Mr Huber, a writer, sought to address this in a detailed exploration of race in one of American's biggest and most segregated cities for this month's edition of Philadelphia magazine. And he wrote it from the perspective of fellow whites in the city.
The unvarnished result was Being White in Philly. It has been praised by some as a thoughtful insight into this most sensitive of subjects, but denounced by many - both black and white - for perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes in a one-sided depiction based on the prejudiced views of unidentified whites.
Mr Huber concluded with a call for a debate about race to take place, not just within the white and black communities, but between them. "We need to end the conversational divide so that there are no longer two private dialogues in Philadelphia," he wrote.
He has certainly achieved that wish. In a country where the legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination still burn deep, the article in a city magazine has sparked a bout of national soul-searching.Those who do not live in the United States, as either travelers like Tocqueville, or news outlets based abroad such as the BBC or Al Jazeera, often have a preeminent and gifted insight into the country's social and political dynamics. As is true in most parts of life, often our friends (and enemies) can tell us things about ourselves that we are (blissfully) unaware of.
To point. The Telegraph has waded into the controversy over Robert Huber's piece on race relations in Philadelphia.
I did not offer comment on Being White in Philly because others had already done so, and I found nothing particular insightful about Huber's reporting. Race and class overlap. The world depicted in Being White in Philly is utterly believable.
But, recycling stereotypes, not offering up any empirical evidence or data from social scientists or others on the matters being discussed, and presenting a two-dimensional narrative of urban social disorder is just piss poor journalism.
Being White in Philly is a tale of "black crime," white victimhood, and white fear.
The latter two categories are canards and distractions that are omnipresent in post-civil rights America because they are the underpinnings of what has been termed "reasonable" or "rational" racism--one of the core concepts driving and legitimating right-wing colorblind racism.
The anxieties channeled by Being White in Philly are not new. In fact, fears of white victimhood by roving bands of blacks/Natives/Mexicans/Chinamen are as old as the republic.
"Black crime" is a more challenging concept.
Yes, of course, there are black criminals. Moreover, there are whole neighborhoods where the vast majority of crimes will be committed by black folks against people who look like them. As detailed by Being White in Philly, "black crime" is a conflation of black people and criminality when it should more correctly be a comment on the more nuanced phenomena of how poverty, ghetto underclass culture, nihilism, and structural inequality have turned whole neighborhoods--in both rural and urban America--into demilitarized zones.
Ultimately, until we are ready to have a "national conversation" about "white crime," I have no interest in talking about "black crime."
We often discuss "process" here on We Are Respectable. This involves conversations about the inside game--breaking "kayfabe" as smart marks say--surrounding politics, academia, popular culture, or the meta-questions that govern online writing and creative work.
If you are trying to get your work published in a traditional newspaper, by a commercial or university press, or even online at many news/opinion websites, there is a "pitch" involved where you sell your idea to the person who will be--if you are lucky--cutting you a check.
Thus, what really fascinates me about Being White in Philly is how it was ever published in the first place. Philadelphia magazine is a reputable publication. How does a journalist go about pitching a story that is closer to fiction as a genre, than to hard news? And what does that reveal about Huber's editor and the publication that chose to run the story? If Being White in Philly is a final draft, what did the interim, rough versions look like?
17 comments:
I think you've answered your own question when you asked how this piece of news got approved in the offices of a reputed magazine. It is because the narrative of "black crime" has always been in the spotlight of the news.
We see it in local news all the time within the first ten minutes or on the front page of a newspaper. Black crime is a sales pitch if it involves violence. Argo, "If it bleeds, it leads" motto serves as a model to get people interested and scared. People are drawn to drama and want to know who to fear. Crimes by poor blacks is the main story.
The news doesn't care as to why it happens or what factors cause crime in the first place. The reason I've read is because it is harder to do, and just reporting the basic facts is easier. And we can not ignore the white racial frame of the criminal blackman that is the problem with society.
The big news outlets won't dare report on the causes because that would question certain people who may likely be friends with the top news employers and execs. At least, that's a theory.
How many white victims of black violent crimes have there been over the last 40 years vs. all recorded lynchings from 1865 to 1965?
Net of ad hominem critiques of Huber's writing, his journalism, the editorial standards, blah, blah, tahesi-blah,blah,blah,blah,blah.....,
What do those statistics reveal about the validity of white fears of black violent crime?
Now flip it around, how many black victims of white violent crimes have there been over the last 40 years?
We have to be careful here. Are we talking about crimes specifically based on skin color, re: hate crimes? Then there really is no comparison as blacks, and people of color generally, are much more likely to be victimized by whites.
Are we talking about "violent crime" in general? You know my position on ign'ts of any color and nihilism.
But, as we discussed several times, "reasonable racism" is anything but as it is sloppy methods and math to try to deduce the individual probability of a given member of a group committing a crime from aggregate data. The book Negrophobia eviscerates those efforts by "rational racists."
Moreover, when one controls for class, black people commit less crime than whites from the working/middle classes up to the top of the income distribution. Funny, one never hears about that in the news.
Historically, black folks should be running like mad from white people given the history of inter-racial violence, pogroms, lynching campaigns, and other organized white on black violence in the U.S.. The effort by the White Right to present an utterly decontextualized understanding of racial violence is why their claims are so patently dishonest and should be rejected.
lol, CDV, you totally ducked my very simple questions, and not particularly gracefully.
So let's try it again. Black on White violent crimes committed over the past 40 years outnumber all lynchings from 1865-1965 by how many orders of magnitude?
Over the past 40 years, White on Black violent crimes constitute what percentage of the total number of Black on White violent crimes?
I don't believe that rational racist fears are driven by deep contemplation of motive. Rather, they're driven by the fact that a disproportionately high number of violent crimes are perpetrated by Black males, period.
Didn't duck. Just chose not to engage that tired line because the conclusion drawn that leads to claims of reasonable racism and negrophobia which harms my life chances is a tired dog that doesn't hunt.
You know I am hard on ghetto ign't subcultural and have written about it here to the displeasure of no few people.
By extension of your logic, I should be running for the hills every time I see a white man because they are much more likely to be cannabilistic serial killers. I should get the heck out of dodge when I see white men because of hate crimes, militia activist, treason, sedition, child molestation and murder, etc. etc.
The Philly story is piss poor reporting with 2 dimensional cartoon white victims. It isn't that compelling or interesting.
What's far more compelling is the specious institutional bulwark erected against candid discussion of exponentially disproportionate violent crime committed by black males against white victims.
It's not racist to address those facts and it is terribly dishonest to pretend that they are untrue or to attempt to deflect away from the ugly truth of the situation.
I'd guess that the number of violent crimes committed by black men against all others in one year in Chicago alone, dwarfs the total number of violent crimes committed by white men against blacks in the same time period nationwide. If you want to pretend that Jeffrey Dahmer tryna eat you, go right ahead.
Huber's Philly interviews record and reflect some anecdotal truths that are borne out in the larger statistics and that apologists for miscreatic negrology are exceedingly hard-pressed to face.
I do like that word "negrology."
I will try again with a different angle. You are the exceptional CNU survivalist woodsmen archivist Malthusian. Those traits aside, do you find it reasonable that a random white person would be more afraid of suffering violent crime from you, given only that you are black, than from another white person?
Nevermind that he/she is more likely to be killed by a relative or from intra-racial violence. If you are cool with such deductions then you have answered my question and there really isn't anything to litigate.
Dood, if the picture at the top of your blog is any indication, ain't nobody scurred'a'you cause you happen to be black.
Similarly, ain't nobody scurred'a'me cause I happen to be black as much as because of my middle linebacker size, bald head, and goatee. The fact that I'm almost unfailingly dapper tends to offset any such fears.
I'm cool with (indifferent to) any other deductions they care to draw.
Since I imagine you have more in common with a young laurence fishburne than you do with lil'reese, I don't think any of those anecdotes apply at all, and, I don't think they have any bearing on your life chances.
" I don't think any of those anecdotes apply at all, and, I don't think they have any bearing on your life chances."
Well tons and decades of social science research would tend to disagree with that hope and dream on your part. In fact, it is upwardly mobile black and brown strivers who actually encounter day-to-day racism more than our underclass counterparts because of the social classes we tend to travel in. Moreover, we, like women in this regard, see demonstrable net losses on our gains from education the higher up we go relative to white men in the professional classes.
Nevermind what we are learning about implicit bias. that is the paradox, "harmless looking" black folks are lumped in with the "threatening" lumpen in the white gaze. And yes, we are profiled, harassed, bothered, discriminated against, etc. for it. You are smart, have more life experience than me, and most certainly know such things. We do not need to have a let's compare racial profiling stories to prove that fact.
Others can chime in on this one. I do think that you are feeling a bit ornery today. What is going on? Did that Philly story strike a chord? Some ign't causing you grief?
Reload those decades of social science here a few times http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
I don't encounter day-to-day racism anywhere and haven't my entire professional life. Probably because I've never looked for it. Corruption, malfeasance, criminality in spades, but garden variety racism, in either the public or private sectors, never.
I take that back. The Indians (dot not feather) that I worked with out of silicon valley - were among the most racist sons of sea biscuits I've ever met, and I've had the privilege of meeting the genuine goods over my life, just not ever during my work life.
The only time I witness profiling in action these days is on friday and saturday nights when the police implement curfew on young ignants on the Country Club Plaza, particularly jarring at the cineplex. It bothers me that it's hazardous for my children to get caught up in that throng on those nights, but I understand, particularly since it's a black mayor and a black police chief who've implemented and who enforce this curfew.
Come now, "I don't encounter day-to-day racism anywhere and haven't my entire
professional life. Probably because I've never looked for it." that is something I would expect from a silly tea party mouth breather or an in denial freshmen. You are just being ornery today and contrarian for some reason. As smart as you are I would hope that you would not offer up such a silly claim--there is no racism or sexism because I choose to ignore it. Even writing that foolishness cost me some IQ points. i think the ign'ts have got you today. Don't let them impact your clarity of thinking. One can accept empirical reality about personal and structural inequality and discrimination along the colorline, be able to discuss how it has changed, and still hold the ign'ts in contempt. The ideas are not contradictory.
I didn't say there was no racism or sexism, I said I haven't encountered any racism directed toward me personally, my entire professional life. That's a simple fact.
My life trajectory was shaped by a racist act so blistering it would warp your imagination. I was the third black student admitted to the Koch Bros. Birch Society private independent school in order for that school to avoid loss of its not-for-profit status. Sure I've personally experienced racist ostracism and aggression, and in most instances I've responded to it with withering psychological or physical violence to the point where it stopped and was never repeated.
I've fractured bones and caused concussions on the high school football field because somebody called me a nigger. I've gotten into knife fights in south boston, and gun fights er, ah, elsewhere...., with skinheads.
I know good and well what racism is, and the fact remains, that in 28 years of professional engagement, I've never experienced a single racist act directed toward me personally.
Now where were we, oh yeah, you were out there on that silly hand waving limb, pretending that the hundreds of thousands of acts of black on white violent crime that have taken place over the past 40 years should not give pause to white folks to fear black crime and criminality, and shame on those racist white folks for having the nerve and audacity to report their anecdotes and for that terrible Huber and his even more terrible editor for publishing this non-story.
Cause you don't really have a credible, reality-based answer for the fact of disproportionate black on black, black on white, and black on other violent crime over the past four decades. You don't really have a credible response to why white folks are aggregating in their whitetopias and trying to get as far away as humanly possible from riff-raff that perpetrates waaaaay out of proportion to its numbers.
I can only imagine what you went through. I have experienced direct racism in my personal and professional life. I know many other folks, in my own family, far more accomplished then I will ever hope to be, who have seen and heard things in their professional lives that are clear demonstrable examples of racism in practice. Does your "it hasn't happened to me" cancel out other folks experiences and the reams of data which empirically demonstrate how life chances are impacted by race/class/gender etc. No.
I get whiteopia. Liked Benjamin's book. As a successful black man, i would think that you would take personal offense to how there are no small number of white folks who use faulty reasoning to lump you and anyone who looks like you into the game cohort with the ghetto lumpen ign't classes. Again, I apply the same standards to white criminals too. Negrophobia is irrational on a number of levels. Folks can do the reading if they want.
White racism is driving whiteopia's and neo Bircherism as it conflates what should be common concerns about crime--and especially by black and brown folks who are more likely to be prayed on by these social deviants--with all black and brown people. It is lazy thinking that I am not going to entertain or defend.
"Cause you don't really have a credible, reality-based answer for the
fact of disproportionate black on black, black on white, and black on
other violent crime over the past four decades."
I am not a criminologist. What would you suggest? Are "black" people genetically defective? What explanations do you have for whole categories of white crime that we have discussed like mass shooting?
Economics? Poverty? Cultural degeneracy among a certain cohort?
Crime, and criminality are complicated social problems. I know that you prefer death squads for fixing all things; those of us in normal society as the phrase goes who live in a political community that is reasonable are not too compelled by those solutions.
Does your "it hasn't happened to me" cancel out other folks experiences and the reams of data which empirically demonstrate how life chances are impacted by race/class/gender etc. No.
Does your "white folks exercising their freedom of association and preferential relationship management in the workplace" cancel out 40 years of disproportionate violence and criminality in the street? Why is your data and the anecdotes on which you concentrate more consequential than the anecdotes compiled by Huber? Why does your reporting satisfy standards of good writing, good journalism, good social science, or, have you and the Tanehisis just made up some ad hoc ad hominem in order to deflect away from an underlying empirical reality that you cannot defend or address?
As a successful black man, i would think that you would take personal offense to how there are no small number of white folks who use faulty reasoning to lump you and anyone who looks like you into the game cohort with the ghetto lumpen ign't classes.
As best I can ascertain, that hasn't happened. Not only that, but the whitetopian enclaves which I and mine cognitively and interpersonally infiltrate seem welcoming. Take for example the roman catholic parish where we get jumped into the clique this week, and the parochial school which belongs to that parish which my son will attend. I see nothing even remotely approaching the Lutheran church that my parents integrated in 1959, or the private independant school I integrated in 1975.
I am not a criminologist. What would you suggest?
First off, stop lying and deflecting and attacking others as racist for relating anxieties borne out in the past 40 years of racial crime statistics. Stop pretending that the anomalous serial killer, active shooter, or cannibal is on par with the daily pervasive pedestrian property crimes, rapes, robberies, assaults, and murders. You may not want to hear it, may feel shamed and helpless in the face of it, but don't attack others for relating it.
What explanations do you have for whole categories of white crime that we have discussed like mass shooting?
SSRI withdrawal, as compared and contrasted with the several underreported black active shooters, all of whom appear to have been racially motivated.
Crime, and criminality are complicated social problems. I know that you prefer death squads for fixing all things; those of us in normal society as the phrase goes, who live in a political community that is reasonable, are not too compelled by those solutions.
Clearly you'd rather obfuscate the overwhelming obvious - and pretend that unacceptable negrological dysfunction doesn't happen and that anyone who points it out is at best ornery and contrarian and at worst, intrinsically and systematically racist.
Odd. So be it. You are an N of 1 in feeling welcome in those all white enclaves. You can play the exceptional negro game. Have fun at it. What you have experienced does not cancel out the overriding MO of whiteopias--to get away from black people. Benjamin's book has a great chapter where he hung out with the KKK and felt oddly "welcome." You can choose to live that way if you like.
Again, if you want to play the game, of defending "reasonable" or "rational racism" have at it as the black crusader have at it.
"As best I can ascertain, that hasn't happened. Not only that, but the whitetopian enclaves which I and mine cognitively and interpersonally infiltrate seem welcoming. Take for example the roman catholic parish where we get jumped into the clique this week, and the parochial school which belongs to that parish which my son will attend."
You are special. You got a great pass. Have at it and be noble. I have been a fair listener on this point. If you want to defend the negrophobia of whiteopia America, and delude yourself into feeling that you are exempted from its gaze. so be it.
Moving on.
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