A Brief for a Black Chick

I have something. Commentary please on this:

A Brief for Whitey by Pat Buchanan


This is--thankfully--something I think the country is finally moving past with regard to the current political climate, but this issue is bound to rear its ugly head again in the general election. I want to be as objective as I can when I offer my commentary on this. If you know me and my politics, you know who I stand behind in this race; you also know that I have a big mouth, a hard head, and a deaf ear to bullshit. Still, the current complexion of the presidential race calls for as much even-handedness as possible.

For those of you who didn't have a chance to read this entry from Republican pundit Pat Buchanan's column a few months ago, I'll give you a quick rundown. Buchanan's main idea is that Barack Obama's historic Philly speech on race was, at its root, a dressed-up version of the same old guilt trip the black community lays on Whitey: "You need to help us out! All you've done is keep us down, and you owe us a hand up. You owe us!" It's nothing but...

"...the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Don't lay your own failures at the feet of The Man, Pat says. The wagging finger of black America has pointed everywhere but where it should: at the lazy, entitled, self-destructive black community.

And--Lord, help me--he's right. But only to this extent: the conversation about race needs to start with black America. Why? Because we need to get our shit straight before we can demand anything from anyone else.

The systematic, centuries-long oppression of blacks in America is not in debate. The fact that those of y'all who are my age probably have parents who can remember white and colored water fountains is enough to back that up: white America has been in control of government, economy, and the social mainstream since this little experiment began, and has done some somewhat despicable shit to keep it that way. I can tell you that the majority of my ancestors didn't come over here on a boat with chairs on the deck and portholes in every cabin.

But for as long as Africans have inhabited America, we've had the chance to fight for and maintain our rights, as well as the opportunity to become a more equal, positively contributing part of the American racial scheme...and we keep fucking it up.

The Civil Rights Era broke the legislative barrier, but just twenty years after MLK died and blacks were given an unobstructed path to the voting booth, crack cocaine had black neighborhoods crunched between its jaws, and revolutionary black leaders were replaced with petulant and ultimately impotent stand-ins (*cough*JESSEJACKSONANDALSHARPTON*cough*), leading us blurry and limping into the twenty-first century. Our civil rights organizations do nothing but pat each other on the back for keeping to outdated tradition, and speaking out only when The N Word is tossed around, or when an act of racially-motivated hatred has been so blatant that even Strom Thurmond would shake his head in shock. The awakening black consciousness of the '60's settled into a doze in the 70's and 80's and, aside from the brief years of the Public Enemy/X-Clan/De La Soul-led 90's, hasn't risen its head since; the current get rich/do nothing ethic has been immortalized in hip-hop and youth culture, with popping bottles and popping booties standing as the pinnacle of any black man's life goals. So, you know...old Buchanan might be a bigoted, slack-jowled bastard, but he does have a point: we've had a very long time to take the rights finally given to us and make something of them. We haven't, and that's our own damn fault.

But here's where Buchanan's argument falls apart: he crows about all that white America has given black America--Civil Rights laws, affirmative action, welfare--and asks, "isn't that enough?"

"Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks...We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that "soup kitchens, adult education, retirement and nursing homes" aren't really things that white people have given to black people. The largest mission in my city doesn't cater to blacks, nor do the public school adult education programs. There's no black elder care program sponsored by Concerned Whites of America, nor is there a Negro Retirement Plan offered by the government. Private programs devoted to helping people of color do exist, of course, but aside from the white folks who helped put together the NAACP in 1910, the majority of these programs are sponsored by people of color, and public programs benefit the poor and downtrodden in general.

Further, what the fuck does he mean, "gratitude"? Is Pat suggesting that the United States government's passing anti-discrimination laws--rules that (try to) ensure that a black person isn't turned away from a house or a job or an education simply because of race--are favors? That The Man, out of the kindness of his heart, decided a few decades ago to let the colored folks live, work, and vote like actual American citizens? Returning to the crack epidemic of the 80's, does Buchanan suggest that the outrageously biased drug laws of the decade--slapping cocaine users with months and crack users with years, and what might have contributed to his "blacks incarcerated seven times more than whites" statistic--were simply the government helping save the black community from itself? That alarming wage and health disparities are solely the responsibility of black America? I mean, less than fifty years ago, I couldn't have gotten married to my fiance in this state because he's a blonde and I'm a kinky-haired brunette--it was against the damn law for a white person to marry a non-white. Was the miscgenation law abolished as gesture of goodwill? Don't strain yourself, there, White Man! I've got more freebies than I can carry!

And this is what Obama was talking about when he pleaded for America to join him in dialogue about race. Because America's own civil rights history, when examined closely, might make some of us shut up about the injustices happening in China; because two out of ten whites in West Virginia cited race as a factor in their voting decision; because, according to the law of the land in the 50's and 60's, Barack Obama shouldn't even exist--this is why we need open, engaged dialogue about race. There are always three sides to a story--yours, ours, and the truth--and, sadly, no one's been very interested in the third side.