I wrote my The World Shifts! post very quickly to accommodate the rapidly changing news about the US Senate race here in Florida. But, it’s not uncommon for me to do that. I’m blessed (cursed?) with a brain that can generate an enormous amount of content, even in the middle of the night when I’m trying to sleep.
I usually take the somewhat New Age-y view that this is coming from a deeper place in my unconscious and therefore carries some sort of cachet. In other words, I trust this flow of words to represent some higher purpose.
Of course, I could be wrong!
I was wondering if something had gone awry after getting comments on that piece. Even though I had referred to Congressman Allen Boyd as Grandpa from Hee Haw, former Republican speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio as a Boy Toy and proposed a lot of new and exciting progressive political possibilities about the 2010 elections like State Senator Al Lawson primarying Rep. Boyd, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio challenging Charlie Crist for Governor, State Senator Dave Aronberg stepping up to challenge Bill McCollum for Attorney General and not waiting until 2014 when it will be an open seat, the only thing people mentioned was my accusing State Senator Dan Gelber of being a Limousine Liberal.
Now, I probably could have lived with just the comments on Daily Kos, but a Facebook Friend I respected wrote me a personal note saying I had crossed some line into offensiveness (or jumped the shark, as consdem put it).
That worried me and I went to bed mulling all of this over. But, as usual, I woke up in the middle of the night and the answer came to me. HEY, THIS IS SATIRE!!
THINK STEPHEN COLBERT!
You remember that talk he gave to the White House press corps where he trashed then President Bush while he was sitting just a few feet away? Whether or not you found that offensive depended on your World View.
The same goes for my calling Dan Gelber a Limousine Liberal.
Now, the unfortunate fact about satire is that we tend to start beginning to find it "offensive" when it actually addresses some of our own unconscious biases. When I made fun of Dan I was challenging the notion of white privilege.
Now consdem got all excited by this and said I "jumped the shark" (loved the reference) and accused me of playing the much clichéd race card:
In fact, if you remember during the [presidential] campaign, when a candidate for Congress in TN tried to claim that her opponent, a white man, couldn't understand what was happening in "their community," Obama slapped her down and she was hammered in a majority African-American district. That my friend is new paradigm.
But, let me be clear on something. I am a straight, white man who is working to end homophobia, racism and patriarchy. (Read this if you want some idea of why.)
Sure it gets dicey when a member of one race starts calling out a member of another, but it is appropriate for President Obama to say "brothers need to pull up their pants" and for me to struggle with other white people over our unconscious biases concerning the fact of white privilege.
Let me show you an example that I posted over on FlaPolitics.com. Here’s a quote from the newspaper reporter and pundit Adam Smith:
Until Crist actually announces his re-election campaign (Jeb Bush didn't announce until June), he will leave a lot of would-be senators wondering. And without him, Florida's open Senate race is shaping up as a remarkable opportunity with an unremarkable batch of contenders.
When that was printed, both Rep. Kendrick Meek and State Senator Dan Gelber were announced candidates, Smith cavalierly dismisses them as "unremarkable."
Now I will let you review the careers of Rep. Meek and State Sen. Gelber and decide for yourselves if their political status is any less remarkable than that of Allen Boyd, someone Smith doesn’t seem to have any problem with. But, if there isn’t any substantial difference, why does Smith dismiss them BOTH.
Well, one is an African-American from Miami and the other is a Jew from South Florida. Now, most of us white bread folks have generally unformed feelings about Jews, mainly because of limited contact, so we don’t exhibit such an obvious bias. But, we can usually work up a little dismissiveness when it comes to black people.
I AM NOT SAYING THAT ADAM SMITH IS A RACIST AND ANTI-SEMITE. I don’t even know the man. Until I clicked on his name and saw his picture recently I assumed he was an "Old White Guy." That’s an example of MY pigeonholing based on limited information.
What I am saying is that all of us have unconscious biases based on the culture we come out of. It’s a normal outgrowth of a form of atavistic tribalism caused by the way our brains evolved. The problem is the lack of empathy and understanding caused by it.
This is not limited to white people. In his famous speech on race, then candidate Obama mentioned Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s failure to move beyond his biases.
Take a look at this Doonesbury cartoon from Slate. It’s exploring the same issue I’m talking about here.
Adam Smith is recognized as an exemplary reporter and has received awards for his work. I’m not questioning that ability. I’m questioning how his pre-conceived emotional substrate affects the opinions he makes about politics.
If we do not make a VERY conscious effort to look at our biases we tend to veer away from reality based evaluations of our situation. This is what I rail about.
I found it funny that a couple of days after that piece was written, Smith included this short item concerning the race:
One story line to keep an eye on as the 2010 Democratic primary for Senate develops: Obama vs. Clinton, the sequel. Bill Clinton headlined a fundraiser in Miami for U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, who is running and backed Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, we hear a lot of enthusiasm from President Obama's money folks in Florida for state Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who endorsed Obama.
I wondered if Gelber’s campaign manager, Steve Schale, had fed that little tidbit to Smith. I addressed this fully in my post titled Brands and Psychodynamics in Florida, but let me just point out something here. You know, it’s just possible that some black people might actually find the idea of a white candidate claiming President Obama’s mantle when there is a black candidate also in the race, JUST A LITTLE OFFENSIVE.
I know that my own empathy has changed just from my experience of promoting Rep. Meek on Daily Kos. I kept getting challenged as to why I was supporting him and accused of working for his campaign. I figured this was common, (and appropriate, BTW), but when I would read posts on Gelber I never saw anyone challenging their author.
After making a case for Rep. Meek I would invariably get the question, "Wouldn’t Wexler be better?" People, what’s the difference here? They have almost identical voting records. Rep. Meek introduced former President Bill Clinton at the Democratic convention in Denver. He’s the only member of the Florida delegation on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Folks, he’s not Al Sharpton.
The worst was when someone suggested Rep. Alan Grayson as an alternative. HE WAS JUST ELECTED IN 2008! HOW COULD HE BE A BETTER CHOICE??? Oh, I forgot, he’s white. And then there was the time someone asked if Rep. Meek was like Jesse Jackson. I mean, if I was promoting Dan Gelber would anyone ask me if he was like David Duke just because they’re both WHITE?
I began to understand why African-Americans, on average, have higher blood pressure than Caucasians. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to put up with this kind of thoughtless crap 24/7. I know with my temperament I would have ended up in jail for killing someone when I was young.
In The End of the World As We Know It I mentioned the class of Black professionals that is essentially under the radar of most of us white folks. I quoted Michelle’s mother (from an article out of The Atlantic) saying that Michelle and Barack are not exceptional. Everyone in her neighborhood is just as competent.
I also quoted Dan whining that his supporters have "burnout" and aren’t contributing. But guess what.
Rep. Meek is an alumnus of majority black Florida A&M University. Much of this unseen black professional class here in Florida are also alumni. And, with the inauguration of President Obama they are just the opposite of "burned out". They are reveling in the vindication of their own worth which is an outflow from the new residents of the White House. They are absolutely enjoying coming into their own.
And guess who’s working that vast network of potential donors and volunteers that is totally invisible to our white bread newspaper punditry? Hint, it’s not Dan Gelber.
Don’t you think these people would like to show everyone just how visible they SHOULD be by ponying up enough campaign contributions to put Rep. Meek into seven figures at the end of the first fundraising quarter?
One of the reasons that I see Rep Meek’s CANDIDACY so important is that it provides an opportunity for a continued healthy mixing of races in support of a common goal that took place so much during the Obama campaign. It is this kind of everyday shoulder rubbing that provides the best hope for eliminating biases on both sides of the color divide.
This is the same kind of thing that Harvey Milk was trying to promote when he urged homosexuals to come out during the campaign to defeat the hideous, Anita Bryant inspired Proposition 6 in California back in 1978. If it had passed, homosexuals would have been barred from teaching in California’s schools.
As Milk said, "If they know us, they don’t vote against us." Exactly my point. If we know each other we don't dismiss people just out of bias.
This campaign can be a lesson in personal growth for all of us struggling against white privilege bias. But hey, personal growth is good for us. That’s what life’s all about, always getting better. That’s why President Obama is going to rededicate the Lincoln Memorial this year in the bicentennial of his birth and fourscore and seven years after its original dedication.
It’s a symbol of how far we have come in overcoming white privilege in electing our first black president, something our state was proudly a part of. And, in 2010, the people of Florida will stand tall again, and elect our first black senator.
CROSS POSTED FROM FLAPOLITICS.COM