AMERICA AT A CROSSROADS: DEMOCRACY, THE N-WORD, AND THE NEED FOR ALLIES

 

We see a new iteration of the n-word at the forefront of our current political discourse.  For

anyone who leans progressive, as each of us does to varying degrees, the last few weeks haven’t been pleasant. We’ve seen plenty worthy of being unhappy about recently:

·    An unending campaign in some states that would take us backward on electoral fairness
through voter suppression laws and redistricting plans that threaten (perhaps assure) permanent Republican rule despite demographic change that should swing legislative representation toward Democrats.

·  The dwindling stature of the Biden presidency, burdened as it is by falling poll numbers and bickering among Congressional Democrats that imperils his domestic agenda and the party’s prospects in the 2022 midterms.

·    Relative public indifference to Republican obstruction of a full-fledged investigation into
the January 6 attack on the Capitol, amid hints the Biden Justice Department may go easy on some insurrectionists out of a misguided fear of further radicalizing them; and

·    Misogyny, racism, and homophobia at high levels of the nation’s most popular professional sport.

Given this list, we almost find ourselves asking, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the theater?”

Historical Parallels

We acknowledge the nation has found itself in such a dark place before. About the tumult of 1968, journalist David Halberstam wrote that he  saw thecountry on the “verge of a national nervous breakdown” because of Vietnam and racial turmoil. Perhaps we’re not there now, but disarray abounds. Many supporters of former President Donald Trump appear willing to abandon democratic norms and institutions so he can wield power again.  

After Barack Obama’s 2008 victor some saw the ugliest of our racial conflict as behind us, a feeling that was clearly premature. Even six years ago, before Trump’s rise, many wouldn’t have believed the acquiescence of mainstream Republicans to this abandonment of democracy. 

We don’t know where this is going. The 1960s

precedents may or may not apply. After the civil rights marches Congress passed laws that improved the legal, social, and economic lives

of people of color. Yet, we have today’s political polarization, much of it rooted in racial division.

We moved in a different direction in foreign policy,

or appeared to for a while. Still, despite our Vietnam experience, we fought a 20-year war in Afghanistan from which we’ve only now extricated ourselves, complete with messy consequences for the current administration. We can’t say this will all come out right.

The Race Thing

We find nothing so disconcerting as the direction in which we seem headed on race. Barack Obama got

elected president. Kamala Harris got elected vice president. Those are positives, but look at what’s happening on the other side of the ledger.

Across the nation angry white parents attack school boards and teachers in seeking assurance their children will never learn, at least in school, the country’s terrible racial history. They’ve

found a convenient whipping boy by distorting an obscure old academic approach to race discrimination called Critical Race Theory and made it a boogey man that has become the basis for whitewashing America’s past. Meanwhile, in some states Republican legislators demand that their black and brown colleagues (and white ones so inclined) never refer to racism in legislative debates, even if a third grader could see the racist intent in voter suppression proposals and gerrymandered redistricting plans.

These Republican legislators and their right wing media comrades squeal long and loud if anyone calls out their behavior. Me, a racist? How dare you! We suggest they read Robin DiAngelo’s bestselling book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to talk about Racism. She could have subtitled the book Why So Many White People Refuse to Talk About Racism.

                                

We’ve wondered what difference really exists

between these modern deniers of racism and their Jim Crow predecessors. It’s true, they don’t regularly use the n-word in public. At least we knew where old time segregationists stood, men like Jim Eastland and Ross Barnett, many of whom used the n-word in public. Former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden didn’t in his now famous

e-mails, but the message was the same. Wouldn’t we live in a more honest, transparent society if descendants of the segregationists—the Grudens, the Greg Abbots, the Brian Kemps – discarded the fake civility and talked like they feel and act?

Not Devoid of Hope

Woodson tells of a white friend who told him the story of a young man of color – a fifth or sixth grader – with whom at school he developed a close friendship as a youngster. One day, no one could find the young black man.  His friend discovered him crying in a restroom because someone called him by the n-word. He’d been taught that if he lived righteously and played by the rules people would accept him.

The incident demonstrated that wasn’t always the case, seemingly yet another reason for despair. The

white student, now an adult, said 

that was when he first realized his black friend’s life experiences differed radically from his own. Now, as an adult, this white man attends a multi-ethnic church and has committed himself to racial justice. 

The story illustrates that bad people inhabit the world and we must face them individually and

collectively. It also shows we can find hope when we find allies. Fellow travelers abound. Kindred spirits of all colors inhabit the world. They don’t hide behind false civility and will engage in good faith discussion and debate. Henry reminds us that in the past we’ve always had enough people who believed in this vision that we could keep it alive. Do we have enough now? We shall see. 

THE ROYAL FAMILY’S DIRTY LAUNDRY MOMENT: MEGHAN, HARRY, OPRAH, AND RACE

 

Ordinarily, we wouldn’t post about an Oprah Winfrey interview with British royals.  We concern

ourselves, though, with issues that reflect what’s happening in society and that people care about. Seventeen million viewers watched the recent CBS interview, American television’s second largest non-sporting event audience this year. Eleven million people in the United Kingdom saw the interview.  So, Winfrey’s interview

with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, caught our attention. The interview left the royal family with tough questions that deserve answers. Buckingham Palace put out a statement a few days later saying the royal family would address the issues the interview raised “privately.”  The interview left many disappointed and feeling the western world lost another opportunity for putting racial animus behind us.

Markle, the mixed race American actress who married Harry in a storybook wedding in May 2018, told Winfrey life as an active royal made her

contemplate suicide. She said she reached out for help with her mental distress but was told she shouldn’t expect assistance. She said royal family members didn’t want her then unborn son holding a title or having the security arrangements royals typically receive. Unidentified family members expressed “concerns” about how dark his skin might be. Markle and her husband wouldn’t say who raised the “concerns,” though

Harry denied it was either of his grandparents, Queen Elizabeth II or her husband, the ailing Prince Philip. Rampant speculation about who it was consumed the British and American media.

The UK and the One Drop Rule

From the time Harry and Meghan began dating in

2016, British tabloids were fascinated (repulsed?) by the idea of an English royal involved in a romance with a person of color. Some weren’t nice about it. Meghan almost certainly carries more white than black ancestry. Her father, Thomas

Markle, is a white man. The world views her mother, Doria Ragland, as black, though her skin tone and other features suggest some European ancestry. Meghan, therefore, in the eyes of many, is black because of the “one drop rule.”

In order to prevent the offspring of enslaved women and white masters from claiming inheritance rights through their biological fathers, 

many American states enforced two provisions in probate and family law.  First, children carried the racial status of their mothers. Second, the presence of any black ancestry made a person legally black – the one drop rule.

England never had such laws, but the custom apparently followed Meghan into her relationship with Harry. Seemingly that view held sway with some members of the royal family who weren’t hesitant about expressing themselves.

Meghan’s distress has now caused all kinds ofproblems. The British Commonwealth includes nations with lots of people of color. Many embraced Meghan. For them, the royal family’s behavior has been a supreme disappointment and bolstered the push in some countries for ending ties with the monarchy.

 

Is This Really Happening?

“Concern” about the skin color of a royal family member’s child in the 21^st century indicates the world hasn’t changed as much as we might have hoped. It may mean Britain has racial problems not much different from those in the United States. The controversy suggests Meghan and Harry’s marriage now represents a lost opportunity.

Interracial marriage isn’t unusual anymore. The statistics tell a clear enough story. Rates of intermarriage among blacks in the

United States doubled between 1980 and 2010 and keep rising. Beyond the numbers, just watch television or shop in a bookstore. Interracial couples and their children appear in commercials for banks, food products, cars, skin disease treatments, furniture, even erectile dysfunction medications. Novels about interracial romances flood bookstore shelves.

Perhaps the idea of a British royal in an interracial marriage was too much, despite changing attitudes. As a friend of one of us says about the royal family and its notions of what’s acceptable and what’s not, the royals follow a rule that says, “That’s different!”

 

A Missed Opportunity

When Meghan and Harry wed, we took note of the

inclusivity and cultural diversity their marriage ceremony put on display. We titled our post, “Not Your Grandfather’s Royal Wedding.”  A black American cleric, Bishop Michael Curry, offered the homily. A mostly black singing group, the

                                       

Kingdom Choir, and a black cellist, Sheku Kanneh-

Mason, provided the featured music. We thought the inclusivity of the wedding portended a more tolerant era, one that could help England and the everyone else put racial animus further in the rear-view mirror.

The mistreatment Meghan received, behavior that led her and Harry to flee the United Kingdom for

California and life outside the royal  bubble, suggests the bright promise of a new world we saw was an illusion. Things haven’t changed as we thought. The British have their own version of the racial insensitivity and backward thinking we see so much of in the United States.

Perhaps there’s no reason for surprise. We wondered how that 2018 ceremony struck some members of the royal family. One of us got a text from a relative wondering if the wedding “stretched British stiff upper lips to their snapping point.”  Now it appears those fears may have been realized. Perhaps the way the wedding --- and the marriage itself – struck some royals was a version of the idea another of our friends expresses when he sees white people unhappy about some indicator of racial progress. He exclaims, “We can’t have that!”

TRUMP AND THE PRESS: THERE HE GOES AGAIN

Donald Trump began fighting with the news media as a 2016 candidate. At rallies, he leveled the charge “fake news” at

mainstream media organizations and reporters who challenged his actions or statements. That has continued since he took office. Now, in addition to attacking the press generally, Trump seems to have saved his most vitriolic and disturbing attacks for women reporters and minority women reporters.

Trump’s behavior threatens American democracy, demeans his office, and brings

closer the fears of encroaching fascism former State Secretary Madeleine Albright cautioned us about in her 2018 book Fascism: A Warning. The president’s treatment of the press underscores the need for removing him from office five months from now. 

Special Disdain for Women

Though Trump does berate male reporters from time to time, recently he’s saved special invective for female journalists.

During news conferences and coronavirus task force briefings, Trump has said very unpleasant things to women attending and working at those meetings.  They include:

·    Calling one female CBS correspondent “fake” and “disgraceful.”

·    Telling CNN’s Abby Phillips, “You ask a lot of stupid questions.”

·    Saying to another female CNN reporter that, “You’ve had enough” when the woman tried asking a question.

·    Once telling ABC’s Cecilia Vega, “I know you’re not thinking. You never do.”

Such insults produced former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson’s description of

Trump as a “misogynistic jerk.” She added that he treats women reporters differently than men and in a way that’s “horrible.”

Saving Real Vitriol for Minority Women

Soon after becoming president, Trump began insulting female reporters of color. He had

an early run-in with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, asking her if she could arrange a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. She wrote a book, Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House, in which she accused him of discriminating against minority journalists.

Trump later started a feud with Yamiche Alcindor, a black woman who once worked as

a reporter for The New York Times but now appears on the PBS News Hour and serves as an MSNBC contributor. Trump has asked her to be “nice” and not “threatening.” On several occasions he wouldn’t answer questions from her that seemed no more hostile than questions white male reporters ask.

Trump berating reporter Yamiche Alcindor 

Most recently, Trump seemingly profiled a CBS reporter of Asian heritage, Weijia Jiang, telling her she should “ask China” a question about his early downplaying of the corona-

virus. She called him on that, asking why he directed such a statement at her. He later said she should “keep her voice down.”

The Ryan, Alcindor, and Jiang incidents suggest Trump believes he can bully minority

women reporters at will. Trump’s attacks on women journalists, including minority women, no doubt helped encourage a recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists that described Trump’s war on the press as “dangerously under[mining] truth and consensus in a deeply divided country.”

Trump goes after reporters of all stripes who don’t work for Fox News. He calls them names, insults their intelligence, and denigrates the  organizations for which they

work. Recently, for example, he took on The Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Phillip Rucker, co-author of A Very Stable Genius, a book highly critical of Trump’s actions as president.

Secretary Albright wrote “The advantage of a free press is diminished when anyone can claim to be an objective journalist, then disseminate narratives conjured out of thin air to make others believe rubbish.” (p. 114).  We would add that destroying the credibility of the free press represents the first step in that process. Clearly, Trump wishes to bestow credibility on the part of the press that supports his conduct and attack the part that dares criticize him. 

Time for Another Warning

Earlier this year, in a post titled From Russia With Love 2.0: American Democracy, Autocracy, Plutocracy, or Fascism? we cited Secretary Albright’s warnings about the fascist threat in light of new reports concerning Russian plans for interfering in this year’s presidential election. Trump’s

attacks on the press, particularly by targeting women and minority journalists, require that we turn to Secretary Albright once more. On the press issue, she asked, “If the president of the United States says the press always lies, how can Vladimir Putin be faulted for making the same claim?” (p.5).  Later, she noted how “contagious” anti-press behavior becomes. Not long after Trump excluded prominent reporters from his news conferences, other governments began taking actions against reporters who wrote stories those governments didn’t like and called them “fake news.” (pp. 212-13)

We can’t stress enough how strongly we believe Trump’s attacks on the press threaten American democracy as much or more than other actions he’s taken. The fact he picks on and insults women, especially women of color, just makes it worse. We can’t let our outrage wane though his persistent, destructive behavior continues unabated. A “new “normal” is too dangerous.

We’re reminded of the wisdom in Thomas Jefferson’s 1787 observation that, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

We’ve often pointed out the many reasons the American people must remove Trump and preserve the democracy we’ve painstakingly built over almost 250 years. Trump’s press interaction, especially with women reporters, ranks right at the top.