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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.]
- if you have a point of view it's lost.
FYI:
trib·al·ism (trb-lzm)
n.
1. The organization, culture, or beliefs of a tribe.
2. A strong feeling of identity with and loyalty to one's tribe or group.
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tribal·ist n.
tribal·istic adj.— euell - "They will never admit it"...Alistair Cooke, 1972. — Cuddles
- still an incomprehensible pot.
"Alistar Cooke was an idiot" euell 2013.
— euell - From the final compromise of 1787
To our most bloodiest war
To White Flight
To Anne Frank....
...This is the most powerful gravity in all of Ameican political history. It currently holds within it's grasp whether our nation returns to the progress of Franklin Roosevelt that 'we' abandoned on July 2, 1964 or falls aimlessly into the myth of John Wayne, filmed on location in Mexico.— Cuddles - There will be over 300 murders and 5000 other violent crimes in Philadelphia this year and almost EVERYONE committed by a black man! What else do you have to know about this segment of society where 70% of fathers abandon their children.— farley
- There is nothing new about Urban crime and contemporary Blacks do not have an historical "70%" monopoly on leaving their children. — Cuddles
- @Susie--I fully support birth control for anyone who wants it. Heck if we can give free Viagra to old men (thanks to Bush/Medicare drug benefit) we can give free birth control to women. Why do you mention only women? Are men locked out of the drug store and prevented from buying condoms? The Catholic Church while hysterical and medieval about birth control is not really the issue here. The right or so called conservatives will never be of any help here. They offer tax cuts for the rich and platitudes about liberty. Sensible people have to at least acknowledge and discuss the idea that the current model of child rearing that is too often taking place in the many urban areas by ALL ethnic groups-- single mothers, absent fathers-- is not working. The employment model in most cities is not working either: not enough jobs with DECENT pay that do not require years of specialized training or degrees. They can both be problems. These problems do have some connections but they are not directly connected. I do not have to father a child and walk away simply because my job prospects are poor. I know that I come to this discussion with a limited perspective; I am not poor and do not live in the city. My parents were poor and did live in the city. They find the right wing rhetoric to be deplorable but are also dismayed by the cavalier attitude and circumstances with which people decide to enter parenthood--too young, not educated, unemployed and unmarried. To think that these conditions are not going to cause problems is as naive as the aspirin between your knees for birth control crowd.— mick-of-the-moment
- Very very well said Mick— ghall1961
- 1-Philadelphia Magazine is and has been irrelevant for at least the past decade!
2-The whole debate centering on black/white relations is not the issue, it is a smoke screen for the growing disparity between the rich and poor. Racism is just a vehicle used to divert the real issue.
3- With all the political power positions in the city being held by black people, the argument of inequality is rather moot.— slugo - 'One' is true of all magazines, for the last five yeas, at least.
'Three' ignores the concept of insurrection and what happens in coups and happened to 1939 German Jews.
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Now as for Number 2: People have been saying that for years, in fact it could be called "Racial Conversation 101".
On March 14, 2008 Bear Sterns got the first of several major Big Bank Bailouts of our time and a pivotal moment for the strength of the American Middle Class.
On all (ALL) 500 channels of our TV do you know what all (ALL) America was watching, not only for that night of March 14, 2008 but for the whole weekend as George W. Bush snuck in the shadows with crony Big Northeast Banks that had dealt directly with his crony big Northeast family for several generations. As this historical Bailout was happening in plain view do you remember what ALL of America was talking about AND watching?
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Number 2....people have been doing that for years.
— Cuddles - Man this topic is too hard to write about.
Back in the day minorities weren't hired because of prejudice. that caused minorities to resort to crime to provide. that caused more jobs to leave. thus cities with no jobs.
whites say cold-hearted stuff. that causes minorities to become more insular. and the divide widens.
obviously the worst choice is to destroy the education system. america needs to create programs that put factories back in cities and connect those factories to the surrounding High School.(like Germany does)
I would venture to say African Americans and Hispanics from the inner city never have felt like they were accepted or wanted by American society. A showing by the people of America that we see them as american citizens might go far.
Obviously everyone will say-we have already spent too much money on the inner city.
This is true, but we have always done it kind of back handedly and begrudgingly.
my experience of working in North Philly for 5 years- Poverty is not just a lack of money. In some cases the amount of lack is unbelievable. I hate to say it but these are people who need help because there is a lack of everything.— high water - .....Hard to write about.
You though definitely are in the ball park.
Guess which ethnic group has the lowest suicide rate even though it went up after integration?— Cuddles - All brown countries and all brown parts of countries are poor, that ain't a "coincidence" and it's not White people's fault. Besides, if you're not free to discriminate, then you aren't free. Integration would not have to be forced if White people wanted it, correct? Are Asians free to hire Asians and live around Asians in Asian countries? Why aren't White people allowed this freedom in White countries? Massive 3rd world immigration and FORCED "assimilation" for ALL and ONLY White countries is White GENOCIDE. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White. — Guderian
- I used to almost be embarassed when 'people' said that George Washington Carver 'invented the peanut'. From the very first when I heard this badge of honor, largely and exclusively by Blacks who themselves were embarassed that Blacks appeared to be historically dumb (they will never admit it), I knew it was a joke...In no way could Carver's peanut compare to Einstein's 'Relativity'. At the most earliest of ages I knew to keep such thoughts to myself.
Then on literally the last day that my parents could make me go to church the preacher at Mt. Calvery Baptist Church near 10th and York was a guest preacher (actually the grandson of the regular preacher...Ezekial) who gave a sermon, who's theme was that the first transgression of man against god was not violence, or rape or calling someone a N*****...the initial transgression of man against god was "Knowledge".
Often I think of Orson Welles' line: "The Italians have had 100's years of strife and made GREAT strides in art, science and math...The Swiss right above them have had centuries of peace, harmony and love and only created the Coo-Coo-Clock".
And while the Europeans forgot to put Benjamin Banaker, Elijah McCoy and Vivian Thomas in the history books, I wonder if this 4,000,000,000 year old earth can survive another 200 years of the European Industrial Revolution? I don't know but on this I can relatively be sure: An African would have never (EVER) invented the light bulb....They were GETTING ALONG JUST FINE WITH THE SUN until someone came up and called them dumb for not inventing the candle.
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Genesis 2:17
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Love emeges and it disappears
The Northern and the Southrn Hemispheres
I do it for your love
Found a rug in an old junk shop
And brought it home to you
Along the way the colors ran, the orange bled the blue...
— Cuddles - let's see, there is an African in the white house, just about every large city in the USA is now run by African Americans and apparently that's still not enough.Liberal White America has pretty much tossed them the keys and said "have fun". Look around you and see the results of that. We are now well on our way to 3rd world status,well done Lib's.— hawk
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