Monday, April 28, 2014

Monday School

Race in America is a topic that's never very far from the surface, regardless of how hard we as a society might wish to forget it. The racist stylings of Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling are just this week's flareups, sparks thrown off a persistent brush fire that seems impossible to extinguish.

As a white guy who spends most of his time around white folks, and has done so for the vast majority of his 43 years, I'm wildly unqualified to offer much in the way of educated, or at least experientially-informed, opinions about race in the U.S. I did, when I was 13, spend half of a school year as a student in a school that was majority African-American. But since I got to come home to a neighborhood that was almost entirely white (and partially Australian!), I'm not sure that brief span of time qualifies me as an expert on the topic.

Since I find it difficult, if not impossible, to fully appreciate the minority experience in America, I turn to others to help me gain perspective. In particular, I read everything Ta-Nehisi Coates writes at The Atlantic.

Coates is at once a beautiful writer, a gifted historian, and a fearless examiner of his own motives and biases. His observations on everything from hip hop lyrics, to the Civil War, to his summer-long immersion in French culture, to his upbringing in inner-city Baltimore, to the history of America's racial politics are often revelatory and always thought-provoking.

Of late, Coates has despaired of the past, present, and future of the relationship between white America (read: the historical instruments of wealth and power) and darker-skinned minorities. The natural optimist in me hopes and wishes that he's wrong, but the pragmatist in me realizes how deeply researched and considered are his opinions.

His essay outlining the contours of his current feelings is required reading. As is his exchange with New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait on race and politics in America. Gawker weighed in with a round-by-round account of the latter, which is an amusing juxtaposition of intellectual heft and schoolyard sonning.

Reading Coates makes me uncomfortable. He challenges my assumptions, lays bare my ignorance of hugely influential historical forces and events, and makes me feel entirely intellectually inadequate.

We're lucky to have him.

(I expect book reports from each of you regarding the Coates/Chait debate on my desk by this time next week. And I need one of you to post something stupid and pointless in short order. We've got a reputation to uphold.)

22 comments:

Marls said...

Regarding zman's acts on cape cod, how were your drawers not a better option than a cigarette box on the floor?

Sorry Shlara.

Marls said...

As for Coates, I agree that he is a must read. I have not read the Coates/Chait debate but have put it on the short list.

The idea that we are in a post-racial society (or even close) is complete BS. That said, I think the lines are more socioeconomic than ever before. Kanye was wrong, George Bush didn't hate Black people, his administration just didn't care all that much about poor people.

I doubt we will every be truly post racial in this country, nobody else has so why are we different. However a good starting point might be finally abolishing slavery. Go back and read the 13th amendment when you have a chance and then consider American penal policy's outsized minority population.

rob said...

coates is amazing in his detailing of the legal means the majority used to essentially ensure inequality of economic opportunity for minorities, beginning with reconstruction and continuing nearly unbroken to the civil rights era (and even today). shit i didn't know about, even a little bit, like rules against minority homeownership in detroit and other places. agreed with marls, that economic inequality is de facto racial inequality today.

the one silver lining for me, i guess, is that my kids are more colorblind than me, and i'm more so than my parents (though not enough), and so on. hoping that the moral arc of the universe keeps bending.

zman said...

My drawers were indeed a better option, an option I hadn't considered until now.

rob said...

the great john grant had a similar experience on the way to an early obft. he was forced to use his drawers at the duck-in in currituck. the memory of him waddling back to the car and demanding that i open the trunk so he could retrieve new undergarments warms my funnybone to this day.

rob said...

ironic that my only blapanese friend makes an appearance in the comments section of this particular post. 'of course i'm not a racist - i've got a blapanese friend!'

Mark said...

I've been in meetings most of the morning but RIP Dr. Jack Ramsay. A basketball legend. Pick up 'Breaks of the Game' if you're looking for some summer reading.

rob said...

in news related to this post, hope everyone's seen the instagram/twitter protest/movement stemming from dani alves' awesome response to villareal fans throwing a banana at him while he took a corner kick this weekend. racists are not only uninformed and stupid, they're wholly uncreative. alves' eating the banana, though, was a disarming moment of humor.

Mark said...

He did it so nonchalantly too. Brilliant.

TR said...

I for one am very sad that Miguel's family would do this.

(Joke for ten)

TR said...

Two more points:

1) Coates' writing is indee thought-provoking, although sometimes these themes get too esoteric for my limited brainpower.

2) I don't know what a heroin high is like, but I imagine it has to be like that 5-10 second period after getting anasthesia. I always like to think I'll play the "I'll fight the anasthesia as long as possible to enjoy the high" game, but I inevitably surrender to the sweet drug high. It's a glorious few seconds.

T.J. said...

TR, I laughed.

Also, you high on some script meds now or nah?

TR said...

No, unfortunately.

Mark said...

Great piece by Jack Ramsay's son on his father. Not long at all. Read it. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10851183/dr-jack-ramsay-father-friend

Dave said...

i will read this later, but i'd like to point out that i lived in syria for three years and travelled extensively in the middle east, and so i'm making first team all-shitter.

i've squatted over a hole in jordan, my guts full of giant intestinal roundworms, and wiped with a sock.

i'd also like to mention that in syria, you can't flush toilet paper-- the plumbing is too weak. so there's a little garbage can next to the toilet for the used paper. but the hummus is great!

T.J. said...

Look at Roger Murdock go:

http://ti.me/1fKmsCZ

mayhugh said...

I, too, love the precious few seconds before succumbing to anesthesia. I would have non-serious, semi-invasive surgery once a week for that feeling. Hopefully there is some dude gearing up for Shark Tank who has figured out how to bottle that sensation.

Shlara said...

1. Enough with the poop talk!

2. I HATE anesthesia--that shouldn't surprise you. If it does, you didn't know that my HS nickname was "Squara"

3. In case you didn't see my promo on twitter, I'm repeating it. My friend Fox hosted a forum at Harvard last week with Richard Sherman, Airan Foster & Larry Fitzgerald. The whole thing was awesome. You should watch the whole hour. But, if you don't have time go to the 26-minute mark. And stick with it thru the 35 min mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFOqEgeczGQ&feature=youtu.be

mr kq said...

Errrbody poops.

Mark said...

Just got home to see Indiana is losing by 20 to Atlanta. Yeah that seems right.

Anesthesia is cool but I, personally, was always a huge fan of whippets/nitrous. When I lived in Gainesville there was a place that would deliver whippets to your house 24 hours a day. My friends and I may have taken advantage of that service from time to time. Pre-2001 Gainesville was glorious.

zman said...

My friend convinced his mom to get him a whipped cream maker. We used it a lot but ate in whipped cream.

TR said...

Kinda horseshit for Mark Jackson, the visiting team coach, to call for a home team boycott, right? He's coaching for his job every bit as much as Vogel.