Category: racism

Roger Answers Your Questions, Gay Prof and Scott

Gay Prof offers:
My question: Do you have any theories about the best way to keep John McCain out of the White House?

I do, but unfortunately it’s illegal and probably immoral. Wait, there’s probably some ageist crack I could make, but I won’t.
Look, I don’t know why people vote against their own interests, except that they naively by into a bill of goods. The economic boom that we used to be in was helping the John McCains of the country a lot more than you and me. Literally, the rich get richer, with golden parachutes for CEOs of failing companies. I thought Charlie Gibson on ABC News asked George Stephanopoulos an odd question last week: with Barack backing out of public financing, was it “fair” for Barack to have so much more money vs. McCain. I laughed so hard I almost hurt myself again. The GOP has had a lot more $$ at its disposal for decades, and Obama’s money is coming mostly from the common people. Is it fair that the government tut-tut homeowners for getting into financial situations that government policies encouraged? I know this doesn’t answer the question, but I’m stumped to find out how is John McCain the ANSWER to any of our current woes.

Generous Scott adds: I don’t care if you don’t answer any of mine, but I certainly hope you can answer Gayprof’s and it be something that we can truly do to make it happen.
Well, I did answer GP’s, FWIW. And now I’ll answer yours:

1. Who do you think will play in the World Series this year, and who will win it?

One team will be a new team, i.e., one we haven’t seen much of before. I think before the season I picked the Cubs, so I’ll stick with them. Not so incidentally, I’m hoping to see them play in Wrigley for the very first time in September. I thought that Cleveland and Detroit would do better, but alas. So, I’m going with Tampa; it’ll probably be Boston, but I’ve bored with Boston sports teams (except the Celtics, who I picked to win in seven.) It’s been 100 years. don’t the Cubs get to win every CENTURY?

2. What do you think has been the best (so far) movie adaptation based on a comic book?

Superman. No, Spider-Man. Wait, I liked Spider-Man 2 more than the first one. I didn’t see the last Batman or the upcoming one, but saw several others – not those. I did like Iron Man, but not the first Fantastic Four.

3. What are you top five movies?

Always impossible. Annie Hall’s on there, and probably Groundhog Day. The others are so fluid, like my favorite songs list or even favorite album. It might include Casablanca, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Field of Dreams, The Iron Giant, Rear Window, the original Star Wars (“episode 4” – feh), Toy Story 2, West Side Story (which isn’t a great movie, but the music and choreography hold), The Wizard of Oz, Young Frankenstein, and about a dozen movies I’ve either forgotten or are of the genres named (Empire Strikes Back, Toy Story); it could be any of the Pixar films I’ve seen, e.g.

4. If Obama loses the Presidential election, do you think it will hurt race relations and the fight against racism, or do you think that his nomination was already a move in the right direction and that a loss won’t set it back?

Yes.

Oh, you want more.

One of those ongoing myths was that Barack Obama was embraced nationally by black folks out of the shoot. Look at any poll that came out in December 2007, and Obama’s losing big time to Hillary Clinton with black voters. Part of it, ironically was that he wasn’t considered black enough. (And Hillary Clinton was?) But when he won Iowa, black voters gave him another look, and he’s been winning the black vote handily ever since, starting in South Carolina. (Which is why Bill Clinton’s correct observation that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina irritated so many people; it wasn’t just that he was black, it was that he was a black that, since the white folks in Iowa liked him, actually had a chance to win.) All the things he’s endured since from what I think is a media obsession with Rev. Wright to the sniping at Michelle Obama to the Muslim thing – regularly, at least 7% of the electorate believes that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is Muslim (not that should matter if he were) has made him more attractive to many blacks, and probably to white liberals as well. Here’s what often happens in with black folks when one of their own is put upon; they become more loyal, recognizing the institutional racism involved.

So, if he loses, most older blacks will see it as the same-o same-o. I’m not sure the paradigm holds for younger blacks, especially those who identify as biracial. It’s not that they don’t see racism, it’s that they may see Barack’s nomination, to use a football metaphor, as field position. Maybe Barack doesn’t score the touchdown this time, but it makes someone else’s chances better the next time. Maybe.

5. What album in your collection would probably most surprise your friends?

That would almost certainly be my one Toby Keith album. Not crazy about his politics, but I got it it for free at a convention in Nashville, and I rather liked a couple songs, especially “Let’s Talk About Me.”
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Someone, I wish I could remember who, said about Robert Mugabe: If Zimbabwe had oil, we would have invaded by now.

ROG

ROG

Carlin and other family-friendly topics

So I wake up at four a.m. for the third time in the night, because I still can’t find a comfortable sleeping position, probably because I didn’t take my pain pills all day yesterday, because I didn’t want to become habituated to them, so I get up and check Evanier, who notes George Carlin has died, and he writes: “Seven words come immediately to mind. All are appropriate for the occasion.” And I check my blog and note that I’d only mentioned Carlin thrice, twice on baseball and football, and once on education, but I recall how I’d been watching Carlin for decades, from the “hippy, dippy weatherman I remember him doing on the “Ed Sullivan Show” to one of the sharpest minds of social commentary, and there’s a pain in my heart AND my side. DAMN! (Not one of the seven words.)
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Since one Kelly Brown specifically requested me to take this test, what could I do?

75

As a 1930s husband, I am
Superior

Take the test!

And speaking of family things, something I saw on the bus last week: Woman and daughter waiting for the bus, get on the bus. Woman sees child’s father on the bus, apparently to the surprise of all concerned. She says to child, “Oh, your father’s on the bus,’ hands the child to the father, saying “YOU take her!!” then gets off the bus. Child cries for mommy a couple blocks, but is eventually soothed by daddy; Arthur would have been pleased.

At least that a better bus story than my wife experienced, which involved a three-year old running on the bus, failing, crying, and the mother screaming at the wailing child, “I told you not to run on the bus.”
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I was watching Bill Moyers again, and I must recommend it. It deals with race in America. One segment is about Slavery by Another Name, Douglas A. Blackmon’s book about what the subtitle calls “the Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.”
Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude.
Blackmon has a website addressing the issue.

Moyers also previewed the documentary which opens the 21st season of P.O.V. TRACES OF THE TRADE: A STORY OF THE DEEP NORTH, which tells the story journey of discovery into the history and consequences of slavery and which will air on my PBS station Tuesday night.
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Someone tipped me about Twilight Zone radio plays produced in 2004 for CBS radio using Rod Serling’s original scripts, with Stacey Keach narrating and hosting.
ROG

ROG

Solstice Strikes Again: Ask Roger Anything


As I plan my next staycation, it’s time for that game we call ASK ROGER ANYTHING, in which said Roger is COMPELLED to actually answer the question. There hasn’t been a query yet I haven’t answered in some form.

Here are some examples:
What was the #1 song on …
– the day I were born?
– the day I graduated from high school?
– the day I were married?
– the day my child was born?
– the approximate date I was conceived?

Respectively,
“Till I Waltz Again with You” by Teresa Brewer
“Knock Three Times” by Dawn
“Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin
“Yeah!” by Usher featuring Ludacris & Lil Jon
“Blue Tango” by Leroy Anderson

Here’s a peculiar thing: most people that I know who were born in 1966 or 1976 know the music of the year they were born far better than I know the music of 1953. Why IS that?

Don’t know that one, but here’s why I always vote Republican and oppose gay marriage. OK, that’s not true.

“Hey, Roger, what are you doing today?”
This.

Ask away.

And speaking of asking, I still have copies of this book on racism which I’m willing to send to you. Also, I have some mixed CDs I put together, some going back to before I blogged, mostly unlabeled, that I’d send to anyone who wants; can’t guarantee the quality, but as Elwood Blues once said, “What do you want for nothin’? R-r-r-rubber bis-CUITS?”
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ROG

Roger Answers Your Questions, Nik and Scott

Nik, the expat in New Zealand asks: I’ll go all deep — so has the coverage/reaction to the Obama campaign so far made you MORE hopeful about race in America or LESS hopeful?

Scott asks: Clinton aide Ferraro makes a racist-type remark about Obama, and the Clinton campaign barely has to say anything to be excused. The pastor of the church Obama attends (who is not working for Obama) makes racist-type remarks, and Obama has to continually distance himself from them. It seems obvious to me that racism is even present in this scenario. How do you feel about these events?

OK. Let me try to answer this in a coherent way, because I’ve found the last week rather mind-boggling. First, I’ve long thought that Barack Obama’s attempt to run a campaign for President of the United States without race being a major issue was incredibly naive and/or disingenuous. I didn’t think that country is/was “post-racial” enough for that. I figured that, sooner or later, race would come to the fore. And it did, in subtle ways with Bill Clinton comparing Obama’s South Carolina win to Jesse Jackson’s; hey, they’re both black. But here’s the thing: as much as Barack has tried to downplay it, pssst, he is partly black.
And notice how well Obama’s done among the different constituent over time. He wowed ’em in Iowa, a largely white state, which made some black Americans nervous. But once it appeared the Hillary Clinton campaign was trying to paint Barack as black, playing, if you will, the “race card”, he became the “black” candidate. The Mississippi primary is instructive, as Obama got about 90% of the black vote and less than 30% of the white vote.
The Jeremiah Wright situation was problematic not just for the reverend’s rhetoric but because it reminded people once again: he goes to a black church; he must be…black!
Geraldine Ferraro was clumsy in her wording. She could have said something like “the black community must be very proud how well Barack is doing” and gotten across the same message – that he’s a black man – and still be on the Hillary team.
So, Nik, in answer to your specific question – am I MORE hopeful about race in America or LESS hopeful? – the answer is yes. I thought it was a GREAT speech that Obama gave last week, one that made me MORE sure of Obama than before, but as I noted here, it’s been misinterpreted or heard merely in soundbites.
Scott, I don’t know that the coverage is racist as much as it’s “If it bleeds, it leads” inflammatory. The perception I’m getting that, OK, he’s the Obama pastor for 20 years; let’s say he was sitting in the pews for 50 weeks a year. This means that Barack and his wife heard this “God Damn AmeriKKKa” rhetoric 1000 times AND subjected their daughters to it dozens of times as well. The assumption seems to be that’s the sermon topic EVERY week, which is clearly not the case by all informed reports. So Barack, a state senator in Springfield, 200 miles and over 3 hours away from Chicago for a number of years before being in Washington, DC, probably hadn’t heard hundreds of examples of vitriol, as the case seemed to be painted.

Finally, slightly off the topic, I started attending a (predominantly white) church in Albany in June 1982, started attending regularly in January 1983, became a member in December 1984, and took on leadership roles in the church. Stuff happened often – I won’t get into it here, but it involved the pastor – but it wasn’t until February 2000 that I largely stopped attending, and I was still going to meetings at my old church as late as August 2000. It wasn’t until 2002 that I ended my membership with my old church and joined my new one. So I sympathize greatly with the notion that one just doesn’t abandon one’s church lightly, for the people are the church, not the pastor.

ROG

ROG

The Rest of the Story

PART ONE:
Last week, I wrote a story on the Times Union blog about reconciliation. I mentioned listening to a podcast operated by a US expat living in New Zealand. But I didn’t just happen upon it. Nik from the Spatula Forum, a blog I read regularly, was being interviewed by his fellow expat, Arthur. At the end of the interview, Arthur indicated that his next podcast would be about reconciliation in Australia, so, of course, I listened. Not so incidentally, at the end of that podcast, he reads listener/reader comments, including a couple from, of all people, me.
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PART TWO:
For the Albany Public Library blog, I noted Green Eggs and Ham, admittedly my favorite Dr. Seuss book, had won some library award. So, I thought it would be fun to add some YouTube videos, and I did. One was a straight reading, one was a seven-minute cartoon, and the third was the same cartoon, altered and sped up. I was going to also use the famous Jesse Jackson reading of Green Eggs and Ham from Saturday Night Live; the picture quality is marginal, but the sound is good. What prevented me, ultimately, was a series of racist remarks in the Comments and Response section.
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PART THREE
Someone named Gail, a “dorm mom” from Texas, asked me about the group that sang the Brian Wilson song Love and Mercy at the Kennedy Center Honors back in December. The group is named Libera, and they have a new album called New Dawn coming out in March. Gail says that Love and Mercy will be on that album. Here’s the video from the TV program via YouTube:

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PART FOUR
Rose is having a thing called What the hell is blogging – Blog Contest where one has to define blogging. Off the top of my head – I was on a 15-minute computer at the library before a meeting – I came up with “Blogging is the organization of the important and the ephemeral in the life of a person or organization, ideally in an appealing manner.” If I had had more time, I’m not sure WHAT I’d have come up with.
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PART FIVE
I’ll have to write something more substantial about William F. Buckley’s passing. I was a devotee a LONG time ago.
ROG

ROG
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