A Gentleman’s view.

A comedian makes a point, that being; When does it end? I suggest reading Willie Lynch.

Michael Richards was Kramer on the “Seinfeld” show, made race an issue during one of his routines as a standup comic. He caught some heat about some of his remarks.  I was fortunate enough to have them shared with me by what I supposed is a proud white man who is a co-worker of mine. I read them and thought a response was appropriate. The piece is called: “Proud to be White.

This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act. Some of his points and my counters below.

“There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans and Arab Americans etc.”

“Then there are just Americans. You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You call me ‘White boy.’ ‘Cracker,’ Honky,’ ‘Whitey,’ ‘Caveman,’… and that’s OK. But when I call you Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink,… You call me a racist.

I personally never agreed with the African American term as a way of identifying my ethnic identity. I was black a kid because that was what everyone told me I was. As a kid who grew up during the time of hearing James Brown sing the song ‘Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud,’ I never learned any reason to be anything but, again this is just about me. I believe with patience one could read into each and every one of those distinctions as they state everyone came from other places to become part of the American experience and what country they started from to get here. Most of the Europeans who migrated here, did so obviously the earliest and therefore been here the longest. Have the least of their homeland’s old rituals and traditions as daily standard practice. Therefore the rationale they become being the ‘just Americans’. Blacks didn’t come here voluntarily as did the other ‘various’ Americans who did so because they wanted to or were invited to make America their home. So slaves mostly,were cut off from Africa so far away held on to less of their traditions than did the Europeans. So because I am black, I will cover that first.

As for all the colorful names exchanged from just Americans and the other ethnic groups that make up this beautiful country of ours; first just the black point; ‘Nigger‘, started with slavery here and because of it, it was never meant to be anything but the most derogatory, and the most despicable of all possible slurs one human could verbally inflict upon another. We are talking about the consideration of ‘just Americans’ flat out declaration that all blacks were less than human to the point that of being beast or animals. Still to this very day that statement stands in the Constitution of these United States. 3/5 of a person, 1782 Slavery Compromise. Republicans today of the far right are seeking legal recourse to address this issue to remove our current President from the office.

As with the rest of the colorful terminology, just Americans usually refers to ‘White males,’ as such, they always intended to position themselves with complete control and authority at best, and racial superiority at the least. Priority one; the constant psychological putdown. The terminology coming back at them was usually from a position of self defense, (even if elemental i.e.; stupid, ugly) having very little impact on the lives or realities of the white males receiving those insults.

“You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you… so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?”

Well, I can say that whites males did commit a lot of crimes against women and people of color, and depending on the circumstances, especially when it comes to women, they still do. Unfortunately, black men are not an improvement. However, we as a people weren’t hanging men, our young males, we blacks weren’t doing that to ourselves. We who became the strange fruit that the South was known to grow as so many lynching’s took place down there. We weren’t burning down our churches, forcing white slave plantation owners to rape our women, break up our familys,  sell our kids during those over four hundred years of this glorious country’s history. We didn’t burn down a whole city  run by blacks and run out or kill every one of the citizens early in this country history. Our neighborhoods are the places of danger because of the despair of little funds,  resources and even less hope. We are where you have allowed us to be, as we have never been in control. If we attempted to move anywhere you didn’t want us, you, the just Americans, made it your business to let us know. You did this even when members of your own people took us in and presented us back to you as acceptable. We don’t control the jails that your laws make house almost half the male population and at least 40 percent of the female population that may be out there in competition with you ‘White males’ for resources. Today in our neighborhoods, we attack our own as we were taught; kill a black, go to jail for several years, kill a white, go to jail for life. As stated before, we still have less value than they do, here in America today.

‘You have the United Negro College Fund.’ You have Martin Luther King Day, Black History Month, Cesar Chavez Day, Yom Hashanah. ‘You have Mauled Al-Nabi. You have the NAACP, Bet. If we had WET, (White Entertainment Television), we’d be racist. If we had a White Pride Day, we’d be racists. ‘If we had White History Month’, we’d be racist. If we had any organization to ‘advance’ OUR lives, we’d be racist.

Again, it comes down to ‘White males”. A day or a month, a television station, an ethnic group organization to advance their cause was what was allowed during those time. All of those groups still had to go to those ‘White Males’ to get anything they wanted as they were in complete control. Their history was all that existed, there was no Women’s history or Black or Hispanic history or anybody else’s history. No one else mattered to the White Males in control of all the various segments of society and its development even still to this very day. They had Charles Darwin, they had Willie Lynch, they had the Klu Klux Klan, and they had Jim Crow laws that publicly stated in many places; ‘Whites Only’. They, the White Males, were here the longest, had the most tenure so to speak, ran the show from a position of control, authority, using their race as a weapon over the others to project superiority in various ways depending on the part of the country there were in. Government, laws, regulations, threats and even violence was used when it came to getting us blacks to understand what our place was  in this country to those in power. Many of those organizations sprang up either in defense, or just survival against the relentless assaults by those in positions of authority. Native Americans didn’t have very many organized efforts in their fight for survival and look what happened to many of them as there were whole tribes that are no longer in existence in losing the battle with the “Just Americans” for these United States. I won’t debate the value Dr. Martin Luther King had on this country or any country that a human being of that character of a man would have given to any place he lived, even with his many flaws. I won’t attempt to understand anyone who doesn’t think he was a hero to this country.

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce. and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that? A White Woman could not be Miss Black America, but any person of color can be Miss America.

A Black lady of multi-racial heritage (a black mother and white father) could be very white in the complexion of her skin and her bona fides verified to the utmost, win Miss Black America, and go on to win Miss America, Miss World, and then Miss Universe, stranger things have been known to happen.

If we had college fund that only gave white students scholarships… You know we’d be racists. There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US. Yet if there were “White Colleges”

Duh! I believe is the most appropriate response to that last comment, ‘like Yeah Dude!’ He probably said that with a straight face, I would hazard a guess there are probably more of that scholarship thing going on in the more Progressive, Liberal-minded Northern sections of the country rather than the South. Either way that goes on among the elitist of every level of human endeavor. Your Ivy Leagues schools having the most and your City Universities having the least. If our privileged didn’t feel the responsibility to create opportunities for those less fortunate, to include our elitist also, yes we do have them, it would have been an even steeper climb up from slavery for the black people of America. That is amazing how that didn’t come up on his radar.

in the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights, if we marched for our race and our rights. you would call us racist.

I believe the Million Man March was an attempt once again by the Black race as a whole to call on the carpet all the brothers who have been irresponsible for the financial support and caring for of all those kids from many different woman they have been creating. You famous and not so famous ‘White Guys’ are guilty of the same, so don’t brag. Dirty Harry, seven kids!

You are proud to be black, brown, yellow, and orange, and you’re not afraid to announce it. But, when we announce our white pride, you call us racist.

I am always amazed on how much the oppressor is never aware of what it is like to be oppressed.

You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoot a black gang member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, your call him racist.

If one is committing larceny, then he risks, arrest. Statistic show this is mostly done among one’s own people, all tribes have rogue elements among them. We have to draw the line on our drug dealers who wind up shot in the back, several times or gun in the wrong hand with the residue test thingy. Not every Black man running is doing it from a crime scene or from the law, trust me on this one, I’m a marathoner and know a little about running.

I am proud… But you call me a racist. Why is it that only whites can be racists??

racist

1932 as a noun, 1938 as an adjective, from race (n.2); racism is first attested 1936 (from Fr. racist me, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories. But they replaced earlier words, racialism (1907) and racialist (1917), both often used at first in a British or South African context.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

— rac·ist \-sist also -shist\ noun or adjective

I threw all of the above in just to make what I feel is the point Michael Richards ask, and I think to some degree all of us Americans ask ourselves; when does this race thing end for us?

© 2009, agentleman. All rights reserved.