Book review: Address Unknown
by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
A friendship corrupted by Nazi hatred
in WWII. Two friends who couldn’t understand how to avoid mutual
self-destruction.
Read the full post on my new website:
Showing posts with label Bigotry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bigotry. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Pricetag on bigotry
What does bigotry cost? Well, for
starters, in North Carolina, it costs more than $200 million.
You remember this: the
Republican-dominated legislature in North Carolina passed H.B.2 earlier this
year, to prevent transgender people from using the public bathroom of their
choice.
So far, that hateful act has cost the
state and its business community and its citizens hundreds of jobs and more
than $200 million in taxes and business revenues.
Why? One high-profile answer is: the
NCAA canceled seven big sports events—including the NBA All Star
game—that were scheduled in North Carolina this year. Another answer: Bruce
Springsteen canceled a concert. Other businesses, organizations and musicians
canceled performances, conventions and building projects.
Bigotry hurts. In many ways.
p.s. Really stupid bigotry hurts just
as much as the other kind. This bathroom law was always unenforceable—no one
ever thought the police would order sports fans in Bank of America Stadium in
Charlotte to drop their pants for inspection before using the toilet.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
“Kabuki citizenship” isn’t the worst of it….
The continuing self-degradation of the
media is enabling, in all too obvious ways, the shipwreck of our public
discourse on politics and government.
The advent of Trump’s nativist demagoguery—and
the media’s willing role in keeping him on life support—has largely legitimized
the public expression of prejudicial fears and hatred and bigotry that we know
have always existed, but which have been at least nominally derided by decent
and/or “politically correct” folks.
The New York Times’ Wesley Morris
highlighted a specific element of it yesterday in his commentary on “Who Gets
to Be Called a ‘Patriot’?” Read it here.
Morris digs in to the doctrinaire spew
of the folks who lead the charge in disputing the patriotism of folks who have
a different skin color or a different religion or a different political stance
or a birth certificate that was signed in another country….
Such despicable bias gets all too much
air time and, thus, all too much credibility among folks whose powers of
reasoning too often aren’t used for full effect.
Morris offers this zinger: “As a result, modern patriotism has
become Kabuki citizenship.”
The masks and the make-believe and the
stylized exaggerations of sentiment are meant to be instruments of
entertainment….
…not the bling of the horrifying world of Twitter morality and
anonymously obscene commenters who hide behind ad hominem attacks……
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Over 7,000 people of color…
More
than 7,000 people of color are added to the population of America every day.
Ditto
for about 1,000 white folks.
The
U. S. population is about 322 million right now—about 63 percent white and 37
percent persons of color. In 1965, the ratio was 88 percent white and 12
percent persons of color.
Today,
the majority of all births are babies of color—that is, not of Caucasian
heritage.
Some
people in politics are hatefully flailing at this profound and accelerating
demographic shift.
Let’s
be honest: skin color and heritage are two of the least useful ways to
differentiate people, and two of the most disgusting ways to exploit and fire
up the prejudices of folks who are motivated by ill-informed fears.
Let’s
commit ourselves to friendly humanity, to engaging civilly with our new
neighbors. Let’s remind ourselves that in less than 30 years white folks may
cease to be the majority in America.
Let’s
welcome all new Americans, and let’s get on with living.
Reference:
See
Brown Is The New White, a newly
published book by Steve Phillips.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Hateful people having fun
Now,
here’s a picture you might be able to get out of your mind pretty quickly….
Reportedly
it’s a photo of Ku Klux Klan members at a carnival in Canon City, CO, in 1928.
Just goes to show that Klansmen are human beings, just like you and I….and horribly
different….
It’s
an obscene photograph.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
The drollery of William F. Buckley Jr.
“It’s
very hard to stand up carrying the weight of what I know.”
William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)
If
you’re at all familiar with Buckley’s potent command of language, you won’t
have any trouble believing he said that.
Certainly,
the man was literate and learned.
Too
bad he wasted all that talent on being a champion of the rigidly righteous and repeatedly
wrong Right Wing of just about everything in American culture and politics in
the 1950s and the ‘60s and the ‘70s.
In
my youth I was an ardent Buckley acolyte. I had dinner with him once in my
college daze.
As
I have learned more and more in my life since then, I have come to understand
that it wasn’t his knowledge that was a burden to him—it was his blindness to
many realities of the human condition.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Trump didn’t want to be president
A
former Trump campaign staffer says the celebrity candidate didn’t throw his hat
in the ring with the intention of getting elected to the presidency.
She’s
says the initial guidance from the top was that Trump wanted to finish “a
respectable second” in the primary race, as a “protest” candidate.
I
think we all understand now that Trump’s motivation has changed. It’s a tragedy
for our country. Trump is a dangerous candidate because he is stoking dangerous
fears and dangerous animosities and
dangerous expectations among the millions who like what Trump has to say.
Read this commentary by Stephanie
Cegielski, former communications director of Trump’s now-defunct Super
PAC.
She said that, at the
outset of Trump’s demagogic campaign, the rich reality TV star didn’t want to
be President of the United States.
Spread the word.
Do what you can to encourage sensible folks everywhere to vote for anyone but
Trump.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Crimestoppers
Let’s be fair: Sen. Ted Cruz did pretty
much the same thing.
Why isn’t every Republican and Democratic leader in America calling for both of them to drop out of the presidential race?
A CNN interviewer asked Trump for his
thoughts about the Republican convention voting for the party’s nominee.
Trump said if he doesn’t get the
nomination, “I think you’d have riots.”
That’s a clear message to Trump supporters
encouraging them to take to the streets to riot, break things and hurt people.
It’s a federal crime “to incite a riot.”
Cruz said almost the same thing. He said a
“brokered convention” with delegates choosing a nominee who didn’t have the
most votes on the first ballot “would be an absolute disaster. I think the
people would quite rightly revolt.”
Trump is dangerous for America. Cruz is
dangerous for America.
Why isn’t every Republican and Democratic
leader in America calling for both of them to drop out of the presidential
race?
Copyright © Richard Carl
Subber 2016 All rights reserved.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Time for everybody to talk about Trump and America
Say it out loud: Yes, there are some decent people who have
decided for now, for their own reasons, to support Donald Trump.
Say it out loud: Trump is saying hateful things. He doesn’t offer constructive leadership for America. What he’s doing is dangerous for our country.
Vote for someone else.
Tell your friends.
Say it out loud.
Copyright © Richard Carl
Subber 2016 All rights reserved.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Dark corner of history….
Here’s a despicable
flashback you’ll wish you don’t have to believe:
May 30, 1922, the formal
dedication of the new Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
The few black folks who
were invited were forced to sit in a separate, roped-off section. Robert Moton,
president of Tuskegee Institute—he was a featured
speaker that day—was not permitted to sit on the speaker’s platform, and
instead had to sit in the segregated section.
A reporter for the Chicago
Defender, appalled by this flagrant display of racism, wrote “The venomous
snake of segregation reared its head at the dedication…The conquered have
become victorious."
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Lest we forget….
Maybe it was mentioned
in the “too white” Oscar flub-a-dub, but I’ll just rack ‘em up one more time
for Hattie McDaniel.
If you’re asking
“Who’s Hattie McDaniel?” you’re not a Gone
With The Wind fan.
Hattie McDaniel
(1895-1957) was “Mammy” in that remarkably durable romantic swashbuckler.
She also was the first
black thespian to earn an Oscar. She took Best Supporting Actress in 1940, one
of the eight Oscars awarded to Gone With
The Wind.
Hattie had many
talents. She sang in traveling minstrel groups as a teenager, and was one of
the first black women to be a radio singer in the U. S. She started doing films
in 1932, and played the roles of maids and cooks in almost 40 films in the
1930s, capping that run with her memorable role as a house slave, opposite Clark
Gable and Vivien Leigh.
Hattie’s portrayal of
stereotypical black servants was criticized in some quarters, but she shrugged
that off, saying she’d rather play a maid than be one.
Too bad it’s too late
to say “You go, girl!”
p.s. my trusted personal advisor notes
that Hattie—the only black person who was sitting down at the Oscar awards
ceremony—wasn’t seated at one of the banquet tables with the white folks, she
sat with her escort at a small round table near the kitchen door. Oh yeah,
another thing: Clark Gable had intended to escort Hattie to the premiere of Gone With The Wind in Atlanta, but he
was waved off—neither Hattie nor any other black person was allowed to attend
the film showing.
Homework....think again....
Homework....think again....
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Book review: America Ascendant
Stanley
B. Greenberg, America
Ascendant: A Revolutionary Nation’s Path to Addressing Its Deepest Problems and
leading the 21st Century
New York: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press,
2015
406 pages
Doubtless
you’ve been wondering what’s going on in American politics, our Congress, our
state governments and the Republican Party. Greenberg offers many answers in America Ascendant.
He expects we
are witnessing the slow unraveling of what ails our body politic: civil
dysfunction, the concentration of greed/power/wealth, the conspicuously
parochial Republican/conservative/rightwing points of view, and the blatant
bigotry that too often masks itself with dissembling, righteous talk of
“traditional” American “values” like self-reliance, commitment to family,
Jeffersonian “small government” and religious faith. Greenberg expects that
better days are coming, but he cautions that the process will be achingly and
devastatingly slow.
His essential
message is that America is inexorably becoming a less white and more diverse
nation—most abundantly, a nation of immigrants, and a nation undeniably
represented by young generations of folks who are tolerant and happy to live
their lives with culturally and racially and sexually diverse friends, lovers,
marriage partners, neighbors and coworkers—the folks who consciously wish to
live their lives unfettered by the domination of a select few with great wealth
and great power.
To those of
us who have struggled to understand the motivations and fears and dreams of the
folks who support the divisive and hurtful and dangerous and self-interested
antics of so many politicians, America
Ascendant offers much more understanding than I have encountered from any
other source.
What Greenberg says is not pretty. His book suggests that a good outcome is possible.
I want to
believe his message.
Copyright
© Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.
Saturday, January 16, 2016
“Gov. Haley, I have a followup question….”
The Republican governor of South
Carolina, Nikki Haley, said this to reporters recently:
"…we've never in the history of
this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion. Let's
not start that now.”
Wow. Maybe she momentarily forgot about
slavery and Jim Crow.
There are almost 1.3 million black
residents of South Carolina, almost one-third of the population.
Today’s quiz:
How many black voters in the Palmetto
State will vote for Gov. Haley when she runs for re-election in 2018?
p.s. I had promised myself that I would not raise my voice to recognize the poltroonery that passes for politicking these days, but Haley's comment is remarkably egregious and I cannot let it pass.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Amos ‘n’ Andy: good stuff
Just taking a moment here to give a nod
to the legendary “Amos ‘n’ Andy” show, a perennial radio/TV show from 1926 to
1966. It was the highest-rated radio comedy in history.
I watched the syndicated reruns on the
tube in the 1960s. Listen to an early radio segment here.
 |
| Gosden and Correll |
Amos and Andy were two genial
characters who dabbled in most of life’s experiences. Amos Jones and Andrew
Hogg Brown were black characters, although the creators of the series were two
white radio personalities: Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. They started
broadcasting the “Sam ‘n’ Henry” show from Chicago in January 1926, and shifted
to the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” format two years later.
Ultimately the show was carried by 70
radio stations nationwide, and attracted 40 million listeners—roughly 1 out of
3 Americans.
Gosden and Correll were skilled
entertainers in the established vaudevillian “blackface” tradition. By the time
the show moved to television in 1951, “blackface” had lost its credibility and
black actors played the roles. Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams play the
two main roles.
The TV version of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was
the first television production with black actors and would remain the only
opportunity for black acting talent for 20 years.
 |
| Childress and Williams |
Of course, Gosden and Correll—and even
Childress and Williams—gratuitously portrayed the racial stereotypes that were
commonly accepted in white society at the time. The show was a spectacular
comedic success.
I tried without much success to
ascertain the popularity of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” among black audiences. I found one
reference to a poll (no details on validity) that reported “77 percent of black
New Yorkers” liked the TV show.
Think for a moment about what
entertainment was like before cell phones, iTunes and social media.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All
rights reserved.
Friday, March 30, 2012
The wisdom of Anna Quindlen
"I would be most content if my children grew up
to be the kind of people who think
decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."
Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)
Author and journalist
Honestly, I don't know much about Anna Quindlen but apparently quite a few people like reading her books...
Speaking of books, that's why I posted this cutesie little bit, I've always wanted to have enough bookshelves in a big enough room with a high ceiling so that I need to have one of those Edwardian-looking ladders with the wheels on the bottom that I could push it around here and there, and every so often climb up to get another old book....and in the middle of the room, I'd have a huge spinnable globe of the world, the kind that Sherlock Holmes would be proud to have....
Copyright © Richard Carl
Subber 2012 All rights reserved.
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