Ta-Nehisi Coates had a typically thoughtful post last week on crime and race:
I was just reading this entry from Ezra Klein where he notes that fully half of his friends have been mugged. That is just a shocking number to me. I got to thinking back on my days in the District, and I couldn't even think of more than three or four people who I knew that had been mugged. As I reflected more on it, I came to a very uncomfortable--if obvious conclusion--if you're a mugger in D.C., a young, white, bookish blogger probably looks like the perfect mark.For most of my tenure in D.C., I was going to Howard University. This was before the advent of gentrification, and it was generally thought that Howard students, themselves, were easy marks. But me and most my friends knew that to be a simplification. It's true that if you walked through, say, Clifton Terrace star-gazing, if you're roaming the streets acting like it can't happen (as us ancient hip-hop heads say), you were very likely to get stuck. But as anyone whose spent some time in the city knows, if you moved through the streets with purpose, if you kept the ice-grill on and looked like you were all business, if you kept that sixth sense of yours buzzing, the chances of you actually falling prey were pretty low. I may have had one encounter my whole time in D.C. You may attribuite that to me being 6'4, but the same was true of virtually all of my friends because they tended to be, like me, kids who didn't have a thuggish bone in their bodies but were still intimately acquainted with, as Dre would say, the Strength of Street Knowledge.
In reading all of these blog postings about crime in the District, I am beginning to understand--to some extent--the fear that white folks must have of black crime, as something different than the fear that black folks have. I live in Harlem, still a relatively unsafe section of New York, but having lived in Harlems all my life, I acutally feel almost as safe there as I do here in Aspen. I know that violent crime most often happens in situations in which people know each other, or in situations in which someone looks like a target. I tend to not hang with criminals, and I do what I can to not make myself a target.
But how would I feel if I knew my skin color alone made me an easy mark for the most degenerate elements of a community? Heh, probably the exact same way I'd feel driving through the small towns of Texas. That's not entirely fair--random street crime is still more common than hate crime. What I'm driving at is this: For the first time in my life, I have some sense of what the white guy who is ignorant of all things about black people is thinking when he drives through certain parts of town and rolls up his window. Because his very whiteness makes him an easy mark, he has to fear things in a way that I never do.
White people writing about race are always walking a minefield, so I'll have to ask you to assume my goodwill here, and forgive any infelicities.
I've been talking a bit about privilege recently--how the ways in which their dominance makes their lives easier become invisible to the members of the dominant group. It's interesting to contemplate a sort of reverse privilege, in which some key component of the dominant group experience is somehow emotionally invisible to other groups.
I think it's safe to assume that minorities and women know more about life in the dominant group than the reverse--if for no other reason than the ways that media centers around their experience. But that can be tricky. Have you ever noticed how Europeans think they know way more about life in America than they actually do, because they watch our television and movies? I'm pretty sure that I know more about men's world than they know about mine--but I'm also confident that I don't actually know what it's like to be a man.
I don't know what to do with that insight, except to note that probably, this makes the actions of the dominant group seem more malicious than they are. While we were at Aspen, Ta-Nehisi and Kenyatta and I talked about the fact that most white people have some older person--a relative or a family friend--who is an extremely good person, and also says racist things. Most of us don't confront those people, except perhaps in a "Now, grandma, you know you shouldn't say those things*" kind of way.
I assume that this looks, from the outside, like we endorse or at least accept those opinions. But most people I know have wrestled with the problem. That most of us have concluded that we can't raise an 85-year-old might be cowardice, but to me it feels like choosing my battles. Building racial harmony in the nation's nursing homes is not high on my list of priorities. And if you become the Family Flake, the one who picks fights with Uncle Howard every Christmas, you lose any opportunity for more gentle persuasion.
I really don't want this post to come out as "See--black people don't understand how hard white people have it!" Rather, I'm continuing what I tried to say in this post: that both communities, because they have a less than perfect understanding of the others' experience, are more suspicious of each other than they need to be.
* For example only; my grandmother is a lovely woman from whom I have never heard the slightest racist utterance.
"Have you ever noticed how Europeans think they know way more about life in America than they actually do, because they watch our television and movies? I'm pretty sure that I know more about men's world than they know about mine--but I'm also confident that I don't actually know what it's like to be a man."
I get your point and no one really knows what it's like to be another person. However, I'm not sure this is the best analogy. When black people and women go to work, they live and work in an economy American and workforce that is largely controlled by white people and men. As such, they are forced to learn how to act within white society and around men. The reverse just isn't really true to the same degree. It's similar to Dan Savage's observation that while gay people may not know what it's like to be straight, gay people are forced to know how to act in wider straight society and often feel forced to pretend they are straight (especially in the closet, among older people, etc.). Europeans, on the other hand, don't live in a world that is as dominated by the US as American life is as dominated by men and white people. The EU is still a major economy. Europeans live in their own countries, work primarily with other Europeans of the same linguistic, religious and ethnic background. They don't really have to interact with the US in everyday life how minorities and women have to interact with white people and men do in the US. As such, Europeans aren't really forced to come to understand Americans as minorities are forced to understand white people and women are forced to understand men.
a 6'4" person is unlikely to get mugged??????
tell me another.
I'm not disputing that. But the idea is that there are some areas of white life that are pretty much invisible to blacks--what we're like when alone with our all-white families, for example. Or how it feels to be a white woman walking down an otherwise empty street with a young black man coming up behind her. Likewise, I have no idea what goes on in all-male activities. And those areas are important; they considerably complicate the picture of what it means to be male, or white.
"Or how it feels to be a white woman walking down an otherwise empty street with a young black man coming up behind her."
I vaguely remember a quote from Jesse Jackson, about how it bothered him that, if he was walking alone at night and heard someone behind him, he would feel better if the person was white rather than black. What that made me think about is how the race would be less important than the gender. As a woman, I'd much rather see a black woman than a white man behind me late at night.
Interesting post by Coates.
I just don't like being jumped
because they have a less than perfect understanding of the others' experience, are more suspicious of each other than they need to be.
Paranoia may be a very adaptive reaction to an imminently dangerous situation of which we have imperfect information.
How would one know that "most white people" have an older friend or relative who says racist things?
You might have been right twenty years ago, but I am skeptical that you are correct today.
Well, I'm a typical white person, and I think Ezra Klein looks like an easy mark. I also think Coates has a very good point about about walking with a purpose - more than a few times I've ended up in a neighborhood I shouldn't have been in - you put on your hard face, walk with a measured step and open up your senses, and you'll probably be fine.
Reality Man:
"When black people and women go to work, they live and work in an economy American and workforce that is largely controlled by white people and men."
I feel like your comment reinforces Megan's point. This is what I see, as a white male. When nearly anyone in America goes to work, they enter a workforce controlled by the sort of aggressive (often competitive, often goal-oriented and reductive, often immediate action oriented) alpha male personalities that have tended to dominate any social anything they've come in contact with.
That is the essential distinction I, as a less socially assertive white male, am inclined to make.
Now, if you're willing to at least entertain the essence of my assertion, the question is, is that distinction as evident if you're not white and male? IF that type of sorting of people has certain benefits in comparison to, say, sex (most type-A hyper assertive people are male, but most males are not hyper assertive), are you a lot less likely to notice it if you're already part of an outside group?
My hunch is being an outsider makes it much easier to notice large scale commonalities in groups you're not a part of (particularly if you have to float within social spaces they dominate) that those groups are oblivious to, but often it makes it harder to read the subtle differences within those groups.
Hey my grandmother was a lovely woman too, but I will never forget the time she became furious with me when I was idly playing with my sister's hair in front of the TV. I had learned that I could get her hair to coil up against her head by twisting it a lot. So I was twisting strands all over her head. Apparently this style was not OK because I was told that I was making my sister look like a pickaninny. I didn't even know what that was until my mom explained it later.
And then there was my dad's funeral when my dear sweet uncle from northern Minnesota referred to the coloreds of Chicago's South Side during his eulogy.
And I have to mention my charming half-Mexican half-brother who routinely uses the term spic, and my wonderful brother-in-law with the old swastika prison tattoo.
These people are too old and too set in their ways to change, but I have hope for the young 'uns in the family. And in the meantime, I just politely disregard their racist proclivities.
"How would one know that "most white people" have an older friend or relative who says racist things?
You might have been right twenty years ago, but I am skeptical that you are correct today. "
Posted by MarkD
I think you're on to something. I'm 45, I think for people my age and older, it is probably true. My grandfather was a genuinely good and kind man. The proudest moment of his life was when he pulled a young black man out from under a moving trolley. He was willing to risk his life to save the other man, he just wasn't willing to believe they were equals. I find it perplexing, but it is real.
The difference I see between people 15 years younger than me and 15 years older than me is amazing. The older white people, when no blacks are around, are likely to let prejudices show in a generally ignorant but non-maliciuos way. The younger people just don't seem to do it. I think I've overestimated the amount of racism due to a tendency to extrapolate personal experience.
I believe it is a matter of shame. One generation is ashamed to be openly racist - the next is ashamed to be privately racist - the next doesn't learn to be racist. There are exceptions of course.
"But as anyone whose spent some time in the city knows, if you moved through the streets with purpose, if you kept the ice-grill on and looked like you were all business, if you kept that sixth sense of yours buzzing, the chances of you actually falling prey were pretty low."
See, this is what I hate. There are times and places where it's what's called for and I've done it, but it bothers me because it's inimical to the kind of social trust that's necessary for real social improvement.
Having to act like the sidwalks of your neighborhood are enemy territory where you always have to be on guard is a terrible way to live no matter how 'safe' you feel and guarantees that the thugs will still own the street as they're determining the rules of conduct.
Man, who continues to live in an environment where one stands a 50-50 chance of a mugging? And where the alternative is moving through the streets with an 'ice grill' one's face? You're making 'flyover land' seem ever more attractive.
Mr RealityMan, I think your post was generally spot-on but I have a tiny little reservation. "Europeans don't generally live in a world as dominated...by men and white people." If you have had experience or hold information to confirm this, well enough. I only know about Europe from hosting exchange students (which involves hosting their families during visits), taking college German and such. Alas! Maybe someday soon I'll correct that hole in my C.V.
But it seems to me that the 'social-business' life of most europeans is maybe lacking the spice of black faces at desks that we've come to think is 'normal'. On the other hand, there is the well known european multi-lingualism. And they seem to travel more than we. So I've thought it's probably a wash.
To the main point of the O.P. Growing up in Dixie in the JimCrow era, blacks were constantly present in white family's lives. They raised the kids (those Junior League meetings and Country Club tournaments must have been just murder!), did the gardening and lawn work. Most of the 'low-paid-service-sector jobs were of course reserved for blacks. In that situation, blacks really did know about white folks and the reverse was less true. I'v often wished I could have been a fly on the wall as they talked about us.
I bet I'd learn something about myself that I didn't know.
But that was many many years ago. I think all of us have changed--blacks as well as whites. But the changes that occurred in white families and in our thinking has happened while blacks weren't looking. And it seems to me that our racial problems are made worse somewhat because blacks still have a sense that they know whites, but they don't.
Jack M -- I'm a 6'2", 225 pound white male and when I was about 35 years old I was mugged on the Boston common.
Yes, it was after dark -- about 6:30 on a January evening. The muggers were three black teenagers with at least two and maybe three knives.
At one point one of the knives was in my gloved hand. It would have been very easy to yank it out of the kids --maybe 13 -- hand. But on the other hand I did not know where the kid behind me was holding his knife. Maybe right behind my ear?
So yes, usually being a big person offers a certain amount of protection. But it is still just some.
One point worth noting: My original post may have put too much emphasis on "street sense." It is helpful, but it isn't immunity. Like all things there are likely a gazillion factors that go into who gets mugged and who doesn't. I don't mean to simplify that fact.
Also Slocum, how we pick where we want to live is complicated process. I can't speak for Ezra or Megan, or, I guess, anyone who lives in D.C. now. But I love Harlem. It's my adopted home, and I love the old people in front the apartment buildings who know when my son is away on vacation, the guy at the grocery store who always wants to talk Spurs/Lakers/Celtics etc., the gorgeous architecture, the hum and bustle of 125th, more than a fear the small, small, small group of thugs and cowards who hide amongst all of this.
Some day, I'll probably love something else. But for right now, this is it. Of course, half of my friends haven't been mugged, either.
"I'm pretty sure that I know more about men's world than they know about mine..."
Hopw so? Because you are a woman. all men grow up in a woman's world, and are dominated by women, whereas only some women work in male-dominated jobs. it is perfectly possible for a woman to grow up in a female-dominated household, go to femlae-dominated schools, and then either stay at home and dominate that environement or work in female-dominated job settings, such as schools or a range of similar settings. The same is not possible in reverse for men.
The case is diffenrent for ethnic minoroties in any society - they may believe they understand the majority thoroughly and still be pretty cluelss about areas of that majority's culture they don't have access too. Examples are the (erroneous) way that African-Americans can sometimes lump all Euro-Americans together as one cultural group, let alone begin to understand any of the different cultures, or the howler misconceptions of Christianity you still hear out of Jews even in this fairly homogenized society.
That is where the analogy with Dan Savage's observation breaks down - gay people are overwhelmingly raised in straight households.
Also Slocum, how we pick where we want to live is complicated process.
Sure, and obviously we all have different thresholds for how much crime and disorder we're willing to tolerate. But if it got to the point where half my friends had been mugged in the city where I live, I'd long have been looking elsewhere.
The Tyrones in DC are simply savages. That's the truth in a nutshell, and there's nothing that can be done about it except perhaps for the declaration of martial law or population transfer.
I've only lived in DC for a bit under three years, but I know a huge number of people who have been mugged and even just attacked for sport by gangs of roving Antwaynes or Moeshas (yes, Shanequas attacking both men and women, just for the fun of it.) I've had packs of young Tyrones surround me on the frigging Metro in the middle of rush hour, and no one does a thing to stop it. In general, most blacks in DC are savages.
Nice troll bait in Speaking the Truth; I lived in SE DC for awhile, never had any problems with "Tyrone."
I do think that there is more to not being a mark than putting on your Ice Grill. I used to live in a fairly hispanic, gang infested, non-gentrified neighborhood after I left DC. For awhile, I didn't have much cash. I would walk the streets at late hours alone (my g/f lived several blocks away), and would never have a problem. I'd keep my wits about me (somewhat), but never really felt concerned.
Then I got a nice office job where I would work late. I'd park my car a few blocks away and step out in my suit and tie...and felt 1000 times more exposed. Before, although I didn't dress gangsta, I looked like I belonged. Now I felt like a yuppie, and a target.
It made me realize that socioeconomic indicators are a much better marker for interaction problems. It becomes much more of the mark of "you are not from here" and once you feel like the other, you can both attack (mug someone), or dismiss them as a part of a teeming underclass, the "savages" of poster Speaking Truth to Power. Of course if people like Speaking Truth didn't treat the lower class with such disdain (or if the media & society didn't), then maybe they wouldn't feel so hostile and justified in sticking up someone who they no dobut consider some yuppie douche.
For the record, still no muggings, DC or Vato-barrio. I am one with la gente.
"But it seems to me that the 'social-business' life of most europeans is maybe lacking the spice of black faces at desks that we've come to think is 'normal'. On the other hand, there is the well known european multi-lingualism. And they seem to travel more than we. So I've thought it's probably a wash."
Any trip to Europe should disabuse you of that notion. There may be countries where black faces are rare but in the three I've spent most time in - Netherlands, France and UK - there are significant black populations. Of course the level of integration varies considerably but the idea that you will not encounter non whites as a routine part of everyday life is incorrect.
I live in Texas and routinely travel to Germany (Nuremberg, Dresden) for business and I've been to Prague in the Czech Republic a few times. The overwhelming whiteness of those cities always gets to me. It's a subtle thing, but usually after 2 or 3 days I start looking around for black faces, because I'm used to seeing a lot of them on a daily basis and I'm not while I'm there.
I'm sure there are parts of the US where I'd have a similar experience, but the idea that all of Europe has as many blacks as the American South is false.
The idea that any nation in Europe has as many minorities as America is, frankly, nuts. Nowhere in Europe is anywhere near the point where they're thinking about whites becoming a demographic minority. Moreover, residential and economic segregation tend to be much worse than in America--the Algerians not only cluster in the suburban projects, but rarely leave to work at the jobs they can't get.
I am 61 years old. I grew up in West Philly. Before I was 21 I had been assaulted by young black men on at least five occasions. I was threatened far more then that. Just after we were married my wife was robbed twice by black men. I had two aunts who ran a small luncheonette. They were robbed twice by black men. The second robbery was so violent that my one aunt never fully recovered. My nephew while riding the El was surrounded by black men who beat him so severely he was hospitalized. I could go on but you get the idea. (Yet Barack Obama and his progressive grandfather thought it terrible that his grandmother was afraid of an aggressive black panhandler. I wanted to ask Senator Obama had any white person ever physically laid hands on him.)
On the other hand: when I got out of the army I worked on Ridge Avenue. I would take what was then the E bus up Ridge to Broad where I got the Broad Street Subway then transfer to the El to travel for night classes at Penn. After class I would walk to Walnut and get the D bus. Those who know Philly know many who would consider this a dangerous route. At a gathering of friends and family there were concerns expressed about my safety. I protested that I never felt threaten and what I did was perfectly safe. My wife gently said. “Honey you’re the kind of person people change their seats to get away from, of course you’re safe.” I had bulked up in the Army. I was 6 feet, 230 lbs. I did hard, dirty work and it showed. Oh and I mostly wore my Army field jacket. I am sure I looked like the crazy vet ready to go off. When I took umbrage at my wife’s observation and remarked that all the pretty girls liked me to walk them their cars, my wife just chuckled and said of course they do, better the devil you know …
"And they seem to travel more than we. "
Yeah, between those little tribal states they fancifully call nations. Almost any American has travelled more miles - travelled, not commuted - than any European other than the journalists, the diplomats and the sort of people who winter in Spain or take vactions in the Maldives.
The provincialism goes deep and is celebrated. I lived in the Nuernberg area for three years. Ocean fish was impossible to find - no market for it. French cheeses were not generally available - no market for them. Even beer from other regions of Germany was a rare find - no mar......
"The idea that any nation in Europe has as many minorities as America is, frankly, nuts. "
No shi*t. They have a real nasty way with their minoroties - outlawing their languages, driving them out, rounding them up and gassing them. Uniformity within the polity - linguistic, ehtnic, cultural - is the who point of nationalism, which was the dominant progressive impulse in Europe right until they started slaughering each other into exhaustion and got religion and started to preach it like they invented it.
I'm pretty sure that I know more about men's world than they know about mine
Why?
I have tried to follow the various threads above and I find them fascinating. I wonder if the “racism” being discussed is the idea that people of a certain race are genetically different, in a way that matters, from the dominant group. This is the racism of Nazis and skinheads. Clearly the human genome is so intermixed that even identifying a “pure” race is almost impossible. This seems to be something that the fair minded person either already understands or can be educated to understand. On the other hand, the racism of “clerks following blacks around stores” is more likely a sort of ”cultural racism”. All the various ethnic groups immigrating to the US suffered this “cultural bias” effect until they and the dominant culture were so intermixed that it was difficult to differentiate each other culturally. Many blacks who descended from slaves have not integrated with the dominate culture. The examples of blacks from other countries whom voluntarily immigrated to America and had very different experiences with racism could be a result of their adoption of the dominant culture rather than trying to maintain their separation from it. For example, it has been my experience that many native blacks speak “white” while interacting with the dominant white culture and change into a totally different speech pattern and mode when speaking to a black audience. I know of few whites that change their speech pattern as dramatically depending on the racial or ethnic makeup of their audience. I wonder if other minorities share a similar affectation after a generation or two in America. I don’t think a similar change occurs when men are alone as a group or women alone as a group.
Also, I wonder if this cultural racism is simply a result of human nature. I think the human mind works on a conceptual level. We automatically think in concepts. We automatically group things, people, and ideas and form new concepts based on these groupings. We automatically look for patterns and similarities. This is totally involuntary on our part. It is the way the human mind works. I think cultural racism is a form of this natural conceptual process. When we see a stranger on the street, we do not react “tabula rasa”. We automatically make assumptions based on similarities and cultural markers we have developed based on our conceptual processing. Sometimes the “concepts” regarding race are not factually true when our experience is limited such as the people who have been repeatedly mugged by black teenagers and are therefore open to revision and refinement but the fact that people form concepts is as natural for humans as seeing.