Tag Archives: systemic racism

Monday Musings: Thoughts After Visiting My Kid

Last week, I flew out to Colorado to visit, Erin. Now, it goes without saying that I will leap at any chance to have time with my Peanut. I don’t need excuses to visit. But in this case, we had a bit of an agenda. Erin was in need of a car, and I went out to help her with the purchase.

Yes, she is 25 years old and could have done all of it on her own. But here’s the thing. Statistics show that women, on average, pay more for cars — new and used — than do men. In fact, White men pay the least of all. Women and all people of color will, on average, pay more for the same car, in the same regions, and even at the same dealerships. This is not an imagined form of discrimination. This is real and documented and supported by data.

So, out to Denver I went. We found her a car at a decent price. She’s happy, and I had time with my darling girl.

Erin in her new car!
Erin in her new car!

But . . .

The other night, I finally saw On The Basis of Sex, the Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic that came out in 2018. The movie is, of course, a Hollywood take on an extraordinary historical figure, and so is bound to suffer from some flaws. But it offers an unstinting look at the barriers placed before RBG, who was always the smartest person in whatever room she entered, and always the best lawyer in any courtroom she graced. In this way, it reminded me of 42, the Jackie Robinson biopic starring the late Chadwick Boseman, and Hidden Figures, which told the stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson, Black NASA mathematicians whose revolutionary work helped make possible the American space program.

In all of these movies (and countless other similar films that I have failed to mention) we are reminded of the irrefutable truth that sexism and racism (as well as homophobia, religious bigotry, and discrimination against people with disabilities) create nearly insurmountable barriers to success for too many.

And this is the insidiousness of the current Administration’s hysterical and irrational assault on DEI programs across the country. The assumption underlying this “policy” is that white, cis, straight males are the standard that define what it means to be qualified and competent. This is, of course, utterly ridiculous, and to see how foolish it is, take a moment to read any online biography of General Charles Q. Brown, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff fired by the present occupant of the White House for no other reason than because he happens to be Black. For that matter, take a moment to read a biography of Admiral Linda Fagan, the first female commandant of the Coast Guard, or Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as Chief of Naval Operations and thus the first female member of the Joint Chiefs. Both were fired, apparently, because they’re woman and, like Brown, were seen by the Administration as “DEI hires.”

As if the Administration itself isn’t filled with (and led by) hires that are based entirely on race and gender! Does anyone honestly think that Pete Hegseth would be Secretary of ANYTHING if he weren’t a straight White guy? Does anyone think that Donald Trump would be anything more than a two-bit grifter if he hadn’t been born White, male, and rich-as-fuck?

When I was in graduate school, my (white male) advisor told me the story of how he came to be hired as a history professor at Stanford. He happened to be in the office of his (white male) advisor when the (white male) chair of the history department at Stanford phoned the aforementioned advisor, who was an old pal from Yale. The history department chairman said, “We have an opening here for an American history professor. Do you have any grad students who are on the verge of finishing their dissertations?”

“Actually, I have one sitting right here, and he’d be perfect.” At that point, my advisor’s advisor turned the conversation over to my future advisor who was “interviewed” and hired on the spot.

They call it an Old Boys Network for a reason, and such advancement has long been available to White men across academia, as well as throughout the business world, the legal and medical professions, politics, and in pretty much every other professional realm imaginable. Was my advisor qualified for the job? Absolutely. Was he more qualified than anyone else — of any race, gender, or group — who might have sought the job at Stanford had it been advertised and thrown open to all properly credentialed applicants? Who knows?

DEI is not intended to give an unfair advantage to underrepresented groups. Rather it is intended as a corrective for a culture, society, and economic system that have been tilted in favor of White men literally for centuries.

And yes, I count myself among those who have benefited from that uneven playing field. Absolutely I do! I was born White, male, upper-middle class. I’m straight. I was given every opportunity to succeed — I grew up in a nice house, in a good school system, raised by parents who fed me well, kept me safe, and took an active role in my education. I was taught from an early age that being smart, and being perceived as smart, are good things. I never faced any social pressure to hide my intelligence in order to be deemed “more attractive,” as so many girls my age were. I never feared the police. I never was called by the “N” word, as my best friend was, in my presence, when we were twelve. When the time came, I was in an economic position that allowed me to attend an Ivy League university. What an advantage all of that was! My privilege set me up for success. I know this. And I deal with it the only way I know how: by being an ally to those who didn’t have my privilege, and by fighting (and voting) for social justice and economic equality at every opportunity. Yes, I’m Woke. You’re damn right I am.

The current Administration is attempting to reverse more than half a century of progress on women’s rights, Civil Rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and antipoverty efforts. Why? Because they see anything that further levels the playing field as being to their personal disadvantage. Many of their supporters feel the same way. They would rather perpetuate a system filled with bias, one that rewards mediocrity by limiting competition from qualified women, qualified people of color, qualified people with disabilities, qualified people who identify as queer. They are terrified by the surety that if forced to compete with a wider group of skilled, talented people, they are likely to lose out. And they’re probably right. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are pursuing an ideological agenda that is immoral, cruel, and bad for our country.

Wishing you a good week.

Monday Musings: Race — Again, and Still, and As Long As It Takes

This past week, I listened to an NPR interview with some Trump voters in Florida. One woman, who swore she couldn’t be a racist because she was of a non-Caucasian ethnicity herself, spoke of the George Floyd killing and the need “to get all the information. Like if he was doing drugs or something like that.” And I wanted to ask her, in all seriousness, what drugs could Mister Floyd have done that would justify a police officer kneeling on his neck for eight minutes until he died?

The Department of Justice this week released additional information about the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. So, too, did the police union to which the officers involved belong. It seems that Mister Blake admitted to officers that he had a knife, and that a knife was later found in the car. And I would like to ask the police union and the DOJ, how big would the knife have to be to justify a police officer shooting Mister Blake in the back seven times at close range?

Yesterday, video surfaced on Twitter of Brandon Marshall, a former NFL All-Pro and current ESPN television commentator, having the police called on him by security officers in the subdivision in Florida where he had just purchased a new home. Mister Marshall’s name, apparently, was not yet on a list of people authorized to access the gated community. So the security guys, rather than checking with him, calling the real estate agent, or taking any number of remedial steps that could have cleared up the confusion, called the police. Mister Marshall’s children were in the car and witnessed the entire incident. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But I would like to ask the security guys – and I would hope they would answer honestly – would they have done the same thing if he was White?

I would rather be writing about puppies, or making a top ten list of my favorite Star Trek: TNG episodes, or finding new ways to call Donald Trump obnoxious and incompetent – because that never gets old. I don’t want to be writing about systemic racism yet again. And if I, as an ally, am tired of writing about it and drawing people’s attention to the problem, I can hardly imagine how exhausted my Black friends must be, not only by the conversation, but by living with yet another tragedy, with new aggressions small and large, with the constant emotional abuse that comes with being Black in America.

None of us who are White, no matter how empathetic or sympathetic, can begin to imagine what it is like. It is unrelenting. Try to think back on your worst moments of humiliation, of fear, of righteous anger at injustice directed your way, of frustration with slights that you cannot control and cannot escape. And then imagine putting up with those things all the time. Every. Single. Day. Maybe that comes close.

I’ve had online conversations with several friends the past few days. We’re all progressives, all terrified by the prospect of four more years of Donald Trump in the White House. And we were discussing a point made by a political commentator to the effect that some of the optics surrounding protests in D.C. and in Kenosha, and elsewhere – property damage, confrontations with police, inconveniencing city residents, etc.– might wind up hurting the Biden campaign. None of us want that, of course. But I have to ask of myself, if I were Black, would I care?

Yes, Donald Trump is a White supremacist; I believe that with all my heart. And no, Joe Biden is not. I think a Biden Presidency would be better for all Americans, and for non-White Americans in particular. But systemic racism has been around for a long, long time. Police have been persecuting Black Americans for a long, long time. Black Americans have felt the effects of these things under Republican Presidents and Democratic, under the first Black President, and under all the others.

Is “No justice, no peace” the most political convenient slogan for Democrats right now? Probably not.

You go tell that to the protesters. Because I can’t bring myself to do so.

I don’t have any answers. I didn’t earlier in the year, either.

I can say the words and mean them: Black Lives Matter.

I can and do try to explain to my White friends who don’t get it why it’s so important that we support BLM, that we set our privilege aside and recognize all the ways in which our society and politics and economy favor Whites over non-Whites, that we stop taking personally discussions of rampant racism in our culture. But that only gets us so far, and at a pace that feels glacial.

I can say to my Black friends, I hear you, I see you, I support you.

And I can say to all, please vote.