In light of the contremps between Obama and Hillary last week, I thought I’d unearth an old Armed Liberal post:
CONVERSATION STOPPERS
One of my best friends spent years as a community organizer for parks in New York City. She is a fountain of funny stories and ‘on-the-ground’ political wisdom, and one of her truisms is: dog doo ends all meetings.
That is to say, much like Godwin’s Law, as soon as dog waste is brought up, the meeting is effectively over. The room divides, the tempers get hot, and constructive discussion flies out the window.
I’ll suggest a corollary of this, which is: race ends all Democratic politics.
In the discussion of the ‘Veterans Day’ post below, the thread immediate turned into a race politics thread – who were the racists, and what political power did they have in which party. And constructive discussion sort of petered out.
Now, race is a real issue in American life today.
Yesterday, I had dinner with a friend. I was dropping off a character reference letter for him to give to the sentencing judge next week. He got talked into something stupid, got set up, and got arrested. Another casualty of the drug wars (to his credit, he blames no one but himself – one reason he’s the kind of guy I’d write judge letters for). There’s a chance – a narrow chance – that he will just get probation, which means he’ll get to keep the job he’s had for twelve years.
We were talking about it and he said something that rang my bells pretty hard.
“Now,” he said quietly, “when I get pulled over and they ask me if I’m on probation, I’ll have to say ‘yes’.” I looked at him.
“Damn,” I said, “they never ask me that” – and then the unspoken acknowledgment. He’s black, I’m not.
Now I’ve ridden along with cops a fair amount (I also have good cop friends). Without going into a lot of detail about my friend, there are things that would make me look at him twice (things I learned to look for from cops, and which I saw and remarked on when he and I first met – part of how we became friends).
But his matter of fact comment is no less heartbreaking to me because I know that if I was a cop, I’d be asking him the same question. And there, in a nutshell, is the American Tragedy of race.
But – it isn’t the only problem or the only tragedy we face. And the fact that it stops us in our tracks – that it stopped Janice Hahn – that it stops discussion – is a bigger problem. I won’t pretend to lecture anyone on this subject tonight.
But the lecture’s coming.
Good work.
I’ve never quite understood what the “conversation about race” is supposed to cover. If it all boils down to “you’re white, you’re evil, and you owe me stuff”, versus “you’re non-white, you’re a victim, the world owes you stuff for your enduring victimhood”, that “conversation” takes all of two sentences.
If one points out that “race difference” is really about cultural differences – and hopefully cultural commonality as Americans – that’s a somewhat more interesting discussion. But since “diversity” is all about “celebrating differences”, I doubt that unity or commonality is supposed to be mentioned.
I think the great thing about America, throughout its history has been a lack of cultural commonality. Immigration from Europe, the African Diaspora, etc. has kept the country vibrant, accepting and given us flexibility which is probably our greatest asset in relation to other countries.
The mutability of our culture is what makes us different. Common culture makes us stagnant. All Golden Ages are fueled by cultural invasions and absorbing and adapting and to new ideas, many of the strongest are cultural.
I remember the French effort in trying to defend the French language in the 1980’s against the onslaught of American English like “le weekend”. The head of the program was a minister called, of all things, Jack Lange.
I think we only run into problems when communities are not inclusive as the White Anglo-Saxons were throughout much of our history. By the way, I am Irish by blood and the son of parents whose families had their share of No Irish Need Apply warnings in the early part of the last century in New York City.
Inclusion is what is important, not necessarily commonality. Commonality of culture and beliefs is what the old Soviet Union among others strived for. Give me a mixture of Texas Cowboys, Florida Cubans, Chicago Poles, South West Chicanos, Flatbush West Indians and don’t try to mold me into a common culture. I am an American.
[Spam. Deleted. –NM]