Tim Wise's Blog, page 3

Patriotism is for Black People: Colin Kaepernick, Donald Trump and the Selectivity of White Rage

So just in case you were wondering, when a white man bellows that America is no longer great, and in fact is akin to a third world country, and that many other countries are better than we are at all kinds of things — and this is why we should elect him, so he can “make America great again,” because right now, we’re sorta suckin’ wind — that is the height of patriotism. The kind of talk we need! The kind of nationalistic endorsement around which all Americans should be willing to rally.

And when this same man says black people aren’t safe from other black people, and they can’t even walk down the street without getting shot by other black people, and that’s why they specifically should vote for him, so he can make their communities safe, that too is to be understood as a laudable commentary, even an ecumenical “outreach” to African Americans. Because black folks naturally love it when white men tell them how utterly degenerate is their daily existence, having spent exactly zero time in actual black communities so as to know what the hell they’re talking about.

However — and here’s where things get tricky — if a black man like 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refuses to stand for the national anthem because he feels the country hasn’t done right by black folks, and especially with regard to the un-punished killing of far too many by law enforcement, that is to be understood as treasonous, as grounds for his dismissal from his team, and as a justification to insist that he take his exit from the nation he apparently “hates.” Because after all, who would condemn conditions in America who didn’t by definition hate it? (And as you ponder that query feel free to ignore the first two paragraphs above, as the maintenance of cognitive dissonance — big words, Trump fans wouldn’t understand — is incredibly valuable at times like this).

In short, white men (well, at least those on the right) can issue all manner of calumny against the United States. They can condemn its economics and its immigration policies; they can paint a picture of culturally defective black people as some underclass contagion within it; they can condemn it for not being sufficiently Christian, sufficiently militaristic, or sufficiently harsh on refugees. They can suggest that other countries are better at everything from infrastructure investment to trade negotiations, and still be viewed as fundamentally committed to the well-being of the country—indeed as presidential material, by millions.

But black folks cannot so much as open their mouths in criticism without the wrath of white America descending upon their shoulders. When they criticize — and especially if the criticism is about racism and inequality — they must be painted as hateful and petty. They must be told to leave because “there are millions who would gladly take their place,” and they must be made pariahs, symbolic of the lack of gratitude black people have for the country that has “given them” so much.

Of course, one might note (if one were being historically accurate, insightful or even remotely lucid, and I realize this is optional for white conservatives), that the same country has given white people quite a bit more over the centuries than it has blacks: like hundreds of millions of acres of virtually free land under the Homestead Act, hundreds of billions of dollars in housing equity under the FHA and VA loan programs at a time when blacks were barred from them, and job and educational opportunities for generations that it only recently has provided to African Americans, even in theory. As such, one might argue that if anyone’s complaints about America should raise concerns about ingratitude it is likely ours, not those of black folks. One could say that, you know, if honesty was a thing for which one had much regard.

And if one really wanted to wrap things up with a nice tidy bow, one might note (and I surely will now) that for a rich man like Donald Trump to complain about America — a nation that allowed even the mediocre likes of him to succeed by inheriting a couple hundred million dollars worth of assets from his daddy — is especially precious and ironic. Oh, and of course, when Trump complains, despite his supposed “billions” of dollars, the same people who scream that Kaepernick should shut up because he makes $11 million a year, go silent. Because when black people make more than white people, white people get pissy, but when other white people make more than white people, white people admire them. And so it goes.

Naturally, that so many rail against Kaepernick for criticizing the U.S. is hardly shocking. These are the same people who screamed about President Obama for campaigning on a desire to “change” America for the better, because America “doesn’t need to be changed,” dammit. Although “Hope and Change” was a far less pessimistic or critical slogan than “Make America Great Again,” those who embrace the latter were in full dudgeon over the former. Likewise, when Rev. Jeremiah Wright simply told the truth about the history of U.S. foreign policy — and he did, every single word — and suggested that perhaps God would not bless America but damn us for our actions, the fact that the Obamas had gone to church at Wright’s house of worship was, in the minds of millions, sufficient grounds for his defeat. Because again, black people are not allowed to condemn the country for its shortcomings.

When Thurgood Marshall, the nation’s first black Supreme Court Justice, threw cold water on the nation’s bicentennial celebration for the Constitution back in 1987 — and this, because, as he explained, he didn’t have 200 years to celebrate, given the deep-seated flaws embedded in the document at its inception, including the protection of chattel slavery — he was pilloried in the press. Marshall explained that the Constitution had been “defective” from the start, and only 200 years of struggle (led often and mostly by black folks, in fact) had begun to make real the promises of the founders. That Marshall’s historiography was exactly correct — inarguable even — mattered not to those who found his position intolerable and un-American.

It has always been thus: patriotism is for black people, meaning that it is they (or perhaps other immigrants of color) who are expected to show gratitude, to ignore the nation’s flaws, to sign off on America’s greatness without reservation, because anything less is presumptive evidence of disloyalty. And it makes sense, really. After all, when your nation was built by the deliberate oppression of black and brown peoples, the exploitation of their labor, and the theft of indigenous land — and anyone who would deny this is insufficiently educated to be taken seriously — it is especially vital to police their devotion and fealty to the edifice that marginalized them; to punish them for any deviation. Because to allow them the space to criticize, to condemn, and to castigate, is to allow them the space to organize, and to fight, and to transform.

It is to ensure that they may be the ones to make America great. Not again. But for the first time.

And we can’t allow that.

Because to do so would force us to reckon with how much of our previous self-congratulatory back-patting had been unearned. It would force us to gaze upon the steady history of broken promises without sentimentality. And it would force us to make a decision as to where we stand: with our heads turned towards a fictive past or aimed in the direction of a better future.

Sadly, some would prefer to simply wave a flag and pretend that in the act of doing so they had demonstrated their love for the country and the people therein. But in truth, all such persons have ever managed to demonstrate is their own vapid understanding of the principles upon which said country was ostensibly founded.

The National Anthem, like the Pledge of Allegiance, is a symbol of America. But speaking out for justice is the substance of America, and therefore infinitely more valuable.

No Real Angels in Hell: Police Violence, Black Lives and the White Obsession With Perfect Victims

It is increasingly apparent that white Americans hate the Constitution.

Not all white people and not the entire Constitution of course; but certainly a frightening lot of us and some of the most important parts. We love the Second Amendment — at least in so far as it protects our right to bear arms, even as we aren’t nearly so supportive of black folks trying to exercise theirs — but as for the quaint notions of due process or equal protection? Those are but trifles, orange cones on the highway of law and order, to which we are expected to pay some minor attention, but ultimately forget about in the name of the greater good.

And by greater good, I mean the apparent desire to rationalize virtually anything done to a black body by a blue-uniformed member of the nation’s law enforcement apparatus, usually by making note of the less-than-angelic history of the decedent before the bullets ripped flesh. Because to much of white America, only angels can be true victims and only saints deserve eulogy; and surely no lesser beings are deserving of the Constitutional guarantees referenced above, at least when the dead are black or brown. And so, in the most recent cases of Korryn Gaines and Paul O’Neal, we are instructed not to mourn them, and surely not to make them poster children for the black lives that we insist matter. After all, Gaines pointed a gun at officers and O’Neal stole a car, after which felony he proceeded to lead police on a chase. That both ended up dead is entirely their own fault, we are assured. To think otherwise is to make victims of criminals who brought their demise upon themselves. Surely we will soon hear this refrain again in the wake of yesterday’s shooting of an armed black man by Milwaukee police, which shooting touched off a night of violence in that city.

Theywerenoangels. Theywerenoangels. Theywerenoangels.

Say it three times in a mirror while spinning around on one leg, and then perhaps the ghost of Antonin Scalia or Andrew Breitbart will visit you and reassure you that all is right with the world. The scary black people are dead and we have to support our police and they do a dangerous job and you don’t want to do it and if your house was being robbed who would you call…a protester?

Of course there are fact patterns even amid this cacophony. And though they won’t matter to most of those who repeat the above formulations as if they were sacred omkara, perhaps it would do us well to remember them.

Like the fact that the police at whom Korryn Gaines pointed her weapon had come to haul her out of her house in the presence of her child for minor vehicle and traffic violations. Because the need for Baltimore County officials to serve arrest warrants on such hardened criminals as this is more important than the need for Gaines to live another day. And yes, perhaps if she doesn’t point that pistol-grip shotgun at officers and threaten them she’s still alive, and so in the proximate sense one can certainly argue that Gaines’s actions made her shooting legally justifiable. Yet the question remains: when Gaines pointed that gun at the officers, was their only recourse to fire upon her? Especially when they knew she had her five year old child huddled close by? Especially if they believed—rightly or wrongly based on previous encounters—that she may be dealing with some form of emotional or mental distress? If they had decided instead to fall back, de-escalate the situation and perhaps try again another time to serve whatever warrant they were trying to serve, what would have been sacrificed by such a choice? Nothing really, except perhaps pride. And ultimately it is that about which the Baltimore County police were most concerned. They could not, would not, allow this black woman to win the day. Even for some minor infractions.

And what of Paul O’Neal? Chicago police fired at his fleeing vehicle, in complete defiance of department policy, common sense and the law, then chased him, and when he exited the car on foot they proceeded to run him down and shoot him in the back as many as fifteen times. He was unarmed, he posed no threat to the officers, and his death was of such little concern to them that even as his body lay warm on the ground they were giving each other high-fives, complaining about the inconvenience of whatever investigation might follow, and checking to make sure their body cameras were turned off. Because to the CPD, a dead black man is less important than whatever vacation days they might lose as punishment for his murder. And after all, he stole a car—a crime for which the punishment is not, I beg to remind, execution.

But for Gaines and O’Neal, police could not let them live even as they figured out another way to uphold their duties. Because to do so would have been to allow Gaines and O’Neal—black people—to show them up, to put one over on them, to wound their fragile and racialized sense of white masculinity. And so they could not in either case extend to these two the same courtesies proffered to an entire gaggle of white men on the Bundy Ranch, who not only pointed guns at law enforcement, but promised to use them—and even to use the women on the ranch as human shields. Just for shits and giggles try and imagine what would have happened if several dozen of Korryn Gaines’s closest black friends had shown up at her house, armed and vowing to defend her against being arrested, all the while pointing guns at police? Now, feel free to locate a thesaurus and insert all the different synonyms for bloodbath here.

No, they couldn’t figure out a way to arrest Gaines or O’Neal without killing them, the way police did with this white man who actually killed an officer during a standoff while barricaded in a house.

Or the way they did with this white guy who killed a Pennsylvania State Trooper and then went on the run for 48 days.

Or this white guy — an Indianapolis police officer — who shot one of his colleagues and then led other officers on a chase until he was finally captured.

Or this white guy who opened fire inside a family restaurant in Louisville.

Or this white guy who stalked Portland, Oregon police for months and was finally arrested while parked outside a precinct station with a car full of guns and ammo.

Or this white guy in Idaho who killed a cop, went on the run, and then refused to come out of his hiding spot when police first cornered him.

Or this white guy who pointed a weapon at three New Orleans officers and told them to “drop your fucking guns.”

Or this white guy who shot up a movie theatre full of people and was arrested outside without a scratch.

Or this white guy who was walking around menacingly downtown in Louisville with an 18-inch knife.

Or this white guy who literally beat the crap out of two police officers before getting away.

Lots of people, as it turns out, fall short on the angelic scale. But some are still carbon-based life forms as I write these words and some are not; and the reasons for this, though not entirely about race, are certainly informed by it.

Ultimately, the search for the perfect victim is as impossible as it is insulting. It is impossible because there are few persons who find themselves attaining adulthood without having done something, often several somethings, about which we’d prefer others not know, and which, if they did, would likely serve to besmirch our character. It is insulting because it suggests that unless one has a relatively spotless record—and certainly unless they are free from any serious criminal activity—one should have no expectation of safety, security or even the luxury of another breath. It is to say that the Constitutional rights of equal protection and due process do not apply to those with criminal histories or who have a penchant for mouthing off to police or questioning their authority. It is to say that once one has done something defined as criminal that said person forfeits from that point forward any right they may have to humane treatment by police; that one’s past will always be one’s present; that there is no redemption, no restoration, no second chance, and no sympathy when things for such a person go sideways. In which case why even have trials? By the logic of such a standard we should simply check to see if people arrested have a record already, and if so, pronounce them guilty on the spot or maybe even put a bullet in their heads, thereby saving the state the expense of incarceration. The outcome would be exactly the same.

That we don’t really mean this of course, and that we only hold out such impossible standards for black people and the poor should be apparent. My guess is that if some member of the NYPD were to open up a clip on any of the Wall Street grifters who helped tank the economy in 2008—not that this would ever happen, but please, just play along—-few would rush to justify the killing on the grounds that the banker in question was “no angel.”

If police were to violently dispatch the lives of corporate executives or bosses who steal their employees’ wages by refusing to pay them for work done, or paying them less than the law requires, or cheating them out of overtime—and indeed, wage theft is a bigger problem, financially, than all the street robberies in this country combined, according to the FBI—it is unlikely FOX News would rush to rationalize the killing, by noting the far-from-angelic business practices in which the recently-deceased had engaged.

And the reason we would treat those kinds of cases differently is because we would know that the executive or the banker was not simply the sum total of their misdeeds. We would understand, intuitively, that their humanity was not defined entirely by the worst things they had ever done. We would not reduce them to an algorithm of pathology. We would not forget that they were somebody’s child, brother, sister, husband, wife, lover, friend, or parent. We would not deem them irredeemable. Would that the same could be said for Korryn Gaines or Paul O’Neal or any of the other names I could list here from the past several months, let alone years, let alone decades, to say nothing of centuries.

But for those latter souls, near perfection is required before compassion can attach. Otherwise they are disposable, only worthy of mention in so far as white folks can use them as examples of black pathology and dysfunction. Because white America dearly loves to use black death to teach a lesson, but never about our culture; rather, and only to teach a much more localized lesson to black people about theirs. And so we feign empathy as we prattle on about so-called “black-on-black” violence: an inherently racist term which suggests there is something about blackness that explains it, but which suggestion we don’t make in the case of the never-so-named “white-on-white violence,” even as it remains about four times more prevalent than its darker counterpart. We cluck our tongues about blacks killing blacks in places like Paul O’Neal’s Chicago, as a way to redirect black people to what we think the real problem is. But in the face of such entreaties as this, is not the intrinsic absurdity of the “they were no angels” narrative, obvious? After all, surely we must know that most of the black folks killed by other black folks likely had records and were also “no angels” for what that’s worth. Many were rival gang members. So are we supposed to believe that white Americans suddenly care about non-angelic black people when killed by other black people? Of course not. They are just stage props, or perhaps a magician’s trick we use to avoid the larger issue: that we view black life as disposable and have for a very long time.

We send that message in a million different ways. From the justice system to schooling to the labor market to housing opportunities or the lack thereof. That message—and one can say this without any fear of contradiction—was one of the seminal articulations of this nation from its earliest days, and has remained among its most stridently and consistently repackaged communiques ever since. At this late date then, it is more than a bit unbecoming for us to act surprised when those raised on a steady diet of it come to believe it, and act on the basis of it, either in the name of the state or the Gangster Disciples.

Bottom line: there are no real angels in Hell; and a kind of Hell is what we’ve allowed racial inequity to make of this place. Until that ceases to be so, and until we understand that black lives matter—all black lives, and not just the ones that make white people comfortable—we will sadly repeat this ritual over and over again, and likely far sooner than any of us would prefer to imagine.

Armed With a Loaded Footnote: How the Right Rationalizes Racial Disparity

Possibly the only thing worse than racism itself is the pseudo-intellectual way in which some seek to justify it. For instance, consider the standard conservative response to those of us who argue that the criminal justice system is the site of significant racialized unfairness. Whether the subject is racial profiling, stop-and-frisk rates, arrest rates, rates of incarceration, or the rates at which blacks are shot by police, those on the right are quick to dismiss disparities in these areas by claiming that because rates of criminal offending are higher in black communities, disparities in enforcement of the law are only to be expected.

This line of reasoning has been the default position, for instance, of conservative scholar Heather MacDonald, whose new book, The War On Cops, is but the latest in her years-long attempt to rationalize away any and all disparities in the justice system. According to MacDonald — who previously made this case so as to defend the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policies, and who now uses the same logic to justify disproportionate use of force against blacks by police — if rates of arrest, incarceration, and the rates at which blacks experience police force are consistent with rates of criminal offending, there is no evidence of racism.

But there are several problems, both theoretical and concrete, with these arguments.

First, although black arrest and incarceration rates for crimes like murder, aggravated assault, rape and robbery, do roughly mirror the rates at which blacks commit those crimes, arrest and incarceration rates for other offenses (especially drug offenses) suggest a significant disproportionality, above and beyond rates of black offending. In other words, even using the standard of analysis preferred by the right, there is still evidence of bias in the justice system.

As I have explained elsewhere, once one compares the best estimates we have of drug usage rates, with the rates at which whites and blacks are arrested for drug possession, there are roughly 160,000 blacks each year who are arrested, above and beyond what their rates of offending would otherwise justify; and there are 160,000 whites who are not arrested, who would be, if arrest rates mirrored rates of drug possession violations. That is no small degree of disparity. Over a decade, it means 1.6 million more blacks and 1.6 million fewer whites with drug records than would be the case in a system where law enforcement treated all equitably.

But even for more serious crimes, “controlling” for offending rates as a way to debunk the possibility of racial bias is an inherently flawed manner in which to analyze the subject matter. Think for a minute about what is being said when people make this argument. They are saying that if blacks as a group commit x percent of crime in a community or nation, there can be no racial bias operating so long as the share of persons stopped and frisked, arrested, prosecuted or incarcerated for those crimes is equal to x, or below that level. Only if rates of arrest and punishment exceed x by some appreciable amount can we say that racism could be the culprit. But how is this true at the level of actual personal experiences and cases? How does the fact of general offending by blacks at x percent mean that racism can’t be operating in given cases, even many of them, involving not abstract black people but actual black people who may or may not be guilty of anything?

For instance, let’s say that in a given community, 90 percent of the violent crime is committed by black people, perhaps because the community is pretty much all black. And let’s say 90 percent of the people stopped by police in this community, on suspicion of having done something wrong are black, as are 90 percent of the people arrested, prosecuted and sent to jail from that community. According to conservative theory, these aggregate numbers would prove there had been no racism operating. But actually, those numbers could look exactly the same, whether there was no racism or complete racism. How? Simple.

Just for the sake of argument — and to test this hypothesis — imagine that every cop in this neighborhood’s precinct was a bigot who targeted black people randomly for stops and frisks, without much or any reason to do so, based solely on their own bigotry, which they “justified” in their own minds by reference to aggregate data about crime rates. Obviously, at the individual, experiential level, those stops would involve racism. They would involve cops singling people out because they don’t like African Americans and/or perceive them all as interchangeable criminals. And those black people they single out would be innocent in almost every case. So the fact that other black people in the neighborhood were not innocent, would not change the fact that those who were stopped would have experienced a racialized injustice.

In a slightly less blatant fashion, this is roughly what blacks experienced for years under stop-and-frisk in New York. Only six percent of persons stopped ended up being arrested, and less than 1.5 percent were found with drugs or weapons. Overwhelmingly the black people who were stopped — who comprised 52 percent of all persons stopped — had not done anything. But according to MacDonald, to the extent blacks commit a disproportionate share of crime in New York — and over 85 percent of all shootings — there was no racism operating. If anything, blacks were stopped less often than they should have been, given the crime data. But this argument is almost stunning for its logical and factual ignorance.

First, only about 15 percent of stops under stop-and-frisk were made by officers who were investigating violent crime—this, according to the police department’s own records. So the fact that blacks commit a disproportionate share of violent crime — and nearly 9 in 10 shootings — has little bearing on something like stop rates. If I’m not stopping you on suspicion of having committed one of those crimes, what relevance does that data have? None, by definition. Stops were overwhelmingly for subjective causes like “furtive movements,” suspicion of trespassing, or simply because the person stopped was in a “high crime neighborhood,” the last of which justifications could obviously be used to rationalize stopping every single person who lives there, every single day, regardless of actual behavior, let alone criminal guilt. To deny that such a thing as that constitutes racism (and almost by definition), suggests that in the mouth of Heather MacDonald, words have no meaning and language is dead.

Secondly, many of the stops were for suspicion of drug activity, but since whites use drugs at roughly the same rate as blacks (and actually deal them at similar rates as well), as noted previously, disproportionate stops for drugs cannot be justified with reference to rates of infraction.

Getting back to the main point: racism cannot be proved or disproved based solely on aggregate statistical comparisons; but rather, real-world facts involving actual interactions. As a more obvious example, let’s imagine a community where all the violent crime was committed by black people because the entire community was black. Under conservative theory, nothing the police might do in that community to actual black residents could be considered racism. Nothing. Because no matter how many people they stop, frisk, beat, kill, or arrest, the percentage of those who experienced these things and were black could not exceed 100 percent, by definition! So even if there were a group of police in this community who were secretly members of some Neo-Nazi gang (and thus, by anyone’s standards, racists), nothing they proceeded to do to the residents there could qualify as racism to hear Heather MacDonald tell it, at least not so far as data would allow us to see. Even if these cops conspired to single out black people in the community to murder, solely to satisfy their racial animus against blacks as a group, statistical inference would exculpate them of any racist injustice.

So let’s imagine these officers went out and each murdered one black person a week, targeting them and then fabricating evidence that would allow them to claim that the blacks in question had pulled weapons on them, thereby justifying the shootings. And let’s assume that only black people were shot by police in this community. Since 100 percent of the crime had been done by blacks and 100 percent of the people shot were black, everything would be considered fine, presumably. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that this is what happens — that cops just go randomly murder people as some standard practice — but the point is, even if they were, the model of statistical inference upon which the right relies to debunk racism would acquit the police of any wrongdoing, so long as their misdeeds remained undiscovered. Their racism would be obscured by the aggregate data.

By the same token, using conservative logic, virtually nothing Bull Connor’s police might have done to black folks in terms of disparate law enforcement in early 1960s Birmingham would have been racist either. Since neighborhoods were segregated, for instance, it goes without saying that virtually all the crime in black neighborhoods (save, perhaps, Klan bombings) would have been committed by black people, since that’s who lived there. So if Bull Connor’s cops regularly stopped and harassed black people for no reason other than to satiate their bigotry, and framed certain black folks for crimes they didn’t commit — and surely even the Heather MacDonalds of the world can’t deny this might well have been common at the time — data would not indicate anything untoward. After all, 100 percent of the crime in the neighborhood would have been done by blacks, and thus we should “expect” 100 percent of the stops, arrests, beatings, shootings and incarcerations from those neighborhoods to be of blacks as well. The fact that the blacks stopped, arrested, beaten, shot or incarcerated could theoretically have all been innocent, and the victims of racist policing — even as other blacks in the community really were committing those crimes — is unaccounted for and unrecognized by the logic of conservative denialists. To them, in effect, black people are interchangeable — whether innocent or guilty — and so long as the percentage unjustly harassed or mistreated does not exceed the percentage who actually did something wrong, everything is chill.

In short, racism could be operating in every case, theoretically, and the numbers might look the same as if there were no racism operating. I’m not saying that’s the case, but one cannot determine based solely on aggregate data and statistical inference, what is happening on the ground in particular cases. Although the above hypotheticals may seem extreme, to the extent they demonstrate the weakness of relying on aggregate data to rationalize inequality, they torpedo the conservative methodology for debunking racism. But using more realistic possible hypotheticals can make the case just as well.

So, for instance, and putting aside the prospect of Neo-Nazi police gangs for a second, what if police are quicker to presume guilt for a particular suspect because of racial bias — perhaps subconscious and subtle? Or what if prosecutors are? Or what if juries are quicker to presume guilt and discount exculpatory evidence when the defendant is black? In those cases, which certainly seem within the realm of the possible, racism could be implicated in particular arrests, prosecutions or incarcerations, even if the larger data suggested nothing was wrong and even if the crimes in question actually were committed by black people.

So too, if half of murders are committed by blacks, and half of arrests for murder are of blacks, this doesn’t disprove racism in any given case. What if police are making these arrests on the basis of weaker evidence than they might require were the suspect white? What if prosecutors are quicker to bring the case to trial than they would be for a white person given the same fact pattern? What if jurors are quicker to presume guilt and convict? In other words, the fact that some black people are committing murder – and are indeed half of all murderers – does not necessarily mean racism is not operating in the given arrest and prosecution of a particular black person, or even all black people.

Theoretically it would be possible for every single black defendant arrested for murder to be innocent, and to have been the target of racist police, and still have the aggregate data look as it does. Although I am not suggesting this is the case, let’s just pretend that police were all so incredibly racist that whenever there was a murder committed by a black person they just went and grabbed random black people off the street, planted evidence on them and called in the D.A. In other words, lets pretend that in every single case involving a black defendant, the actual black person being charged and prosecuted was innocent and was only facing trial because of the bigotry of the cops. At the end of the year, so long as the aggregate number of blacks arrested, tried and incarcerated for murder didn’t exceed 50 percent – even if every single actual black person who was arrested, tried and convicted was innocent and had been racially targeted – people like Heather MacDonald would look at the data and say, no harm, no foul.

The test of racism then, is not whether stop and frisk rates, arrest rates, or incarceration rates mirror offending rates, but whether individual persons stopped, arrested or incarcerated are experiencing those things because of racial bias. And that determination requires quite a bit more nuance and willingness to listen to communities of color than the likes of Heather MacDonald can apparently countenance.

The point is, black people are experiencing policing differently, and in a more hostile way, than whites. Innocent black people who have committed no crime are being stopped, frisked, profiled, and detained, in ways that innocent white people are not. Unarmed black folks are more likely to be shot by police than unarmed white folks — about 3.5 times more likely — even when they are not behaving in such a way as to make the shooting understandable. The fact that other people who look like these innocent black people happen to be guilty of something does not justify what is happening to the innocent. In truth, it often can’t justify even that which is done to the guilty, since due process is still a thing that theoretically disallows extrajudicial execution. And anyone who fails to understand that, or in this case to call that racism, is not worthy of being taken seriously as a scholar or commentator on issues of such great social importance. They are merely hiding behind loaded footnotes to justify systemic injustice. But racism, no matter how highbrow, is still racism.

Still a Nazi After All These Years: The Return of David Duke (with Audio)

For so many reasons, I really didn’t want to have to write this. But here we go again.

Twenty-six years after his first run for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana, lifelong white supremacist, Neo-Nazi and former Klansman David Duke has once again thrown his hat in the ring for the job.

As tempting as it would be to write him off, and to conclude that this was yet another of his many schemes for attention and money, it would be terribly naive to believe he was incapable of winning this position in November. First, because with only a couple of months to go, Duke will be able to call upon a legion of hardcore fans to boost his profile (many of the same folks who voted for him in 1990 and 1991, when he got 60 and 55 percent of the white vote, respectively). And second, and more importantly, because with the rise of Donald Trump, and the infusion of blatant white anxiety and resentment into the 2016 presidential race, Duke could easily ride the wave of white backlash politics to victory.

Indeed, in many ways, Duke has come full circle. In 1990 it was he who pulled the Republican establishment further to the right, pushing racial themes like so-called welfare abuse, resentment over affirmative action and immigration, and fears about black crime into the forefront. Yes, others had played this tune before — most notably George Wallace, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — but none with as much focus and determination as Duke. By the time Duke ran for President in 1992, he had already made enough of an impact on conservative politics so as to catapult Pat Buchanan (who sounded much like Duke, but without the Klan robes) into the position of a serious contender for several months. Buchanan at the time advised the GOP to steal from Duke’s “winning playbook” of ideas, so as to use white anger to win political office. And they did.

Today, after two decades of overt appeals to racial resentment — a strategy perfected in many ways by Duke — a candidate like Donald Trump can find himself the Republican nominee, riding a wave of white anger over immigration, over eight years of the Obama presidency, and over the supposed threat of brown-skinned Muslims seeking to bring terrorism and Sharia law to our shores. As such, Duke now sees an opening to pull the party even further to the right, filling in the blanks left unfilled by Trump: namely, placing the blame where Duke has always thought it belonged—on Jews.

For if there is one area not yet embraced by the American mainstream right–even those flocking to Trump–it is overt anti-Jewish bigotry. Yes, some of Trump’s alt-right fans online and white nationalist supporters tweet such material regularly, and there is little doubt that most hardcore anti-Semites are behind Trump. But to Duke, they need a leader who truly runs with that issue, and who can point the dagger of hatred directly at those whom Duke has long blamed for all the world’s problems. For as much as Duke disdains African Americans and Latino immigrants, his real contempt is reserved for Jews, whom he blames for foisting immigration and integration on whites, so as to destroy the white race and consolidate their own Jewish power.

My fear is that the media will downplay the threat posed by Duke, either by ignoring him as he runs for office — perhaps assuming that voters will never accept someone with his toxic history of overt racism — or that they will reduce his racism to something from his past, by referring to him only as “ex-Klansman” David Duke. While most people of conscience might suspect such a title would be the kiss of death for anyone running for office in America, rest assured, as we learned in 1990 and 1991, that is not the case. Sadly, Duke’s Klan affiliation had almost no impact on convincing white Louisianans to vote against him. Only when his current Neo-Nazi affiliations and beliefs were made clear, and voters had to consider what electing a man such as that would mean to the reputation of their state, did enough whites turn against him (and enough people of color turn out at the polls) to defeat him.

For the simple truth is, Duke’s Klan days are but one aspect of his white supremacist history. Before he joined the Klan in 1973, and after he left it in 1980, Duke had been and continued to be a true believer in Hitlerian Nazism. His 1998 autobiography, “My Awakening” is a compendium of overt white supremacist beliefs and Neo-Nazism, including overt praise for Adolf Hitler, denial that the Holocaust happened, and calls for an all-white America. If anything, his prior political defeats in 1990 and 1991 (and certainly his defeat in a U.S. House race in the late 1990s, in which he only missed making the runoff by a few thousand votes) have led him to believe that he might as well embrace overt white nationalism and extremism. Hiding his views didn’t work, and with Trump’s rise, he appears to think that hiding is no longer necessary.

That said, it is important to understand just how extreme those views are and have always been. For David Duke does not simply want to “defend the rights and interests of white people” in the abstract (whatever that might mean); rather, he wishes to purge the U.S. of non-whites altogether. White identity politics — and Duke is proof of it — are inherently racist and supremacist. After all, there is a difference between fighting for a seat at the table, as folks of color have long done, and fighting to keep the table all to oneself, as Duke and his compatriots wish.

Previously I posted a brief timeline of Duke’s political activity over the years and his lifelong commitment to Neo-Nazism, so as to give readers a clear understanding of who this man is and what he believes. The information came from a resource packet I co-wrote with Lance Hill, my former boss at the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism — the primary anti-Duke opposition group — when he ran for Senate and Governor in 1990 and 1991 respectively.

But to really understand what David Duke is about, you need only listen to his own words.

Among the most powerful pieces of evidence we were able to marshal back in the early 1990s, so as to prove Duke’s real intentions — to purge the U.S. of people of color and Jews — was a taped interview we discovered, in which Duke spoke quite candidly about these things. There were actually two interviews, both with graduate student Evelyn Rich. The first was from 1985, and in that interview, which stretched over an hour, Duke expounded upon every possible racist and anti-Semitic theory imaginable. He praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust (calling it “Hollywood bullshit”) and stated his belief that all non-whites would have to be purged from the U.S. The second interview, from 1986, was even more chilling. In that one, Rich is actually interviewing another white supremacist — a self-professed Nazi named Joe Fields — when Duke walks into the hotel room where the conversation was taking place. At the time, Duke and Fields were both attending the annual conference of the Institute for Historical Review, which was the nation’s premier Holocaust denial organization. Fields openly praises Hitler, calling him “the ultimate,” and noting that although he thinks Hitler only intended to resettle the Jews of Europe, if he had exterminated them “they would have deserved it.” Duke, uncomfortable by Fields’s lack of nuance, tells him to be careful because if they can “call you a Nazi and make it stick,” it’s going to hurt “your ability to get through” to people. Duke then explains that he “wheedles out” of his Nazism because he’s a “pragmatist.”

Perhaps the most disturbing and revealing part of the tape is the point at which Fields notes that “it doesn’t take much to get something going though…Hitler started with seven men, and most people didn’t want to have anything to do with him at first.” to which Duke replies: “Right! And don’t you think it can happen right now if we put the right package together?”

In any event, here are links to portions of that 1986 interview. The first is a link to two radio commercials we produced in 1991 and which were played over 5000 times on radio stations across Louisiana in the weeks leading up to the Gubernatorial election. The Democratic Party also ran its own television spot, using portions of the same tape. The second link has longer portions of the 1986 interview, preceded by my analysis of Duke’s current run for office, in historic and contemporary context.

TwitterStorm on David Duke

Here is the Twitter storm I released on David Duke yesterday, after he announced he was running for the U.S. Senate again, in Louisiana. As most of you know, I got my start doing antiracism work in the fight against Duke in 1990 and 1991. This is just a brief and incomplete timeline of Duke’s Neo-Nazi extremism over the years, from the late 1960s until the early 2000s. Since then he has continued in the same vein, on his internet radio show and in writing on his website.

One correction: because these are tweet embeds below, and you can’t edit tweets after they’re published (for some reason), I was unable to fix the spelling on the island nation of Dominica, which I originally misspelled as Domenica. I mention it below, because in 1980, David Duke helped a band of Neo-Nazis raise money and procure a boat for an attempted invasion of that nation. They were hoping to set up a cocaine processing plant to fund white supremacist activity. Duke avoided indictment in the plot, though his friends did not. Anyway, I wanted to correct the spelling, because as it was listed originally, I had basically accused Duke of helping to launch a coup attempt on one of New Orleans’ better restaurants, rather than a small Caribbean island. Wanted to set the record straight.

Here ya go…

Facts about #DavidDuke (now that he’s announced for U.S. Senate) (1) Duke has been a Nazi for nearly a half century. While in college…

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(2) #DavidDuke was quoted as saying “I’m a National Socialist You can call me a Nazi if you want…” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(3) In 1970 #DavidDuke spoke at a full-dress Nazi rally in DC and in 1971 founds the White Youth Alliance at LSU… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(4) #DavidDuke‘s White Youth Alliance was an affiliate of the National Socialist Liberation Front… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(5) In ’72 #DavidDuke forms National Party, which foments violence/racial strife in high schools. Duke arrested 4 making Molotov cocktails — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(6) By 1973 #DavidDuke is affiliated with the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. That year he writes a book under the pseudonym “Mohammed X”… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(7) which teaches “street fighting” techniques 2 blacks 2 attack “whitey.” #DavidDuke does this hoping blacks will buy it/prove need 4 Klan

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(8) In 1976 #DavidDuke writes sex manual under name Dorothy Vanderbilt. The book advises women on oral/anal sex techniques &vaginal exercise — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(9) In September 76 #DavidDuke organizes meeting of Nazis in Metairie, LA, which passes resolution calling 4 release of Nazi war criminals.. — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(10) At #DavidDuke‘s 1976 Nazi conference in LA. he leads mob attack on a police officer, is arrested and convicted for incitement 2 riot — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(11) In 1979 #DavidDuke‘s reputation in Klan is damaged when he tries to sell KKK mailing list to rival Klan for $35,000. In 1980 he resigns — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(12) In 1980 #DavidDuke founds NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People), described as “the Klan w/o robe or ritual” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(13) In December ’80 #DavidDuke helps band of Neo-Nazis recruit participants 4 attempted invasion of Domenica. Though mercenaries arrested.. — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(14) #DavidDuke somehow escapes indictment, despite helping the mercenaries procure a boat and funding 4 attempted Domenica coup… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(15) Throughout ’80s #DavidDuke leads NAAWP, which advertises pro-Hitler books, denies the Holocaust & calls for sterilization of non-whites

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(16) Also throughout ’80s, according 2 former girlfriends, #DavidDuke would celebrate Hitler’s birthday w/cake, beer/chips every April20 — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(17) 1987 #DavidDuke arrested n Forsyth Co GA for blocking civil rights march. He raises $20k 4 defense, is fined $50, pockets rest of $$$ — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(18) 1987 #DavidDuke attends FL meeting of “Identity Christians” – a sect that teaches blacks r “mud people” & Jews descended from Satan — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(19) In 1988 #DavidDuke runs for president w/Populist Party. Campaign manager is Ralph Forbes, former Nazi Party commander… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(20) July 1988 at WA Populist party convention, #DavidDuke decades Judaism a “vile religion.” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(21) After winning state house seat in 89, #DavidDuke speaks at Populist party event w/neo-Nazis/skinheads. Shakes hands w/Nazi Art Jones — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(22) In 1989, #DavidDuke is caught selling pro-Hitler books from his legislative office, like “The Hitler We Loved and Why” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(23) In 89 #DavidDuke announces run for US Senate. In interview says U.S shouldn’t have fought Hitler, US should b racially separated…

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(24)…he admits to “agreeing with some aspects of Nazism,” and #DavidDuke says he supports eugenics programs 2 breed racial elite — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(25) At 1990 LA GOP Convention, longtime Nazi James K Warner serves as #DavidDuke delegate… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(26) May ’90 Interview, #DavidDuke tells journalist Jews are “plague on white race” and Rudolph Hess (Hitler adviser) deserved Nobel Prize — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(27) August 90 #DavidDuke admits that as late as 89 he was selling racist song tapes with titles like “N___ hatin’ me” and “N___ never die” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(28) 1990 – #DavidDuke loses U.S. Senate race but gets 44% of white vote. Almost immediately declares for Governor’s race in 1991 — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(29) During legislative session in 91, #DavidDuke introduces bill to sterilize welfare recipients with Norplant. Bill is defeated — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(30) July 1991 – at #DavidDuke‘s “DukeFest” fundraiser, supporters distribute Nazi literature and pamphlets denying the Holocaust — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(31) August 91, Louisiana Coalition Against Racism/Nazism, (for which I worked) releases tape recording of #DavidDuke from 1986…

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(32)…In the tape #DavidDuke says Jews “deserve 2 go in2 ashbin of history” & admits he is “wheedling out” of his Nazism 4 political gain — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(33)…On tape #DavidDuke responds 2 Nazi who says “Hitler started w/7 men” by saying “Right & don’t u think we cd do it 2 w/right package?” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(34) Nov 91 #DavidDuke loses Governor’s race. That month in VOGUE he praises George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of American Nazi Party… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(35) December ’91 #DavidDuke announces he’s running 4 president again. By March he’s done, as campaign tanks, breaking 10% only in MS — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(36) Having turned over NAAWP 2 campaign associates in ’90 #DavidDuke supports himself through newsletter/website following campaign defeats — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(37) In 1998 #DavidDuke published autobiography, “My Awakening,” in which he reverts to rather blatant advocacy of neo-Nazism… — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(38) In “My Awakening” #DavidDuke says “the only real justification for the survival of a nation is a racial one…” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(39) In “My Awakening” #DavidDuke says Jews destroyed the American family through psychoanalysis, “perverted art” and porn…

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(40) In “My Awakening” #DavidDuke says Jews have “set loose Steven Spielberg to tell us to give our souls to the Jews…” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(41) In ch. 19 #DavidDuke includes almost verbatim text of essay on Jews running media by neo-Nazi William Pierce (who inspired Tim McVeigh) — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(42) #DavidDuke quoting William Pierce of Neo-Nazi National Alliance in his book made sense of course…they had been friends for years — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(43) The National Alliance (whose website #DavidDuke promoted on his own at this time) called for “racial cleansing of the land” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(44) In late 90s #DavidDuke spoke at NationalAlliance events even as leader Pierce was saying he wanted 2 “machine-gun” race traitors — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(45) #DavidDuke promoted National Alliance in 97, the same year leader Pierce said whites would have to “Hunt Jews down & get rid of them” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(46) In autobiography #DavidDuke praises Hitler & says only fault was not realizing the lengths to which Jews would go “to incite the war” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(47) In autobio #DavidDuke says America must be all-white “no matter the cost or whatever sacrifices it takes…”

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(48) In autobio #DavidDuke says blacks must b removed to separate homeland as U.S. must be “of our people, by our people and for our people” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(49) In autobio #DavidDuke advises the possible need for “whites to prevail in a revolutionary physical struggle” over people of color/Jews

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(50) In autobio #DavidDuke says whites must be “Aryan warriors,” and that “every Aryan must fight in the way he can contribute the most”

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(51) In autobio #DavidDuke says “b4 battle is over many of us will find heroic death; a physical revolution may b required…” — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(52)…and #DavidDuke says in autobio that if “jewish power” not broken in “first few decades of 21st century” it will b too late — Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(53) A few years later, #DavidDuke published book on “Jewish Supremacy” which repeats ideas that Jews are genetic/cultural pollutant…

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

(54)…in book on Jewish supremacy, #DavidDuke blames most of world’s problems on Jews, from crime, to war. Praises Hitler/denies Holocaust

— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) July 22, 2016

What Does It Mean to Be Wrong For So Long? Reflections on Black Reality and White Delusion

Although there was no such thing as polling back then, I suspect that if you had asked a representative sample of Londoners in the early 1770s whether or not the American colonists were getting a fair shake from King George, most would have said yes. It is doubtful they would have thought much about any supposed grievances that were at that very moment fueling the rise of a revolutionary movement, soon to burst onto the scene. Loyal to the system of which they were a part, and believing that system fair, they might well have wondered what all the fuss was about.

Whenever we benefit from a system as it is, taking that system for granted becomes second nature. We don’t see what others who are harmed by that system see, because we don’t have to. There’s no mystery here and very little that is controversial, at least in theory; as such, it should be apparent that most Brits in the mid-18th century would have found the likes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to be foolish upstarts and trouble-makers. And no doubt, looking back at what would have been the dominant British view at that time, most Americans would probably feel smug in asserting the absurdity of such a perspective in retrospect. Even most Brits would likely acknowledge the fatuousness of their ancestors’ denials and unwillingness to see the colonists’ point. It’s always easier to admit one was wrong many generations after the error has occurred.

So too, in what became the United States, most slaveowners never questioned the legitimacy of their system, and most whites — including those that didn’t own slaves — neither joined the abolitionist movement nor supported it. Indeed, most whites have been implacably aligned with white supremacy for the entirety of our nation’s history, only condemning even its most blatant iterations (like slavery and indigenous genocide) many generations after the formal manifestations of those had ended, and when doing so took no more courage than crossing the street.

Now that may sound harsh. It may be difficult to hear. But just because truth isn’t pleasing to your ears, doesn’t mean it’s any less accurate. And the fact is — and it is at the heart of our current troubles — most white Americans have never believed that it was necessary for blacks to agitate for their rights and liberties (or their lives)—at least not at the time that agitation was happening. Just as Londoners wouldn’t have seen the unfairness directed at the American colonists (and let’s be clear, what King George did to white colonists was nothing compared to what those white colonists did to Africans and indigenous persons), so too, most whites have never been able to see the unfairness of the system vis-a-vis black people in the moment. Oh sure, fifty years later, we can look back and view Dr. King as a secular saint and talk about how great the civil rights movement was, and then we can contrast it with that “horrible, awful” Black Lives Matter movement, as Bill O’Reilly recently did. But the simple fact is, when Dr. King and the movement were actually doing the things for which we remember them, most white folks stood in firm opposition, saw no need for their actions, and believed they were more “divisive” than unifying.

Sound familiar?

In other words, white America has never believed there was a problem with racism worth fighting over; or at least, if there were, black folks were “going about it the wrong way.” Needless to say, when a group of people has been so splendidly wrong for so distressingly long, the odds of them suddenly getting it right are pretty slim. A group of people who believed things were fine fifty years ago hasn’t earned the right to be taken seriously today; indeed, they have forfeited the right to be considered even remotely competent when it comes to discerning the basic contours of social reality

Just to make clear how deluded or disinterested in racial justice most white folks have been, even during times when, in retrospect, racial oppression was obvious, consider the following:

In 1963, a year before the Civil Rights Act was passed, two years before the Voting Rights Act, and five years before the Fair Housing Act, nearly two in three whites told Gallup pollsters that blacks were treated equally in their communities. This, in the same year that Medgar Evers was shot down dead in his driveway in Jackson, Bull Connor plowed tanks through the black community and hosed down children in Birmingham, four young black girls were murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church there, and George Wallace declared, “segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation ‘fahevah’”—a statement that then elicited letters of support from whites all across the nation and not only in the south.

By 1965, the year in which Selma sheriff Jim Clark and his goons beat civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus bridge, and Los Angeles police brutality towards black folks touched off the Watts uprising, the share of whites who said blacks were treated equally had risen to nearly 70 percent. In other words, most white Americans thought there was no real need for the Civil Rights Movement, as equal treatment had already been achieved. This is to say that most white folks were utterly deluded about the nation in which they lived.

Even before that, in 1962, 85 percent of whites said that black children had just as good a chance to get a good education as white children. This, despite the fact that most school systems still had not moved towards meaningful integration, let alone equalizing of resources, eight years after the decision in Brown v. Board. While the idea of equal educational opportunity in the early ’60s might strike us now as intrinsically absurd, most whites believed it was a reality, suggesting once again that white America had not even the most fleeting familiarity with their country.

As Paul Rosenberg noted in a Salon essay today, white America has long viewed anti-racist organizing as divisive, including at times when, looking backward, we would now mostly praise it.

So, for instance, in a Gallup Poll in 1961, six in ten of all Americans said they disapproved of the Freedom Riders: civil rights activists who engaged in direct action to desegregate bus lines throughout the south. Considering that black support for these actions was high — 92 percent of blacks said the movement and Dr. King were either moving at the right speed or too slowly in pushing for change — one can assume that white opposition to the Freedom Riders was probably more than 2:1. In the same poll, most whites expressed opposition to sit-ins or any other form of direct action to break the back of segregation, claiming that such actions would do more harm than good when it came to bringing about change. In other words, the American south was an apartheid colony, and most white folks opposed the people who were trying to do something about it. That is to say, white people sided with white supremacy.

In June of 1963, shortly before the March on Washington, 60 percent of Americans (and no doubt more than 70 percent of whites, given high black support for the movement), said that civil rights demonstrations were more a hindrance to black advancement than a help. In other words, most white people believed they knew black folks’ needs better than actual black people did. That is to say, most white people actively manifested a paternalistic, white supremacist mindset and would have felt that Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which we so revere today, was little more than the overwrought rambling of a trouble-maker.

In 1964, despite the fact that the Voting Rights Act had yet to be passed and blacks were being kept from voting throughout the south, and despite the persistence of housing discrimination, which would not be addressed in the Fair Housing Act for four more years, three in four Americans, and likely well over 80 percent of whites, said blacks should stop protesting for their rights. In other words, most white folks didn’t care that African Americans were being denied one of the most basic rights of citizenship, voting, and that they could be routinely blocked from living in the neighborhood of their choice. In short, most whites again sided with white supremacy.

In 1966, 85 percent of whites told the Lou Harris polling group that civil rights demonstrations had done more harm than good for blacks, and the majority said that if they were in the same position as blacks, they would not think it justified to protest or demonstrate for their rights or opportunities. This, coming from the descendants of people who lost their shit over taxes on tea.

Another poll that year found that half of whites believed Dr. King was hurting the cause of civil rights, while only a bit more than a third thought he was helping, and in 1967 — before the Fair Housing Act, and when opportunities still were obviously not equal between whites and people of color — nearly 85 percent of all Americans (and likely well over 90 percent of whites) said blacks would be better off just “taking advantage of the opportunities they have already been given” as opposed to protesting. In other words, whites believed blacks should just work harder and stop complaining, even though housing discrimination was rampant and still legal; even though most school systems still had not moved to truly integrate, let alone equalize resources, and even though the Civil Rights Act had only been in place for three years—hardly long enough, even in theory, to end racial discrimination. In short, white folks have always wished black people would stop fighting for their rights, no matter how truncated those rights were at the time.

By 1969, a mere year after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., 44 percent of whites told a Newsweek/Gallup Survey that blacks had a better chance than they did to get a good paying job—twice as many as said they would have a worse chance. In the same poll, eighty percent of whites said blacks had an equal or better chance for a good education than whites did, while only seventeen percent said they would have a worse opportunity (Newsweek/Gallup Organization, National Opinion Survey, August 19, 1969). In other words, even before the 1970s, whites were already convinced that things were equal, or even that we were the real victims of discrimination, enjoying even less opportunity than African Americans did. That is to say, perceptions of white victimhood were already brewing, within the first few years after the fall of formal white supremacy.

What can one say about a group of people so utterly divorced from reality at one of the most blatantly unjust periods in American history? At a time when images of racial injustice were beamed into their living rooms every night? At the height of one of the greatest freedom movements in history? What can be said of a people who can stare at those images, and hear the words spoken by black people fighting for their lives, their rights and their dignity — as those people are beaten and killed and jailed — and turn away, or deny that what they are seeing and hearing is real? What can be said about people who were otherwise functional, able to hold down jobs, raise children, remember to wash their hands after using the bathroom, and feed their dogs, that they could be so indelibly incapable of understanding the nature of the system under which they lived?

I know one thing that can be said for certain: we needn’t trust the judgment of such a people as this, on any matter of social importance. And when these same persons’ children and grandchildren, fifty years later manifest the same unwillingness to see, we must reject them too. We must insist that their skills for discernment and their moral calibration are both lacking. Because that denial is a form of white supremacy, handed down intergenerationally no less so than our DNA is handed down.

The bottom line is this: If at every juncture of American history, black folks have said “we have a problem,” and they have been right every time — while most whites have said all is well, and have been wrong just as often — what but a staggering amount of racist hubris would allow us to think that it was black folks who were suddenly misjudging the problem, and we who had at long last become keen observers of social reality?

White America has always believed things were fine when it came to race, and we have always been wrong. And this denial, by now, is a genuine character flaw, rather than just a mere annoyance. And unless we in the white community who have learned to listen to people of people of color and actually believe that they know their lives better than we do speak up and challenge those in our community who cling to their innocence like a kidney patient clings to dialysis, the future will be one of ever increasing acrimony.

Because until white lies are confronted — lies about our country’s history and its contemporary reality — black lives will continue to be endangered. And the prospects for multiracial democracy will be grim.

Tim Wise on 101.1 The Beat w/Dolewite – Race, Policing and Whiteness in America

These are several short clips from Tim Wise’s recent appearance with Dolewite on 101.1 The Beat (Nashville), to discuss recent police shootings and their relationship to racial inequality in America.

In this first clip, Wise responds to common white deflections about racism, and explores the selective way in which white Americans choose to remember (or forget) certain aspects of our history.

In this clip, Wise explains the importance of saying “Black lives matter,” and responds to the absurd claims by some that BLM and the movement for police reform and accountability is “waging a war on cops.”

In this clip, Wise discusses the proven racial disproportionality of police misconduct in communities of color and responds to those who claim there is no such disparity or that such disparities are justified by crime rates in black and brown spaces

In this clip, Wise responds to the common argument that black folks should spend less time worrying about police brutality and more time addressing “black on black crime.”

In this clip, Wise explores the reasons why so many white Americans seem unwilling to listen to people of color when it comes to their experiences with racism and discrimination.

In this clip, Wise examines the history of the notion of whiteness and how it has been used to divide and conquer working class people for hundreds of years.

Tim Wise on “Breaking Through” (w/Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner) 7/11/16: Discussion on White Anti-Racism

Tim Wise discussion with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner (MomsRising.org), re: white antiracism and allyship

Criticism is Not Hatred, Deference is Not Love: Reflections on Policing and the Cult of Authority

At the risk of sounding preposterously trite, I love my daughters. I love them the same way my parents loved me, I suspect, and their parents loved them: unconditionally and forever.

That said, I also see their flaws and shortcomings. They are teenagers after all and human beings, and their membership in both clubs provides ample opportunities for imperfection. But those frailties also provide opportunities for growth, for betterment, for improvement; and those occasions in turn produce some of the most exciting and rewarding moments for parents and kids alike: the ability to see a child move from one place to a better place with some support, and some constructive (if yet critical) feedback.

Importantly, when we admonish our children for true wrongdoing in the hopes of helping them to do better, to be better, no one would accuse us of hating our kids. Indeed a parent who was satisfied that their teenager had reached the pinnacle of moral and behavioral development — such that they shouldn’t be criticized when they make horribly wrong and even destructive choices as they sometimes do — wouldn’t be much of a parent at all. If anything, it would be they who demonstrated a kind of contempt for children; the kind that views them as incapable of better, as if they were too damaged or stunted to grow and to change. Like I said, I love my daughters. They are amazing 15 and (almost) 13-year olds. But if, at 25 and 23 (or even 16 and 14) they are the same people they are right now, then something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

The same is true (and should be recognized as such) when we criticize our country, or (since the nation’s attention is focused on issues of police misconduct vis-a-vis people of color), law enforcement. To criticize one’s nation or police, even harshly, for wrongdoing, is not to hate that country or its cops. Indeed, such rebuke implies a kind of love, truth be told; a love built on the belief that both can do better; that they can be better. If we didn’t believe that, we wouldn’t bother. We would just give up. And while some, like Dallas shooter, Micah Johnson, may have decided all cops are the enemy (or at least the white ones are) — and that they are incapable of responsible interactions in black communities — almost by definition the activists in the Black Lives Matter movement who have been in the streets demanding police accountability and reform, are not among those people. They are demanding change because their lives depend on it, and because they believe in the potentiality of a different society—a society built on justice, however hard it may be to bring that place into existence.

Even those within the movement — and I would be one of them — who believe in the need for substantial de-policing, and the creation of alternative forms of dispute resolution, still insist that whatever law enforcement remains, even in such a society as we desire, can be better than what we have now. We are not the cynical ones here. Cynicism is the voice of Rudy Giuliani. It is the voice of police unions that tell black people they can’t expect better from cops until and unless black communities eradicate all vestiges of their own dysfunction, and that to demand otherwise from one’s law enforcers is to desire those law enforcers dead. Which makes no more sense than to suggest calling out doctors for malpractice is but the first step towards assassinating surgeons, so blinded by a hatred of physicians must one be to demand that they do their jobs the right way.

To confuse criticism with hatred is to exalt silence and complicity and call it love. It is to counsel nonchalance in the face of incalculable pain, all for the sake of blind patriotism or hero worship. It is to make of citizenship a cult, within which no dissent can be allowed, even when that dissent is itself vital to the functioning of the society in which the citizen resides. It is to ignore the tumor even as it grows and to believe that our casual dismissal of its metastasis will render it benign. It is to believe that deference to authority is a secular sacrament, and that people of color should adopt amnesia as a positive cultural value, taking no notice of the long history within which authority has been precisely the source of their marginalization, their injury, and their death.

I have little regard for patriotism, so readily does it spill over to hyper-nationalism. But if there is any such thing as a positive version of it, then surely it must be the kind that says America can do better than to be a place where unarmed black men are seven times as likely to be killed by police as unarmed white men. If that’s the best we can hope for then one is forced to wonder as to whether we deserve a country at all. And if that’s the best we can hope for then it remains a very open question as to whether our children — the ones we claim to love so dearly — will return our positive regard once they become adults and inherit the mess we have left for them. One thing is for certain: even if we somehow manage to still deserve their love, we will have done very little to earn their respect. They will curse our memories, and we will have most certainly merited their disdain

Tim Wise on RT America: Policing and Race in the U.S. (July 9, 2016)

Tim Wise discusses racism and policing in America, historically and in the present.