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Reid, racism and ... oh dear Gawd

I think I get it. The "uproar" over Sen. Harry Reid's "racist" statements about President Obama is a calculated episode of Republic rage designed to assert a passionate proxy claim: that Republicans have for years caught media hell for statements about black people, and now they want the same standard applied to Democrats. 

So let's set aside Reid's remarks and deal with the GOP grievance for which this controversy is a stand-in. Does the mainstream media apply a double standard on race when it comes to Republicans and Democrats?

Answer: I think so.

But here's the difficult part for Republicans. It's not a context-free double standard, and it's probably not going to go away until party leaders establish a sustained public track record of confronting the racist-wacko wing of the GOP. There are clearly party officials who find this corner of the conservative base frightening and offensive, but political calculus has long required that they trend lightly on their neo-Bircher constituents.

Neither can media attitudes (not to mention public skepticism) about Republican racial credibility be laid entirely at the feet of a few closet Klansmen. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was a successful racist gambit. Lee Atwater felt so bad about his role in perpetuating that era that his conscience compelled him to a deathbed confession of his political sins. George H.W. Bush gave us Willie Horton, and his son won the Republican nomination in 2000 with the help of push polls in South Carolina that insinuated that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. Earlier this year a majority of Republicans believed that ACORN had stolen the election for Obama. And so on.

Is it fair to tar all Republicans with this brush? No. Think back to the conservatives who confronted the extremists at various campaign rallies in 2008, or even to McCain trying to correct statements made by audience members at town hall gatherings. I'm no fan of Michael Steele, but I certainly don't think he's a black-on-black racist. 

So if you Republicans want an apology for Trent Lott, here's mine. Lott shouldn't have had to resign his Senate leadership post for those comments he made to Strom Thurmond. Dumb? Yes. Firing offense? No. I suspect Lott was just trying to say something nice on the man's100th birthday and probably wasn't thinking too clearly about the fact that he had just publicly endorsed an explicitly racist campaign platform from 1948. Mistakes were made.

But here's the part I wish more Republicans would get. Lott was sacrificed for your party's collective sins since the middle of the 20th century, and the sins of the father will continue to be visited on his children until you confront the cynical political calculus that keeps nine out of 10 black voters in the Democratic camp. 

The deep irony here is that in setting the racism bar so low for Reid, Steele and the Republicans are laying a trap for the next ill-equipped white guy from their party who says something quasi-stupid. As a liberal I can't say I'm upset about that, but my agenda here is pretty simple. In the same way that only Nixon could go to China, only the Republican Party can push the die-hard remnants of white racism out of the mainstream once and for all.

Consider it a practical quest. I sure wouldn't want to be known as the "white party" in a country with our current demographic trends.Not a good long-term branding solution.

*(For the record -- and so as not to hide behind the view-from-nowhere -- I don't consider what I read of Reid's remarks to be racist, or anything less than candid truth. But racism is, like obscenity, in the eye of the beholder... which is part of what makes it such a tiresome subject.)

Who's Whistling Dixie?

About once a month, generally late in the evenings, my Bonnie and I will snuggle up on the couch and engage in a two or three hour marathon viewing of country music videos. It’s odd when it happens, as neither of us listens to much country music on a regular basis (although we each certainly have our favorites); on the other hand, it also feels perfectly natural to be drawn to the most popular manifestations of a genre that was vaguely in the air in both of our hometowns as we grew up. As with all music, we like some and dislike some, but the real fun for each of us comes from looking at the video images that are reimaginings of the songs. In my mind, there is no better place to begin an interesting conversation about culture than in the landscape that makes up Great American Country.

I want to focus here, however, on one particular video as an example of a wider visual phenomenon that I've recently witnessed (or imagine that I have); I have no idea if this is "new" or ongoing, although I would tend to guess the latter.  Rather than lay out my thesis, it might be more fun to have you simply watch the starkest example and see if the same idea strikes you.  Our case study, then, is Randy Houser’s Whistlin’ Dixie (it’s only three minutes; give it a whirl):

The song is one of those somewhat standard "Southern and proud of it" country rockers; to be honest, there is a part of me that always loves these songs despite a simultaneous political discomfort that comes along for the ride. Indeed, this particular manifestation of the "Proud Southerner" song has a lot of the visual and lyrical panorama that you would expect from the title "Whistlin’ Dixie": honky tonk dancing, Appalachian-lookin' camaflouged kids sitting on the backs of pick up, old rural shacks, trucker hats, a naked woman in a trailer, gun imagery, grills, and so forth. And again, I find myself alternatively amused, entertained, angered, embarrassed and mystified by these images.

Here's the catch with this one, however (and again, I don't think this is unique to this video): just when you think you've got the song figured out (i.e., "Oh, it's about redneck pride"), just when you think you know the characters who make up this community (i.e., "It's a bunch of racist southern boys"), BOOM, it turns out that they have African American friends--friends they eat with, dance with, smoke with. Indeed, what I see in this video is something that might be called the inoculation of southerm pride through the inclusion of African American bodies (it would be nice to come up with something snappier, of course, but this is a first pass). Take a look at that honky tonk: there are a number of African Americans dancing there. When the catfish is cooking, it's African Americans doing the cooking. When Houser sings about smoking, he has an African American stand in for him.

While there is no rule that says that the video should feature a completely white cast, there is something about the music itself, and the remainder of the images, that makes the scenery seem somehow less than inviting for anyone but a white population (and honestly, most of the tourist honky tonks in Nashville are bereft of anyone but white people even when the songs are mostly covers of Taylor Swift and Tim McGraw). Again, I want to stress: I'm not saying that the images don't represent one version of a reality, or that "the south is all racist" (heck, as a proud Southerner, I despise that stereotype); I'm more simply pointing out that the characters drawn by the song and the accompanying images wouldn't normally lead me to expect the inclusion of African American characters in these roles. And while one thesis might be that I'm simply completely out of touch and have no clue what I'm talking about, if you check out some of the racist comments about the video on YouTube, you'll see that there are some viewers who neither expected it nor liked it (although, to be fair, most people either didn't notice or simply didn't mention it).

At any rate, given that I'm a person who would certainly be pleased with a world that is more inviting of everyone--more egalitarian, I'm intrigued by the images in this video. On the one hand, as I've noted, there is something odd afoot here--the inclusion of African Americans sticks out, seeming somehow unrealistic. One function they serve--intentionally or not--is making it difficult to say "Randy Houser" or even fans of this song, are racist, or, even more generally, the images are protection against the claim that the video shows that country music itself is racist. "Heck," the images say, "You can be southern, you can love shotguns, you can live in a trailer, you can shout about southern pride and still live in a culture of racial equality."

And you know what, you can. Or rather, you should be able to. The fact that these ideas are rarely articulated--at least so rarely that the images seem uncomfortable together--doesn't mean that it's not possible.

As always, the more I think about this, the more questions I'm left with. In essence, I don't know whether I should applaud the images or be very skeptical about them. That is, if critical thinking demands reactions, should mine be: "The record company included African Americans in this video to simply make it difficult to accuse everyone involved of racism?" Or should I look at these images, and the ways they don't necessarily fit, and applaud them for helping me imagine a different kind of world, a different kind of articulation. But just what kind of articulation is it that I'm applauding, if I do so?

New Charleston

Defensive ornamentation, East Bay Street, Charleston (Dan Conover photo)

Because Charleston was founded in the 17th century at the southern tip of a north-south peninsula, power and class here have always run on something of a north-south axis. So in the 1970s, when the area around the navy base incorporated as North Charleston, the name spoke as much about the new city's blue-collar identity as it did about its relative location.

Well, I think it's time we imposed a new axis on Charleston. Not North and South, but Old and New. 

Charleston, for all its considerable charms, remains a backward-looking city. Not "backwards," as in unsophisticated or unintelligent, but more enamored of its past than its present. So while the city officially recognizes the value of its "creative cluster," its "tech sector" and its "knowledge-based industries," Charleston's institutions, typically dominated by the same old families and traditions, remain wary -- if not openly hostile -- toward new ideas and new people.

Since that anti-outsider bias tends to limit opportunity, Charleston has developed a reputation as a place where who you know is more important than what you know. It's why so many talented people here seem to direct their energies toward celebrity instead of substance.

Once upon a time I wanted to change that. Now I believe we should let eccentric, odd Old Charleston be whatever it wants to be. I thank Old Charleston for preserving this beautiful city, and aren't we stronger when we value and preserve indigenous cultures?

Instead, I want to encourage Charleston's outsiders to start appreciating their own significance. The prosperity of the Lowcountry depends on the energy, creativity and spirit of people who moved here "from off," and once we start acting on that knowledge it simply won't matter whether Old Charleston recognizes this truth.

New Charleston doesn't have to beat Old Charleston. It simply has to stop looking to Old Charleston for permission.

What are we waiting for?

Go to a New Charleston event -- Kulture Klash, Pecha Kucha, BarCampCHS, a TweetUp or an SMCCHS happy hour -- and look around. Hundreds, thousands of musicians, writers, artists, designers, art directors, photographers, programmers, Web-heads, researchers, engineers, architects, entrepreneurs, chefs, dancers, filmmakers, actors and big-thinkers live here. How many are "from off?" Most.

Yet I still meet people who tell me different versions of the same story. Instead of being encouraged in their new ventures, they are visited by members of the local establishment who always deliver the same message. Get back in line. There's some kind of old-boy system here, and it wants to pick the winners of every contest in advance. I don't understand it, but there it is.

My question is, so what? Yes, these people have some money. Yes the city has various programs and perks it can dole out to the favored few. Yes, the local paper acts an unofficial enforcer of Old Charleston orthodoxy. Again: So what?

We don't need mass media to spread the word. We don't need membership in exclusive social clubs to meet interesting people. And the sophisticated tool users here can do more with less money in less time and with less formal organization than Old Charleston can even imagine.

It isn't as if they're offering us an alternative. You're never going to be accepted into the Old Charleston clubs, so why bother conforming to their rules? What have you got to lose by ignoring them?

When we stop fighting and cajoling Old Charleston, we can invest all that energy into building a healthy New Charleston. A separate culture that reflects the values of the people who came here by choice. A culture that's more egalitarian, educated, productive and open.

This change doesn't require government loans or angel investors. Just start small. Cooperate. Do business with each other -- and with the thousands of like-minded Lowcountry natives who are our good friends and collaborators. Support each other. Work together.

Opposing an existing power structure gets us nowhere. Building our own power structure, with our own open networks and values, is progress.

In conclusion...

You don't undo an old habit. You have to create new habits, and to make them stick you have to reinforce those new patterns until the old ones silt over.

That's how we're going to make progress. And the funny thing is, Old Charleston won't even notice it.

It will simply benefit from it, along with the rest of us. Now go forth, join ranks, and start inventing a new city.

(BarCampCHS photo via Ken Hawkins on Flickr)

Truth & the Confederate flag

So it turns out that the ACC -- the once-upon-a-time Tobacco Road conference that now stretches from Miami to Boston -- has ditched Myrtle Beach for its 2010 baseball tournament because of the Confederate flag that still flies on the Statehouse grounds. 

Let's be realistic up front. Nobody cares about the ACC baseball tournament. As big league college sports goes, this is about as small as it gets. And let's be clear: South Carolina's fringe passion for the "heritage" of a Confederate flag that didn't fly above its Statehouse until 1963 is about as dumb as a box of rocks. 

But here's the part of this story you wouldn't get if you were just dropping in from another part of the country, South Carolina is an equal opportunity state when it comes to stupid politicians of any race. We didn't suddenly invent idiot politicos like Mark Sanford and Andre Bauer. They're a tradition.

We are beneficiaries

After Monday's Charleston premiere of the Northern Light documentary Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968, filmmakers Bestor Cram and Judy Richardson opened the floor to questions and comments. Some were interesting. Some were moving. Some were neither.

But one moment stood out to me, and it's stayed with me since. It came when Osei Chandler, an important figure here in the city, took the microphone and talked about the significance of the civil rights movement to a generation of young people who grew up in its wake. Here's what he said:

Too often, people think we're victims. But we're beneficiaries... Beneficiaries have rights and responsibilities, and (young people) owe us better.

Afterward, a woman picked up the "beneficiaries" theme in her comments, and I found myself wondering about its power. Because it seems to me this isn't just a 60-year-old African-American calling on younger African-Americans to step up and "recognize that they stand on the shoulders of giants." It also seemed to be a big statement in a new context.

Things are pretty bleak right now, and we still don't have justice for Orangeburg 41 years later, but the American dream just got more credible last month.

Which one is smarterer?

Does Anyone Live in the South?

One of XARK’s categories is “The South,” and it seems to me fitting that we allow the category to once again force the question, “What is the south?” 

My very first post on XARK was a review of the film, “Searching for The Wronged-Eyed Jesus.”  The film is a documentary in which, more or less, an “outsider” explores, and attempts to discover, an authentic South.  Ultimately, my review turned into a rant about how ridiculous and off-putting are many representations of the south.  Here, I want to take another brief turn at this topic.  Or rather, I want to urge you to help me interrogate the topic by recounting two recent conversations I’ve had with colleagues (University faculty) who have lived for lengthy periods of time in some portion of the  southern US.

In the first conversation, I was talking to a friend of mine who teaches at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.  We were discussing one of our mutual friends who claimed that she would never take a job at any university in “the south.”  While I always bristle when I hear such a statement, I’m honestly not all that surprised.  It’s an attitude I’ve heard a great deal, especially from some of my Ivy Leagued educated colleagues and circle of friends.  However, my colleague at NCSU gave a response to our mutual friend that was problematic on its own grounds.  Here’s what he said (I’m paraphrasing):  “I told her that she shouldn’t be so silly.  She could move anywhere in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area because it’s really not the South.  It’s not like that at all.”

Images of the road

So we're back from our tour of the Deep South: 7 days, 6 states and plenty of gas ($3.17 a gallon in Alabama).  I've taken some of my photographs and put them in a gallery. There was snow and cool architecture and plenty of new ideas and new friends. Check it out if you have time.

Deconstructing the Confederate Bass flag

Cultural Artifact Record
Description: Full-color Confederate Flag bumper sticker with a black-and-white picture of a large-mouth bass superimposed roughly over the center of the image.
Collected: At a convenience store off US 78 in Winfield, Ala., on Feb. 24, 2008.
Variants: Numerous metal license tags with the same basic image, only with a colored image of a large-mouth bass and without the aspect-ratio distortion of the Confederate Battle Flag. These faux license plates were witnessed on pickup trucks in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
Possible translation: "Damn right I'm a bass fisherman. You got a problem with that, hymie-boy?"

Readers with insights into the true meaning of the Confederate bass image are encouraged to pass them along, since this one has always stumped the band...

South Carolina Primary Numbers

So here's a few numbers from the South Carolina Democratic Primary. They are, of course, unofficial, and gleaned from sites such as CNN and Charleston.net:

Total number of votes cast
Dem Primary (1/26):     530,322 (54.5%)
GOP Primary  (1/19):     442,918 (45.5%)
Total:                                 973,240

87404 more voters went to the polls in the Democratic Primary than GOP primary. Yes, it was raining and cold on the 19th. It was overcast and cold on the 26th as well. In fact, as Dan and I walked to our polling place, it was sprinkling and windy and made my eyes water.

2004 Dem primary:      280000

Using the total number of votes in both primaries, here are some figures calculated by xark and rounded:
Percentage of total votes in both primaries:
Obama             30%
McCain            15%
Clinton          14%
Huckabee      13%
Edwards           9%

Another fun figure:
If you take the top two vote-getters in each  primary,  Obama and Clinton  for Dems and McCain and Huckabee for GOP, the Dems got 44% of the total  number of votes cast, compared to  28%  for the  Republicans. Interesting, if nothing else.