"The Racist Generation" (Part 2)

My close friends and colleagues, Jenni and Kristen, added constructive comments about my "Rescuing the Racist Generation" post. You can read their comments at Racism Review. Below is my reply to them. The discussion greatly advances the idea of "the racist generation" and begins to more fully detail Joe Feagin's concept of The White Racial Frame (2010).

I'm very interested in what you all think about the discussion. As a Black man, I do not know the intricacies of white racial dialogue as well as a white person may. Kristen used her experiences as a white woman to challenge some of my assumptions. I welcome all of your comments, especially those that are similarly challenging.

Kristen and Jenni,

I think your comments speak to one another, so I’ll try to combine my response. I think the two issues/factors we need to add are: inconsistent rhetoric and (un)consciousness.

We all agree that millennials/”colorblind” whites need a “racist other” to compare themselves too. I suggested that The Racist Generation is their tool. Kristen suggests young whites use (un)known others, regardless of generation. Jenni asks how rescuing individuals/blocs plays into all this. Does rescuing deny whites the “racist other/past” necessary for their colorblind identity?

My answer is that we’re all right. To coin a phrase, based on “abstract liberalism,” I suggest whites use “abstract racism” as a means for handling all of the problems we’re talking about.

By “Abstract Racism,” I mean the white tendency to maintain a concept of a racist past/other that conceptualizes, reifies, and implicates a “racist generation” without populating that generation with particular individuals.

To “flesh out the rules” as Jenni asked, I still say whites are rescuing the racist generation. To incorporate Kristen’s insights, whites may not always see THEIR OWN grandfather as implicated. But they do implicate an unknown hoard of whites from grandpa’s generation. This “unknown hoard” is so abstract as to be fairytale-like. Unfortunately, this abstract generation (i.e. The Racist Generation) coexisted with grandpa. Consequently, history [unfairly] lumps grandpa in with this racist generation and denies him his proper place in the meta-narrative of progressive and benevolent white goodness/supremacy. This [unfair] circumstance (i.e. miss characterizing grandpa) necessitates taking steps to rescue the racist generation (i.e. as a collective) while keeping the idea of a racist past in tact.

In other words, whites want both narratives to be true at the same time: 1) there was a racist past in which whites, who were not as morally advanced as contemporary whites, were racist; 2) my family member existed during that time, but is not responsible for the racist era because s/he lacked the animus/power/significance/etc to have been a criticizable racist.

Therefore:
3) contemporary whites need to rescue grandpa from this unfair characterization, which requires remaking the historical narrative about the racist time/generation.

The Conclusions/Implications:
1) Taken as a whole, what happens is that: A) “colorblind” whites construct an abstract racist other/generation against which to favorably compare themselves; B) this abstract racist other/generation does not include a particular white’s personal loved one, thus whites effectively rescue their own family members from “the racist generation” without threatening the concept; C) as all whites exempt their own family members, the aggregate effect is that “the racist generation” exists without any actual members; therefore D) whites retain a racist generation/past/other for comparison while denying contemporary people of color any tangible targets for redress.

In that way, INDIVIDUAL whites from The Racist Generation are rescued from direct accusation. But more work must be done to restore the narrative of progressive, benevolent white goodness/supremacy.

That work is necessary because all whites depend on the narrative to justify their racial privileges. An identifiable racist generation in the 20th century disrupts the narrative and threatens all whites’ self-identity and justifications of privilege. Therefore, whites rescue the COLLECTIVE racist generation by remaking history (i.e. the new school board regulations) in a way that makes the racist generation a progressive part of white history–redefined as people who took appropriate steps to “protect America” against illegitimate others/radicals and eventually won that battle, as evidenced by the Conservative Reemergence.

The combination of rescuing the racist generation both INDIVIDUALLY and COLLECTIVELY produces inconsistencies, as Jenni mentioned. Colorblind rhetoric is full of logical and discursive inconsistencies. Rescuing the racist generation from blame, while using it for colorblind discourse, is just another illustration of that point.

This duel project of rescuing the racist generation, both as individuals and as a collective, also incorporates Kristen’s critiques. It accounts for the “racial innocence” narratives white families tell and the general ignorance whites have about institutional racism.

At the same time, the project demonstrates why whites are so emotionally invested and politically committed to the rescuing efforts evidenced by the Texas Board of Ed. Rescuing the Collective racist generation is necessary for the essential narrative of white supremacy that is at the core of white self-identity.

Much of this motivation–and the emotions under-girding it–lies beyond the realm of many whites’ consciousness at times. Quotes from the TBOE sessions and quotes from Two Faced Racism demonstrate that whites are very aware of continuing racism and their own racist motives sometimes. But that is not true all of the time. As Charles Lawrence, among many others, points out, white racism is often unconscious and we must account for that in our analysis and resistance strategies.

I would argue that the project of rescuing the racist generation depends, in large part, upon whites’ unconscious racism–e.g. emotional attachment to the supremacy narrative; lack of dissonance over the logical inconsistency of needing a “racist other” while systemically depopulating “the racist other.” The lack of dissonance is accomplished by assigning blame for past racism to a concept (the racist generation) that has no discernible membership. Whites effectively reify the racist generation as a concept, divest it of actual human membership, then invest it with dictatorial powers and responsibility for the racist past.

As I have said, the sum total is that whites rescue their loved ones (i.e. the racist generation) while maintaining a conceptual racist generation/past for “colorblind” comparison.

Health Care - Continued

My buddy [heretofore, "Buddy"] and I are continuing our health care debate. In an omitted section, he asserted that the health care law is not about health care at all, but rather government intrusion. He also suggested medicare/medicaid are enough. I said the law is about health care and that everyone, him included, wants the government to enforce health care laws and provide minimum coverage. [That's a bad synopsis, but oh, well...]

Buddy replied:

Glenn, don't be deceived my friend! Like I said before, this has nothing to do with health care. This is a ploy to give government even more control. More surveillance. More security. This is just one step in a multi-step process resulting in more government involvement.
With a "free" health care system, this just becomes another benefit to the illegal immigrant.
Look at whats happening already in border towns in Arizona and Texas...uncontrollable crime.
With more [improper/unregulated] immigration, we'll see even greater crime in more cities.
With greater crime the government will have to institute martial law...and POLICE IT'S OWN PEOPLE.
i.e. Loss of more rights.
This could have all been prevented WITH LIMITED GOV'T. Our government doesn't solve problems, it hasn't solved a problem in decades. They create problems, then sell ideas to us. ("deception").
Oh, and ps. It's not a good idea to begin your argument telling me what I want. I DON'T WANT our government's healthcare. I want to work hard, get paid well, and use my hardearned dollar to purchase healthcare in a highly competitive field. Our healthcare insurance companies aren't allowed to compete the way they should. We never gave the free market a chance...and we call ourselves "American." Shame.

I just responded:

Dearest Buddy, I am not at all deceived about this bill or its purpose. If you remember, you and your dad challenged me back in 1992/3 to know exactly what each party stands for and what is in each bill before Congress [the debate then was gun laws]. Since that day, I have done the work to be informed about every major bill. I am forever grateful to you for making me ground my ideology and arguments in political reality.

For that reason, I am determined not to talk past you and just assert dogma. I truly believe that this bill is about health care. I also believe that your actions and self-proclaimed wants indicate support for this bill.

If you want to work hard and buy health insurance, that implies that you want your insurance policy to be enforced if you get sick. There was no guarantee that the insurance company would honor your policy before. This health care bill gives that guarantee. If the government did not enforce contracts, including insurance policies, large-scale industry could not exist. Government actions, such as this health care law, prop up private industry; they do not aid any eventual "government takeover." 

Part of allowing/forcing insurance companies to "compete the way they should" means preventing companies from competing unfairly by selling fraudulent merchandise. Fraudulent merchandise would include health insurance policies that are not honored when people get sick. The new health reform law actually promotes the "highly competitive field" you explicitly claim to want.

Finally, while you and I agree that government's surveillance powers are dangerous and growing, I am not sure this health care law is the biggest threat on that front. The new law forces people into PRIVATE insurance companies and keeps doctor-patient privacy laws in tact. The new law ensures records are streamlined between doctors, but not shared with the government.

P.S. As someone who lives in Texas and has done much work with undocumented immigrants, including in border towns, I think I am best-positioned to speak about what's happening. Please let me assure you and everyone else, undocumented immigrants are by and large extremely good people. They are no more crime-prone than white Americans or any other group of Americans. In fact, they are generally more crime averse because even the most ridiculous, petty offense could separate them from their families for years. Undocumented immigrants are people. My Christian faith demands that I recognize that and, at minimum, provide them with health care. Fellow volunteers and I have worked with many people, undocumented immigrants, who died and left small children, simply because the U.S. would not provide basic health care. Again, as a human, and certainly as a Christian, I cannot accept that situation.

And added:

To be clear, my point is that the health care law is not about government intrusion. The law is actually necessary for the "free-market," private-sector capitalism that your comments suggest you favor.

If we're going to have healthy competition, we must have ground rules and a referee to enforce the rules. That's what health care reform gives us.

Health Care

An old buddy of mine wrote this on his Facebook page:

Hey obama - I'm Pro-Choice!! I'd like to CHOOSE my healthcare!! Thanks for stripping me of my freedom to do so, jerk!

Someone countered: "You can still choose your healthcare." To which my buddy replied, "Um... except for now you're forced to have it. Choose one: Forced Enforcement or Freedom."

Then I chimed in:

You're only "forced" to have something that: 1) you want anyway, and 2) you already had.

Some people may have chosen (and still may choose) not to have a health insurance POLICY, but that is only under the condition that they know if something catastrophic happened (e.g. a bad car accident), they are guaranteed to get emergency treatment--treatment that is only guaranteed b/c the government requires hospitals to treat people and hospitals know that the government will pick up the bill if the injured person is uninsured. If we did not already guarantee that kind of care, everyone--including you and the others opposed to this bill--would immediately get an insurance policy to cover it. So, you already had taxpayer funded, universal health care. We're just improving your benefits....Your welcome!

Opposition to social justice and corporate egalitarian efforts is always conditioned on privilege--privilege derived from government-enforced unity with everyone, including the poor and disadvantaged.

By the way, before I could even post this [within a literal 2 minutes], someone new [a white man] already responded to me with racially problematic overtones: "You have no choice slave!"

I imagine he would deny his racism, but it's hard to believe that the language and imagery he calls up were not sparked by seeing such bold comments next to the only Black face in the conversation.

Justice of the Lord

Reading Habakkuk, parallels between Habakkuk's description of the Chaldeans (i.e. Babylonians) and the U.S. are inescapable for someone who works in social justice.  Equally inescapable is the relevance to our current condition of God's warning concerning the future of the Chaldeans.

Habakkuk opens by pointing out that injustice runs rampant in Israel, and calling on God to faithfully enforce God's law and end unrighteousness.  God responds by saying God will punish Israel by letting the Chaldeans conquer Israel.  A baffled Habakkuk questions God, noting that the Chaldeans are a wicked people.  The Chaldeans build their nation by conquering and dominating other peoples.  They do not worship God.  In fact,

[T]heir justice and authority originate with themselves (1:7)...[and their] strength is their god (1:11)  [The Chaldeans] bring all of them [other nations and people groups] up with a hook...and gather them in their fishing net.  Therefore, they [Chaldeans] rejoice and are glad.  They offer a sacrifice to their net  Because through these things their catch is large, and their food is plentiful.  Will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing?"  (Hab. 1:15-17). 

In other words, the Chaldeans are unworthy of God's blessing because they built their nation on conquering other peoples.  In modern language, the reference to Chaldeans "offering a sacrifice to their net" means they set up a military-industrial complex, devoting public funds to an ever-expanding and dominant weapons and war-dependent industry.  Questioning God's supposed commitment to justice, Habakkuk asks, "will they empty their net and continually spare nations without sparing?"  In other words, "how long will you let them get away with this, God?!"

This parallels the United States in obvious ways.  White colonists and Americans built this nation on the conquest of other peoples and theft of their resources.  A quick rundown: genocide of Native Americans and theft of their land.  Every inch of the U.S. is stolen land.  Then, the theft of African peoples and theft of their labor and humanity of their lives (i.e. American slavery).  Later, the violent conquering of Mexicans (remember what happened after the Alamo?) and theft of Mexican land (from which I write this blog).  Finally, the coercive domination of Asian immigrants (initially limiting Asian immigration to men, which denied immigrants access to their families and the opportunity to make families here; Europe's global reach made Asian immigration to the U.S. barely semi-voluntary). 

Like Babylon, the U.S. "offers sacrifices to its net" in the form of the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about.  If you haven't already, please watch the movie, Why We Fight.  You will learn that weapons-producing companies placed parts of their businesses in every congressional district so that they can strong-arm Congress into steadily increasing military spending by claiming that any cut in spending is a "threat to jobs."  No congressperson is safe from that critique.  You might also notice that the most authoritative news programs (e.g. "Meet the Press") are sponsored by Boeing, which makes military planes.  You cannot give news that challenges the need for war if weapons-producers are your primary sponsors.  The people of the United States cannot make informed decisions about wars if they only hear from the weapons-producing industry.

God responds to Habakkuk's complaint by assuring him that God is just and will punish nations who behave like the Chaldeans.  Consider God's answer in Habakkuk Chapter 2:

Write down the vision and make it plain...For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end, and will not prove false (2:2-3)....Because he [arrogant nations like the Chaldeans] is as greedy as the grave and is never satisfied, he gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples.  Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying "Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion!  How long must this go on?  Will not your debtors suddenly arise?  Will they not wake up and make you tremble?  Then you will become their victim.  Because you have plundered many nations, the people who are left will plunder you.  For you have shed man's blood, you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.  

 This is a stark warning to Americans.  Even the child molester and slaver, Thomas Jefferson, understood this point:

For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference for that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as it depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his miserable condition on the generations preceding from him....And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed from their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gift of God?  That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?  Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference (Notes on the State of Virginia Query XIV).  

 Jefferson, like Nebuchadnezzar, had brief moments of sanity in which he recognized God's justice and his own condemnation.  In his only book, Jefferson both advocates for slavery and anticipates God's wrath on the country for this (and I would add more) injustice.  Americans must learn these lessons and engage in social justice now before God is required to honor God's word and exact justice.  I am afraid that Americans will follow their founding father's example.  Habakkuk and Jefferson call to us from the grave, telling us to pursue justice.  Hopefully, we will not be like the brothers of the tortured rich man.  The rich man, a former oppressor suffering in hell, was denied even temporary work-release from his jail because Abraham realized that no message would convince his fellow oppressors to abandon oppression.  As Abraham said, "They have the law and the prophets...If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

We, the church and body of the living God, are those who are supposedly convinced by one who rose from the dead.  We must demonstrate our faith by turning from oppression to social justice, and pray God and those we have oppressed grant us mercy.  Let us heed and make true the words that another prophet, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached 45 years ago this week: "How long will prejudice bind the vision of men....How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?....It will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again.  How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.  How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sew."

Joy of the Lord

I am grateful to God for reminding me why God is so lovable. [Brace yo'self, Effie! Here comes a sermon-ette. :) ]

I believe that the joy of the Lord is having confidence in God's unfailing character and promise to do good things, including marrying both favor and justice.

A Bible study I am in is studying the fruit of the Spirit. This past week was on joy. A woman in the group referenced James 1:2-3, which reads: "Consider it pure joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." The verse and God's recent help through my prelims spoke to me. The lesson: Joy, like all the other fruits of the Spirit, is not a discipline; it is not something we do or maintain. It is the natural output of God.

Neither is joy something that is supposed to exist above and beyond our circumstances. Joy is situational. We consider it pure joy when we face trials, because that is when joy manifests. Joy manifests when our faith is tested because joy is the confidence that God is faithful to bring us through our tests and trials. We will not be consumed. Paraphrasing Habakkuk, though our trials (or conquerors, in his case) threaten to destroy us, "We will not die." Therefore, we have joy in circumstances because we do not fret. The trial reminds us of the certainty that God will bring us through. Joy is the opposite of fear. Joy is not elation; joy is calm under fire. Joy is not happiness; joy is confidence.

God is teaching me these lessons in the context of my life-long struggle with anxiety. As almost all of you know, anxiety has been the defining trial of my life. God has used the last 6 years, and mostly extremely helpful non-Christian people and secular settings, to teach me to have confidence in God. My prelims were the most recent example. God reminded me just before and during the week-long exams of God's long record of always bringing me through trials and [metaphorical] tests. Therefore, I could relax, knowing, as the old song says, "God did not bring us this far to leave us."

Thinking on the lessons of joy, I noticed something I had never noticed before. [Cue Andy Rooney] "Have you ever noticed..." that trials and tragedy often follow biblical miracles? Consider the biblical record. God creates the universe—next chapter, men introduce death; God speaks to Moses through the burning bush—immediately, Moses has to face Pharaoh and a skeptical Hebrew people; God frees the Hebrews from slavery (complete with reparations!)—Israel must walk through a desert; God brings down the walls of Jericho—Israel is thrust into centuries of constant existential wars; God speaks through fire--Elijah must immediately run for his life….You get the point.

A rather odd pattern.  But God is showing us that miracles are purposeful.  They do more than evidence God's existence.  Miracles strengthen our faith and prepare us to experience joy in the forthcoming trial.  Therefore, the trial does not have to be anxiety-producing.  It may be difficult, even tragic--and it should definitely be highly emotional.  But the difficulty and emotion need not include questions of what our end will be.  Certainty of a God-produced ending is comforting through the trial. 

Rescuing the Racist Generation: Texas Education Standards

For about a week now, the nation has been howling about the new standards the Texas Board of Education passed for social studies (including history, economics, civics) education.  Because Texas controls so much of the textbook market, the standards Texas' Board of Ed sets have near national influence.  I do not want to go into a full critique of the standards.  You can find that in many places (e.g. revisionaries, and the examiner has a brief list).  All of the changes promote conservatism by suggesting the US was founded as a Christian nation, claiming the superiority of capitalism, and teaching conservative politics positively (for example, one member explicitly states that his second criterion for history books is whether they sufficiently praise Ronald Reagan). 

My focus is narrower.  I believe a good portion of the conservatives' curriculum battle is part of the larger white effort to rescue "the racist generation."  The racist generation is that generation of whites who were adults and/or came of age during the Black Civil Rights Movement (peaking 1950-1970).  I call them the racist generation, not because that generation is/was any more racist than the generations of whites before or after them.  That generation, born 1925-1955, is "the racist generation," because that is how subsequent generations of whites have tacitly characterized them. 

The argument goes like this.  Whites who came of age after the CRM are desperate to present themselves as "non-racists."  They claim colorblindness and are terrified by the notion of being labeled racist.  These whites admit that pre-CRM America was racist.  Slavery and Jim Crow are obviously racist, and today's whites cannot always shake their connection (ancestrally or as inheritors of the nation the "founding fathers" gave them) to pre-CRM white generations.  But, young whites do not want to subject those previous generations to the ugly epithet of being racist.  Therefore, they defend distant white generations (i.e. 1607 - 1925) as good people who were products of their time.  "Ancient" whites weren't "bad" (i.e. energetically racist) people; they were just born at a time when racism was the social norm.  Therefore, ancient whites' racism is excused.  Similarly, post-CRM whites (born 1955-present) came of age too late to be responsible for fighting against the CRM.  Post-CRM whites claim to be the vanguard of the post-racial era.  They have no sins from which to be saved.

But "the racist generation" remains.  Pictures of whites angrily initiating lynchings (warning: graphic), police dogs, anti-busing campaigns, anti-school integration, and assassinations testify to the consciousness and viciousness of the racist generation's racism.  Although post-CRM whites diminish the severity and frequency of pre-CRM racism, they cannot completely deny the history because acknowledging the racist past is essential to their claims of racial progression. 

Necessary as it is to young whites' self image, maintaining the racist generation is very painful to whites for several reasons.  First, to paraphrase, the racist generation represents "Jim Crow unwilling to die."  Whites explain continuing findings of anti-black attitudes and discriminatory practices among whites by referencing a small collection of klan-like racists and the presence of an old racist generation.  Whites claim that white racism will decline and eventually die as the elderly (i.e. the racist generation) passes away.  In the meantime, old whites' pre-CRM, non-colorblind language and attitudes bring these "ugly" things close to home.  The racist generation also serves as a way for anti-racist people of color to defeat the claim that racism was too long ago to be relevant.  The perpetrators are still alive. 

But whites now want to rescue the racist generation from the racism critique.  Now age 85-55, the racist generation is aging and passing away at increased rates.  The post-CRM children of the racist generation wants to send their parents and grandparents off well and remember them as kind and loving, not vitriolic racists. 

Consequently, a new project is underfoot to recast the racist generation as something...anything else.  We saw a first effort when Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) tried to rescue arch-white supremacist, Strom Thurmond (R-SC) at a birthday celebration.  But Thurmond (b. 1902) was too old and had too public a record of racism to be successfully redeemed by Lott.  Now, the Texas Board of Education is attempting to rescue the racist generation by recasting history in a way that legitimates the racist generations' racist perceptions and actions.

One of the most changes the Texas Board of Ed made is inclusion of black militants' rhetoric in history textbooks along side that of MLK.  The obvious idea being that MLK's nonviolence and soaring rhetoric cast the racist generation as unnecessarily violent and motivated only by aggressive racism.  Including black militants is supposed to intimate that black civil rights activists were dangerous; the racist generations' angry response was a reasonable reaction to the extremist threat.  Related, the Board's decision to defend McCarthyism by demanding that texts include findings documenting the presence of communists in the United States during the 1940s and 50s, many of whom were civil rights activists further legitimates the fears of the racist generation.  The implication is that the racist generation really was under violent attack from clear enemies of America.  Though unpopular, aggressive attempts to root them out, such as the methods McCarthy used, may be necessary.  Finally, the Board's requirement that textbooks thoroughly teach the conservative resurgence of the 1980s-2000s--including the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, Ronald Reagan, and contract with America--represents the restoration of the racist generation to the mainstream.  Only now, it is sanitized of racism.  Despite the fact that every part of the conservative resurgence had clear racist roots and purposes, which innumerable volumes document, the leaders of conservativism pioneered and popularized the currently dominant technique of doing racist actions via seemingly race neutral language and policies. Consequently, when whites define a racist as a person who uses explicitly racist words and has a public discrimination policy, the racist generation will no longer fit the description.  

The Texas Board of Education is attempting to redeem the racist generation by redefining racism, recasting the black CRM as a dangerous movement, justifying the racist generations' viciousness and legitimating its fears, and linking that generation to more familiar entities (e.g. Ronald Reagan, the Heritage Foundation, the Christian Right) who are unquestionably not racist in very young whites' minds.  

In the end, the Texas Board of Ed not only redeems the racist generation, the Board resurrects it by restoring the racist generation to the larger narrative of progressive white goodness.  The Board famously cut Thomas Jefferson from the approved list of 18th century visionaries because he coined the phrase "separation of church and state."  The Board argues that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, whose white and Christian leadership has steadily guided the nation toward national and international success.  Each generation of white whites has progressively built on the morality and superiority of previous generations. 

But the racist generation was a problem for the narrative of white goodness and benevolent supremacy.  The emergence of an evil, racist generation in the middle of the nation's history challenged the idea of steady progress.  It also begged the questions: "Where did this racist generation come from?  Did our founders lay the seeds for that generation the same as they laid for the good generations?  And worst, if the narrative of benevolent, progressive white goodness/supremacy is not true, what kind of heritage is that for contemporary whites and what is their moral basis for racial domination (in outcome)? 

By reshaping history in this particular way, the Texas Board of Ed undermines the racial critiques of the racial generation, puts the racist generation and future white generations back into the narrative of progressive white goodness, and permanently redeems the racist generation by ensuring that future generations will have no charges to levy at them. 

In the memory and spirit of the late Howard Zinn, we must recognize this moment and do all we can to tell the people's true history. 

Learning Political Lessons from Moses

Discussing contemporary politics, I feel a bit like Moses felt in the Bible.  If you recall the story, when Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments from God, the Israelites made and worshiped an idol.  God saw the event and told Moses to leave Him alone so that He could destroy the Israelites, but Moses pleaded with God not to kill the Israelites.  Both Moses and God agreed that Israel was an "obstinate" people, undeserving of salvation, but they spared Israel so that their enemies (i.e. Egyptians) would not use the Israelites' failures to mock God.

Anti-racists are at a similar political moment in the United States.  President Obama is not all that we had hoped.  I contend that he is severely limited by the structure of our political system (e.g. bicameral houses rather than a parliament; filibusters; winner-take-all rather than proportional representation, etc).  Whatever the causes, there is no question that he has not yet directly addressed the institutional racism confronting African Americans, which is devastating the Black community economically. 

Anti-racists, especially African Americans, are in a tough situation.  Many whites, and people touched by their media around the world, tout Obama's election as evidence of a "post-racial America."  Yet, whites continue to practice racism and racial inequality persists without redress.  We people of color are getting very little tangible benefit for all our efforts.  At the same time, politically conservative whites are pulling out every stop to guarantee Obama fails.  They want to use him as a symbol of failure.  

We are in a catch-22.  Like Moses, we must choose in the short-term between defending the life of a wayward administration or granting our enemies a potent image of our failure, an image they will certainly use for racist purposes for years to come.

We must take note of this moment.  The mid-term elections are a referendum on Obama, and the election results will determine how much power he has for the rest of his presidency.  The election is also a referendum on the anti-racist idea that people of color are as competent as whites.  As usual, whites are demanding that we meet impossibly high standards before acknowledging our competence.  No one is asking President Obama to be as effective as President Fillmore [off the top of your head, list his top 3 achievements].  He is only measured by the mythical versions of Lincoln and Roosevelt. 

Faced with Moses' political situation, we must follow his lead and defend our flawed countryman rather than surrender to racist attacks.  The anger and energy is with those diametrically opposed to our politics (i.e. arch conservatives and many Tea-party members).  But we must acknowledge the stakes and mobilize to promote our interests again this electoral cycle.  That will take planning and organization.  Start talking to your friends now.  Be sure they register and actually cast votes, including during primaries.  Like those before us, we must be shrewd and ever vigilant.