A Closed Mind

Normally I don't write a takedown piece, where the writer analyzes the arguments of another with the goal of dissecting them. And normally I don't make public the facebook writings of anyone else. But this interaction on my wall was so over the top, that I'll make an exception.

Original Post:

Me: This article is old, but points out that in a civilized society, less crime should mean fewer prisoners. Yet we have much less crime in our country and vastly more prisoners. That is a natural result of privatizing the prison industry.

A couple of friends commented initially, but I'm only including those whose comments are required for this post. All comments are shown in their entirety, misspellings and all.

Smart Friend: Another possible explanation for this is that in the Netherlands, almost nothing is illegal.

Confrontational Friend (CF): Isn't that the point of the prison system? They keep bad people from committing crimes. Death penalties in other countries are more efficient as well. ie. Less crime less prisoners.

Me: That's exactly my point. Who lobbies to make private behavior criminal? Why do these super tough sentencing laws get passed. An unholy alliance between law enforcement (gets more funding if there is more "crime), prison guard unions (more overtime better job security with full prisons) and private companies which profit from prison construction and operation. Throw in the slimy companies which get cheap prison labor and you have a disgusting group which extorts money from tax payers to steal the liberty of citizens.

Up to this point, things were going along as normal. I post links to articles which point out some of the public policy failings in our country, friends of different ideological stripes make comments which reflect either their disagreement with my assertion (e.g how I interpret the article) or disagreement with the ideology.

CF: By private behavior you mean: drinking and driving, selling drugs, doing drugs, stealing, fraud and tax evasion?
Yup those are totally victimless crimes! Set them all free! I've got my poster board and bull horn let's do this! (note the sarcasm)
What is a private behavioral crime?

CF: I have the end all be all answer! Stop commuting crimes!
It's really not that hard. When some has the urge to rap and Pillage. They should step back and say "hey I might just go to jail for this!" then not do it.
If you blame the justice system for how many prisoners are in the system, then I am going to blame my pencil for all my misspelled words!

Normally I don't mind the back and forth. I enjoy it actually. But I do not like to have my words intentionally mischaracterized. CF is not one who is classically trained in debate, philosophy or rhetoric, so I give him some leeway when he makes commits logical fallacies. But the stealing fraud and tax evasion comment was nonsensical even by the low standards that I usually hold him to, and I was uncharacteristically annoyed by that. So I was perhaps a little nasty in my response.

Me: CF - don't be an idiot. Seriously, it's beneath you. Stealing, fraud, tax evasion are not victimless. Recklessly endangering others (drinking and driving) is a huge public safety risk. I will do zero research and bet money that those are all illegal in the Netherlands.
Doing and sellin drugs are victimless. Which is why Phillip Morris and Anheiser Busch are billion dollar companies. The harm from consuming and selling drugs which are illegal is created by the illegality, not the substance.

CF: When did Phillip morris come out with crack and extasy? I did see it on the shelf last time I was at Safeway.
You tell a mother who's child OD'd or got shot by a stray bullet from a gang fight over drug turf.
Pull your head out of you fucking collective ass's and put the Blane on those that break the law.
You mean to tell me you would have your kids ride in a car with their friends parent if you know they were high? What if they wrecked and killed your kids as well as another family. Would smoking weed be a victimless crime?!?!?! Would it?
You just made my blood boil with such an arrogant comment.

Don't you love the straw man he sets up in his arguments? A child OD's on something (crack or ecstasy?) should mean that crack or ecstasy should be illegal? But thousands of young people die every year from alcohol. Tens of thousands of you count people of all ages. A kid gets shot by people in a gang fighting over turf and the fault is the drug? Not the fact that the drug is illegal? When was the last time you saw alcohol dealers shooting at each other in the streets? Oh yeah, when (and where) it was last illegal to sell alcohol. Of course nothing I have said in this argument or any argument ever has indicated that I advocate to allow people to drive while impaired. Although, I have pointed out that impairment from cannabis has not been shown to make people more dangerous drivers (unless they are also impaired with alcohol) and even then I do not advocate that they be allowed to drive while high.

CF: I'm done with this. I don't want to say something I will regret. Good day sir!

He should have regretted making himself look stupid with his nonsensical arguments.

Me: I have some work to do, I'll get back to this in a minute. I'll address you points more gently then.

Yeah, that was a little snarky. I said "don't be an idiot, it's beneath you," by which I meant, I respect your intelligence, please use it. And in that last comment I was implying that he was being a petulant little child with his temper tantrum.

CF: No need to be gentle.
I just feel you should stop pointing fingers at everyone else.
It's funny how you try and use the points of they imprison people for cheap labor, job security and higher pay. Sounds like you want to be a prison guard for minimum wage!
Also that coming from a person saying that the average person can't support a family on $60-70k a year. Yet bitch about jailers making too much to deal with dangerous dirtbags!
It is beyond me the logic you use whilst backing all these conspiracy theories. You are an enabler nothing more. I really have nothing else to say to you. I really used to respect you. But you are constantly spewing this shit all over. And the sad thing is that the sheep with no ideals of their own will blindly follow you and others that think like you. You think you are fighting for a greater cause cause but all I hear is white devil this white devil that. The man is keeping us down! You go hold the hands of these so called wrongly imprisoned people you are bleeding your heart out over and tell them they did nothing wrong. While I tell my niece and nephew that for rich or poor being and good person and respecting the law and those that uphold it will keep you out of trouble and jail.
No need to respond I won't read it.

This is too incoherent to even make any sense of. I say that the prison guards union lobbies for tougher sentences and he takes that to mean to mean I think that they should guard for minimum wage? This from a guy who routinely argues against all manner of public employee unions and their "lavish" pay packages. No dummy, I do not think that prison guards should be paid less. They should probably be paid more.... but there are too many of them because we have too many prisoners. We have too many prisoners because the people who profit from the prison industry lobby for very long sentences. Is that hard for your tiny Fox News addled brain to understand?

Conspiracy Theories? Really? Do prison guard unions support longer prison sentences? A quick google search yields the answer. Does Corrections Corp of America (prison construction and operation company) do the same? Well of course they do. By the way I picked that link because it has no political agenda at all and it points out that CCA is lobbying the government on immigration reform. Not to go all conspiracy theorist on you, but how much you wanna bet that they are seeking detention for as many immigrants as possible for as long as possible?

White devil? White devil?!? At least he owns his fear with the statement "all I hear is white devil this and white devil that." I'm not even gonna address that it's so stupid and inflammatory. Oh wait, yes I will. The reason why that's what he's hearing is because that was his ears are tuned to hear. How? Well without knowing this for a fact (because I don't recall asking, and he hasn't responded to my request to have a conversation) he listens to Fox. Fox sells fear and racism. Period. They want honest hard working, under-educated white people to be afraid that the darkies are coming to get their hard earned stuff, to make their big pick up trucks more expensive to own (he has at least one), to take away their guns (he's an avid shooter), to have sex with their women and to make them marry other dudes.

I thought this was going to be fun... pointing out the logical inconsistencies and complicated mental gymnastics required for a normal American guy, to go off on such a stupid rant. But it wasn't fun. It made me sad. CF is a guy who used to work for me. He worked hard, he was honest, he did his job well. I ribbed him a bit because of his conservative politics, and took special joy when, for good business reasons, I had to send him to work in Berkeley for a while. But honestly, I liked him. I overlooked many of the racist things that he said because I wanted to educate him a bit about privilege. I figured that if I could get to him, a self described red-neck, then I would have helped the cause of justice because he could spread the word in places that I do not have access to. On previous threads, he would typically post stuff that started from an ill-informed place, but asked questions that indicated that he had at least an open mind. His last words "No need to respond I won't read it" were what made me the saddest. A closed mind turns a person into a pre-programmed robot. And his current programming, which I was trying to help him change, is odious.

Oh well... can't save em all I guess.

Racism isn't a problem for Black people in America

This is a story from a NBMBAA conference in 1994.

The main speaker at the lunch that year was Lloyd Ward one of the first black people to reach the VP level at Pepsi. At the time, he was the President of Frito Lay's Central Division, an entity with sales of $1.3 billion. At that point, in his mid 50s, he had achieved the kind of career that most MBA students were aspiring to, so he was an eagerly anticipated speaker.

He opened his talk with the phrase "racism is not a problem for Black people in America."

At the National Black MBA Association, a statement like that is sure to get attention, and it certainly got mine. At first I thought he must be kidding, but I certainly paid very close attention to what he had to say.

He went on to tell a few anecdotes about how he had been treated badly based on his race. But he ended each one with that phrase - racism is not a problem for Black people in America. After the second one, I was getting pretty pissed and I was thinking this must be some Uncle Tom, house Negro wannabe. I was just about ready to make my loud exit in protest when he started his third story, and it really nailed me to my chair.

He explained how he was the first black plant manager in the South. When he arrived for his first day at work, he pulled his car into one of the parking spots reserved for management, and the security guard walked up to him, pointed his revolver at him and said "boy, you can't park here." With the gun pointed at his face, he asked the security guard "where would you like me to park." the guard told him where to park, and he followed the guard's instructions.

And then he said it again, "but I'm here to tell you that racism is not a problem for Black people in America, and here's why: because problems are things we are taught to solve, and racism is not something that Black people can solve." He went on to say that racism creates situations for Black folks, like being on the subway next to someone who has a cold. If the guy with the cold starts coughing in your direction, you can hand him a tissue, or ask that he cover his mouth, or move to another car, or whatever works. But he's the one with the sickness, not you. And you can't make him well, so there's no point in trying.

He circled back to the situation with guard calling him boy and pointing a .38 in his face. In that situation, he could have angrily pointed out that he was the new manager. But we all know that expressions of anger towards people holding guns are not usually a good way of making it home in one piece. So he did as he was told. But in his first official act as plant manager, he fired the security guard and made sure that his replacement would not be authorized to carry a gun.

Personally, I think that many of us Black folks have, to some degree or other, caught the virus that is racism, and need to do some self healing. I also think that providing some level of "assistance" to those of our White bretheren who wish to be helped, is in our best interest.

But in the end, I agree with his central thesis, that for Black folks, solving racism would be like trying to boil the ocean. And that our efforts are generally better used in fighting battles that either can be, or must be, won.

Yet another made up accusation

Can we just get this damn election over already? Between black cameramen at McCain/Palin rallies being called nasty names, to Obama being accused of being a Muslim with a crazy radical pastor (I love that one), to Obama being hung from a tree in effigy, this has already gotten absurd.

Now it's getting dangerous. The latest thing is the return of the big bad scary black man. You better lock up your vulnerable little white girls (especially your fat ugly ones) cause there's nothing that we scary angry black men want to do more than rob them and mutilate them.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a snippet: (here's the whole story)

According to WTAE's news exchange partners at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Ashley Todd, of College Station, Texas, was using an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her and put a knife to her throat.

and of course you know the description of the attacker (but say it in your head before you read it next, just to see if you can predict what it will be):

The robber is described as a dark-skinned black man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, 200 pounds with a medium build, short black hair and brown eyes.

This shit would be funny if it weren't so damn dangerous. This shit is what gets us lynched. This is the kinda shit that cause police forces to detain anyone who matches "the description." WTF.

Kudos in advance to the Pittsburgh police for knowing this sounds fishy. Kudos to some on the right (Michelle Malkin for one) who said this don't sound right. And to the morons at Fox and the Drudge Report who have been making this a nationwide story - I quote John Stewart - Fuck all y'all.

UPDATE:
She admits (here), under questioning from the Pittsburgh police, that she made it up. Thank you Pittsburgh police.

We're voting for the n***er

I really don't know how to react to this. I guess it's progress. I guess we need every vote we can get. But damn...

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

read the whole thing here.

Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO

He says it better than I ever could. The campaign should be promoting this speech with everything it's got, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and hell even West Virginia. Watch the whole thing, but really pay special attention starting at 4:25 or so.

Are you the mother?

I've been thinking lately about how I wanted to get some of my thoughts on race and racism out of my head and onto the page. My problem is that every time something comes up, I feel like I have to tell the whole story or it won't make sense.

And since I'm 42, it's a pretty long story.

So I'm gonna take a different path, I'll just talk about stuff as it comes up. Here's what's come up recently.

I live in Piedmont, a little town of about 15,000 people. Our little town has just a handful of black folks, so even though the Oakland (which is five minutes away by foot) is the most diverse big city in the country, Piedmont is very white and pretty darn wealthy.

Yesterday, one of my daughter's school friends and her father dropped by unannounced to see if my daughter was available for a play date. My wife (who is medium brown) and daughter (who is my complexion - uh... almost transparent) were outside in the yard. The girls excitedly agreed that they wanted to have their play together, so the dad looks at my wife and says:

"Are you the mother?"

Really?!? Not "hi, I'm Susie's dad," or "are you Ella's mom?"

"Are you the mother?"

My wife was, understandably, offended by this, as she has spent the last eight years being assumed, by white people, to be our children's nanny.

On the other hand, how do you politely ask an adult you have never met if they are the responsible guardian?

I wonder if white parents every experience this sorta thing? If so, under what circumstances. I know other black women get it. I was reminded of this by the title of a blog that I saw the other day - "Not the nanny."

Voting for a Black President

Now that the math is almost entirely conclusive it is starting to hit me. I am going to have the chance to vote for a Black person to be the President of the United States.

Wow.

And there's a really good chance that he's going to win.

Double wow.

But before I talk about that, a friend asked me why I supported Senator Obama. She's a black woman, (I'm not gonna guess age, but let's just say she looks younger than me), and an Obama supporter. She too has been offended by the way Hillary has used race in this election.

So I told her that as a bi-racial guy born in the 60's raised by a single white mom (after my parents split when I was 10) who valued education and books over most everything else, voting for Obama felt like voting for myself. My friend was surprised, it seemed that she thought I would mention specific policy issues, leadership or any other non-racial things.

But I didn't.

It's not that those things don't matter. Of course they do. Those things are a given. If Alan Keyes shared my specific demographics, I'd wouldn't vote for him. Hell, if he were my identical twin I wouldn't vote for him to be dog catcher. In fact, there are a great deal of black politicians that I don't support or wouldn't vote for. And that's because their positions on issues differ from mine, or their behavior as public officials has caused me to question their judgment, or because the non-black person running against em was a better match for my political views.

But Obama gives voice to most of the political positions that I hold dear. He explains my positions better than I do. He inspires me to action in a way that no other elected official ever has. And his very candidacy is forcing people - black, white, latino, asian and everything else - to evaluate their biases like nothing else can.

So no, I don't just support him because he's black. That would be idiotic. But I do support him with greater fervor than I would an identical (which isn't possible by the way) white politician.

And that's OK. That's to be expected.

Supporting someone who is like you is not the same as being against someone who is not like you. Loving your family members is not the same as hating the people not related to you.


And in November I'm going to get a chance to vote for a black man to be President of the United States of America. I still can't believe it.

Race, Volume 1

One of the things that I didn't think was a big deal in my support for Barack is his biracialness. I too am the son of a Black man and a white woman, and I too was born during the civil rights movement (just a few years after Barack). I just figured that the fact that he and I share many political ideas and convictions was just coincidence (or evidence of his good sense).

But after his speech on race, I have a new appreciation of how our shared biracial heritage has shaped our world views. Most Black folk have to be bi-cultural. We have to understand the ways of white folk so that we can navigate in their world. And even in our little hamlets and ghettos, it's still their world.

But biracial folks are put in a situation where we actually have to be able to see the world from both perspectives. For some, it's just too damned difficult to be forced to have multiple perspectives - it robs us of the easy, absolute, no-gray-area decision. It can create a situation where every sentence ends with "on the other hand."

But for the fortunate among us, that multi perspective vision creates an ability to see solutions based on common ground where others see only problems and division. I had believed that Barack has the 'good' version of that vision, but his speech on race in Philadelphia (coincidentially, my home town) proved it.

There's a lot in that speech, and I'll get to more of it later. But to me, the absolute biggest thing in the speech came after several paragraphs explaining in gentle but quite powerful terms, exactly how the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow affect modern Black folk. The most important part of his speech, the part that shows he has an understanding of the situation that is far riccher than that of most people was this:

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

In that short paragraph, he showed working class white people (and those who have been working class, or who have working class family or friends) that he understands their issue. He demonstrated a link between the effects of slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism and the frustration that comes from thinking that someone else is getting an unfair advantage.

But note that he didn't say it was the same thing. Or that being white and feeling put upon by Affirmative Action was justified. He just said that he understood it. In fact, he didn't even say that Blacks were even benefiting from Affirmative Action, just that when a working class white person hears that Blacks are getting a benefit for something that that white person never did wrong, he understands that "resentment builds."

The reason why this is so brilliant is that he has pointed out a tiny bit of common ground for people who want to talk to each other to stand on. In the short term, that little bit of ground is not going to be big enough for the really angry on either side, but it is enough to get us started. And if we can listen to each other, and try very hard to understand where the other is coming from, maybe we can learn enough to understand that we are in this together. And by this, I mean this country, which is at war, in a recession (or worse), has inadequate schools, crumbling infrastructure and a divide between the haves and the have-nots that is threatening the very concept of the American Dream.