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Philly Mag cover: Whites must criticize blacks more
Philly Mag cover about "white people have become afraid to say anything at all about race. Here's what's not being said." No, it is not a parody.
Philly Mag cover: Whites must criticize blacks more
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Philadelphia Magazine just published an article by Robert Huber titled "Being white in Philly: In a city that is largely poor and segregated white people have become afraid to say anything at all about race. Here's what's not being said."
No, it is not an Onion-esque parody of Philadelphia's most white-bread journalistic institution, a magazine that seemingly hired Gene Marks just because he wrote the jaw-droppingly offensive article “If I Were a Poor Black Kid” for Forbes.
But before I continue, I must first disable the story's booby trap, a defense built into its very DNA: the idea that "in so many quarters, simply discussing race is seen as racist."
Huber is not a brave man, and his premise is totally false. People will only think you "simply discussing race" is racist if you, like Huber, treat black people like inscrutable extraterrestrials whose moral shortcomings might be responsible for their own poverty.
The reality is that many black people frequently talk about race and racism. And really, white people do too--sometimes intelligently, sometimes not so much. To the extent that whites do not discuss race more it is because they do not want to address important pieces of context like, say, history (see Louis CK).
Indeed, I'm a white guy who writes about race and frequently talk to black Philadelphians--and often, gasp, about race. Black sources have never protested frank questions about race for articles I write about poverty and educational inequity, police brutality and mass incarceration, or neighborhood segregation and (yes, largely black) gun violence.
Huber's idea that white people are uniquely aggrieved because they are muzzled in discussions of race (why are they allowed to say the n-word and not me) is not a new one. It's more that Huber wants to have a particular sort of conversation about race. Namely, he "yearn[s] for....the freedom to speak to my African-American neighbors about...how the inner city needs to get its act together." Like, you know, an arguably racist conversation about race.
Yes, that's certainly not the sort of conversation about race most blacks or sensible whites (not to mention unmentioned Asians or Latinos) want to have.
Huber seems to feel that his holding the door for black people at Wawa and being "overly polite," an example he weirdly invokes a few times, is some sort of pathetic expression of white guilt. It's not clear how Huber convinced his editor that personal hangups better discussed with a psychotherapist were "journalism" about "race in Philadelphia" and so he conducted interviews with some white people. In Fairmount.
One source is a "tall, slim, dark-haired beauty from Moscow getting out of her BMW" who tells him that "Blacks use skin color as an excuse" and waste your tax dollars while "not doing anything except sitting on porches smoking pot...Why do you support them when they won't work, just make babies and smoking pot?" If this is "what's not being said" about race by whites then white people like Huber might indeed need to keep theirs mouths shut.
Not only does this Russian fail to suggest where Philadelphians of any race are supposed to smoke pot (only half-kidding here, and surely Huber is aware that young whites are ten percent more likely to smoke pot than their black counterparts?), Russia is infamous for virulent racism against Afro-descendant people. (And then there's the matter of some male journalists feeling compelled to point out the physical attractiveness of female sources.) That being the case, this woman's quote appears more like a sock puppet for Huber's own mindset than a meaningful representation of anything about Philadelphia. Other characters include some kind of hipster who once lived next to a violent (black) drug dealer and prides himself "on [being at] the outer limits of engagement--even at the expense of his own well-being."
Then there's a white lady named Jen who bravely went to a pool in Brewerytown even though she and her daughter were the only white people there. Jen, who Huber clearly thinks deserves some sort of race relations medal, gushed that "these kids were so happy and sweet." Anyhow, what really shocked Huber was that one who lived across the street from the pool said she was "the luckiest girl in the world"--even though her house is a "beaten-down row."
Jen warns Huber that "there's a certain arrogance" in his "judgement...I might not know what people are truly experiencing." Jen, of course, was right.
But Huber, who feels "profoundly sad and a blind desire to escape" while driving through North Philly, doesn't take her free advice.
There's also an n-word dropping old white guy named John who complains about "when blacks from the South with chips on their shoulders...moved North." Huber does not endeavor to explain where John's white neighbors went (to the suburbs) or why black people moved to Philly as part of the great migration (Jim Crow terrorism, the collapse of the Southern agricultural economy, and booming war-time industrial production).
Which brings me to: Huber incorrectly dates "white flight" to the 1964 North Philly riots, rendering a city that was just 20-percent black in 1950 44-percent black today.
I know this article is not about "journalism" or, really, "facts," but if Huber had consulted a history book he might well have learned that most well-paying blue and white collar jobs were long denied to blacks here and elsewhere. And he would have understood that white people and good-paying jobs began leaving Philadelphia well before the riots thanks to the federal government subsidizing, through new roads and whites-only mortgages, their relocation to suburbs like Levittown. Levittown construction began in 1952, and blacks were explicitly denied entry.
Blacks finally got a foothold into American industry right as it began to move elsewhere. Black unemployment, concentrated in a segregated ghetto that expanded as whites took their federally-funded middle class welfare in the suburbs, skyrocketed.
The article, in fact, is not really about "white people" at all. It is, save for n-word dropping John, about rich and middle class white people. Philadelphia Magazine in 2011 declared Mummers "10 Things We Need To Get Rid Of" not so much, I think, because some mummers do or say racist shit. And I'm guessing Huber would probably be just as flummoxed by working class or poor whites on the other side of Front Street. These are whites that might say horrible things about blacks but who, unlike middle and upper class whites, felt they had to compete for evermore scarce resources in a declining city. Racial violence flared in Philadelphia's racial borderlands, from Kensington to Grays Ferry, through the 1990s. In 1985, whites in Southwest Philadelphia demonstrated against a black family moving in. The house was later burned.
In 2011, Mayor Michael Nutter grabbed national attention when he criticized black fathers for being mere "sperm donors" and chided young people for letting the "crack of your butt" show. He told black youth, "you've damaged your own race."
Such sermons, of course, appeal to a line of black self-help conservatism and nationalism that stretches from Booker T. Washington to Louis Farrakhan. But some white people have long met such intraracial put-downs and, especially those delivered by the far-more-palatable-to-whites-than-Farrakhan Bill Cosby, with undisguised glee.
As Inquirer columnist Annette John-Hall wrote: Nutter "said it. In a way that his white constituents would hear him loud and clear. At that point, he wasn't talking to black people anymore. Nutter expressed in no uncertain terms the sentiment that so often shackles black people - that the unlawful actions of a few smear everyone else. Something whites never have to fear. Just as they never have to live up to the expectation of being a credit to their race. Whatever that means."
Indeed, a post titled "You’ve Damaged Your Own Race’: Philly Mayor Blasts Teens, Flash Mobs" went viral on Glenn Beck's website.
Philadelphia Magazine has reporters who do fantastic city magazine journalism, and I've heard that people close to the publication are not happy about this particular trolling expedition. Philadelphia Magazine can sometimes not help but to brazenly stroke the fragile if well-resourced egos of its elite readership--and, and on its worst days, stoke their pathetic prejudices and insecurities too.
(Their article is not online yet. But if it were I'm not sure I would assist in driving traffic their way by linking.)
[Thanks to @laurencetom for the image above.]
When will we ever get beyond these race baiting articles?— jerryk2b- Did you read the part where the actions of 1985 lead to a burned down house, did you read that part?
Neither did I. But I did read the part about Anne Frank.— Cuddles - Cuddles...I don't understand your comments. Can you please give further details? — jerryk2b
- How is this race baiting? The reporter is providing a counter argument to an article published in another magazine.
— meganrsmith - You ask why race baiting? There is no link to the article in the magazine and you can't get that article on line. Why the counter argument now when we can't refer to the article? All you or I have to do is just read the comments here to see why it's race baiting. — jerryk2b
- The article is online and easily found via a google search. — oneday
- The title of your article is misleading. How do you interpret "white people have become afraid to say anything about race" into "whites must criticize blacks more." I think that many whites feel Robert Huber's points are valid whether they are politically correct by this author's standards, or not. You can make and condition people (of any race) to overtly behave in certain ways. But that won't change how they feel and think. Until people (of all races) can talk about how they honestly feel without being vilified, there won't be any dialogue between races and there won't be any change.— Rtk280
- No latinos (Spanish speaking Indians) and Asians were not a part of this "dialogue", though some would argue, monologue that has existed here in America since at least 1776.
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As all (ALL) Europeans are "Nationalist", all (ALL) Americans are "Racist". Everyone has different perspectives/definitions on "race". There is much I wish to say that once I tried to put into a book, "The Adventures of Muhammad Smith and the Million Man March". A simple google will reveal my name.
Currently I am "secure in my race"...whatever that means. But I will say though, I could give a flying flip for being a "credit to my race".
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Since I was a child, trying so hard to have silky hair, the unspoken "thought" never spoken of in any and all conversations on race, that I ever heard...which of course I would have never heard a conversation strictly among Whites, the unspoken "thought" that was a clear 'elephant in the room' was that Blacks were a sub-human/intellect species.
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As I have written a book, there is an infinitey that now I could say....But in our 200 year old experiment that has lead us to The Industrial Revolution, I do want to leave you with one "thought": Genesis 2:17.
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When the trees go....we go
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"Flowers come from dirt"....(The adventures of) Muhammad Smith, 1995
— Cuddles - Someone needs to tell me what the f@#$ "federally-funded middle class welfare in the suburbs" means. Also, "Nutter expressed in no uncertain terms the sentiment that so often shackles black people - that the unlawful actions of a few smear everyone else." Really I think you need to do a little more research on crime in the city. Talk about white guilt or is the writer just an apologist for the black community? F@#$ing liberals are killing this country!!!— jimday
- The author alluded to it in the article, although you are right that it could have been clearer. When suburbs like Levittown were being built, the federal government began supporting home loans. One of the criteria used to determine the relative risk of a loan--and thus the interest rate and whether a loan would be given--was the racial makeup and the racial momentum of an area. In other words, if an area were either heavily minority or trending toward having more minorities, loans became either more difficult or impossible to get, and thus property values quickly declined in correlation with racial makeup. If you google "red lining" you'll find out more about it. The author's point is that government subsidized loan programs explicitly favored white areas--and incentivized places like Levittown to bar blacks--and so home loan assistance was provided to white suburbs and denied to minority-heavy urban areas. — DLRJ
- Great answer! — Ms.Fitt
- Its an article that any white person would have a tough time arguing against. We have been "taught" by the media to stay quite and not talk about how blacks destroy their own neighborhoods and contribute very little to both the neighborhood and their own families. That would be racist to admit to a truth. The culture of "no snitches" is brought about by blacks to go ahead and abuse each other. The welfare assistance that turns into a whole hand me down lifestyle. The "getting whats mine" attitude without earning a thing. Black leaders dont even address these issues. They point fingers. And as whites we have this guilt complex to help for things that none of us were alive for. This was an article that needed to be written for some time now.
You want to hear another truth? Whites always look at little black kids and think they're so cute and innocent cause they're not corrupted yet. And it stinks to think that way. We already know the statistics that say that little child has a fight ahead of them to overcome their own family and neighborhood. Its a truth and its about time we all talk about it. Fire away at me, but look in the mirror first and your neighborhoods first.— hipdaddy - 70-90% of what you say applies to any Urban culture/environment going back to the Mafia, Jack The Ripper and what the Rural Warrior Spartans said of the Urban Homosexual Athenians. Also you ignore the fact that before the post World War Two Northern migration the "stereotype" of the American "Black" (which at the time was considered a slur much as "Neg**" is now considered a slur) before the World War Two migration the stereotype for Blacks was the cowering sap of RURAL America ala "Stephin Fetchit".
But whether it's the "Rochester" in 1963's "Mad, Mad, Mad World" or the justified thug in the 1970s' of John "Shaft" (who "takes it to the man") no matter what the stereotype the implication is the same: Sub-Human Species.
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This is an unspoken theory that affects all of our politics:
Rural America loved (LOVED) socialist Roosevelt democrats until July 2, 1964.
When we deal with that fact America will return to the unity, progress and Leadership she displayed to the world from 1933 - 1933.— Cuddles - *1933-1963 — Cuddles
- "whites" must criticize "blacks" because they've been afraid to speak up.....????????? Maybe the dumbest premise I've perused to date. Everyone's BEHAVIOR should perhaps be up for constructive comment, but on the basis of behavior, not segmented by skin color. For instance - gun violence is examined and punishable by the behavior - the gun violence. There's nothing to gain - the press itself, for fear of losing jobs, readership, CREDIBILITY - doesn't "speak up' either. Conversely, the human condition is articulable from the beginning of time through story-telling. We all have pain and difficulties and dissonance and childhood journeys as part of our personal story. Just like everyone lives and dies. Inescapable. And if we listen to the stories and respond to their content we can get somewhere - moving on as an individual, a block, a neighborhood, as a city, etc etc etc - move from 'one set of problems to a better set of problems.". The white black thing is just preposterous and embarrassing that this seems to still be the stellar characteristic from which examination and discourse should arise. Let's start looking at things we all can identify with as part of our individual and collective truth(s) - we want to increase inner peace ( which directly radiates into our communities ), decrease suffering, increase confidence, decrease crime, increase daily from sunrise to sunset MINDFULNESS, so people Respond rather than React ( ie hit, strike, hurt, yell, argue, scream, shoot, rob, stab, push, provoke ) in negative hurtful damaging disruptive and illegal ways towards our fellow man and woman and especially our children and our neighbors and our animals etc etc etc. it's all connected. I'm not holding a flower in my hand spewing the "we are all ONE" nonsense. But who we are, and how we behave does affect people places and things around us. Leave this issue of Philadelphia Magazine stacked on the shelves and racks everywhere it's offered for sale.— zen
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