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So Obama said the N-word during a podcast and America is freaking out about that.
Which is bloggable for a few reasons:
1. People who are upset about it have missed the larger point he was trying to make because they can’t get over the fact that OMG OMG Obama said “n****r”.
2. The fact that they're freaking out over it actually proves the point he was trying to make, except they don't realize that either.
3. Fox News ha ha ha.
4. A few friends of mine (who just happen to be white Republicans) who really hate Obama (in a non-racist way, they say) have said he shouldn’t have used the word precisely because it distracted from his overall message. Technically they have a point – it’s become such a nuclear word that it upsets people’s sensibilities to the point of distraction.
On the other hand, it’s hard to take that point seriously when it comes from people who (1) have no interest in Obama's overall message, they just want another excuse to bash Obama some more with the Evil Incompetence stick, (2) have spent every day since 2008 claiming the only race problem in America is black people crying racism all the time (and they have the anecdotes to prove it) and (3) tend to complain about how unfair it is that black people can say it but white people can’t.
Anyway. I think I’m supposed to express my opinion here, so:
For myself, it’s just the latest example in a sadly long list of examples (that’s getting longer every week) that demonstrate that not only does America still has a race problem, but that a large portion of Americans (most of them white) are completely unaware that it does.
I’m exaggerating, of course. But as a white person who grew up in the South, I know a lot of other white persons who really think racism is not a problem anymore precisely because we’re not allowed to call black people the n-word, as if that was the problem all along – that, and lynchings and church bombings and KKK rallies and crap. We fixed all that in the 60s somewhere when we desegregated buses or something, and white people don’t do that anymore, and BTW, if America had a race problem we wouldn’t have elected Obama twice, so problem solved, right?
Well no. And this is exactly the point Obama was trying to make: American racism is the product of 300+ years of history which African Americans have had to endure, from the overt to the covert. You don’t erase that overnight with a court decision and a civil rights bill, and you don’t fix it by banning racist epithets and using coded language. It’s a much bigger problem than that, and it takes time to heal. And it doesn’t help when certain political parties and media figures keep the wounds alive by exploiting latent racism for their own ends.
The point isn’t that all whites are racist and all blacks are victims of white racism – of course it’s not that simple. The point is that it’s hard to have a productive conversation about racism when a significant number of people are unaware the problem exists, then get all defensive when you try to point out that it does.
If you want an idea of how bad the disconnect is, look no further than all those African Americans on the streets and on TV telling you they’re victims of racism, and all the white people on TV saying: “No you’re not, because we’re not racist anymore, so you can’t possibly be victims of racism.” (Which is of course kinda racist.)
Or you can just watch this Daily Show skit with Jessica Williams.
Anyway, yeah. I don’t have a problem with what Obama said. It needed to be said, even though most people who heard it inevitably heard only what they wanted to hear regardless of what word he did or didn’t use. But that’s not his problem – it’s ours.
Word up,
This is dF
Which is bloggable for a few reasons:
1. People who are upset about it have missed the larger point he was trying to make because they can’t get over the fact that OMG OMG Obama said “n****r”.
2. The fact that they're freaking out over it actually proves the point he was trying to make, except they don't realize that either.
3. Fox News ha ha ha.
4. A few friends of mine (who just happen to be white Republicans) who really hate Obama (in a non-racist way, they say) have said he shouldn’t have used the word precisely because it distracted from his overall message. Technically they have a point – it’s become such a nuclear word that it upsets people’s sensibilities to the point of distraction.
On the other hand, it’s hard to take that point seriously when it comes from people who (1) have no interest in Obama's overall message, they just want another excuse to bash Obama some more with the Evil Incompetence stick, (2) have spent every day since 2008 claiming the only race problem in America is black people crying racism all the time (and they have the anecdotes to prove it) and (3) tend to complain about how unfair it is that black people can say it but white people can’t.
Anyway. I think I’m supposed to express my opinion here, so:
For myself, it’s just the latest example in a sadly long list of examples (that’s getting longer every week) that demonstrate that not only does America still has a race problem, but that a large portion of Americans (most of them white) are completely unaware that it does.
I’m exaggerating, of course. But as a white person who grew up in the South, I know a lot of other white persons who really think racism is not a problem anymore precisely because we’re not allowed to call black people the n-word, as if that was the problem all along – that, and lynchings and church bombings and KKK rallies and crap. We fixed all that in the 60s somewhere when we desegregated buses or something, and white people don’t do that anymore, and BTW, if America had a race problem we wouldn’t have elected Obama twice, so problem solved, right?
Well no. And this is exactly the point Obama was trying to make: American racism is the product of 300+ years of history which African Americans have had to endure, from the overt to the covert. You don’t erase that overnight with a court decision and a civil rights bill, and you don’t fix it by banning racist epithets and using coded language. It’s a much bigger problem than that, and it takes time to heal. And it doesn’t help when certain political parties and media figures keep the wounds alive by exploiting latent racism for their own ends.
The point isn’t that all whites are racist and all blacks are victims of white racism – of course it’s not that simple. The point is that it’s hard to have a productive conversation about racism when a significant number of people are unaware the problem exists, then get all defensive when you try to point out that it does.
If you want an idea of how bad the disconnect is, look no further than all those African Americans on the streets and on TV telling you they’re victims of racism, and all the white people on TV saying: “No you’re not, because we’re not racist anymore, so you can’t possibly be victims of racism.” (Which is of course kinda racist.)
Or you can just watch this Daily Show skit with Jessica Williams.
Anyway, yeah. I don’t have a problem with what Obama said. It needed to be said, even though most people who heard it inevitably heard only what they wanted to hear regardless of what word he did or didn’t use. But that’s not his problem – it’s ours.
Word up,
This is dF
