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Hate crimes and misdemeanors
The race for the White House sheds new light on old issues of racial, gender and political self-loathing
By Nsenga Burton
Page 3 of 4
According to Dr. Robert Samuel Smith, assistant professor of history and African studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, "Bob Johnson's comments about Obama were really unwarranted. For a black man who offered virtually no direction in terms of a political agenda for black people to attack Obama, an upstanding man and politician, is unacceptable. Obama deserves better than that based on the stances that he took and that Johnson refused to take. How dare he criticize Obama in that sort of degrading fashion? He did not have to make it a situation where he enacted a 'Bob crime' as opposed to 'Bob critique.' He can critique the man without being insulting."
Johnson appeared to be doing more "hating" than helping the situation. Consequently, he was denounced in ways that he had previously never been denounced. With all of its problems over sexist and nihilistic images, BET was the first black TV network, and Johnson gave a national platform to many black media professionals including Ed Gordon, Ananda Lewis and Tavis Smiley. A man who has been hated, and rightfully so in some instances, turns around and does the same thing to another black man, causing people to forget the good things that he did. Perhaps it's due to the recent spates of "hate crimes" that have occurred within the black community.
"They think they're hip. They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere." -- Bill Cosby, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's 2004 Annual Conference
Bill Cosby's comments about poor blacks were considered by many to be hateful. And statements made by Oprah Winfrey about opening a school in South Africa as opposed to the United States because black people here would not appreciate it were inflammatory.
As someone who teaches in rural schools in South Africa, I understand Winfrey's intended meaning; education is valued in a completely different way in South Africa by everyone, not just blacks. The same way that education is devalued in this country by many people, not just blacks, it is valued in South Africa and other countries I would argue, in a much more impassioned way.
But when Winfrey makes those statements, people hear that blacks in America do not want to learn -- not that there is a different value system in place in South Africa. People focus on what poor blacks are doing or not doing as opposed to the socio-economic conditions and racist institutions that have historically contributed to the factors at which Cosby and Winfrey express disgust and disdain. If those observations were not the intended meanings of their words, then they should know what happens to words that come in contact with the media, especially since they -- as well as Johnson -- made their fortunes in media industries.
"Each of these three folks are examples of the millionaires that emerged post-civil rights," Smith says. "They each in some way have benefited from the disposable income of middle- and upper-class black people. They also owe a major debt to working-class and poor blacks because in many ways it was their cultural productivity that helped to drive their success."
Thus, blacks who've become rich and famous based on black support from the masses early in their careers should be mindful of how they talk about blacks, politicians or the community as a whole. "When Cosby blatantly attacks poor black people and does not do a good job of explaining his statements, which are clearly elitist and classist, he is wrong," says Smith. "How do you make fun of issues of illiteracy, but you don't blame the school system or the legislation that stripped it away? He has not critiqued those [who] are responsible for government inequities."
"And I would prefer not to have conservative Republicans in the Congress paralyzed by having to support, out of party loyalty, a Republican president who is not conservative." -- Rush Limbaugh, Conservative Pundit, People magazine, Feb. 5, 2008
While John McCain is not part of the race and gender equation, he has fallen victim to the idea that there is only one way to be a Republican.
Although he has overwhelmingly won the support of the party and the popular voters, he has been under scrutiny by ultra-conservative Republicans because he is not "conservative" enough. Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingram have weighed-in on McCain's conservatism. Just as feminists suggest that Clinton does not have a truly feminist agenda and some blacks suggest that Obama's intentions for the black community are not clear, McCain is being vilified by his fellow right-wingers.
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