IT'S JUST NOT FAIR

I've mentioned before in this space my favorite entertainment venue on the internet, the site Radio Garden. From RG, you can click any location on a Google Map of the world and will be presented with a list streaming radio stations from that location.

It does take a bit of work finding something worth listening to, because SO many stations around the world play the same stuff, that is to say contemporary pop music usually sung in English. 

But when you do find a gem, it's well worth marking it as a favorite and return to it again and again.  

One of my favorites actually does play music mostly in English; it's one of the best sources of classic American Country music I've ever come across. The station is called Rattlesnake Radio and it originates in Munich. Even better, RR mixes up country with blues, Creole/Cajun and other genres of what could be called American roots music, with a little R&B and Rock and Roll influenced by all those genres thrown in for good measure. A work colleague from Belgium particularly likes RR and on occasion when we're the only ones in the office, she requests I put it on. 

So yesterday while working at my desk and RR playing in the background, something strange caught my ear. No, it couldn't be I thought to myself, did the singer really say that? He sure 'nuff did. Then he said it again, and again. I wasn't really tuned in to the lyrics but what knocked me out of my senses was the "N" word repeated over and over again.

Still incredulous, I picked up my cellphone, held it up to the computer and asked Siri to name the song.

Even my Siri's sexy British accent could not lessen the foul stench of that word, which is right there in the title.

I'm not going to mention the title nor the guy who wrote and sang the song, as I don't want to publicize them, but I will say that after mentioning the title, Siri told me that the song was performed by Johnny Horton. That is wrong. Horton was a country star until his untimely death in 1960. The song in question was recorded nearly a decade later and the singer doesn't sound remotely like Horton.

What the hell is going on I thought, and why on earth would they play this song? My first thought was that it was a parody of country music and the culture of the place where much of it comes from. I immediately thought of a National Lampoon send up of Joan Baez where in the refrain, the singer with her spot-on imitation of the activist folk singer warbles: "Pull the triggers N___s, we're with you all the way, across the bay."

John Lennon also got away with using the word, not without a kerfuffle, as the title to his 1972 feminist protest song, "Woman is the N___ of the World."

Obviously neither song would come close to being released today; times have changed. 

But the song I heard on RR was nothing like either of those songs. No irony there, it was a bona fide no-holds-barred white supremacist, racist song. 

One might say, how about giving the song a little benefit of the doubt? After all, it came out over fifty years ago in a much different time. Shouldn't we judge works from the past in the context of their time and not ours?

Since I already mentioned him, I'll use Johnny Horton as an example. Many of his songs are ballads about historic events. I'm sure they turn many people off today for their "political incorrectness." One of them is a song about the horse of the discredited Indian fighter, General George Armstrong Custer. Ironically, the horse's name was Comanche. In its time I'm sure the song, named after the horse, did not provoke much controversy if any. Today as most of us don't have much compassion for Custer, his fate, nor his cause, the song sounds at best, dated, and at worst, a paean to imperialism and the genocide of Native American people. 

Yet Comanche is a song that might be given a pass (if you wish) for reflecting the values of a different time.

But not the song in question. Having lived through the time it was recorded, I can assure you it was as vile then as it is now. Since I refuse to print any of the lyrics, you'll just have to take my word. Or you could go by the fact that the song was so offensive it never received airtime on a radio station in the States, not even in the Deep South. 

I know nothing about how the Rattlesnake playlist is generated in Munich. Perhaps the program director is a computer. My Belgian friend (without hearing it) speculated that whoever chose to play the song, assuming it wasn't a computer, probably didn't understand the nuances of American culture enough to realize how truly offensive it is. I assured her that there is absolutely nothing nuanced about the song. You would have to be completely ignorant of American culture, the English language, or both to let this one slide. I seriously doubt that anyone running a radio station devoted to American roots music, one that's heard around the world via the internet, could be that ignorant.

Maybe I'm wrong. Or perhaps it was a mean-spirited intern on his way out the door. One can only hope.

Anyway, it got me thinking this morning that when you take away all the things that got the song banned from the radio in the U.S., the racial invectives, the threats of brutal violence and the humiliating degradation of human beings, the theme of the song is no different from much of the rants we hear today from members of the far right.

That theme is this: white folks in America got it bad, and that ain't good. My apologies to Paul Francis Webster and Duke Ellington.

That theme is propagated throughout right wing media, most notably by the chief spokesman and poster child for white victimhood, Tucker "Putin Didn't Call Me a Racist" Carlson. Unlike the author of the racist song who grew up dirt poor in Louisiana, if you were writing a dictionary, you'd have to put Carlson, heir to the Swanson TV Dinner fortune, at the top of the list of candidates for the illustration accompanying the entry on white privilege.

"What's that guy got to complain about you might ask? You got me, but as the most watched talking head on Fox News, his message that white people are the real victims of racism in this country, is music to the ears of many white folks all over this land of ours who feel that life just hasn't been fair to them.

Playing the victim is never a good look, especially when you're the farthest thing from one AND you're living in a time where there is true suffering in the world, which is all the time.

Multiply that exponentially when you're living in a time of war, which we are now, and the lives of people as we speak, are being turned upside down by a megalomaniacal dictator without the slightest hint of a moral compass, bent on murder and mayhem.

Listening to the radio the other morning, a report on Chicago's Ukrainian community coming together to deal with and assist in the plight of their loved ones back home was followed by the story of an Illinois state legislator complaining that he still had to wear a mask inside the state capitol house chamber, despite mask mandates being lifted statewide. Life sure is unfair, isn't it? 

Well in my book, children getting cancer is unfair. People in the richest country in the world having to choose between buying food and medicine is unfair. Unarmed people getting shot and killed by the police is unfair. Ukrainian people going about their daily lives just a week ago having to dodge Putin's missiles aimed at their homes today, is unfair.

Having to wear a mask is a minuscule inconvenience when you consider that it helps protect the health and wellbeing of other people. We should willingly and gladly participate in this effort, not whine incessantly about it like two year olds.

Have we really become a nation of spoiled little children?

Serious discourse on how unfair life is for white people in this country is not just found on right wing media outlets like FOX.

Iowa governor Kim Reynolds delivered the Republican rebuttal to President Biden's State of the Union Address the other night. Sprinkled in between rants blaming the current administration for all our nation's problems from the current inflation rate to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, normal stuff in hyper-partisan speeches like this one, Reynolds threw in some nuggets that with the exception of the abusive language, reflect the overall theme of white victimhood heard in the racist song:

Talk to Americans about what's on their mind. Ask them: What are your concerns? What keeps you up at night?
They'll tell you, and I can tell you what's not on that list.

They won't tell you that we should be paying people not to work.

A dog whistle as old as the hills, "paying people not to work" to the ultra-right, evokes images of black welfare queens and drug dealers getting rich by doing nothing, off the backs of hard working white people. But honestly, I've never met anyone of any color who balked at getting a free handout from the government, whether it was the monthly $250 COVID relief check from the IRS, (damn I miss that extra cash in the bank, thank you Joe Manchin), farmers getting paid NOT to grow crops, or rich people not having to pay their fair share of taxes. 

Americans are tired of a political class trying to remake this country into a place where an elite few tell everyone else what they can and cannot say. What they can and cannot believe. 

I for one believe there is no right in a democracy more sacred than the right to freedom of speech. The lack of tolerance for other people's opinions is not the exclusive domain of the left or the right, it exists on both sides of the political divide. But like all freedoms, freedom of speech is not absolute. What is often missed on both sides are a few things. First, freedom does not mean we have the freedom to say or do whatever we please, we cannot cause serious harm to others for example in the name of exercising our rights. Second, rights go hand in hand with responsibility which ties directly into number three: while freedom of speech means that the government cannot imprison you for what you say, it does not mean that you can say whatever you feel like with the expectation that there will be no consequences such as public derision, termination of a social media account, or even losing your job.

I'm not exactly sure who Governor Reynolds is referring to as the political elite class, I can only guess it is the party to which she does not belong, the Democratic Party. What is elite about the Democrats I don't know, perhaps it's simply because they are currently in power, and her party is not. The extreme right in this country does not hide its disdain for what they call the "mainstream media" which they claim is biased against them. While that may be true, there is certainly no lack of media outlets that are more than willing to espouse their ideology, FOX being a prime example. So I seriously question her assertion that anyone in this country is stifling her words or her beliefs. 

Save perhaps for one exception.

Consider the "N word". I often come across commentaries from the extreme right that claim how unfair it is that it's acceptable for black people to use the degrading word, but not for whites. 

You can't see it but I'm currently making that stupid, quizzical look on my face that Tucker Carlson is famous for. You know the look, the one someone once described as the look on the face of an eight year old who's just learned about sex.

In case you don't get it. let me explain in the simplest of terms. I have a family whom I love dearly. But like everyone else, once in a while, when someone in my family gets on my nerves. I reserve the right to use choice language to express my feelings of frustration. But don't think for a minute that you can talk the same way about my family unless you want a punch in the nose.

Is that unfair? If you think it is, then deal with it.

In other words, if you're white, you're perfectly free to use the "N" word, but understand that there can and will be consequences. That's not unfair, it's just the way it is, sorry.

They're tired of people pretending the way to end racism is by categorizing everybody by their race.

This is a new dog-whistle for the ultra-right, their claim to desire a "color blind" society. 

I find that particularly ironic since on the one hand, Republicans preach that we should not take into account a person's race, while on the other hand they are gerrymandering congressional districts to gain political advantage based upon race and creating voting restrictions that pointedly target and disenfranchise people of color.

I guess they figure if we don't take race into account, no one will notice what they're doing.

Now for the piece de resistance, a doozy that combines dog whistles both old and new, with a healthy dose of bullshit thrown in for good measure:

The Department of Justice treats parents like domestic terrorists but looters and shoplifters roam free. 

The first part is referring to the Justice Department investigating in the words of Attorney General Merrick Garland, a "disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators" on the part of parents. The AG adds that: "While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views."

The parents in question are protesting issues near and dear to the hearts of the ultra-right, mask mandates and the supposed teaching of "Critical Race Theory." The latter is one of the latest contributors to the idea of white victimhood and another dog whistle to the white-right, because teaching the truth about American history in regard to race, might make their children upset. And according to them, parents obviously should have the final say on what they want and don't want their children to be upset about. 

Then comes one of the oldest racist dog whistles in the book. If you can't explicitly mention the "N" word, "looters and shoplifters roaming free" conveys the idea just fine to a particular audience.

Look, I don't believe that most Republicans are virulent racists. Many of their concerns such as the rapid increase of violent crime are legitimate concerns to all Americans, especially nonwhite Americans who are disproportionately the victims of it. 

But it's obvious that the M.O. of the Republican Party for a good number of years has been to react to the very real fact that at some point in the near future, the majority of Americans will no longer be white. Lots of white folks are scared shitless of that. So rather than trying to make their base more inclusive, a good number of Republicans, the ones currently in control of the party, have chosen the other route and have all but declared themselves to be the party of white people, then promote fear among their base that if something is not done immediately, democracy be damned if it has to be, the other folks will take over.

If you don't believe me, just ask our friend Tucker Carlson. 

Carlson may be the single most powerful voice today in the MAGA world. He is not an idiot; he just plays one on TV. I have serious doubts that he believes much of the stuff he puts out there, but he knows his audience and exactly what to say that will get them to coming back day after day. That's good for FOX's bottom line and for his own pocketbook which is already stuffed to the gills. 

Publicly anyway, Carlson is a staunch supporter of "White Replacement Theory", the idea that Democrats are actively importing immigrants from south of the border and other predominantly nonwhite countries in order to offset or in his words, "replace" white voters in this country, If you recall: "we will not be replaced" was the chant of the tiki torch carrying white supremacist mob in Chorlottesville in 2017. One of Carlson's most idiotic comments is this:

Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter.

What could possibly be more unfair than that? Poor undeserving Tucks.

Beyond the utter nonsense of the idea of Democrats importing voters, the premise of that statement outlines the belief of the MAGA crowd that white people have a completely different agenda than nonwhite people, and that there is essentially nothing in common between us. How will we ever unite as a country with that attitude?

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Sadly, there is still a big audience for the racist song mentioned above. I just googled it and the site listed over one hundred thousand results pointing to pages that feature the song and others like it. Reading the comments on those pages is really taking a dive into the darkest recesses of the American psyche. 

As we've seen, Carlson and Governor Reynolds to name just two, may not be card carrying white supremacists themselves, but they speak their language, and see no problem garnering their support.

These two and many others like them only worse, are the face of today's Republican Party.

If you are a Republican AND reject racism, this should deeply trouble you. There may come a time, and that time may be now, when you have to chose one or the other. 

Reverse Racism?

I thought I had the perfect argument for why reverse racism is a myth. It started in all places, with a Facebook exchange about a hockey game.

Last Saturday night, the Chicago Blackhawks hosted the Washington Capitals. When a Cap player was sent to the penalty box, some Hawks' fans taunted him, not at all uncommon for partisan hockey fans.

What is a bit uncommon is that the player, forward Devante Smith-Pelly, is one of only about thirty black players in the National Hockey League, which works out to about one player per team. While serving a five minute penalty for fighting, four fans wearing Blackhawk jerseys chanted what some considered racial epithets at Smith-Pelly, that not only got them booted from the game, but banned by the Blackhawk organization for life.

And what exactly did the fans chant at Smith-Pelly?

"Basketball, basketball, basketball."

The Facebook exchange in question was between two friends, both white males of whom I think it would be fair to say are both politically conservative. One is a staunch Republican and a Trump supporter, the other is a a card carrying member of the Contrarian Party, most definitely not a supporter of the president.

The Trump supporter posted his outrage at the fans for their racist behavior, to which the Contrarian replied: "since when is 'basketball' a racist term?"

Having contrarian tendencies myself, I completely understood where that friend was coming from. In fact, I was a little surprised and heartened by the almost unanimous public outrage directed at these fans. The only ones who didn't fall in line with the popular public sentiment were the usual suspects, genuine racists, people clueless of American culture, especially its sports culture, and of course, contrarians.

My contribution to the conversation was tepid. I said that in a perfect world, yelling "basketball" at a black hockey player on the other team shouldn't be a big deal, after all, it's an obvious observation that the game of basketball, especially at the professional level. is dominated by black athletes. But our world is far from perfect, especially regarding the issue of race. Given that, unless they fell into the clueless camp which is highly unlikely, the taunters knew exactly what they were doing and how their chants would be taken. As they say, "intent is nine tenths of the law." I added that I felt the Blackhawks were perfectly justified in their response.

To that, the Trump supporter brought up the hypothetical situation of the reverse taking place at a Chicago Bulls basketball game in the same building, namely a black fan chanting "hockey, hockey, hockey" at a white player on the opposing bench. That scenario is precisely what I considered to be the perfect illustration of the myth of reverse racism. You see, I've actually witnessed black people yelling something about hockey to white basketball players. Actually I thought it was pretty funny, and for the life of me, I can't imagine any white player being seriously offended by that remark, especially if it was coming from fans of the other team. I didn't pose that question to my right wing friends but I can only imagine their response would be the same: if it's considered racist for one side, it should be racist for both. After all, fair's fair.

Unless it isn't.

I posed the question to my son the following day. He agreed with me that the hockey fans taunting the black player was definitely a racist act, while the hypothetical situation of black fans taunting a white basketball player with the word "hockey" was not. But he begged to differ on the idea that black folks can't be racists.

My children have grown up in a racially integrated neighborhood, participate on integrated sports teams and dance groups, ride on integrated public transportation. and go to integrated schools. But last summer, my son had the experience of being the only white kid in a summer program for Chicago school kids. In that program he experienced some outright hostility from some of his peers because of his race. Having experienced this, he told me that he chafed at a comment from a girl in the group who said flat out that black people, and members other minority groups, cannot be racists. 

Racism comes in all shapes and sizes. In our day, it's just about the worst accusation you can make against someone. However when pressed, I think few people can adequately define racism, to them it's a little like the word pornography was to Justice Potter Stewart who famously quipped when justifying his ruling on a 1964 obscenity case that he may not be able to adequately define what pornography is, but "I know it when I see it."

To many of us, white folks especially, my son included, the terms racism and prejudice describe precisely the same thing.

Here's the definition of the word as found in Merriam Webster:

racism:  a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

It's that belief that one race,  usually one's own, is superior to the others that makes racism different from run-of-the-mill prejudice.

So at least according to Merriam Webster, if a black person considered her race to be superior to all others, that person would be a racist right?

Well not so fast.

In an article I stumbled across from Vice Canada, the author Manisha Krishman quotes Anthony Morgan, a Toronto-based civil and human rights lawyer:

Racism is based on a couple of things—historical, systemic oppression and power, ... And as far as history goes, white people have never been persecuted for the colour of their skin—so there's no point comparing their experiences to those of black, brown, and Indigenous folks.

To that Krishman adds:

...Morgan said even if all people of colour straight up said they hate white people, it wouldn't affect a white person's ability to get a job, an education, or increase the odds that they'd get carded or charged for a crime.

Now we're getting somewhere. Of course some white folks would beg to differ, especially if they feel that the American Dream of having it better than their parents, is out of their reach. They see affirmative action and other well intentioned attempts to level the playing field between the races, as governmental interference putting them at a disadvantage because of the color of their skin.

To that issue Mr. Morgan says:

When you're so deeply invested in your privilege, and in this case white privilege, racial equality feels like oppression.

Now it's unlikely that message, coming from a civil rights lawyer up in Canada, is going to play well to say, an unemployed white coal miner in West Virginia who probably would not feel himself to be the beneficiary of "white privilege."

As I said above, racism comes in all shapes and sizes. The question often comes up, is the current President of the United States a racist? While I don't agree with his son often, I thought that Eric Trump's remark that the only color his father sees is green, was spot on. My impression has always been that the only thing Donald Trump judged people on was how much money they had. Even the lip service he gives at times to white supremacists strikes me as mere pandering to his base, rather than genuine racism. After all, Trump at least judging by his public persona, feels superior to everybody, not just black people. However his gratuitous "shit hole" comment about Africa and Haiti to select members of Congress, was the straw that broke the camel's back, at least for me. It seems to have cemented into posterity his true feelings about black people, earning him a place at the table in the pantheon of famous racists of the world, whether deserved or not.

Unfortunately, the need to feel superior to other human beings seems to be a common thread in the species Homo sapiens. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the most virulent and open racists are people who come from the lower stratas of society. You might be a dirt poor white guy with no money, no education, no skills, no prospects, and no self-esteem, but in American society as it has existed since its beginning, at least you could feel like you were superior to black folks, no matter how accomplished they were.

That too is white privilege, picayune as it may seem. To these people, racial equality truly must be a bitter pill to swallow.

I needn't go into the tragic history of black people in the United States. With the election of Barack Obama, some folks mistakenly believed that we lived in a "post racial" America, where we no longer needed to concern ourselves with the divide between the races. The election of the current president has proven that to be quite wrong.

You may argue, why would a professional athlete at the highest level of his profession, making scads of money, be upset by the actions of a few cretins who happen to have enough money to sit in the pricey seats along the ice? Well in a day when the President of the United States himself singles out black athletes daring to publicly protest injustices in their community as being sonsofbitches who deserved to be fired, you can rest assured that no matter high or mighty you may be, there are still people not worthy of carrying your jockstrap who are more than happy to put you in your place.

As for my son who was harassed by some minority kids, I had this to say: you experienced treatment that those kids and their ancestors have experienced in this country for centuries, something that hockey player experienced just last week. The difference is, you don't live in a country that continues to argue about honoring people who actively fought to enslave your people. The president of the United States doesn't call the continent of your ancestry a shithole and have countless people agree with him. You get to go out into the world and not have to worry about being profiled, carded, suspected of crimes, wrongly arrested, and perhaps even shot and killed by the police, just because of the color of your skin. Unfortunately those kids and even that rich NHL player can't say the same thing.

It's a tough lesson to teach and to learn. Living it, as African American people do every day, is much tougher.