of not conforming. It’s bigger than the individual instances.

I am a half breed. I take no dissatifaction with that fact. I am an Oklahoman too. But most importantly, I am an American.

As an anthropologist, I taught in a school of 52 nationalities. The richness of the diversity and the respect engendered to one another taught me that each person is unique and wonderful. Thanks for this dialogue.

Busted: the minute you bring it up, boom, off they go.

As in what? Shutting down discussion? Acting defensive (oh there goes dumb whitey again)? Remember, we’re all “trained” that discussions about race are so fraught with danger that you’d think the world would explode if someone asked a basic question about cultural difference, what offends someone, etc. I’m an advocate of open discussion, to not chastise someone for asking what seems to be an obvious, even racist question that is borne of ignorance.

In one post at my pad I recalled a white classmate of mine at Fordham (this was 1983) and I were sitting outside and she asked me whether I could turn browner in the sun. My response:

was to calmly say “yes,” and I took off my watch so she could see the contrast between my tan and what was underneath my timepiece. I then held my arm up next to her olive-skinned Italian forearm to show her that my non-tan color was lighter than her skin tone.

I suppose I could have gotten haughty and pissed and just jumped up and got in her face and called her racist, right? But the problem here is that she’s a victim of growing up in a world of cultural, institutionalized racism and lack of exposure to people of another color. At least she extended herself outside her comfort zone to ask the question, certainly risking a negative reaction.

Bullseye.

Most European Americans live under the illusion that they have transcended concern about ethnic issues.

The reality is that they live in a country where virtually 100% of the leaders (and police) have for centuries been European American.

Suddenly African Americans are talking about “race.” You can almost see the disgust as European Americans wonder why all these others can’t just “get over it.”

I eagerly await Randall’s response, but my two cents is that the problem is not outside forces creating the wedge, it’s within the community to ensure conformity of belief and common goals to succeed, aka peer pressure. Those who are successful are often viewed with suspicion, that the individual’s goals are upward mobility away from the community or worse, actively working against it.

What are the criteria for acting White? My great niece is mixed-race AA-Euro. She when to private grade school because of after school child care. When it came time for middle school, public school was the first choice because of economics. When her parents talk to their AA friends about the public school, “good students acting White” was a big social issue. My niece and her husband “sucked it up” and sent her to private school. It seems to me that stigmatizing good students for “acting White” is very destructive.

I like what you are telling us.

Randall, please explain a bit about how were assigned the “Sellout” label for your thesis in “Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.” The Black Commentator was pretty harsh.

I don’t think there is some universal definition that will ever be agreed to as to what entails “black”. Some will say descendants of slaves of African ancestry, some will narrow it to West African ancestry (but that would leave out some descendents of Angolaan and Mozambican slaves, certainly), some forget that some early African-Americans were essentially indentured and freed. Many of the early founders of Spanish Los Angeles were black (or mixed) and were never slaves in the sense most were in the United States.

Then you get folks from Puerto Rico, elsewhere in the Caribbean, Latin America who have varying degrees of African ancestry yet identify with Hispanics from their own communities. Outside white communities (and sometimes “inside” communities) would identify them as “black”, just as much as they would Obama Barack or Tiger Woods.

Obama Barack admits that his experience is not identical to what many blacks in America experienced. He has noted that he, in fact, struggled with issues of identity, given that his parental (and grandparental) role models were definitely NOT black. Outsiders identified him as such, however.

If anything this retrospection perhaps has led Obama to examine the black experience in a less monolithic manner, to see points of shared experience between and with other ethnicities, as well as distinctions. He’s also able to see the role of poverty, the issues of labeling, and how those labels impact success. He’s in an odd position…black to the white world at large, but not African American to many in the community. But it’s clear that he shares “existentially” some of the black experience (if not the historical journey). He’s a bit like the character in “Black Like Me” who has the experience of feeling the day-to-day discrimination that confronts African-Americans. But Obama couldn’t remove the skin darkener.

I think that what really is critical is no longer the issue of whether a person comes “from” a particular community or not. Many people who are want to run away and hide from it, and the problems that exist within those communities. Others are focussed exclusively upon THOSE problems and don’t see the connections with other communities and their issues. This makes the likelihood of solving those problems with larger outside causes unlikely. Perhaps the fact that Obama sits on the threshold of different communities and can peek inside them both enables him to do something special?

still have these problems in the 21st century – regardless of skin color – if we ALL treated people as fellow humans i think we’d be a lot better for it – i havent found any person to bleed a separate color of blood….

What is a sellout? Perhaps someone who puts the interests of another group usually white over not equal to the the interests of the group they were born in, in a pathetic attempt to be accepted by the new group.
Growing up in the suburbs I saw this a lot.

Alen Keyes comes to mind.

I agree with you. All too many black youngsters think, for instance, that seeking excellence in school is “acting white” and somehow abandoning blackness. That notion is so pernicious and wrongheaded, especially given the historical record which shows so vividly that blacks have sought education and prized education in the face of daunting obstacles.

Ron Christie also.

There is a similarity here to what every immigrant group has gone through, and it is a generational and class problem. By aspiring for something more – to leave the neighborhood, the traditional professions, the traditional politics – are you betraying your group? There will always be those who resent those who move up or out.

In the African American experience it is compounded by the organized and systematic efforts of the majority culture to prevent the rise of the group and the individuals within it. This breeds an additional suspicion of those who make it – what did they do to get out, what did they sell out, and to whom? It’s the shadow of the talented tenth.

Mr. Kennedy it’s been my experience that European Americans are largely ignorant of your Harvard colleague Randall Robinson and his work on the debt. European Americans have no clue about the real economic injustice in present value terms done to the slaves and their descendants. “Even though they benefit from it, it’s not their fault.

Closely tied to this in my opinion is that African Americans have been unfairly blamed for Affirmative Action. It’s my understanding that Affirmative Action simply replaced a more direct repayment for what is known as “the Black Holocaust.” It’s also my understanding that there is 20th century precedent for precisely these kind of war reparations. Hitler routinely forced Europeans to work for the Third Reich and he never paid them. Some of their descendants have received compensation for their work. WRT African Americans, I think the period after the Civil War, and prior to the 1960’s Civil Rights, legislation should be considered eligible for similar consideration, but that’s just my opinion.

I do not ever expect actual cash payments, but I think recognition of what savage and institutionalized discrimination can do to any ethnic group over a 400 years is an issue. Although lynching and chain gangs understandably get more attention, imo it was segregation and the systematic denial of equal access to education, the courts, and access to credit that drive so much of what we say today. My hope has been that Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare, HUD and Social Security’s Ticket to Work program might be able to help mitigate the consequences of institutionalized injustice. If nothing else, those options are a lot less expensive than incarceration.

Pam, please feel free to chime in

We all bleed the same color of red.

One thing I love about my country that scares the pants off these idiots who are trying to use immigration as the big scare.
We are all immigrants,one way or another.
We all have the same needs and wants.
Working together, we can do it.

Good example! I wonder what how the mental conflict of selling out like he has, has cost his mind? Are there such things as racial identity conflict disorders?

That’s interesting.

As frustrating as it is to have all the sexism openly thrown around with a seeming lack of awareness, I often think it’s easier to deal with that way than the topic of race, which is still very third rail. If you know what someone is thinking you can approach them with reasoned arguments; if you don’t, you feel like you’re swinging at air because there’s nothing you can point to.

It seems to me that stigmatizing good students for “acting White” is very destructive.

It can be. The criteria for “acting white” for young people can include:
* speaking the “King’s English”
* focusing on academics instead of sports
* college-bound ambitions

It is a peculiar phenomenon that perhaps Randall can shed some light on. The saturation of anti-intellectualism and materialism foisted upon and soaked up as “culture” by some in the black community obviously has played a role. I recall being on the receiving end of insults of “talking white” and “acting white” because I was doing well in school (this was 7th grade in NC). It was made worse by the fact that I didn’t have a southern accent (I’m a NC native, btw, so the lack of an accent is an oddity).

From an article on the matter:

Smart black students being accused of “acting too white” is an issue Triangle educators are debating at a youth and race conference this week.

Students say the stigma is keeping some of their peers from doing well in school. Tenth grader Anais Guzman is on the honor roll. She says some of her peers see the achievement as acting too “white”. “They can get high grades but they don’t want to because they’ll be considered as acting white, so they put white people down,” Guzman said.

That’s the argument some educators say is fueling the achievement gap in North Carolina schools. Smart black students being accused of “acting too white” is one issue they discussed.

“It’s a serious issue in North Carolina,” said William Darity with the African-American Research Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill. He says while the “acting white” stigma does play a part, student performance has more to do with school structure and curriculum for minorities. “We argue it’s due to the school context and because of a pattern of exclusion of vast numbers of black kids from the most challenging curriculum,” Darity continued.

But students say the “acting white” theory is a reality. “Some people might say some people are acting white, or acting black or different things like that so I see it often,” said tenth garder Vance Cherebin.

Patrick, yeah, I’ve been there — not in my adult professional life, but in my youth as a high-achieving student, you’d better believe I felt the stigma of being perceived as “acting White”. I understand it completely and repsect the urge to resist being mentally colonized or buying into, in ANY way, a system which has had a great interest in keeping people of color down.

It’s when it starts blinding people to possibilities that it bugs me. The cutting off the nose to spite one’s face part of it.

Welcome Pam, and welcome Randall Kennedy. You certainly have a penchant for the otherwise undiscussed topic, or word. What’s on your horizon next, sir?

FWIW, Tiger is receiving huge criticism from some for so gracefully accepting Kelly Tilghman’s comment about lynching him without even mentioning Jena.

IMHO, it’s not about the “black experience.”

African Americans in the U.S. aren’t “born” knowing how to be “black.” They learn ebonics, because that’s what their parents speak. Their parents learned ebonics, because it was the only linguistic option open to them. It most certainly was not by choice.

The level of conformity in many African American ghettos on certain issues (Stop Snitching) is simply a reflection of the centuries of lethal and legal discrimination their ancestors faced at the hands of the dominant European American culture.

The African America, heck most minority communities are under attack from many quarters and are using culture and religion as ways to stay unified. The desire to belong somewhere is understandable. But it creates an in group bias against members of the community who for various reasons don’t fit in the culture, religion or values of the majority of their group.

I do not ever expect actual cash payments, but I think recognition of what savage and institutionalized discrimination can do to any ethnic group over a 400 years is an issue. Although lynching and chain gangs understandably get more attention, imo it was segregation and the systematic denial of equal access to education, the courts, and access to credit that drive so much of what we say today.

How about 40 acres and a Mule? ;-)

But seriously, Today, Hindu India is grappling with the ‘Untouchable’ caste members that has endured similar treatment for over a thousand years, and, ironically they have the same color skin and features… It was solely which segment of the caste system they were born in…!

Randall…I’m a biological anthropologist…and while I don’t advocate/discourage openly on such positions as interracial marriage in my classes, one of the things I do point out is just how mixed genetically the African-American population is genetically. The average admixture of black Americans is about 25%. That’s the equivalent of one in four grandparents. My West African friends can “see” the admixture quite easily. So issues of actual genetic mixing is something that has long occurred. Many black Americans have a good dollop of Native American ancestry, as well. Interestingly, of White “Old Americans” (pre-early 20th century European immigration) the admixture level is about 6-7%.

Now inter-racial marriage also entails a mix of culture and communities. That’s where the difficulties arise. People feel that they don’t want to lose their religions, traditions, and “value” to another (sometimes more dominant) culture. They also fear their kids will be mistreated by one, or both, communities (and even families). That fear sometimes comes off as antagonism to the other partner, or other culture. The couple sees this as a lack of love and support. I think that the more successful mixed marriages out there will allay this fear. It’ll take time, but it’s happening. Then people will begin to find that there are ways to integrate both cultures, and the kids will have unique, and just as compelling experiences.

If president Obama does a good job, and I think he will, that will go a long way to breaking racial perceptions. Who knows, one day we might even have a woman Native Indian as our president. Now wouldn’t that be something?

Some people thought that I was hurting my fellow blacks by putting the term “nigger” on the cover of a book that would appear in every major bookstore in the country. The claim here is that the term itself draws psychological blood whenever a (right thinking) black person sees it or hears it regardless of the circumstances. Others thought that I was being altogether too soft in my assessment of people who use the term inasmuch as I argued that while the word is presumptively a racial slur it cane be put to other non-racist uses. It can be used as a term of endearment or a gesture of solidarity the way that many in the hip-hop community use it. Or it can be used as a weapon of anti-racist propaganda. This is the way it was used by Dick Gregory (see his memoir Nigger:An Autobiography) and Richard Pryor (see his great albums of social satire That Nigger’s Crazy and Bicentennial Nigger). What really angered some folks is that I defended the use of nigger by whites who used the term in what I view as a justifiable (ie. non-racist) way — people like Mark Twain or Quentin Tarrantino.

Black folks I consider sellouts –

* Clarence Thomas (though Randall does a pretty balanced job of looking at him in a long chapter in the book)

* Just about anyone in Project 21 (The National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives). These are black conservatives corralled to show up as talking heads on Fox News to bleat the GOP line.

* Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. I consider this brother a truly unwell self-loather (and a homophobe) who said this in the aftermath of Katrina:

If whites were to just leave the United States and let blacks run the country, they would turn America into a ghetto within 10 years. The audience, shall we say, disagreed with me strongly. Now I have to disagree with me. I gave blacks too much credit. It took a mere three days for blacks to turn the Superdome and the convention center into ghettos, rampant with theft, rape and murder.

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans’ black community taken action, most would have been out of harm’s way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

african-americans are no more a monolith than are other ethnic people – sheesh!! if we could only get over that……

Wow, that’s destating. So, where to begin? What does it take to begin tearing down a belief system that to perform well academically is to betray one’s self, one’s identity? And who/what is to lead us out of this? Are there leaders who are making a difference? “Programs?” Movements? This seems to be such a core problem that without an approach for addressing it, everything else gets overwhelmed.

I think this is where Obama opens up some space. His refusal to be categorized – indeed his rejection of categories – is what is simultaneously attractive and disturbing about him. Is he black enough? Is he liberal enough? Does his notion of bi-partisanship mean the same thing as Joe Lieberman’s?

Watching my son and his friends in high school is amazing to me. Race doesn’t ring the same bells or set of the same alarms that it does in my generation. Their history is different. They’re aware of the struggles and complications, but they are living a different reality.

Shoot. One of these days we might even have a gay president.

Racism is a result. It’s not a cause. Racism doesn’t cause violence. Racism doesn’t cause segragation. These are the result of something much deeper in human nature. I have my own ideas and it is in every part of the world among every people.

I take it you think my understanding of the term sellouts is valid. Or am I missing something?

Sellouts? There is Collin Powell. And Condi Rice. Afterall.

We have a substantial number of black medical students at my university, but almost all of them are Africans who attended elite private schools in Africa, followed by college in Europe or the US.

Openly Gay President… I wouldn’t be too sure we haven’t had one already…! ;-)

Colin Powell coudda been a contender.

I really have no wisdom on how to take this on. This is a relatively recent phenomenon; my mom grew up in the Great Depression in NYC and didn’t have two nickels to rub together, but academics was the first priority, and the means to make something of themselves. The consumer culture, I have to believe, has “dumbed down” and disengaged so much of the American public from their own self interests in terms of education. That popular culture has become so pathologically anti-intellectual is frightening. That children have to suffer social ostracism for being academically focused is something we all have to be willing to figure out.

The School of Hard Knocks is open to all comers.

Interesting comments.
Sometime around 1815????, it became illegal to import Africans into the U.S for slavery. (I believe the Amistad was carrying slaves to someplace other than the U.S.

My guess/fear has been that a majority of that 6-7% resulted from European American males working on plantations and unwilling African American women. All the economic pressures on the plantation owner favored such reproduction. See Frederick Douglass’ autobiographies. His Mom wasn’t real fond of him, his grandmother raised him until he was six.

“You’re African American regardless of where you are from when the police pull you over.”

Exactly. If Eldrick “Tiger” Woods drove a snow plow for a living, would he even try to sell us on being “Cabla-whatever”? I doubt it. Don’t get me wrong; he’s free to identify as he chooses. I would be less than honest however, if I didn’t acknowledge my disappointment as a Black man that he doesn’t identify with us more closely.

I am and always will be one of his biggest fans, but if for some reason all the wealth went away tomorrow & he had to join us in a “conventional” job and lifestyle somehow I think he’d become more Black as well.

Again, not hatin’ on him, it’s just my opinion.

I am thinking about a book that I would entitle GWP— Good White People. It would be a history of anti-racist struggles on behalf of people of color undertaken by whites such as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, Abby Kelley Thaddeus Stevens, Albion Tourgee, the white founders of the NAACP, the whites who denounced white supremacy before the Civil Rights Revolution, the whites who joined with the valiant blacks who confronted Jim Crow segregation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Do you think that there is a need for such a book? If so, who are some neglected figures who I should be sure to highlight?

Any impressions are most welcome !!!!!!

Agree with your list…I’d add Ward Connerly, Mr. Anti-Affirmative action…sometimes I think people like Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg deserve the tag for making their fortunes by exploiting negative stereotypes about Black people…(their beats are pretty dope, though, so I don’t know…)

What are we to make of the Buffalo Soldiers?

LBJ comes to mind…! ;-)

The School of Hard Knocks has some virtue but it is a far cry from the total answer. Try coming from the American School of Hard Knocks and entering a remote village in South East Asia and you will be disappeared. That school is too provincial for you to survive.

“Albion Tourgee”

If you haven’t read it, the recent Tourgee biography by Mark Elliot is outstanding.

I think it’s a great idea. It’s a great way to open up the conversation, and it also creates a culture of “anti-racism” with role models, etc. that doesn’t really exist right now.

Smart kids get picked on in White schools too! But Whites have more opportunities to be smart and make something of themselves by going to college because they can afford to go.
We need to make college more available to everyone and create more jobs that pay well, that require brains.
So one we need to stop outsourcing. Two get more people into college and three get them good jobs.
Once African Americans can in every neighborhood point to their cousin’s flashy red sports car and brag my cousin is a Doctor, then being smart won’t have as much stigma.
There is a whole generation of African Americans who served a ton of deployments in Iraq if we sweeten the college benefits they get we can increase the rate of African Americans who graduate and start to bring down the smart is white/bad meme.

Agree. See my 64.

At the same time, Tiger is in a no-win situation. The European Americans I know who hated him before don’t cut him any slack, because of how he handled the lynching remark.

So it has franchises.

;~)

I wonder to what extent those who do not share the goals of the black community use this “sell-out” concept as a divisive wedge that furthers their own goals.

Now, I have trouble with this statement. I think it is making assumptions about the uniformity of the “black community”.

Maybe it is different in the US, but where I live, most blacks are relatively recent immigrants (a generation or two) from either Africa or from places like Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad.

How do African-Americans from Africa and the Islands relate to those who descended from the slave population?

Actually, I would disagree on Colin Powell and Condi Rice as sellouts.

I may disagree with their politics, but neither has directly worked against the black community, if we are looking at the narrow definition of sellout we’re describing here. Colin Powell is in favor of affirmative action, and quite frankly, Condi Rice has been pretty absent on matters of race and social policy, she’s concerned with international affairs. Is betrayal or selling out to also include lack of advocacy?

This gets to the heart of one of the questions in Randall’s book — do successful blacks have a particular responsibility to the black community? What is the “black community?”

Part of Randall’s thesis is that political differences should not in themselves constitute a sellout label, but the third rail on that front is affirmative action. For what it’s worth, it’s the only policy that represents a clear line in the sand for many blacks hurling the sellout label. That’s not to say that AA is an untouchable topic, but that it has become a sacred cow to many that if challenged, looks from most perspectives to be racial betrayal.

I would be less than honest however, if I didn’t acknowledge my disappointment as a Black man that he doesn’t identify with us more closely.

Tiger is a real “mix” but “adding up” his ancestry he is majority Chinese, IIRC.

There were also religious groups in which the entire group of individuals played an important role. I am thinking of “A friend of a Friend”. The Society of Friends who ran the underground railroad. They also refused to join violent abolitionists and opposed the was because they practiced nonviolence.

The sad thing is that Black anti-intellectualism (for lack of a much much better term) seems to be a perversion of a much nobler impulse: the unwillingness to cooperate with an evil system that is clearly trying to enslave or kill you. You can see this in any inner-city classroom: the ingenuity and smarts get turned toward avoiding schoolwork or conventional learning and discipline rather than going along with the program.

It goes very, very deep, deeper than I think most Americans want to realize.

South West Asia, too, I have no desire to visit Quetta, Pakistan…!

That’s a great idea, Randall. Again, I’m sure you’ll be challenged, particularly if you decide to profile contemporary figures.

It’s a terrific idea.

Also it would give you a chance to educate European Americans about the varieties of abolitionists. AFAIK, most were 100% in favor of segregation.

It would also give you a chance to educate everyone about the different strains of white supremacy. Also afaik, Strom Thurmond was hated by the Klan. AFAIK, Strom was instrumental (along with Ida B. Wells and many, many others) in halting the most virulent epidemic of lynching (up until the 1920’s I think). Strom wasn’t altruistic. He understood that he couldn’t hold firm on segregation if the Klan kept lynching everyone.

I felt the same way concern when framing the sentence, which is why I decided to just use the term chosen by Pam in her introductory post:

The importance of Sellout is that it is a fearless tome, because its goal is to not only spur discussion about race and identity politics within the black community, but to help frame a very difficult and uncomfortable subject for those who find themselves shut out or silenced because of discomfort, guilt or political correctness when it comes to race.

Racism is a result. It’s not a cause. Racism doesn’t cause violence. Racism doesn’t cause segragation. These are the result of something much deeper in human nature. I have my own ideas and it is in every part of the world among every people.

Evolution has “hard wired” “it” into our brains.

are they sell-outs or just ambitious americans?

Don’t forget John Brown and I think it should be a movie, or series of movies.

I completely agree.

And frankly, with so many to pick from in the Bush administration, why are those two targeted with such frequency.

Watching my son and his friends in high school is amazing to me. Race doesn’t ring the same bells or set of the same alarms that it does in my generation. Their history is different. They’re aware of the struggles and complications, but they are living a different reality.

I think it’s reflected in different parameters. Black students at my university still hang out together on the quad and near the dining commons. Hmong-descent students tend to eat together and share the same friends. But there are lots of exceptions. These generally are related to student-based collective work organizations (the campus radio station or newspaper, certain types of concerts, Departmental organizations, etc.)

BTW There may be something to be said for individuals having identities that transcend labels. Ghana was well on the road to having the same sorts of ethnic-based divisions that other African nations were about to face in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Presidents and Generals from different ethnicities (Fanti, Ga, and Ashanti) would stack their ministries with members of their own tribes, which led to the other two joining hands to topple the previous regime. Finally a mixed race Captain sired from a Scottish soldier and the lesser Ewe tribe, emerged as a unifying force in a group of Junior Officers. That man was Jerry Rawlings…who is both revered and reviled…who was both seated after popular coups and elected in a free election. Yet he did bring the nation back together by reducing corruption and balancing out the nationalities in the governments he led (some say he “played them off”).

Other similar folks that have played interesting balancing factors in communities potentially wracked by divisiveness…the castrated Janissary Slav bureaucrats of the Ottoman Empire (no kids-no nepotism); and the “leopard-man” Chief Judge of the Baganda people of Uganda (anyone could be his kid- no nepotism).

Robert Graetz, a clergy friend of mine whose first call was as the white pastor of a predominantly African-American Lutheran parish in Montgomery in 1955. I mentioned him in yesterday’s book salon chat with Charlie Cobb — a great chat that got short-circuited because of tech problems on his end.

Algernon Austin of the Thora Institute on “acting white”

For twenty years, black students have been chastised based on flawed research. Black leaders and black public intellectuals routinely claim that black students see academic achievement as “acting white.” The actual evidence for the “acting white” hypothesis, however, is meager and not at all convincing when examined carefully.

“A study by the Girl Scout Research Institute shows that black and white girls experience equivalent levels of academically-oriented teasing. Forty-one percent of white girls reported that they worried about being teased for speaking or participating in class. Thirty-five percent of black girls felt the same. These results are statistically equal because the margin of error is plus or minus 7 percentage points”.

“The proponents of the “acting white” hypothesis claim that black students experience much more academic teasing than white students, but they have never presented any direct evidence to support this assertion”.

http://www.blackdirections.com/#BD%20v2n3

Colin Powell coudda been a contender.

Sometimes “sellout” applies to a larger category of people than ones “race”…

[Colin Powell is mixed-race Caribbean-American, as well]

I am grateful to the folks at Firedoglake for giving us this forum.

Thanks for the discussion.

I wish the best for all of my interlocutors.

Randy Kennedy

What are the numbers for men this is very interesting research.

Tiger is a real “mix” but “adding up” his ancestry he is majority Chinese, IIRC.

Thai, I think. Don’t want to get the Thai’s upset out there!

Seems to me that a discussion that emphasizes that “race” is not a clear cut issue is healthy in destroying the stereotypes.

Tiger’s dad was black, white, and native american- his mother is Thai. Is he black? Hell- I don’t know.

Obama’s father (who he apparently never lived with), was Kenyan. Obama was raised by his white mother and white grandmother and didn’t experience “growing up black”- at least in not any normal way. Is he black? Beats me–the media says he is.

As John Locke once says- “similarities are easy to see- the wise look for differences.”

Thank You please come back if Obama gets the nomination your take on the group dynamics of the African American community and how that could effect voter turnout should be interesting.

Thank you Randall.

Pam Spaulding?
You ROCK.

Thank you for opening this discussion, Mr. Kennedy. Are we hardwired? If so, what can we do to break the evolutionary chain? Hardwiring can be mutated. Is this through practice?

Thank you, Randall, for taking the time to be here.

Good point! Pam, you do kick total ass!

Well, there’s anti intellectualism period here in the states. There’s a reason the ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ stereotypes exist in the first place, after all. They also manage to transcend the races in that definition oddly enough over here. I’m just crazy enough to embrace my girlgeek status, and the color of my skin be damned. Yes, i’m gold skinned, female AND a geek. My whole family is amused by it, but that’s the way i am, and they don’t care.

I can shrug off the racial idiocy, but being told to act dumb? That’s more of an insult to me than be told i’m a racial sellout, actually. If i ever have kids, i want them to actually be proud of being smart. There’s more chances to explore if you have the mental flexibility to do so!

Thanks Pam!

I can hang around till the top of the hour and continue discussion if folks are up for it.

Again, IIRC..Mom is Chinese&Thai(Malay?)..Dad AA,Euro,Chinese and Native American…Tiger is a real mix..Hooo-Raaa

The Compromise of 1850 admitted California into the Union as a free state, with the status of the Kansas and New Mexico territories to be determined — but it was the Fugitive Slave Law that brought on the Civil War.

Massachusetts was the first state to outlaw slavery, and any slave that set foot there was automatically free. The Fugitive Slave Act changed all that — it made slaves property in every state, and required both governments and citizens to return runaway slaves to their masters. There were something like four incidents of captured slaves being broken out of Massachusetts jails by mobs of angry citizens — who then helped the slaves escape to Canada. Henry David Thoreau was active in the Underground Railroad in the 1850’s.

The slaveholders were all for States Rights when it supported slavery; they were all for trampling states rights when it benefited slavery. The outrage over the Fugitive Slave Act turned Northerners into militant abolitionists, and made the Civil War inevitable.

Slavery and it’s aftermath of racism is the greatest tragedy of American History.

Hopefully, electing President Obama can help set things right.

the Girl Scout Research Institute

The first thing I thought of when I read that was a bunch of white-coated researchers tinkering around in the lab with the Thin Mints recipe. (I assume we can now go OT, since Randall’s gone.)

[RBG Note; we’re cool, but let’s make some reasonable effort to stay on the general topic. A new thread will be up soon. Thanks.]

I like your take on “sellouts” as opposed to “people with different political viewpoints.” It immediately called to mind to me the analogy in the GLBT community of (usually) closeted GOP gays who spout visious anti-GLBT vitriol and work to legalize discrimination as opposed to GOP gays who chose that political affiliation because of other reasons.

Eldrick “Tiger” Woods was born on December 30, 1975 in Cypress, California to Earl (1932-2006) and Kultida Woods (from Thailand). He is the only child of their marriage but has two half-brothers, Earl Jr. (born 1955) and Kevin (born 1957), and one half-sister, Royce (born 1958) from the 18-year marriage of Earl Woods and his first wife, Barbara Woods Gray. Earl, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran was of mixed African American (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent) and Native American (25 percent) ancestry. Kultida (nee Punsawad), originally from Thailand, is of mixed Thai (50 percent), Chinese (25 percent), and Dutch (25 percent) ancestry. This makes Woods himself one-quarter Chinese, one quarter Thai, one quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch.[6] He refers to his ethnic make-up as “Cablinasian” (a portmanteau term he coined from Caucasian, Black, American-Indian, and Asian).[7] Woods is a Buddhist. He has said that his faith was acquired from his mother and that it helps control both his stubbornness and impatience. [8]

(WIKI)

Best kind there is! I call myself mulatto but if i remember correctly my biological mom is a mix of mexican/black and my dad was french candian in descent. It’s been called mestizo by others before too. I have NO idea, i was just born to them. they aren’t so much my parents in the ways that count. *shrugs*

But i like being a crazed mix like that. You can’t set exact parameters with it. ^_^

Obama’s father (who he apparently never lived with), was Kenyan. Obama was raised by his white mother and white grandmother and didn’t experience “growing up black”- at least in not any normal way. Is he black? Beats me–the media says he is.

Actually, his father was around until he was two! Obama’s half-sister is half white, half Indonesian… He’s led an interesting life…!

Randall thank you for coming to the lake and sharing your afternoon with us.
I highly recommend buying Sellout if you haven’t already, it is an excellent book.

Are we hardwired? If so, what can we do to break the evolutionary chain? Hardwiring can be mutated. Is this through practice?
reply

Just because we are hard wired doesn’t mean we have to act on those impulses. That is one of the virtues of a Liberal mind-set.

I had a particularly bad experience at another liberal blog when Steve Gilliard passed away. Warning, this what I consider 100 proof and very refined, well educated white supremacy. Death of A House Negro.

I will defend anyone’s 1st Amendment right to be a white supremacist. The issue was that an ABC affiliate in TN published part of this filth and linked to the site.

I got into it with a graduate student in English from a University in the California system. He told me that I didn’t understand the “context” and that there was no problem with an ABC affiliate linking and publishing a part of “Death of A House Negro.” This grad student was also shamelessly pimping his own site inviting everyone to “his place.” His pseudonym was a link back to it. It identified him by name, his University, his department and photos of his wedding. He leveraged his academic credentials throughout our argument. He also said that his blogging about this part of his research for his Ph.D. on “internet interactions.” I told him that since he considered supporting FCC controlled entities, who published and linked to white supremacist literture, I was pretty sure I was going to share his statements on the blog with his faculty.

Typical internet tough guy, he told me to go ahead.

I did and I copied him on everything I sent them. Based on the responses I got from the person in charge of “diversity,” the University took no action in his case.

I second Bev’s comment about the book. Thanks, Randall for spending time in the salon.

Is this really a problem or a media creation? In school yes smart kids are picked on. But now that I’m grown by being reasonably smart I tend to have more people listen to me I notice than if I were dumb.
Its when I say stuff that people disagree with that brings out the insults now from people who have no other way to refute my arguments. Dumb people get ignored or have to use something else to get people’s attention.

Thanks for the clarification..I had forgotten the Dutch part.

I’ll do a little research but I think his sister is half Javanese. Indonesian is a recent geographic term to unify this diverse area of over 2,000 languages and dialects and just as many different peoples with very different cultures.

Oh, ok now I get it. For the last 400 years just a drop of Black blood anywhere in your lineage, and presto, you’re black.

But now, if you’re the number 1 golfer in the world and on your way to a billion dollars net worth, never mind.

Pam and Randy, thanks very much.

Evolution has “hard wired” “it” into our brains.

Hmmm! Given that throughout most of our ancestry the groups we encountered would have looked pretty much like ourselves, coming up with a selective process for “racism” would be rather hard. I suspect that it is merely an extension of groups being antagonistic to those other folks just over the mountain range, and who dressed, tattooed, decorated, spoke and sang songs differently. That’s why Bosnians and Serbs (or Hutus and Tutsi, which were really mere economic castes when the Belgians arrived) are quite willing to exterminate each other. Palestinians and the Sephardic Jews are much closer biologically (”sister-groups” in Genetic lingo) than either are to other Middle Eastern groups. The Palestinians may actually be indigenous Jews that converted, first to Orthodox Christianity, and then (some) to Islam.

Hard-wired implies that we can’t escape it. Maybe a better word would be “pre-disposed”. We certainly accomodate many of the differences that would have triggered virulent reactions in other societies and times. Maybe there is a predisposition to identify “in” and “out” groups. But why should we focus on the color of our skin, rather than the color of our hair, or whether we put our right thumb on top (rather than below) other than it is the most obvious of physical differences.

Mahalo, Pam and Randall for taking the time to be with us here at the Lake…! 8-)

No. It’s a little of both i think. It’s more obvious in the media, but the media got it from the culture itself. A friend of mine said that in england there really isn’t an equivalent word for ‘nerd’ over there. Intelligence is part of the package. If you look at japanese tv they REVEL in intelligence, it’s practically a virtue over there. They only make fun of you if you take obsessions to insane levels(the otaku phenomenon and ANYONE can be an otaku in anything, which is why it’s an insult over there)

Here? Being mediocre and like everyone else is quietly infringed on you. Unless you’re rich and don’t give a crap, then you can get away with whatever you want–geek or not! Yes, they say do your best! But do your best at being mediocre and a cube dweller like everyone else! You can shine, but only when told you can. It’s harder to describe for me i think, because in my age group i see a lot more people happy to accept being nothing more than cogs in the great consumer cycle instead of part of the world itself. If that isn’t mediocre, i dont’ know what is.

I checked and his sister’s name was Soetoro which is a Javanese name. Why is this important? Because the many different peoples in Indonesia want to hold on to their traditions and culture and the Javanese have a unique history, culture and dress. Obama’s Mother was studying Javanese style weaving while she lived in Indonesia. Obama would have been strongly influenced by the Javanese culture.

Well you have given me something to think about.

Thanks FDL community; I really enjoyed the opportunity to host the salon.

Don’t forget to drop by the Blend community sometime soon!

I hope he has this handy on a card should he get pulled over and runs into some racist officer who isn’t a golf fan.

The hard wiring that I was referring to was the “us and them”..of which race would be a subset. I don’t have the link at the moment but there was a functional MRI study showing the brain changes in Harvard students exposed to “Rednecks”..as one example.

All good points. It think you’re right that the large number of Iraq/Afghan vets presents a good opportunity to tackle this.

That’s an excellent summary of why the whole “States Rights” meme was not what was at issue, at all. The South was in favor of Federal Law when it applied to the Fugitive Slave Act (Dred Scot Decision), but asserted States rights when it came to the expansion and (they feared) preservation of slavery.

BTW I know about the California case quite well as one of my ancestors (Robert Mays Smith) was actually on the “wrong side” in the first 1856 trial that freed slaves transported into California, a “Free State”.

Great comment about the Federal loving Confederacy wrt the Fugitive Slave act, thank you. That 3/5’s thing really helped in Congressional representation.