(ThyBlackMan.com) Who determines what racism is acceptable and what racism must be punished? What are the criteria? What has happened with Paula Deen and Fox “news analysts” (wink, wink) Bill O’Reilly has, for me, accentuated to whole question of racism is acceptability.
Paula Deen, as I’m sure you know, has been tarred and feathered for her use of the n word and other alleged really silly, racist remarks. If it weren’t for the fact that Deen’s language and views came to light within the context of racial and sexual discrimination in her business enterprises, I would have dismissed her comments as the musings of an old, relatively harmless, wannabe Scarlet O’Hara. I still wouldn’t buy any of her products, but it isn’t as if she was going to recruit anyone to follow her on the path to the glory days of the Confederacy. Deen’s comments were expressed in a conversation, not to
millions of listeners on radio, like those of O’Reilly.
O’Reilly dropped any pretense of being anything but racist in his response to African American’s exhibiting the audacity of being upset that the unrepentant George Zimmerman was acquitted at killing an unarmed black teenager. Think the U.S. justice system treats African Americans unfairly? Then you “simply hate America” or suffer a “victim mentality,” according to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
The veil dropped further in his response to President Obama’s call for a dialogue on race. O’Reilly who knows absolutely nothing about Black folks or what we go through (he was SHOCKED to learn that we behave in restaurants the same way other human beings behave) lectured black folks on why we are the cause of all our problems. Bill O’Reilly’s response to Obama’s call for a conversation on race was to tell black folks to stop having babies out of wedlock. Does this mean that no out of wedlock babies would have prevented Trayvon Martin from being killed? This is the same misdirection tactic that was used during the Civil Rights era to cloud and confuse the issues. Back then it was, “you just want to integrate so you can marry my sister.”
The noise generated by Bill O’Reilly and the other propagandists at Fox News does serious damage to race relations. They deliberately misinterpret anything regarding black folks, and as a result, pretty much preclude any serious conversation about race. Yet because O’Reilly and Co. have avoided using the n-word, and the fact that their audience shares their willful ignorance and hatred, the only consequences these hate mongers will face will be increased ratings. After all, Bill O’Reilly and his cohorts at Fox can’t be condemned if they don’t use the n word.
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African American reporter/anchor Don Lemon touched off a firestorm when he joined O”Reilly’s call for an end to out of wedlock babies and added a couple more rules- notably pull up your pants, and stop using the n word- as a panacea for America’s racial woes. Lemon’s comments sparked a lively debate on the Melissa Harris Perry show that focused primarily on the sagging pants. My own feelings are that we go too far in extremes when dealing with the sagging pants issues.
On the one hand, we know that the right wingers will use anything, including sagging pants as a justification for all ill that befalls the African American community; including their proclivity for shooting us. (We probably wouldn’t have been enslaved in the first place, if it hadn’t been for those sagging loin cloths we wore back in the day). Those of us who feed into these arguments, like Lemon, become pawns in the propaganda war against African America.
On the other hand, sagging pants ARE offensive, and no one is offended more- no one has to look at them more- than the African American community. Almost every time I see these young men wearing the drooping pants, I have an internal conversation with myself. First I acknowledge how thoroughly disgusting it is to have to see these folks’ underwear. Then I tell myself, that the man/child is just a product of his environment, doing what everybody else does- like most folks- and that he might be a very decent honorable young man, despite his sagging pants. (I really shouldn’t have to work that hard).
For me, sagging pants are not the disease, they are the symptoms. They are not the cause, they are the effect. American society, (black and white) has been deteriorating for quite some time. The reasons are myriad, but among the biggest are deteriorating and, in the Black community, declining hope. These young people are not the source of the problem. They are the result. When we understand this, and can block out the noise from racists and their Negro subordinates, we may be able to move forward along with waistlines moving upward.
Staff Writer; William Griggs
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