Teaching Tool: The Advantages and Limitations of a Race-Themed Political Cartoon

Humor can be an effective vehicle for delivering a serious message. Whether it is in the form of satire, parody or simple ridicule, the most powerful statements are sometimes delivered in a way that makes us laugh before we think.

On the RaceProject Facebook page THIS WEEK, we reposted (from a tweet from SocProf) a link to a book review that contains a political cartoon by Barry Deutsch titled "A Concise History of Black-White Relations in the United States." It is a simple, six-panel strip that conveys a clear, accurate message of contemporary misunderstandings about White privilege and progressive strategies for achieving racial justice. But, as we note in this space every week, these issues are never as simple as they seem. We offer a "concise" analysis of the advantages and limitations of using this cartoon in the classroom to help students understand the complex history of Black-White relations in the United States.


Advantages

The primary advantage of using humor is that it can be disarming. More and more teachers are using clips from Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show or The Colbert Report to stimulate conversation about current events. Students like to laugh, and they appreciate when teachers deviate from the course readings. So the first advantage is that a comic strip can get students to pay attention and to be engaged.

Substantively, there are several advantages, as well. The strip is an accurate overview of American history in this regard: Slavery was a way for Whites to gain advantage disproportionate to what they could have without it (panes 1 through 3), African Americans fought hard for legal emancipation and won it (pane 4), Whites feel guilty about slavery and the history of oppression and are (genuinely) sorry about it (pane 5), and many Whites are reluctant to support any effort to rectify those past wrongs that involves violation of the meritocracy principle (pane 6).

The final pane actually contains two narratives. The first centers on the refusal to embrace approaches that involve a perceived disadvantage to Whites, but the smaller image and print in the lower right-hand corner of the pane invokes the idea that Whites' view these issues as being individualistic rather than systemic. The White character says "[I]f I got up here myself, why can't you?," even though it was only a few panes ago (seconds in the time that it takes someone to read the strip) that he 1) clearly does not get up there himself (panes 1 through 4) and 2) acknowledges as much with his apology (pane 5). This friction between fact and myth is an advantage in the classroom because it forces students to confront the reasons behind the character's social amnesia and the degree to which it accurately reflects the reality of Black-White relations in the United States today.

Limitations

For all its benefits, Deutsch would likely admit that there are dangers to this. After all, part of the reason that the humor works is that it is patently silly to believe that such a simple story can accurately capture the nuance of 400 years of history. By titling the strip "A Concise History. . ." the artist is giving us a wink, acknowledging that while there is nothing substantively astray here overall, it is a deliberate, recognized oversimplification.

That oversimplification will be recognized by sophisticated, thoughtful readers, but it may be lost on folks who do not have a strong knowledge base with respect to the complexities of race relations in America. If one believes, for instance, that "racism" ended with the signing of the landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s, that Brown v. the Board of Education integrated public schools in the U.S., and that affirmative action means quotas, this cartoon is unlikely to be an effective tool to combat those inaccuracies.

The "problem" is not solvable because the core of the limitation is also central to the strip's advantages. That is, by allowing individual characters to stand in for power systems, the artist is able to simply and effectively capture the reality of race relations while he intentionally fundamentally misrepresents the problem in a way that is likely to perpetuate it.

As is indicated in the final exchange in pane 6, Deutsch clearly understands that Whites' insistence on personalization is foolish because it decontextualizes the issue. The White character is the foil because he either refuses to or is unable to recognize that he has benefited from racism and continues to do so by opposing an action that would help to make things more fair (helping the Black man whom he used to gain his advantage). Because the strip accelerates history, the same characters appear in all six panes to reflect a time period, which, in reality, spans generations. White students will likely (and appropriately) note that while they may be the White character in the final pane, their situation is different because unlike the character, they were not present in the first four panes (the familiar "I never owned a slave" defense). They might argue that they arrived in the fifth pane, in fact, which shows that their entire lives have been spent feeling guilty about and "apologizing" for America's racist history.

The truth, of course, is that Whites who are living today have very much been present in those first few panes in some ways. While there has not been formal slavery of African Americans (of the kind depicted by the ball and chain) in our lifetime, Whites as a group are provided a "lift up" on the backs of persons of color. But that lift is not visible, it is not universally true on an individual basis, it is certainly not literal, and most Whites do not feel as if such a statement is accurate at all. Indeed, it takes a lot of reading, thinking and guidance for most Whites to understand the power and pervasiveness of the relatively invisible concept of White privilege. It is likely impossible for that story to be understood through a "concise" narrative of any kind.

The Black character in the strip is sympathetic; the White character is not. In the meta-narrative of race relations, this is probably fair, but at the individual level, it certainly is not. Individual White people have not, on the whole, acted in ways that are detrimental to Blacks. They do not consciously refuse to accept responsibility for their privilege and, it should be noted, are not directly responsible for that privilege the way that the White character in the strip is. In short, while the White character in the strip was aware of what he was doing when he took advantage of privilege and then adds insult to injury by not rectifying the situation once he realized it was inappropriate, the lived experiences of White individuals in America today cannot be captured by that dynamic.

There is a great deal of defensiveness on the part of Whites to any suggestion to the contrary, and this strip may evoke those feelings in Whites who encounter it. As those who are involved in the struggle for social justice know all too well, cutting through folks' defenses is a fundamental step toward consciousness raising.

The Verdict

We think that the advantages of this strip outweigh the limitations for college-age students (adults), which is the population with which we work. Because it can stimulate discussion and help to generate the type of analysis that we briefly offer here, we think it is a good way to explore some of the underlying constructs that hide below the surface of our contemporary political discourse on race.

On the other hand, we would be concerned about this strip being included in learning materials without the benefit critical discussion led by someone who has a sophisticated understanding of these issues. Under those circumstances, there is danger of misunderstanding the artist's intent and of a perpetuation of myths about the centrality of individualism in race relations in America.

As always, we look forward to your thoughts. What is the overall usefulness of a cartoon like this to help students to understand concepts such as White privilege, systemic power and hegemony? We especially want to hear from elementary school teachers and secondary education teachers: Is this appropriate for your classes? What advantages and limitations are these contexts?

Does It Still "Take a Village?": Multiple Perspectives on a Chicago Encounter

Updated 10/19/09 at 10:20 a.m. CDT (added Jessie Daniels's response)

We look to our children as promises for the future, to progress beyond previous generations' limitations, failures and injustices. We recognize and dream about "their world" -- the one we'll live in when we are seniors, the one that embodies some of our wishes and the fruits of our labor and energy. But we also know that for these goals to be reached, there must be a context within which our young people can learn, grow and thrive. We agonize over how we can improve conditions for young Americans whose future is so instrumental to ours, and we worry about kids who seem to be heading in a direction that can undermine those aspirations.

THIS WEEK, we have assembled a small panel of thoughtful folks who are thinkers, writers and social justice advocates to discuss a confrontation that Stephen had with three young men who were vandalizing a subway station on Tuesday evening. We offer these perspectives in the spirit (and with the hope) of instigating positive, thoughtful discussion. Stephen's story is below, followed immediately by Charlton's response and then the responses of our guests.

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Stephen

My wife and I were climbing down into the Harrison Red Line subway station in our neighborhood in Chicago when we happened upon three young Black boys -- maybe 13 years old -- tagging the station walls with spray paint. It was particularly surprising because there are security cameras down there, yet the kids were dancing around and acting as if they didn't care if anyone saw what they were doing. I thought about it for a second or two and decided to let them know that I saw what they did. Rather than express disappointment or anger (I figured at that age, irrespective of race, they wouldn't care -- I wouldn't have!), I simply wanted them to know that they were not as quick or careful as they though they were. Even now, I'm not sure if I was trying to scare them or warn them that they could easily be caught, or if I was trying to discourage them from doing it again. In any case, they all denied having done anything wrong, and as we boarded the train, one of the boys stuck his head in the door before it closed, called me some names, and flipped me his middle finger while another boy spray painted on the window of the train as it pulled out of the station.

I spent the rest of the night thinking about whether there was anything I could have done to meaningfully intervene in those boys' lives. Since I am a White ally, I am very conscious about not wanting to be act like, feel like or be perceived as though I need to "save" (Dangerous Minds-style) persons of color. On the other hand, as an adult who wants to see all children succeed and who knows that sometimes getting in trouble is the best thing that can happen to turn someone's life around, I wonder if I should have tried to call a CTA employee or otherwise "bust" the kids. Further complicating the issue is the fact that with all the youth violence and gang activity in the area, saying anything to kids that age at all -- particularly while they are engaging in an illegal act -- probably isn't a particularly smart thing to do. Would I have felt the same or acted in the same way if I were Black (a man or a woman -- and would that matter) or if the kids were White? Would the kids have reacted to me differently? Did I act appropriately (do enough, do too much)?

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Charlton

There's no easy answer to this question. I suppose like many people my response to what the kids were doing would fluctuate depending on the day, my mood, and my immediate attitude about the actions these youths were engaged in. On one day, no doubt, I'd be apt to say that I would approach them and say something like, "No wonder why some people see kids like you as nothing more than ignorant thugs." It's the kind of thing that comes to mind when you are looking at someone from your own racial group reinforcing the dark shadow of prejudice on those of us who have tried so hard to overcome those perceptions.

But I've also noticed recently that I seem to be getting older. As I do, I find myself distanced from young Black teens not so much because they are Black, but because they are adolescents -- adolescents who seem to attempt more today than I would have ever thought possible to get away with when I was their age. And I admit part of me would have stood silently with my wife, not uttering a word to the kids -- in fear of their potential volatility and need to remain and keep my loved ones safe from potential harm.

If I were wearing my charitable, racially and socially conscious hat that day, I may have spent a moment not only contemplating acting -- confronting the young men -- but thinking through the implications of my actions. If I report them to the authorities ("authorities" -- I feel like I'm in a 1970s Japanese monster film) then these youth will probably be swept into a criminal justice system likely to impact them more negatively than the subway wall they were tagging. So no, don't report them; they probably deserve a chance that they probably won't get if the cops get a hold of them.

If I were to say anything -- not wanting to incur the wrath of some pent up anger, or send them on a one-way trip through the American criminal and judicial process -- I may have just asked them why. "Hey -- why are you guys doing this?" I've always found that if you ask someone a question he or she will do one of two things. Some will ignore you, and others will answer the question. If they answer the question, you've taken the first step to engaging in some form of meaningful dialogue. This, I think, would be the best possible outcome -- and opportunity -- I could imagine in this situation.

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Jessie Daniels

The encounter that Stephen describes is a vexing situation for those of us who count ourselves as white allies for racial equality. As he describes the exchange, it is one bound up with white racial privilege (and, one suspects, class privilege). The image of the white professor chastising the young, black grafitti artists (or merely vandals) and their understandably angry response, seems like a reenactment of larger scripts about race and class in the culture.

I think it's also important to bring up the issue of gender and sexuality in the dissecting of this story. If I had been in that situation, and I had seen those young men while I (also a white professor, and a woman) had been with my partner (also a woman), I would not have said anything to a group of adolescent boys - whatever their race - for fear of retaliation that was more aggressive than a raised middle-finger. As lesbian-identified woman, groups of adolescent boys raise the possibility of a different kind of threat for me.

So, for me, the fact that Stephen feels he can call out these young men is completely bound up in his own position of privilege at the intersection of race and class, as well as gender and (hetero)sexuality.

If the underlying issue here is about how to intervene in the lives of young, black youth who may have gone astray on the path toward adulthood, full citizenship and participation in the broader society, I would echo what others have said here about community engagement. I wonder if Stephen knew the names of these young men? He doesn't say, but my guess is that he did not. Did he ever have a conversation with them prior to the exchange around the graffiti? Without a personal connection in which you at least know the young men's names or have had a conversation once before, an encounter such as this one is doomed to replay hierarchies of race and class.

And, just so you know that this not all theoretical for me, I'll close with a story from my own life. I attend a multi-racial, queer church called Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCCNY). MCCNY has for 8 or so years run a shelter for LGBTQ homeless teens. The shelter is open 365 nights a year, and operates in the basement of the church building. The kids who reside there come from all over, are predominantly black and latino, and are mostly homeless because they have 'come out' to their families and been rejected by them. These young people are struggling - often heroically - to survive in difficult circumstances. They are also teenagers. As such, they not infrequently act out in ways that are just not acceptable. If I see unacceptable behavior by one of the teens and act in ways to correct it, I am in a similar position to the one that Stephen was in. I am white and a professor, and thus have racial and class privilege in relation to these young people. All of our interactions are always going to be inflected by those differences. However, that does not mean that I look the other way when I see a young person putting themselves in harm's way. I intercede when I can, and I'm mostly likely to take action - and to be effective - when I know a young person's name, I've talked with them before in some non-confrontational exchange, and they have a sense that I care about them beyond the interaction in which I'm telling them that they've messed up.

Dr. Jessie Daniels is an Associate Professor at Hunter College. She is cofounder and a frequent blogger at RacismReview; you can follow her on Twitter.

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Tami Winfrey Harris

It is easy to see the implications of race and class all over an interaction between a white, male, college professor and three, young, black, inner-city males in the city of Chicago. We are trained to think that way, especially those of us who are committed to anti-racism and the exploration of privilege and power. But in this case, I wonder if those things--race and class--are distractions.

Let me explain. Race and class play a tremendous role in the marginalization of young, black males. And there may be no better illustration of that fact than Chicago, where 36 young men of color have died violently this year, and the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" in the highly-segregated city grows ever wider. So, it is safe to say that race and class likely played a significant role in these youths' seeming disaffection. But I am not convinced that it colored their interaction with you, Stephen.

I witnessed similar scenarios play out during my years in the Windy City with similar results. Adults, old enough to remember the time not so long ago when grown ups were expected to chasten ill-behaved young people and the young people generally obliged out of a sense of respect for age and authority, attempting to correct a raucous or anti-social group of teens only to be met with verbal or physical aggression. The races of the adults who embraced the notion of "it takes a village" varied, the infractions did also--loud cursing on the No. 6 bus, jimmying locks to make a short cut through private property--the outcome of their actions usually did not.

What is happening to our children? Well, in the case of black males (and there are certainly many troubled youth of other races, but young black men are particularly at risk), Anti-Racist Parent columnist Liz Dwyer said, in a post about the murder of Derrion Albert, that we are faced with "chickens coming home to roost."

As a society, we have chosen to not uphold desegregation laws. We have chosen to allow low income children of color to receive a substandard education, simply because they live in a different zip code. We have chosen to not pay a living wage so that people can actually have the means to pursue life, liberty and happiness, so they can move out of dangerous neighborhoods if they see fit. And we have chosen to allow gangs and narcotic trafficking to run rampant, as long as it stays controlled on the “bad” side of town.

As for having some sort of moral or spiritual “center” where today’s teens know not to beat one of their peers to death, that sort of center doesn’t just fall out of the sky and infect kids like Swine Flu. Yes, children and teens should know better, but we live in a do-whatever-you-wanna-do culture. Self-control is in no way a part of our world these days.

I’m not saying this to excuse what these teenagers did. But hello, didn’t you read Lord of the Flies as part of your education?

THIS is where race and class come in. Society has surely created an environment where anti-social behavior will fester in disenfranchised youth, including children of color and the poor. And because we broke it, it is our job to fix it. It is good that you intervened, Stephen--not as a white savior, but as a concerned adult. What most of us, including me, are far more likely to do is look away and say nothing, to tsk tsk about the kids and the mamas and daddies who are raising them, to give the children in question up for lost. We look away from the loud and aggressive behavior. We look away from the loitering. We look away from the vandalism. We look away...until a teenaged boy is beaten to death on camera...and then it seems people cannot look away. And we wonder how we got here.

Tami Winfrey Harris blogs at What Tami Said and is the editor of Anti-Racist Parent. Follow her on Twitter.

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Alvin Herring

It would be all too easy for me as an African American male to categorize the angst my White brother felt over this incident as just another example of the privilege Whites enjoy – as it relates to race - to stand at a distance from the dirty work of confronting the tough realities racism creates and retreat to the sidelines where behaviors, motives and choices can be safely analyzed and timidly dissected. For sure, that is the choice of many White liberals, intending to sound like allies and then losing their voice when situations and circumstances call for a more vigorous assertion of solidarity.

But in the real world of race, no one gets a pass. Racism exists to systematically rob of us our humanity and psychically prepare us for the dirty work of denying to those deemed “less than” or “other than” opportunity, access, power, wealth and the very essentials of life itself. And racism doesn’t ever stand alone as a single issue but pulls in every other societal structure in around it, forcing us to contend with unholy combinations of race and other social dimensions such as class, gender or sexual orientation.

What has to be remembered is that race is the predicate, the root. Indeed, a racist system will never truly let you forget it. In the encounter with the boys making mischief on the train, the scenario is as it seems. No matter of intent, goodwill or progressive racial sentiment can alter the reality that a White man has stepped into foreign territory and entered the world of these Black boys without invitation. Their response is neither novel nor unexpected. They rebuke him and put him “in his place.” His angst is also part of the “script.” Was he right to express his displeasure at the boys or was his behavior based on race? Did they reject his correction because he was an adult censoring youth rebellion or did they interpret his actions as racist?

In a better world a grown-up should be able to confront misbehaving juveniles and have his intent be seen if not as helpful and corrective at least benign. But this is not a better world. It is the world that racism has created. In that world –our world – racism is an idol that must be worshipped and our desire for community is the sacrificial lamb.

How do we ever get past this? How do we meaningfully enter each other’s worlds and build real connections across race lines? The answers are not simple ones but they begin with a need for a universal recognition of what racism is and how it distorts the human heart and mind. It begins with Blacks and Whites each speaking to the ways our lives have been wounded by racism. Whites must summon the courage to acknowledge how they have been privileged by the oppression of people of color and undertake the work of dismantling that privilege by working for justice. Blacks must come to grips with centuries of rage and bitter resentment (much of which has been focused internally) and become earnest partners in forging a more just society.

Real community ought to be our goal, but to get there we are going to have to have the courage to step up to situations such as this and confront how incomplete our lives are in the shadow of structural racism. We’re going to have to finally reach that place where justice demands that we stop business as usual and get down to the real business of confronting racism.

Alvin Herring is the CEO and lead facilitator of Side by Side. Follow him on Twitter.

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Mikhail Lyubansky

This is a no-win situation. That was my immediate reaction to reading about Stephen’s encounter. But I didn’t want to write that. It was pessimistic and, more importantly, not at all useful, helpful, or constructive. I try to approach my analysis of race and racial dynamics constructively. So, I didn’t write anything, hoping that that something more constructive would come to me. Nothing has.

It’s a no-win situation even without the racial layer, at least from my perspective as a White ally (I’m in full agreement with Stephen’s take on it). That is, I don’t see a productive way to respond to this specific encounter, even if the boys in question are also white. The reason is that, given the situation, the boys are likely to distrust me and, therefore, perceive anything I do or say with suspicion. The remedy – the only remedy, in my opinion – is to earn their trust, to convince them that I had their interests and their needs in mind. As a clinical psychologist, I have some ideas about how to do this: I’d try to guess at their underlying motivations and needs (these might include self-expression, autonomy, fun, and even justice (e.g., payback for perceived systemic oppression) and respond to any expression (even if hostile) of such needs with statements expressing empathy and my desire to understand their motivations and experiences. Not always, but quite often, if it really comes from the heart (true empathy is hard to fake), this method is effective in building trust. But it takes time, sometimes a lot of time, and in this particular situation, the time is just not available. Stephen is waiting to get on a train, which could arrive at any moment, and even if he is willing to talk to forget the train and talk to the boys as long as necessary (unlikely since he is traveling with his wife), it is, at best, doubtful that the boys would be willing to engage with him long enough to be convinced of his good intentions.

And to this, we add the racial layer, because there is no way that this encounter is not, in part, racial in nature. In Spike Lee’s classic Do The Right Thing, the local African American community, furious about Radio Raheem’s needless death at the hands of the police and despondent over the certainty that the city would not care, take out their frustration on Sal’s Famous Pizzeria – not because Sal deserved it but because as a White person in the Black community he represented not just whiteness but white power and oppression. The destruction of Sal’s Famous was not a personal attack on Sal. In some ways, it had nothing to do with Sal the person, who, the incident with Radio’s radio aside, was generally well-liked by most of the people in the neighborhood. I recall Do The Right Thing, because, I think that, on some level (possibly an unconscious one), the boys in the subway station are acting out the same kind of frustration with the (white) “system” as the residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Do The Right Thing (or not – they could be middle-class kids just having “fun” – the truth is there is no way to know). As such, until he proves otherwise, Stephen represents the “system” and white oppression. It has nothing to do with Stephen the person. And it may not even be something that the boys have a conscious awareness of. But the moment that Stephen initiates a conversation, this racial history and symbolism come into play. His words and actions become transformed by who he is racially and who he represents on a racial level, pushing the possibility of trust even further out of reach. These racial dynamics can be overcome. In another context, I think Stephen could do it. I’m sure he has done it and will do it again in the future. But in this particular case, I just don’t think the opportunity for establishing a relationship is there. In this case, an engagement with the boys is a no-win situation. Allies need to know when to lead, when to play a supporting role, and when to stay out of the way. It makes me sad to say this, but I think this is a situation we have to stay out of.

Dr. Mikhail Lyubansky is a member of the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a managing editor at the progressive media site OpEdNews.com and blogs at Psychology Today. Follow him on Twitter.

White Friends, Black Friends: The Personal Nature of Racial Politics

We have been working together for over eight years now. We come from different backgrounds (personally and professionally), but we share a common vision for advancing racial justice by learning (and sharing) through employing the most contemporary social science research theories and methods to the study of race, politics and communication. As regular TWIR readers know, we try to provide a unified perspective on current events in this space each week. That is, except in very rare circumstances, we put forth analysis here that is a representation of our collective thoughts and application of social science research. Occasionally, however, we write separately, either because we disagree with one another (see here and here, for instance) or because the topic is primarily relevant from one of our perspectives (see here or here).

THIS WEEK, Charlton provides his unique perspective on interracial friendships in this era of heightened awareness of race and racism. It's not that Stephen has nothing to offer to this discussion (after all, he has interracial friendships – Charlton being the most valued – as well), but as you will discover, what Charlton has to say represents a perspective that we decided is best presented from his voice alone. As always, we look forward to your thoughtful comments.

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Race. Politics. Race politics. The politics of race. Identity politics.

Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill is perhaps most famous for popularizing the phrase, “all politics is local.” Those of us who venture into that tangled web where race and politics intersect are especially reminded that all politics is also, personal. In fact, no politics are more personal than racial politics (and the politics of gender and sexual orientation are equally so).

Today’s electoral politics are – in the words of Thomas Hobbes – nasty, brutish and short. But at the end of the day, there is a winner and a loser. Life goes on as the thrill of victory eventually ebbs for the former as the sting of defeat does for the latter. Members of Congress do legislative battle with competing bills, ingenious maneuvers, pointed hearings where they skewer opposing colleagues and roast them with fiery floor speeches meant to paint their adversaries as the worst among us – from heartless baby killers to Machiavellian demagogues and all else in between. Still, they emerge able to shake each other’s hands, extol the virtues of bipartisanship, and then share slippery oysters and a sip of whiskey at Old Ebbitt’s.

Those of us who willfully surround ourselves with the critical minutiae that race bring to everyday life sometimes like to think we are playing the same game.

From the verbal beat-downs we apply to modern racial rabble-rousers like Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin or Glenn Beck (I specify “verbal,” lest any of these folks mistake me for just some Black thug like Barack Obama who inspires Black violence against White people), to the daily debates we engage in over controversial race-based social policies like affirmative action, school desegregation or health care. From our heated discussions on national television designed to convince the public of the folly and fallacies of post-racialism, colorblind ideology and the like to our attempts to get youthful undergraduates to understand the subtleties of modern racism, persistent discrimination, and notions of White privilege, we (more a personal projection than a factual generalization) often like to think that we can immerse ourselves in these murky waters and emerge unsullied and unaffected. We sometimes fool ourselves into believing that our engagement with the stuff of racial politics is a wholly intellectual enterprise – participation in a kind of rational discourse from which we can simply redirect our attention when we wish not to talk about it anymore. We sometimes like to think that what we do and what we talk about exists primarily in that mystical abstract world of ideas.

Then sometimes, we are reminded that the political is the personal when it comes to talking about race. Sometimes we are reminded that despite the hordes of protesters hurling racial insults while the whole world watches, despite all of the “liberal media’s” talk of racism replete in today’s conservative rhetoric, despite our penchant to talk about the broad, statistical realities of racial inequality, skyrocketing incidences of racial violence, increased accusations of workplace discrimination and the like – our discussion about race often comes down to those most basic features of everyday conversation: two people, face-to-face (or what passes for it in our electronic age), talking about something that matters to them – personally.

* * *

Thanks to Facebook, I have recently been back in touch with people from what seems like a different life – particularly, folks from the conservative, Baptist, predominantly White college I attended and from which I graduated nearly twenty years ago. In that much time, some things – some people – change, and some things and people remain the same.

For me, college was a continuation of high school, where learning and learning to be liked alternated and competed for top billing on my life’s marquee of personal goals. (I completed college with a 2.7 GPA, so it is clear which one prevailed.) Where I grew up – on military bases in a city with a large minority population – racial diversity was as ubiquitous as MTV . My schools ranged from being 98% Mexican-origin to highly diverse, though slightly majority-White. So when I showed up for college in the middle of Oklahoma, on a campus where I could count the number of people who looked like me on two – okay, maybe three or four hands – I was a bit taken aback.

But I knew one thing: you do not make friends talking about race, racism, racial discrimination and the like. So I did not (talk about it, much), and I did (make friends). When a few of the women from the campus’s small Black Student Union asked me to join them at one of their meetings, I smiled, said okay, and quickly forgot about the fact that I never intended to go. Who wants to be part of the militant crowd when there are parties to go to, fun to be had, women to meet?

The reality, of course, was that I was not always able to avoid difficult discussion about race. But those are different stories for a different time. For the most part, I became a model for all our colorblind dreams. I even had one of those red, yellow, green “Love Sees No Color” t-shirts that were popular in the early nineties and wore it with pride, hoping forever to avoid those uncomfortable moments having to confront the issue of race.

Fast forward almost two decades. Facebook. Becoming new friends with old ones, eager to see how everyone turned out, these friends and acquaintances – many of whom I hadn’t seen or heard from since we walked across the graduation stage.

In the heat of the moment – post 2008 election, the beginning of the nastiness of the health care debate, amidst the discussion surrounding Henry Louis Gates’s run in with Cambridge cops, surrounded by birthers, hordes of “I want my country back,” protesters, yelling "communist, communist, communist" in the streets about everyone from Barack Obama on down to almost every Black person in or nominated for cabinet posts – I just could not help turning my personal Facebook page (not to be confused with the RaceProject Facebook page) into a site for political warfare. I posted articles of interest about race. I posted my own published or on-air commentary. I responded to comments made by my some of my new and old friends.

At some point, I looked over at my running count of friends. 666. Hmmmm. I could have sworn I was up close to the 850 mark. Seems that some of my friends were steadily peeling away, and I began to notice how I – like everyone else – had begun to take this race talk very personally.

"With the possibility of a recited "I pledge myself to President Obama" being in there, you're damn right I'm concerned. Bush never asked that. Clinton never asked that. Regan never asked that. There are three acceptable entities to which one may pledge oneself: God, Country, Family. To ease the confusion, Obama is NOT country."

An old friend – a college friend and post-college roommate actually – threw this my way when I explained my utter disbelief that anyone would question the President of the United States talking to children in a televised address. I brushed it off without delving further into the matter. The following came a few days later, when I questioned Conservative attacks against Van Jones and his eventual resignation, saying that I thought it was shame when good people are victims of such witch-hunt-style political rhetoric.

"It's a shame when good, intelligent people are willfully blind to or willfully ignorant of what's right in front of them."

I jumped further into the conversation on this one. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Me: Willfully blind or ignorant. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that you were talking about some other group of unknown and unspecified folks, not me.

Him: Sorry, my friend. I may not be able to debate the topics well, but I've never shied away from anything. I've watched Mr. Jones on CSPAN a few times (reruns, you know) and didn't have much issue with him other than all the green stuff. Nice as he seems to be, after his history coming to light, you have to be willfully *something* to think he's good for the country.

Me: Oh, well then. Please do let me know the next time this ignorant fool can be the beneficiary of your infallible wisdom! I'd hate to think I can actually think a reasonable thought and come up with a reasonable conclusion on my own!

Him: Don't play the passive aggressive game. It doesn't suit you. If you think a guy who signs things without reading them, who is an admitted communist and who really thinks green jobs are a viable way to save our nation... if you truely [sic] believe he's good for our nation, then do your best to educate me. Otherwise, the race card is an easy and obvious dismissal of the thoughts and opinions of people who disagree with you. I love reasonable thoughts and I love a good discussion. Bring it on. Make me do some work.

Me: I'm big, I'm Black and I'm overeducated. Many in your camp would say that aggression suits me just fine! Whether it does or doesn't won't get me to back down from the mote in the eye of folks like you who will cry that folks like me played the race card when you folks seem to always refuse to admit that race is ever a factor, that race may possibly . . . be a factor in any kind of political action, decision, personal preference or the like. That you can dismiss anything like me says anytime we venture to point out the possibility - however glaringly explicit or implicit it may be. So then, why don't you tell me which of the following you would consider to be an example of me NOT playing the race card?

What followed was a list of about 20 things that I challenged him to tell me whether I was – as I am and we are so often accused of – seeing race and racism in everything. He rose to the challenge. I have yet to respond. But the point of it all is simply that with all my talk of “conservatives this, and conservatives, that,” my friend was hearing all of my accusations and claims of conservative insolence as a personal affront. My talk of conservative racism was heard as, “you, my friend, are a racist, a bigot, etc.” and much of our conversation didn’t get beyond that. (Stephen and I wrote more about this a few weeks ago in this space when we talked of the idea of “racism fatigue.”)

I say all of this to remind us – myself really – that all conversation comes down to two people addressing each other. Good conversation is risky, sometimes difficult, sometimes painful, but often productive. On the one hand I WISH I could be like another old college friend of mine who regularly says things to me like, “I look at the values of the people and truly could care less about,” or, “I am sick of race being used...isn't this a Post Racial president...I talk about [race] more now than I ever have in my entire life!" or who sends me articles by Black people with titles such as “American Thinker: Why I am no longer an African American.”

While I am frustrated (both personally and professionally) by what I have been observing on the landscape of racial discourse in America today, I am also saddened because I cannot help but think that these White friends from years past were able to enjoy my company because we spent our time talking about football or music; I was not "acting so Black" back then. My ideas about race and racism have not changed, though, and my guess is that theirs have not either. The suggestion that I am somehow "different now" is predicated on a willingness on all of our parts to ignore the obvious, which was an arrangement that served all of our interests then. In that way, these friendships serve as a metaphor for America's collective relationship with racism. While I have no doubt that their friendship was genuine, I have to wonder whether, at least on a subconscious level, these folks were able to soothe themselves about their own deep-seated racial predispositions (which we all have) through my friendship. In other words, my presence in their lives enabled them to say, "I have a Black friend," which, for many, is as powerful evidence of not being racist as one needs (right alongside avoidance of the "n-word"). Did I (ironically) function as a racial quota, and am I less valuable now that I am active in pointing out that racism is more complicated that individual-level bigotry? Does their White privilege allow them to believe that since I think this way that they are correct and I am "wrong" (overly-sensitive, radical, out-of-touch with "real" America)?

I, too, sometimes wish that race was not such a necessary part of American social and political life. But people of color do not have the luxury of willing it to be so. On the other hand, I am reminded almost daily of the reality that when one talks about race with some folks, they will always hear – no matter how impersonal one tries to pitch the conversation – themselves being labeled and denigrated for being "a racist." Feelings are hurt, misunderstandings occur, time has to be spent easing bruised feelings. It is difficult, it is messy, it is – very personal.

To B or Not to B

Attentive TWIR readers will notice that about a year ago, we started to capitalize the words "White" and "Black" in our posts. We're still not completely comfortable with the decision to do so, but the implications are potentially significant. We are interested in your feedback on this.

Academic journals differ as to whether these shorthand racial classifications should be capitalized. There seems to be unanimous agreement that terms like "Caucasian" and "African American" should always be capitalized (though whether the latter should be hyphenated is another point of contention), but one can open a number of scholarly journals and books and see "White" and "Black" both capitalized and in lower case form. The style guide for the American Psychological Association (APA) -- which communication journals follow and upon which political science formal style [APSA style] is based -- requires capitalization. This is why we made the switch.

On the other hand, Carnegie Mellon University's style guide is clear that these words should not be capitalized. This is consistent with the guidelines of the Associated Press (AP), which drives decisions for most journalistic (as opposed to scholarly) publications.

In a 2000 issue of American Speech, Robert Wachal, professor emeritus of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Iowa, argues that "Black" should be capitalized, as should "White," because they are proper nouns, not color descriptors. Wachal says that failing to capitalize "Black" is "unintended racism" (what we would simply call "racism," since we divorce intent from the concept altogether, leaving terms like "prejudice" and "bigoted" for intention-relevant attitudes and behaviors). To make the issue even more complicated, DiversityInc provides interesting rationale for why "Black" should be capitalized but "white" should not be.

To further the conversation, it is important to consider this exchange about whether it is appropriate to capitalize "Indigenous."

A fundamental assumption of our work through the Race Project, including our weekly offerings here, is that language matters. Those who dismiss gender-neutral language or "politically correct" speech are unappreciative of the ways that language at once reflects and perpetuates power differences in culture. Using "member of Congress" instead of "Congressman," for instance, has real implications for the ability of women to be competitive for public office and to enjoy the respect that men have received "naturally." The critical race scholar bell hooks writes her name in all lower case letters, which reminds us of the arbitrary privilege that some members of society have as a result of their placement (akin to the arbitrary largeness of letters that just happen to come at the front of a word).

So what do you think? Should the terms "White" and "Black" be capitalized or not? In what ways might this matter?

Let us know!