Hobbs' Hump Day Hot Topics: THE "RACISM DENIAL" CARD

This morning I begin with two relatively simple questions; first, is "racism denial" the new racism? And second, regardless of whether the answer to the first question is yes or no, if there are significant numbers of Americans who do not believe that racism exists, how do we "elevate the conversation about race?"

If you don't watch Fox News, there is a chance that you have never heard of Jesse Watters, a so-called "ambush" reporter who often appears on Bill O'reilly's show, among others. This week, Watters took aim at Oprah Winfrey based upon her recent remarks on the "Today" show comparing Trayvon Martin's death to the death of Emmett Till, the Chicago teen who in 1955, was lynched in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
Winfrey, comparing the two deaths, said “In my mind, same thing...but you can get stuck in that and not allow yourself to move forward and see how far we’ve come.”

Watters, ignoring the second half of Winfrey's comment, immediately took issue by stating, "I feel like Oprah diminished her brand here. It was a big, missed opportunity for Oprah Winfrey. I was expecting her to kind of take the high road and elevate the conversation and to bring the country forward and add a little unity here. But instead, she made this atrocious analogy and I’m a little disappointed in Oprah."
No, Mr. Watters, I'm a little disappointed in your disingenuous and condescending disappointment. Again, while I take no issue with Winfrey's statement as a whole, when Watters decided to ignore that Winfrey conceded the progress that has been made in America since Till's death, he did so to besmirch her reputation and his parsing, indeed, is a disappointment.

As to my original question about race denial, Watters by his comments falls squarely into a trend that I have noticed that suggests that because the Klan sheets are neatly tucked away in the linen closet and because the explicit racial language rarely rears its ugly head from whites to blacks in the public square (Philadelphia Eagles receiver Riley Cooper not included), that such means that racism no longer exists.
But the public square is not the proper place to judge the private thoughts of our fellow Americans in that today, many will say one thing in public and feel completely different in private. One only must check Twitter or the comments sections of any major news site to see just how nasty and vile some Americans feel about any number of subjects with respect to race. Even on sports sites like the Rivals.com network, one can find folks safe in their anonymity who will boldly spew the most racist invectives imaginable about Trayvon Martin, President Barack Obama and of late, the Dream Defenders, a mostly minority group of students who have staged a peaceful protest at Florida's Capitol for three weeks while seeking changes to Florida's Stand Your Ground Law.

In my experience, most whites who play the racism denial card are not virulent "I hate 'the blacks'" styled people, rather, they simply are incapable of sensing where race inures benefits for whites or still serves as a detriment to blacks in certain areas. To my white brothers and sisters of this ilk, if I write that 70 percent of many jails and prisons in Florida are filled with blacks, they will knee-jerk respond that "blacks commit more crime" or should "become more personally responsible." It never occurs to them that with respect to say, drugs in America, that blacks on a whole lack the financial wherewithal to import and support the billion dollar illicit narcotics industry and that much of the cocaine, heroine and methamphetamines that are bought and ingested in America are bought and ingested by whites. Yes, it is easier to spot, arrest and incarcerate the low level black drug dealer or the crack cocaine fiend on the corner in any inner city neighborhood, but it is far more difficult to spot---let alone arrest---the powder cocaine fiend in the patrician gated community or the board rooms, courthouses and schoolhouses across America.

Now, in the aforementioned scenarios, does race matter from a policy standpoint? Absolutely, if not conscious and deliberate then certainly in application. But the race deniers, again, will fall back to their hold card, the "personal responsibility" card, without conceding that the still mostly white power structure bears a responsibility of arresting both/and, black and white, if drugs are considered to be an inherent evil that must be removed from our daily existences.
Second, how do we "elevate" the conversation regarding race if it is a soliloquy and not a dialogue? Meaning, for too many race deniers, again, the problem is neatly described as follows: "poor, lazy blacks who are making children out of wedlock who subsequently perform poorly in school and are on a clear pathway from the schoolhouse to the prison house, an issue that if 'the blacks would solve for themselves' would eliminate all other problems with respect to race.'"
Ok...while I often lament that blacks have myriad issues that must (and are) being addressed internally, such a one sided soliloquy fails to account for the many areas within which even the most responsible blacks are victimized by deep seated, institutional white racism. As Ishmael Reed pointed out recently, again, in public, many of President Barack Obama's white detractors will list a number of policy issues that he has supported that draws their consternation but in private, there are many of the same and others who simply refuse to respect the fact that a black man is President of the United States. Again, most are either too polite or too cowardly to say such in public, but the thousands of tweets calling the President "nigger" or "gorilla" while he is addressing the nation and cartoons of cotton fields and watermelon patches being planted outside the White House only reinforce that in private, it is damned near impossible to "elevate" a conversation about race when so many whites are stuck in neutral or deep in the muck of a very private yet still potent bigotry.
On a more benign note, this past weekend was President Barack Obama's 52nd birthday and when I wished the president felicitations on Facebook, the overwhelming majority of my Facebook friends who hit "like" were black.

Now, this is not to say that all of the president's supporters are black and to be clear, I have many white Facebook friends who love or respect the president who may have missed the post. But I know that, again, when we talk about racial polarization, one area in which the talk can begin is with respect to showing respect for the man who inhabits the Oval Office.
But to do that, again, both sides have to listen and talk and again, what I sense is a cynicism in which many whites believe that blacks "whine" and refuse to be "personally responsible" and, as such, when parallels between Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till are drawn, the same immediately shut down any ability to listen to black concerns about this issue or to even analyze why they may have in a knee-jerk manner immediately defended Martin's killer, George Zimmerman, when on any given day, they do not support men or women accused of murder?

But then again, for these same folks wanting to "elevate the conversation" like Jesse Watters, if they cannot find it within themselves to respect Oprah Winfrey, a woman who overcame poverty, sexism and yes, racism, to become a billionaire, or if they cannot respect Barack Obama, a man who never has been arrested and one who graduated near the top of his classes at Columbia and Harvard Law to become a senator and President, then how on Earth will we ever be able to have a rational conversation with folks of this ilk?

 

Chuck Hobbs, Esq., host and lead commentator for Generation NEXT is a trial lawyer, award-winning freelance writer and lecturer based in Tallahassee, Florida.  During the past decade he has appeared in a number of high profile cases including the 2003 gambling trial of former Florida State University quarterback Adrian McPherson and the 2006 Florida A&M University (FAMU) Kappa Alpha Psi hazing trial, both carried live on Court TV; the 2009 Rachel Hoffman murder case featured on Dateline NBC as well as his work as co-counsel in the 2011 wrongful termination of FAMU Marching 100 Band Director Dr. Julian E. White, who was initially fired and quickly reinstated by the university following the hazing death of drum major Robert Champion.