(no subject)
I was commenting on a friend's LJ about how I felt that a black person being elected president was (sadly) a big deal. That was mostly a gut-level believe on my part but I decided to think about it for a bit. Then I came to the conclusion that yes, it is in fact important.
Long post, cut imminent.
Symbols are important. This can be frustrating for those who subscribe to a certain type of logic, but it's true. We're creatures of symbolism, it's hard-coded into the human brand of consciousness, and most likely (hypothetical) tied into all sorts of gunk like pattern recognition and linguistics and lord-knows-what-else.
The symbolism of a black man becoming president is important. It is not in measurable ways as important as a man who has the capacity to do a good job as president becoming president. But it's still important.
Main reason for me, which is tied in with competence and logical ability, is that most of us are just goddamn jaded with politics, and for good reason. Even discounting the last eight years as an experiment in why we shouldn't let one creed have exclusive power, the fact that positions of power have a tendency more times than not to be filled by old white butts does not escape the notice of those with eyes. Even for white guys like me, who will one day become an old white person, seeing someone outside that phenotype get the Commander in Chief office shakes off a bit of the jadedness. I imagine that for people in our little village of America who were around for the civil rights movement, it means a great deal more.
Shaking off the jadedness is good, because jadedness is part of what got us into some of the current messes locally and globally. Feel like there's no point? You won't act. Don't act? Then don't bitch when things go even further south. A state of low-level panic and hopelessness is seen as a useful tool by some people for selling things or flying ideas over the heads of the actual majority. Forget that fact at your own risk.
Now, if Obama goes out and does the job well, that'll shake off a good deal more jadedness.
There's also the fact that this symbol is important to the ongoing civil rights movement. Don't think civil rights movement is ongoing? Well, it is. Not in the same way, but let's plot a highly simplified trajectory.
Step one: Southern Democrats in the post civil war era garner votes by playing on the fears of poor white Americans.
Step Two: Shifts in democratic party before and up to civil rights movement sends many southern dems to the Republican party. Abe Lincoln, diehard Republican, would not have been welcomed to any position of high power in his own party after this point (you'll note Republicans of today don't point to him very often either).
Step Three: Slow shift of Republican party to industry-oriented while still selling the same lines about personal accountability, fear of the other. Still playing to poor and middle-class americans while being spotty on their actual interests. Democrats meanwhile become known as party supporting old FDR ideology, love for ineffectual commitees become targets for Republican rhetoric arsenal.
Step Four: Post civil-rights, still a lot of pissed off white people. Politicians play to the fears of these white people while pointing at the black/other minorities as blame for economic issues shared by everyone all the time due to larger factors. Irony of white people on welfare being angry about black people on welfare lost on white people on welfare. Politicians find it more troublesome to actually fix issues, mostly because then they'd have to find new things to inspire voting block.
Step Five: Regan era, capitalism and rich people having more money will fix everything. Young people raised in proximity to politicians featured in step four actually start believing the rhetoric. Subsect grows up to be Neo-Cons. Builds church-sponsored radio programs and church-based grassroots organizations, perfects and sharpens rhetoric, scares several old white republicans who switch back to democratic party. Other old white people remain in Republican party and do all sorts of shitty things in the name of business.
Step Six: Rush Limbaugh era. Previous subsect takes power by stymieing efforts of Clinton administration and then blaming it on said administration, also utilizing moral outrage over prez not being able to keep it in his pants.
Step Seven: Bush Administration. The goddamn Bush Administration.
Believe it or not, we are still in an ongoing experiment in this country involving the ability to acknowledge other people as human beings equal to the same rights as us. This is an ongoing experiment. A black man as president is a milestone in that experiment, much as California's supreme court overthrowing the gay marriage ban as unconstitutional is. It is moving forward. Moving forward is good.
And despite what I wrote up there, I don't hold to that idea of the democratic party being somehow inherently better than the Republicans. I could write a whole huge thing on why the Democratic love of nanny laws are awful (banning fat people from fast food for their own good, etc.). One reason I wish the Republican party would shake itself back up to sanity again is so that they can both act as checks against the other's foibles, as opposed to the democrats ineffectually trying to contain insane religious fanatics who don't care what happens in 50 years because the Rapture will have happened by then and they'll all be in Heaven. I wish we could get to some point where the two parties are having a pissing contest where the piss actually tastes like magical awesome.
Having a black president shouldn't be taken as more than a milestone though. It doesn't mean that suddenly everything is all hunky-dory for everyone of a different skin tone, or that it's going to automagically get better.
I don't know whether it's racism or economics or both at this point, but a much higher percentage of black people than white people are In The Shit right now. Just using Illinois in 2005 as an example, 30% of black people were below the national poverty line, compared to 8% of white people. Scores in math and reading comprehension across the nation's public schools are likewise incongruent. Blacks (and, on the rise, Hispanics) far outweigh white people in incarceration. These numbers are all going up for everything except the test scores, which are going down. Like I said, I don't know why this is so.
The incarceration, for example. Sentences for crack are on average much higher than sentences for powdered cocaine or meth. The majority of crack users in the country are black, the majority of cocaine and meth users in America are white. Was this intentional during the Bush and Regan administrations? Did it just turn out this way? Does it fucking matter? NO. The EFFECTS, if not the intent, are racist in that larger portions of one group are ending up severely fucked.
Although as a final aside, it's worth noting that the gap between blacks/hispanics and whites on the poverty end of things was lessening, and not in the right direction. From one standpoint, the utter failure of an unchecked neo-con government was a good thing for the country. Another possible end result, perhaps under subtler hands, would have been a slow descent into a greater class divide than this country has ever seen, and a place where the possibility of rising beyond one's station through education or talent or hard work would have become much, much less likely.
Long post, cut imminent.
Symbols are important. This can be frustrating for those who subscribe to a certain type of logic, but it's true. We're creatures of symbolism, it's hard-coded into the human brand of consciousness, and most likely (hypothetical) tied into all sorts of gunk like pattern recognition and linguistics and lord-knows-what-else.
The symbolism of a black man becoming president is important. It is not in measurable ways as important as a man who has the capacity to do a good job as president becoming president. But it's still important.
Main reason for me, which is tied in with competence and logical ability, is that most of us are just goddamn jaded with politics, and for good reason. Even discounting the last eight years as an experiment in why we shouldn't let one creed have exclusive power, the fact that positions of power have a tendency more times than not to be filled by old white butts does not escape the notice of those with eyes. Even for white guys like me, who will one day become an old white person, seeing someone outside that phenotype get the Commander in Chief office shakes off a bit of the jadedness. I imagine that for people in our little village of America who were around for the civil rights movement, it means a great deal more.
Shaking off the jadedness is good, because jadedness is part of what got us into some of the current messes locally and globally. Feel like there's no point? You won't act. Don't act? Then don't bitch when things go even further south. A state of low-level panic and hopelessness is seen as a useful tool by some people for selling things or flying ideas over the heads of the actual majority. Forget that fact at your own risk.
Now, if Obama goes out and does the job well, that'll shake off a good deal more jadedness.
There's also the fact that this symbol is important to the ongoing civil rights movement. Don't think civil rights movement is ongoing? Well, it is. Not in the same way, but let's plot a highly simplified trajectory.
Step one: Southern Democrats in the post civil war era garner votes by playing on the fears of poor white Americans.
Step Two: Shifts in democratic party before and up to civil rights movement sends many southern dems to the Republican party. Abe Lincoln, diehard Republican, would not have been welcomed to any position of high power in his own party after this point (you'll note Republicans of today don't point to him very often either).
Step Three: Slow shift of Republican party to industry-oriented while still selling the same lines about personal accountability, fear of the other. Still playing to poor and middle-class americans while being spotty on their actual interests. Democrats meanwhile become known as party supporting old FDR ideology, love for ineffectual commitees become targets for Republican rhetoric arsenal.
Step Four: Post civil-rights, still a lot of pissed off white people. Politicians play to the fears of these white people while pointing at the black/other minorities as blame for economic issues shared by everyone all the time due to larger factors. Irony of white people on welfare being angry about black people on welfare lost on white people on welfare. Politicians find it more troublesome to actually fix issues, mostly because then they'd have to find new things to inspire voting block.
Step Five: Regan era, capitalism and rich people having more money will fix everything. Young people raised in proximity to politicians featured in step four actually start believing the rhetoric. Subsect grows up to be Neo-Cons. Builds church-sponsored radio programs and church-based grassroots organizations, perfects and sharpens rhetoric, scares several old white republicans who switch back to democratic party. Other old white people remain in Republican party and do all sorts of shitty things in the name of business.
Step Six: Rush Limbaugh era. Previous subsect takes power by stymieing efforts of Clinton administration and then blaming it on said administration, also utilizing moral outrage over prez not being able to keep it in his pants.
Step Seven: Bush Administration. The goddamn Bush Administration.
Believe it or not, we are still in an ongoing experiment in this country involving the ability to acknowledge other people as human beings equal to the same rights as us. This is an ongoing experiment. A black man as president is a milestone in that experiment, much as California's supreme court overthrowing the gay marriage ban as unconstitutional is. It is moving forward. Moving forward is good.
And despite what I wrote up there, I don't hold to that idea of the democratic party being somehow inherently better than the Republicans. I could write a whole huge thing on why the Democratic love of nanny laws are awful (banning fat people from fast food for their own good, etc.). One reason I wish the Republican party would shake itself back up to sanity again is so that they can both act as checks against the other's foibles, as opposed to the democrats ineffectually trying to contain insane religious fanatics who don't care what happens in 50 years because the Rapture will have happened by then and they'll all be in Heaven. I wish we could get to some point where the two parties are having a pissing contest where the piss actually tastes like magical awesome.
Having a black president shouldn't be taken as more than a milestone though. It doesn't mean that suddenly everything is all hunky-dory for everyone of a different skin tone, or that it's going to automagically get better.
I don't know whether it's racism or economics or both at this point, but a much higher percentage of black people than white people are In The Shit right now. Just using Illinois in 2005 as an example, 30% of black people were below the national poverty line, compared to 8% of white people. Scores in math and reading comprehension across the nation's public schools are likewise incongruent. Blacks (and, on the rise, Hispanics) far outweigh white people in incarceration. These numbers are all going up for everything except the test scores, which are going down. Like I said, I don't know why this is so.
The incarceration, for example. Sentences for crack are on average much higher than sentences for powdered cocaine or meth. The majority of crack users in the country are black, the majority of cocaine and meth users in America are white. Was this intentional during the Bush and Regan administrations? Did it just turn out this way? Does it fucking matter? NO. The EFFECTS, if not the intent, are racist in that larger portions of one group are ending up severely fucked.
Although as a final aside, it's worth noting that the gap between blacks/hispanics and whites on the poverty end of things was lessening, and not in the right direction. From one standpoint, the utter failure of an unchecked neo-con government was a good thing for the country. Another possible end result, perhaps under subtler hands, would have been a slow descent into a greater class divide than this country has ever seen, and a place where the possibility of rising beyond one's station through education or talent or hard work would have become much, much less likely.