Recently, Mad Dog was told by tweet he was a racist, which surprised him, although, Mad Dog always tries to remain open minded: Maybe, Mad Dog reflected I am at least a little bit racist.
The particular tweet in question arose because Mad Dog had expressed the opinion on Twitter that Mayor Pete, being homosexual, would have difficulty getting support in Black communities, which tend, especially in church going Black communities, to see homosexuality as an affront to God and Christian values. Mad Dog had read about this on line. But attributing a belief to everyone (or even a preponderance of members) in a group might be, in some way "racist" to the extent that you are generalizing about individuals based on a group identity.
Having marched for Civil Rights in the 60's and sung "We Shall Overcome" with Blacks and Whites, Mad Dog had not thought of himself as racist, but he can recall listening to Black Panther and Nation of Islam speakers inform him he was racist, and, in fact, the the worst type of racist because although he pretended to be on the side of Black folks, he was secretly, or maybe subconsciously racist. Would he would allow his daughter to sleep with or marry a Black man? Would Mad Dog move out of a neighborhood if Black folks moved in?
At the time Mad Dog had neither a daughter nor a neighborhood and he really hadn't thought much about either proposition, but the idea of inter racial sex did not much bother him and at least in college, the neighborhood seemed pretty mixed already.
Mad Dog had not actually given these tests of racism much thought, but as he considered it, he thought, well how free of racism am I?
He was particularly relieved watching "Avenue Q" to discover everyone is a little bit racist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM
In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King mentioned the problem of having white "friends" who professed sympathy, but in fact preached patience and inaction to Blacks who sought their rights. These whites were in some inactive way, back stabbers. Men who take no action can be as guilty as those who throw bricks.
For Malcom X, white people were ipso facto racist by virtue of their skin color which was connected to a tainted soul.
Mad Dog learns, from an irate tweeter, that because Mad Dog believes there is homophobia prevalent in the Black community, he is a racist.
Which caused Mad Dog to ask himself: How does he know about homophobia in the "Black community?"
And what is the "Black community" anyway?
President Trump told Black voters they live in squalor, crime infested inner cities and White Democrats, who claimed to be their friends, left them to fester and die there. So, vote for Trump.
Turns out, most Black Americans actually live in suburbs, if Professor Google is to be believed (Atlantic Monthly.)
But there were neighborhoods in Philadelphia which were almost entirely black and in one such precinct not a single vote for Mitt Romney was recorded when he ran against Barack Obama, as the Philadelphia Enquirer reported. At least one follow up study sent out people to survey the voters in some of these precincts and they could not find a single person who said he voted for Romney.
"It's one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch."
We all recognize there are Black voters who will vote for Trump and there are always individual opinions and variations. There were probably some Jews who supported Hitler for a while. But are you a racist if you ascribe to a group, to Blacks for example, an attitude prevalent in that group, allowing there will be exceptions?
This sort of thinking has been a topic in anthropological circles since Ruth Bennedict and Margaret Mead, where "the stamp of culture" was thought to shape values in individuals, and certainly some patterns of behavior are well known.
Most Americans would not walk down the street buck naked: They have been conditioned and taught to embrace a stricture against public nudity.
But within groups. how much skin can be displayed and under what circumstances varies by individuals, although we still see discernible differences between groups.
Neither Black nor White women go topless on public beaches (except at Hampton Beach) but Mad Dog well remembers the signs he saw posted in a predominantly Black high school in Maryland, "No see through blouses allowed." Apparently, teen age girls in that school had posed a problem for their adult supervisors. That was not a racial thing, Mad Dog thought, but a cultural thing. The Black adolescent girls in his upscale suburban high school would never have dreamed of showing up in class in a see-through blouse any more than their white counterparts.
(Of course, there were not more than 30 Black students out of 1500 students at his school and Mad Dog knew only two or three of them.)
So how where did Mad Dog get his idea that Blacks will not vote for Pete Buttigieg because he is homosexual? Well, on line. You have only to Google "Homophobia among American Blacks" and there are scads of articles about this observation, conviction, misconception whatever you believe.
But Mad Dog has attended Black church services occasionally, and he was struck by how very conservative the preachers were. Marital fidelity, chastity, fatherhood, placing family above all personal desires. It is true, Mad Dog has never heard a sermon in a Black Church about homosexuality being an offense against God, but Mad Dog has read about such sermons and he has not seen denials of this position from Black ministers.
So, if you ascribe a certain belief to a group, are you racist or are you simply looking at data?
Suppose you said all Jews love money and place the pursuit of money ahead of love or patriotism? Well, yes, that might be the voice of bigotry.
Suppose you said, the Jewish vote will support a candidate who is strongest in his support for Israel? Well, that drifts toward a nasty ground. In fact, if you look at the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which may not be majority Jewish but surely has a substantial Jewish population, you find very little support for Israel's great champion in the White House.
Every pundit from Mark Shields to Sean Hannity thinks there are issues which resonant with members of certain groups: Corn farmers in Iowa do not want to see requirements for corn ethanol in gas rescinded.
But are Blacks a homogeneous enough group to have any "position" on homosexuality?
Mad Dog suspects subgroups likely do: Church going Black folks may reject a homosexual Presidential candidate.
But how do we really know?
The particular tweet in question arose because Mad Dog had expressed the opinion on Twitter that Mayor Pete, being homosexual, would have difficulty getting support in Black communities, which tend, especially in church going Black communities, to see homosexuality as an affront to God and Christian values. Mad Dog had read about this on line. But attributing a belief to everyone (or even a preponderance of members) in a group might be, in some way "racist" to the extent that you are generalizing about individuals based on a group identity.
Having marched for Civil Rights in the 60's and sung "We Shall Overcome" with Blacks and Whites, Mad Dog had not thought of himself as racist, but he can recall listening to Black Panther and Nation of Islam speakers inform him he was racist, and, in fact, the the worst type of racist because although he pretended to be on the side of Black folks, he was secretly, or maybe subconsciously racist. Would he would allow his daughter to sleep with or marry a Black man? Would Mad Dog move out of a neighborhood if Black folks moved in?
At the time Mad Dog had neither a daughter nor a neighborhood and he really hadn't thought much about either proposition, but the idea of inter racial sex did not much bother him and at least in college, the neighborhood seemed pretty mixed already.
Mad Dog had not actually given these tests of racism much thought, but as he considered it, he thought, well how free of racism am I?
He was particularly relieved watching "Avenue Q" to discover everyone is a little bit racist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM
In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King mentioned the problem of having white "friends" who professed sympathy, but in fact preached patience and inaction to Blacks who sought their rights. These whites were in some inactive way, back stabbers. Men who take no action can be as guilty as those who throw bricks.
For Malcom X, white people were ipso facto racist by virtue of their skin color which was connected to a tainted soul.
Mad Dog learns, from an irate tweeter, that because Mad Dog believes there is homophobia prevalent in the Black community, he is a racist.
Which caused Mad Dog to ask himself: How does he know about homophobia in the "Black community?"
And what is the "Black community" anyway?
President Trump told Black voters they live in squalor, crime infested inner cities and White Democrats, who claimed to be their friends, left them to fester and die there. So, vote for Trump.
Turns out, most Black Americans actually live in suburbs, if Professor Google is to be believed (Atlantic Monthly.)
But there were neighborhoods in Philadelphia which were almost entirely black and in one such precinct not a single vote for Mitt Romney was recorded when he ran against Barack Obama, as the Philadelphia Enquirer reported. At least one follow up study sent out people to survey the voters in some of these precincts and they could not find a single person who said he voted for Romney.
"It's one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch."
We all recognize there are Black voters who will vote for Trump and there are always individual opinions and variations. There were probably some Jews who supported Hitler for a while. But are you a racist if you ascribe to a group, to Blacks for example, an attitude prevalent in that group, allowing there will be exceptions?
This sort of thinking has been a topic in anthropological circles since Ruth Bennedict and Margaret Mead, where "the stamp of culture" was thought to shape values in individuals, and certainly some patterns of behavior are well known.
Most Americans would not walk down the street buck naked: They have been conditioned and taught to embrace a stricture against public nudity.
But within groups. how much skin can be displayed and under what circumstances varies by individuals, although we still see discernible differences between groups.
Neither Black nor White women go topless on public beaches (except at Hampton Beach) but Mad Dog well remembers the signs he saw posted in a predominantly Black high school in Maryland, "No see through blouses allowed." Apparently, teen age girls in that school had posed a problem for their adult supervisors. That was not a racial thing, Mad Dog thought, but a cultural thing. The Black adolescent girls in his upscale suburban high school would never have dreamed of showing up in class in a see-through blouse any more than their white counterparts.
(Of course, there were not more than 30 Black students out of 1500 students at his school and Mad Dog knew only two or three of them.)
So how where did Mad Dog get his idea that Blacks will not vote for Pete Buttigieg because he is homosexual? Well, on line. You have only to Google "Homophobia among American Blacks" and there are scads of articles about this observation, conviction, misconception whatever you believe.
But Mad Dog has attended Black church services occasionally, and he was struck by how very conservative the preachers were. Marital fidelity, chastity, fatherhood, placing family above all personal desires. It is true, Mad Dog has never heard a sermon in a Black Church about homosexuality being an offense against God, but Mad Dog has read about such sermons and he has not seen denials of this position from Black ministers.
So, if you ascribe a certain belief to a group, are you racist or are you simply looking at data?
Suppose you said all Jews love money and place the pursuit of money ahead of love or patriotism? Well, yes, that might be the voice of bigotry.
Suppose you said, the Jewish vote will support a candidate who is strongest in his support for Israel? Well, that drifts toward a nasty ground. In fact, if you look at the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which may not be majority Jewish but surely has a substantial Jewish population, you find very little support for Israel's great champion in the White House.
Every pundit from Mark Shields to Sean Hannity thinks there are issues which resonant with members of certain groups: Corn farmers in Iowa do not want to see requirements for corn ethanol in gas rescinded.
But are Blacks a homogeneous enough group to have any "position" on homosexuality?
Mad Dog suspects subgroups likely do: Church going Black folks may reject a homosexual Presidential candidate.
But how do we really know?
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