America requires a fearless moral inventory of herself – fearless and cleansing. No person ever uplifted his character by presuming his own perfection. A nation is not different.
As part of that American self-examination of America, I want to examine bigotry. Bigotry is mainstream – not universal, but widespread. I’ll demonstrate that, and I’ll describe how it hurts us, and what we can do about it.
This first part will briefly review recent manifestations of bigotry against African Americans and Latinos. The second part will do the same with Muslims and Roma.
All of this is in the spirit of making America a better, mightier nation. As Abraham Lincoln said, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it."
Sources are listed at the end.
1. Bigotry and African Americans.
Bigotry against African Americans is resurgent . In its usual current form, it no longer contends that African Americans are inferior. Bigotry against African Americans has reconstituted itself as a sense of White victimhood.
a. Bigotry: the old-fashioned kind.
But old-fashioned bigotry still rises from the grime, of course, sometimes among prominent public figures. New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino emailed associates a video clip of an African indigene dancing exuberantly; he said that the dancing indigine was an "Obama Inauguration Rehearsal".
This was bigoted on two levels. First, it equated the new (African American) leader of the free world with an African indigine. Second, it assumed that an African indigene moving exuberantly is innately comical, in ways that a White American doing the same thing is not. To Paladino, it matters, apparently, whether the exuberance is filmed by an anthropologist or by Dancing With the Stars.
Paladino also forwarded an altered photograph depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as a pimp and a prostitute, an invidious stereotype of African Americans.
b. Shirly Sherrod and White victimhood.
But bigotry against African Americans has evolved. It now paints Whites as victims. A conspicuous example is the hue and cry about an out-of-context video clip of a minor Agriculture Department functionary, Shirley Sherrod, an African American. This clip was posted by a conservative blogger. The out-of-context portions posted created the impression that Sherrod was a racist. In fact, the speech was an homage to overcoming racism and reaching across racial divisions.
The publicity that this story received was grossly disproportionate to the relatively modest government position that Mrs. Sherrod occupied. But the story had wide appeal, because it nourished White America’s sense of victimhood.
c. Glenn Beck and our perfidious president.
Media star Glenn Beck also appealed to White America’s sense of victimhood. He claimed that Obama has a "deep-seated hatred of White people." He said this without apparent proof. Obama’s loving mother was White, and his adoring American grandparents were White. But that did not stop Beck.
And Beck proclaimed that Obama’s policies are driven by "Obama’s thinking on . . . reparations" and a desire to "settle old racial scores". In other words, "Be afraid, White America, be very afraid."
d. Dr. Laura and marrying out of one’s race.
Syndicated radio celebrity Dr. Laura Schlessinger stoked the sense of White victimhood. An African-American radio caller expressed her dismay to Dr. Slessinger about her husband’s White friends. Apparently, they make remarks demeaning to African Americans. Dr. Slessinger responded with offensive, racially-charged language. At one point, she chided her pained listener not to go "all NAACP" (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – a renowned, venerable civil-rights organization). Schlessinger hung up on the caller and commented that people lacking a sense of humor should not "marry out of their race." Dr. Schlessinger remarked that African Americans use their "power" not for good, but to demonize Whites.
e. Newt Gingrich and the ghost of Obama’s father.
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, proclaimed that to best understand Barack Obama, you have to consider Obama’s dead father. Obama knew his father slightly, his father having abandoned Obama and Obama’s mother before Obama could remember. Despite the virtually non-existent relationship between Obama Sr. and Obama Jr. – they met twice after the abandonment – Gingrich proclaimed that Obama had absorbed his father’s "Kenyan, anti-colonial [i.e. anti-White] world view". White victimhood is once again proclaimed over a mainstream megaphone.
f. Congressman Ford and fear of miscegenation.
African American Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. of Tennessee encountered White victimhood in his race for the United States Senate. He had attended a party at the Playboy mansion. His Senate-race adversary ran a television political commercial that featured a young White woman, dressed and behaving to insinuate loose morals, importuning the Congressman: "Harold, call me." This was a course appeal to White dread of African American sexuality, preying on fears of miscegenation.
2. Bigotry and Latinos.
Bigotry against Latinos usually multiplies in a fact-free petri dish.
a. Latinos, jobs, and crime.
Immigrants – legal and illegal – create as many jobs as they occupy, maybe more. But this doesn’t stop the snarling about illegal immigrants "stealing our jobs".
And remember Jan Brewer, candidate for Governor in Arizona, claiming that illegal immigrants are drug mules, and that they leave decapitated corpses in the Arizona desert? And John McCain claiming that Phoenix is the number-two kidnaping capitol of the world, behind Mexico City? Wrong, wrong, and wrong. Brewer, McCain, and other Arizona politicians are alarmist and wrong about immigrant crime.
They resemble popular Los Angeles radio-show hosts John Korbylt and Ken Chaimpou, who waive a bloody shirt when an illegal immigrant commits a heinous crime, as if that behavior were typical of illegal immigrants. This incites hatred.
Yet these falsehoods masquerading as fact are the foundation of Arizona’s enacted law SB1070. SB1070 compels police to inquire about a person’s immigration status if the officer "reasonably" suspects that they are in the country illegally. And to seize him if he cannot prove that he is legally in the country.
To be clear, Arizona police officers were given the right to roust illegal-immigranty-looking persons (Latinos) based on unsubstantiated assumptions about immigrants and crime – maybe jobs, too. In this rush to persecute Latinos, the Arizona Legislature and its governor did not pause to determine the truth. The truth was not the point. Bigoted beliefs about Latinos were the point.
Would the Arizona politicians do a thoroughgoing and painstaking investigation of their presumptions about crime and immigrants before opening their mouths about it? And certainly before empowering police officers to demand papers from a person apparently guilty of strolling-while-Latino? Apparently not.
The lazy legislative investigation that failed to deflate disinformation about immigrants, crime, and jobs is disturbing. Equally disturbing is the political appeal of this disinformation. This disinformation crossed the finish line ahead of the facts, because condemnation of Latinos has a cultural head start.
That’s the point. AB1070, and proposed legislation like it in other states, is a manifestation of hostility toward Latinos. In a word, bigotry.
I speak of hostility toward illegal immigrants and hostility toward Latinos as the same phenomenon. This is because the hostility toward illegal immigrants is so un-tethered to fact that I perceive beneath it a racial hostility.
b. Puzzling contradiction.
Opposition to illegal immigrants is based on inherently opposite reasons. The anti-illegal-immigrant agitators claim that two negative characteristics typify illegal immigrants: they steal our jobs, and they commit atrocious crimes. But people who work hard typically don't commit crimes. And hardened criminals – the kind who carry drugs into the country and leave decapitated corpses in the desert – typically don’t hold jobs. The anti-immigrant agitators should make up their minds.
c. "Anchor babies".
"Anchor babies" is an urban legend that illegal immigrants give birth in America to manipulate immigration rules, clearing an easy avenue for the parent to remain here. The manufactured horror of this invented ploy has led to talk among leading politicians (Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham look up) about amending the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship.
But the path to citizenship cleared by an American-born child is lengthy and uncertain, so it undermines belief in this supposed anchor-baby scheme. No child may sponsor his or her parents until he or she is 21. And then the parents must return to their native country for 10 years before realizing any immigration benefit. Those who claim that this far-fetched scheme is widespread provide no proof.
d. Bigotry and the mask of policy.
These myths, about crime, jobs, and anchor babies, demonstrate antagonism toward Latinos. The transformation of this misinformed antagonism into policy-talk demonstrates the ability of bigotry to disguise itself as serious policy.
Sources
Carl Paladino’s racist emails: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Carl-Paladino-Distances-Himself-from-Racist-Sexist-Email-Forwards-90684749.html
Recap of the accusations against, and vindication of, Shirley Sherrod: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-07-21-usda-racism-resignation_N.htm
Glenn Beck on Obama and reparations, settling racial scores, and "deep-seated hatred of White people". http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/magazine/03beck-t.html?_r=1&hp
Laura Schlessinger, bigotry, and African Americans supposedly demonizing Whites (transcript and recording): http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008120045
Gingrich and Obama’s "Kenyan, anti-colonial world view" http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/246302/gingrich-obama-s-kenyan-anti-colonial-worldview-robert-costa
Harold Ford, Jr. and the "Harold, call me" political advertisement. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/us/26adbox.html
Immigrants create as many jobs as they occupy, maybe more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5312900
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=737
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/14/why-americans-think-wrongly-that-illegal-immigrants-hurt-the-economy.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/column_the_payoff_from_immigra.html
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/09_immigration_greenstone_looney/09_immigration.pdf
Jan Brewer and other Arizona politicians are alarmist and wrong about immigrant crime in Arizona. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902342.html
Reason behind Arizona’s SB1979 anti-immigrant law: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1984432,00.html
Analysis of the anchor-baby controversy: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/06/lindsey-graham/illegal-immigrants-anchor-babies-birthright/
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