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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
Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir
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.]
The problem with the Philly Mag article is that it is putting issues in a racial context that doesn't exist. The fact is the black or white people living in Philadelphia or the area do not share a single point of view, ethics or values. In both the white and black population, you'll find a wide range of opinions, beliefs, lifestyles and attitudes. We can have a conversation about those topics. We can discuss the problems that many people assign to "blacks" such as out of fathers not supporting their kids, crime, drug use, gun violence, racism, bigotry, fairness, civility and on and on. But you'd have to acknowledge the reality that these things exist in virtually every racial, economic, religious and ethnic group. When you make broad accusations, you let the individuals who engage in behaviour you may disagree with off the hook. It's not John Doe or Mary Smith who is the problem. It's all black people or all white people who are the problem. When you say "black" people when addressing issues, how do you expect a black person who agrees with you in principle to take what you say? They know you're not a person who is speaking about reality or truth and what you have to say is very suspect. How about sticking to facts when discussing civil society and values instead of introducing race? How about recognizing that the majority of whites and blacks share many common values and that no group of people should be characterized based on the behaviour of a few?— MikeP- Maybe Goggle goggles will make an app so that we are all blue like Avatars!— redheart85
- When I was 15 I worked at a movie theater, often as a concession stand attendant. One time, on a Saturday night (the busiest movie night) a black dude (and his family) took, approximately, 15m to get their order right while I had to fill and refill the various sodas they wanted and then didn't want. Eventually, they completed their order and it was time to pay, they did. When I went to hand back the change and move on with my life, the father decided to have a 10m long conversation (holding up the line still) with another person in his group so, after waiting 5m holding his change out to him, I set it on the counter next to his arm.
He told my boss I was racist.— KYS24 - 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?)
Where did this statistic come from? You are saying it is more likely a white kid smokes pot than a black kid? Walk around any part of Philly and tell me that is what you see.— bling - Why is it that my reaction to this article is "it could have been written - it reads as though it were written - fifty years ago"?
Martin Luther King and James Baldwin were speaking, writing and acting eloquently, persuasively and bravely enough to convince a lot of us White Boys to work for the cause - Civil Rights. Some of us did.
But not much has changed - we're still not getting the right answers because we're still not asking the right questions.— He Visto Todo - I missed the original PBS broadcast of "America". Finally though I borrowed my brother's VHS and went to the local Orange NJ library and borrowed their comnplete set of "America" VHS tapes on a daily basis over the course of a week. I so enjoyed the cronological insights of this PBS series and the commentator, Alistair Cooke, wasn't so bad either.
So in this chronological order they come to the 1960's and they show a (very) dark skinned little girl in a brilliant white dress jumping rope. This is when the commentator, Alistair Cooke of England says...
"They will never admit it"
'but they moved in droves to get away from that Black little girl'.
Even as I type this it is a clear snapshot memory when I first heard those words.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Surprisingly it holds up well even on a google search but no one NO ONE (respected outside of their own neighborhood) in America has EVER admited to being racist....
Not George Washington or Benjamin Banaker
Not Abe Lincoln or Frederick Douglas
Not George Wallce or Malcolm X
Not Pat Bucannon or Jesse Jackson
No one in America has ever admitted to being racist ie: "I am racist".
Imagine that.— Cuddles - Um...yeah, actually people have admitted that.
Repeatedly.
Throughout history.
I know you're a routine troll to race articles, but what planet are you from to think otherwise?— evolutionary - @(anonymous)-evolutionary
I so enjoy the company...as anyone who can read knows that I am a Philadelphian.
With that being said, did you take me up on my offer and google it?...Did you google George Washington yet in our discussion on American racism?...And even if we only speak of Philadelphian racism, I ask do you admit to being a racist?
Like I said anyone who can read knows that I am a Philadelphian.— Cuddles - No, I didn't, as I have no desire to banter with the myopic self-indulgent.
You come here trolling to pump up sales of your book, which you "happen" to name drop every single time you visit an article. That you'd use your moral soapbox to do so reveals what a charlatan and a fraud you are - either that, or your ego is the size of Texas.
Don't bother responding. "You will never admit it." - evolutionary— evolutionary - This whole concept is to commercailize Philly Mag, almost admittedly so as this person was hired from Forbes for their "success".
With that being said, I enjoy the company...Everyone (EVERYONE) knows that I am a Philadelphian...do you admit to being a racist? (Be the first on your block.)— Cuddles - Address my response first if you want a dialogue; the comment about Philly Mag was a complete non sequitur. I stated that you come on here to namedrop and pump up sales of your book on the premise of caring about race articles enough to comment on them. Your constant hawking undermines and de-legitimizes everything that comes after said hawking - you do get that, don't you?
Also, recognize that the use of a false dichotomy is one of the oldest fallacies in arguing a point (i.e., either someone admits to fitting your definition of a racist, whatever that may be; or they deny being your definition of a racist and you essentially declare them to be liars). The classic ruse and double logic of the charlatan.
This is my last response until you actually address what I said.— evolutionary - "They will never admit it"
'but they moved in droves to get away from that Black little girl'.
Even as I type this it is a clear snapshot memory when I first heard those words.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Surprisingly it holds up well even on a google search but no one NO ONE (respected outside of their own neighborhood) in America has EVER admited to being racist....
Not George Washington or Benjamin Banaker
Not Abe Lincoln or Frederick Douglas
Not George Wallce or Malcolm X
Not Pat Bucannon or Jesse Jackson
No one in America has ever admitted to being racist ie: "I am racist".
Imagine that.— Cuddles - Who says whites don't talk about race? Anytime they scream about cutting taxes or closing city schools or Obamacare... ending job training, after school programs, head start programs... they are talking loud and clear. The “I don't want to make blah people's lives better..." argument. YOU CAN'T SPEND THE LAST 30 YEARS cutting programs that work then say "see those programs never worked". If we (all Americans) don't take the time to educate poor Black, White, Latino people then we will continue to have this conversation year after year.— 1chez
- Daniel Denvir ,
So it took 7 paragraphs to arrive at "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."
Which proves his point. Talk about race , calmly, in any terms other than the viewpoint of the other person, gets you labeled racist.
Which is what you did.
Proving his point.
ROTFLMAO.
— euell - All (ALL) Europeans are Nationalist
All (ALL) Africans are Tribulist
And while I have no idea why North Koreans kill South Koreans
In America everyone (EVERYONE) is racist
....Any French Canadian will tell you this.— Cuddles
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