Nezua wrote an excellent, truly excellent post about how progressives and the liberal left ignore racism and the problems faced by people of color. It’s long, but very much worth a read.
The problem comes over in the comments at Jesus General, where the entry was cross-posted. A comment from “liberalrob,” specifically. Let’s analyze it, starting from the second graf, mostly because I feel like being a jerk today.
Really, though, I think Nezua is expecting too much from the “A-list” blogs. We have a bazillion things to think about already; there’s a WAR in Iraq, we’re trying to get white Americans to recognize that the Bush administration has not been acting in their best interests (I just had a blog argument with someone who insisted that Bush was “just protecting me from myself”), keep the momentum for more and deeper investigations of the festering malfeasance that 6 years of lack of Congressional oversight has allowed, and start gearing up for the 2008 election cycle. And NOW Nezua wants to bash the Left for forgetting about race? [Source]
The “we” threw me; I had never heard of liberalrob, and I’ve at least heard of most of the A-List, even if I rarely read them (HuffPo, DailyKos, Pandagon, Wonkette, etc. … big name bloggers are pretty well known). Sorry, liberalrob, according to Technorati, you’re down in the D-List with me, my friend.
However, your D-List status is not what negates your argument. Your claims that white liberal and progressive bloggers have too much to do to worry about race issues is. Some blogs are very tightly focused on one issue, like the Iraq War; those were not the blogs that Nezua was taking issue with. He was taking issue with the fact that those blogs that are general commentaries on politics or U.S. social issues were only or mostly commentating on things that concern whites, and ignoring issues that are assumed to only affect POC, and ignoring the voices of POC.
Does that mean it’s not possible to focus on other issues? Um, no. There are plenty of white liberal bloggers who are commenting on race and other “brown” and “black” issues and who still have time to focus on the Iraq War, the excesses of the Bush administration, and the 2008 election. Nezua noted Orcinus. I would add QuakerDave to the list; in addition to blogging about those issues liberalrob mentioned (and gay rights, and the Walter Reed meltdown), he has also blogged extensively — actually, I think that’s an understatement — about Darfur, and he has blogged about the Imus scandal, immigration issues, racism on the radio, and plenty of other race issues. And he has a day job that isn’t blogging, so I’m sure he’s just as strapped for time as any other blogger.
My friend Rachel has a WRITING BLOG (and an excellent one), for God’s sake, and she’s talked about race in the media. Why? Because it’s important. EDIT: And I cannot BELIEVE I forgot to mention Rachel S. of Rachel’s Tavern, who focuses on race issues.
And really, this comment just solidifies what Nez was arguing about, anyway. It’s not about “including” brown and black issues, it’s about realizing that these are UNIVERSAL issues.
I’m going to quote Blackamazon here, because she’s fucking brilliant.
You’re not benevolent gods, or fulfilling the promise of your society by wising up
You will not include me.
You will reckon with it.
You will reckon with teh fragments of power that constantly slip out of your hands because teh smae things you never wnat done to you ( sit down be quiet be less uppity ) you do to others? [Source]
It’s not about inclusion at this point. It’s about sitting back and listening to people because you’re treating us the same way you complain about the GOP treating you.
Back to liberalrob:
And yeah, I know it sucks to say it and it’s all un-liberal of me and I’m blinded by my “white lens” whatever the hell that is.
See above.
I know it’s not me having my civil rights violated because I’m not a “POC”. But really, we have a LOT to do just to get “whitey’s” house in order to the point where we can even START dealing effectively with race again.
Read those two sentences again. Really read them. Now, people of color are having their civil and human rights denied, and you’re worried about whether white people are able to deal with race? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Deal with the human rights issues first, then focus on helping white people “deal” with race.
Good God, there was a story on Think Progress just this morning on how the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division had 2 count ‘em 2 minority lawyers. Simply, this government is not ABLE to deal with race issues at this point.
Um, it’s not just the government that needs to deal with race issues. And just because you’re white doesn’t mean you can’t help solve race issues, either; not lead the charge, maybe, but you could post links, write letters, go to marches, and add your voice. Stop using skin color as a copout reason to ignore race. Listen to people of color and then do something.
We have to focus on getting IT fixed first, I think. And somehow, I have the sneaking suspicion that if we do that, getting back to taking reasonable actions on race issues will naturally follow along.
That’s the problem, though. You can’t just fix the “white” parts of the government and assume that the “race” parts will fix themselves once that’s done. As you noted above, the government’s lack of racial awareness is a problem, and this needs to be fixed right along with the “important” (white) issues.
Because the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (and why is it that people always forget Afghanistan)? Is a race issue. Read some of the rhetoric about it, about how if we pull out, “the terrorists will take over” (because the Iraqis and Afghanis cannot defend themselves). If we allow them to choose their own presidntial candidates, “the militants will win the elections” (because the Iraqis and Afghanis don’t know what’s best for them). We have to protect them from the Taliban and al-Qaida. It’s the White Man’s Burden all over again.
The upcoming election? Involves race issues. Otherwise, Barack Obama would not need a Secret Service detail a year before the primaries, nor would news sites have to shut down message boards because of racist, threatening comments.
The economy? A race issue. Because the government’s criminalization of brown and black immigrants costs taxpayer money (building a bigass fence, paying for ICE and border patrol agents, building internment camps to hold kids in) and removes workers, consumers and taxpayers from our slowing economy.
Freedom of speech? A race issue. See Imus, the silencing of the media on May Day, the denial of the right to peacefully protest on May Day, etc.
“Race issues” are universal issues.
Raking the A-list sites over the coals for not being PC enough or somehow ignoring the issue doesn’t strike me as particularly helpful in advancing this agenda.
Ah, and now the spin comes in. The write-off of anyone who brings up race as “too PC.” Funny how this tactic is used by the neo-cons to discredit progressive and traditional conservatives and the liberals, and now “liberalrob” turns right around and uses it to discredit others because they bring up an uncomrfortable truth about white progressives. EDIT: And I meant to link Kai’s essay on political correctness here, and forgot that as well. I should obviously be focusing either on creating guided reading activities for “Civil Disobedience” (hey, another white progressive who found time to write about race and imperialism) or blogging and not trying to (literally) do both at the same time.
And white privilege remains firmly intact. And liberalrob probably thinks he’s fighting the man. He doesn’t realize that, with the mindset shown in this comment, he is the man. He’s the white men who fought off British rule to declare that black slaves were 3/5ths of a person, and whose descendents later denied the right to self-rule for vast areas of Mexico, Native Americans, the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan. He’s the white men who fought to destroy the Confederacy, then gave them back the plantations worked by slaves and sharecroppers. He’s the white man who argued for the freedom of African slaves while waging a genocidal war on Native Americans. He’s the white man who supported the Philippine-American war and its genocide to “protect” Filipinos, and who ignored the Chinese Exclusion Act to fight for Irish immigrant rights and the lynching of people of color to fight for Sacca and Vanzetti, the white people who fight to teach the Holocaust in schools but not the Porrajmos or the Native American genocide in the U.S.
If you fight for the rights of some at the expense of the rights of others, you’re part of the problem. And now you want us to wait, you’ll include us later, but you need our support right now?
Fuck that.
