At a recent town hall Howard Schultz, the Starbucks founder who is thinking of running for President, uttered the nonsensical phrase, "I don't see color". This kind of faux-liberal idea that we can have a color-blind society has been problematic for decades. The reason is that when you say you don't see color, first you are lying, second you filter everyone through a white European lens. You look for a flat cultural and social expression that you see as a standard. It erases the diversity of experience of people of color and other minority visions that are part of our country. We saw this laid bare when Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was nominated. Early in her career Justice Sotomayor gave a speech in which she included the line "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Her quote, taken out of context, was attacked as suggesting she was saying Latina women were smarter than men. What she was doing was pointing out in some cases people of color and she included women have a different vantage point to understand a situation, specifically she was talking about from the bench, but it is true in the board room, the campus and the factory floor. Justice Sotomayor, in the speech, said:
"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice [Benjamin] Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like professor [Steven] Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge [Miriam] Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown .
We can see that what she is saying that one's experience is not necessary but history teaches us that the different perspective of a person of color can move our understanding along faster and with more justice.
We have always been a country that valued and accepted diversity. In the 1780s when the United States was recently established there was an idea that the new country would be a melting (some said smelting) pot. The idea that we would welcome people from around the world and with each new culture they would add their distinction to what it means to be an American and being American would change. But it didn't take long until people wanted the immigrants to give up who they were and become the Western European standard which was white and Protestant. America became like the Borg of Star Trek, we wanted full assimilation and that our culture would somehow just use what we wanted from each wave of immigrant culture. This is seen in the "speak English in America" crowd who still go out and get drunk on Cinco De Mayo. Color blind ideology wants to people to be the same and that is never going to happen.
But what is more insidious is the way some people blame the problems of race on the victims of racism. Earlier this week when Michael Cohen was testifying about his role in the actions of President Trump, things he will go to prison for, he called the President a racist. Let's be clear, the President has shown clear signs of racism over the many decades he has been in the public eye. But Representative Mark Meadows decided to parade out a black woman who works for the Executive Branch (a woman that used to be the Trump party planner and is now at HUD) to suggest the President can't be racist. He was challenged by Rep Rashida Tlaib. She called what he did a racist act. Meadows, who has been connected with racist acts in the past like his fervent birtherism, was appalled. Since the exchange (again she called what he did racist and not him racist, a distinction that is important) she has been attacked for playing the race card. Again the idea that we shouldn't see color comes up. But this is an example of why seeing color is important. Let's assume the Rep. Meadows did this without trying to cover for the President. Maybe he truly believes that if you hire people of color in position of authority you can't be racist. So for him just bringing her out as a prop is a fine thing. Except the vast majority of people of color don't see it that way. They see the tokenism that it represents, something Meadows never has to deal with. There was a joke at the universities I have been associated with that a black woman professor is the hardest working person on campus. She is asked to serve on every committee and be in as many campus photos as possible. The reason Meadow's act struck a cord is because that kind of tokenism often is specifically designed to cover up a failure to embrace real diversity or out-and-out racism. Rep Tlaib may have been trying to educate Meadows and by extension the American people on how not to do it. But in the end it continues to shine a light on the ignorance of so many, that in the last month (Black History month no less) has seen Democratic politicians who admit to black face, use the n-word and not understand how to respond to a black woman running for President simply being black.
We are all ignorant and one of the reasons is that we can't see the world through someone else's eyes if we haven't lived their life. Rep Tlaib learned that when she used an anti-Semitic tome recently. We all have something to learn and one thing is not to try to white wash society. I hope Tlaib and Meadows learned something. Hope is something t
"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice [Benjamin] Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like professor [Steven] Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge [Miriam] Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown .
We can see that what she is saying that one's experience is not necessary but history teaches us that the different perspective of a person of color can move our understanding along faster and with more justice.
We have always been a country that valued and accepted diversity. In the 1780s when the United States was recently established there was an idea that the new country would be a melting (some said smelting) pot. The idea that we would welcome people from around the world and with each new culture they would add their distinction to what it means to be an American and being American would change. But it didn't take long until people wanted the immigrants to give up who they were and become the Western European standard which was white and Protestant. America became like the Borg of Star Trek, we wanted full assimilation and that our culture would somehow just use what we wanted from each wave of immigrant culture. This is seen in the "speak English in America" crowd who still go out and get drunk on Cinco De Mayo. Color blind ideology wants to people to be the same and that is never going to happen.
But what is more insidious is the way some people blame the problems of race on the victims of racism. Earlier this week when Michael Cohen was testifying about his role in the actions of President Trump, things he will go to prison for, he called the President a racist. Let's be clear, the President has shown clear signs of racism over the many decades he has been in the public eye. But Representative Mark Meadows decided to parade out a black woman who works for the Executive Branch (a woman that used to be the Trump party planner and is now at HUD) to suggest the President can't be racist. He was challenged by Rep Rashida Tlaib. She called what he did a racist act. Meadows, who has been connected with racist acts in the past like his fervent birtherism, was appalled. Since the exchange (again she called what he did racist and not him racist, a distinction that is important) she has been attacked for playing the race card. Again the idea that we shouldn't see color comes up. But this is an example of why seeing color is important. Let's assume the Rep. Meadows did this without trying to cover for the President. Maybe he truly believes that if you hire people of color in position of authority you can't be racist. So for him just bringing her out as a prop is a fine thing. Except the vast majority of people of color don't see it that way. They see the tokenism that it represents, something Meadows never has to deal with. There was a joke at the universities I have been associated with that a black woman professor is the hardest working person on campus. She is asked to serve on every committee and be in as many campus photos as possible. The reason Meadow's act struck a cord is because that kind of tokenism often is specifically designed to cover up a failure to embrace real diversity or out-and-out racism. Rep Tlaib may have been trying to educate Meadows and by extension the American people on how not to do it. But in the end it continues to shine a light on the ignorance of so many, that in the last month (Black History month no less) has seen Democratic politicians who admit to black face, use the n-word and not understand how to respond to a black woman running for President simply being black.
We are all ignorant and one of the reasons is that we can't see the world through someone else's eyes if we haven't lived their life. Rep Tlaib learned that when she used an anti-Semitic tome recently. We all have something to learn and one thing is not to try to white wash society. I hope Tlaib and Meadows learned something. Hope is something t
No comments:
Post a Comment