Closing Our Eyes Won’t Make Racial and Ethnic Inequalities Disappear

(Photo: Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier)
Native Americans have been in the United States from the beginning, yet according to health and employment statistics, they, like other people of color, still have not achieved equality. For example, between 1998 and 2000 Native American infants in the United States were 1.7 times more likely to die than white infants in their first year of life (Tomashek et al.). The Lakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976. As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day. ********************

Closing Our Eyes Won’t Make Racial and Ethnic Inequalities Disappear

By Steven Argue

Republican candidate Ron Paul, exposed as having voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that gave Blacks the right to vote; exposed for knowingly accepting a donation from former KKK Grand Dragon and Nazi Stormfront radio host Don Black; and exposed for having put out a racist-sexist-homophobic newsletter in his name for decades that opposed Martin Luther King and desegregation; now makes the claim, “I am the most anti-racist because I don’t see people in collective groups” (CNN). Interestingly enough, Nazi Stormfront members Don Black and David Duke make the same claims of not being racist (Stormfront). To them, the real racists are those who speak out against the inequalities suffered by people of color.

Racism and xenophobia take many forms, both subtle and overt. While overt racism and national chauvinism are still very much a problem in America, one of the most insidious forms of racism is promoted in the form of denying that these problems even exist. Ron Paul and Stormfront are on the fringes, yet this form of racism has become common place in the American corporate media and the mainstream politics of the Democrat and Republican Parties.

One case in point is Kotkin and Tseng’s Washington Post June 8, 2003 article, “For Young America, Old Ethnic Labels No Longer Apply”. It contains a bad argument based on a fundamentally false premise. That premise is the idea that because immigrants are becoming assimilated into the mainstream of U.S. culture, ethnic groups will no longer exist in the future. Based on this false premise the authors go on to make a number of unsound arguments about changes to education and business policies.

The idea that separate ethnicities will disappear due to the blending of immigrant groups into the mainstream misses two key aspects of American life. One is continued immigration and the other is continued racism. Neither of these fundamental aspects of American society are even remotely considered in the essay.

In a world where immigrants continue to flee the economic exploitation and political repression of U.S. imperialist hegemony in most of the third world, and as long as those immigrants continue to be accepted as a cheaper source of labor within the confines of U.S. borders by U.S. capitalists, immigration into the United States will not end. Thus, the authors’ assertion that the linguistic preferences of second and third generation immigrants for English “would seem to challenge the continued viability of programs such as bilingual education” is utterly absurd. Bilingual education helps ease immigrant children into a learning process that is made much more difficult by English-only education.

Another aspect of American culture not considered in the Washington Post essay is the deep and pernicious racism of this society. People of color are offered fewer opportunities in this society on many levels, including the opportunity to assimilate.

Blacks have been here for hundreds of years and they still, by and large, have not assimilated. They suffer over double the infant mortality of whites and by every other health and economic indicator are worse-off than whites. For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control). Life expectancy of Blacks is 5 years less than whites, with 2005 statistics showing whites living on average to 78.3 years of-age and Blacks only living 73.2 years (CNN.com). Blacks also suffer double the unemployment of whites. Consistent with long-term ratios, 2002 statistics gave a white unemployment rate of 5.2 percent and a Black unemployment rate of 10.7 percent (Robinson).

These types of data are reflected in other populations of color in the Unites States as well. For instance, Native Americans have been in the United States from the beginning, yet according to health and employment statistics, they still have not assimilated either. For example, between 1998 and 2000 Native American infants in the United States were 1.7 times more likely to die than white infants in their first year of life (Tomashek et al.).

These sad realities, all too often ignored by the mainstream press, fly in the face of the Washington Post’s bold declaration of, “Welcome to post ethnic America.” It has an absurd bellicose ring to it, like George Bush declaring victory in Iraq in 2003.

It is from the fewer opportunities that many ethnic groups face that the cultural nationalism of oppressed groups arises. Yet these Washington Post authors, in ignoring these inequalities, along with pretending that new immigrants will not keep coming to the United States, see “cultural nationalists as a disease that infests most Chicano studies departments.” As opposed to seeing such manifestations as a healthy reaction to the racist, imperialist, and exploitative U.S. society, the authors instead blame the victims of this society that stand up for their culture and their rights. It is from such imaginary premises as the idea of ethnic divisions no longer playing a role in society, that the authors come to racist conclusions against those people of ethnic and racial groups that stand up for social justice for their groups.

Unfortunately, the Washington Post is not alone in seeing manifestations of cultural and political nationalism as a disease. It has long been U.S. government policy to treat people of color that stand up to American racism as a cancer.

The Lakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976 (Churchill). As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day.

Blacks have faced similar political repression in the United States, also orchestrated by the FBI. In the 1960’s and 70’s the U.S. government liquidated the Black Panther Party through the murders of 39 members, including the police shooting of Fred Hampton in his sleep, and through political frame-ups such as that of Geronimo (Ji Jagga) Pratt who was finally exonerated (i.e. found innocent) after 30 years in prison. Other framed Black Panthers still sit in prison and Black Panther Assata Shakur lives in exile, granted political asylum by Cuba, but with a one million dollar bounty put on her head by the U.S. government.

Immigrants who speak out are also caught in the government’s cross-hairs. Worst off in terms of political rights are Near and Middle Eastern immigrants, including U.S. citizens, who, in the eyes of the authorities, become too vocal about racism and U.S. imperialism. They are now labeled “enemy combatants” without cause and can disappear into America’s torture chambers or be outsourced for torture and murder by being shipped back to their native lands. Some have never been heard from again, with international human rights organizations denied documentation; while others reemerge after prolonged mistreatment such as Maher Arar, a leader of a mainstream Arab American advocacy group who was shipped to Syria by the U.S. government for torture (Klein). A clear message has been sent to Arab-Americans: watch your tongue or you’ll be the next Maher Arar.

Like the Washington Post, the U.S. government sees no need for these ethnic groups to stand up for themselves, and when they do they sometimes treat such manifestations as pest “infestations”, and the government sends in their FBI and local law-enforcement exterminators.

While the Washington Post article attacks Chicano studies departments, locally in Santa Cruz we have a similar example of racism in the media with the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s attacks on Latino Santa Cruz City Councilperson Tony Madrigal. The focus of these attacks are the fact that Tony Madrigal stood up for people of color, at least in a small way, by voting against increased police measures, including against triple fines, downtown on Halloween. Here is what Tony Madrigal said:

I was really bothered by the fact that I witnessed a bunch of officers pat down a group of Latino youth that were standing on the sidewalk by, I think it was Community Television. They were standing by there. They weren’t doing anything. They were just watching everybody go by.

They patted them all down, searched them, and then left them alone.

I asked the guys "Are you bothered by this? Are you okay?" They didn't want to do anything about it, but they did make a good point.

They said "Look. They just patted us down but they are walking right past another group of kids who are making more noise than us. They don't look like us" implying that they were Latino.

I just feel to a certain degree that there might be some racial profiling going on. And those issues do concern me. I don't think that’s what we're supposed to be doing on Halloween. I do understand there are all kinds of procedures the police department has to be going through and everything.

I just think there is a different way to go about making downtown safe for Halloween. (Johnson)

In response, the Santa Cruz Sentinel declared in their September 16, 2007 editorial, “As We See It, Tony Madrigal’s Immature Remarks,” “Madrigal once again showed that he hasn’t grown into the office when he accused the Santa Cruz police of racial profiling.” Other eyewitnesses, including Mark Halfmoon, saw this same incident of racial profiling as well as other incidents that same night. Yet the editorial went so far as to suggest Tony Madrigal resign.

That same Sentinel editorial went on to claim that racial profiling does not exist, stating, “In fact, the city of Santa Cruz has done studies – with academic rigor – to examine arrest reports in order to find evidence of profiling. The data shows otherwise.” No further information is given on these studies, but the point is clear enough, Tony and other eyewitnesses have no right to believe their own eyes; the white power structure has done studies on itself and has declared this form of racism does not exist.

Likewise, the Sentinel, never friendly to reports of police abuse, criticizes Tony Madrigal for not reporting the incident earlier, stating: “It was irresponsible of him not to check out his information through the proper channels.” What are the proper channels? Presently the Citizen’s Police Review Board has been dissolved, partly at the urging of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. That leaves police Internal Affairs, notorious for exonerating their fellow officers, to investigate. The proper channels that the Sentinel has referred Tony to are in fact useless channels and, as Tony pointed out, the victims weren’t interested in pursuing the case. As an elected official, what is a more proper channel for Tony Madrigal to use than voting against expanded police powers and explaining his vote?

Inside of racist America, a mass incarceration of the poor, especially the poor of color, has taken place, while at the same time the multi-racial working class and poor are subjected to a lack of healthcare and dramatic drop in our standard of living. The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs that they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system.

Yet the capitalists continue to profit off of this misery and “justify” it through racism. The capitalists profit from the mass incarceration of the poor through the prison industrial complex where they get almost free labor and they get additional money from the increasingly privatized prisons. A good percentage of those people being rounded up for these modern day plantations are people of color, while America’s racist police are now modern day slave catchers.

Likewise, the U.S. government practices racist policies against Near and Far Eastern immigrants as part of a wider policy of war, death, and profit, “justified” by racism. Want an example? Just look at Bush on Iraq. He repeatedly states that people from that part of the world “did” September 11. Yet when a reporter asked, “What did Iraq have to do with September 11?” Bush responded, “nothing.” Bush keeps repeating what seems like an obvious mistake to people that aren’t racists, but to the racists Bush’s argument makes perfect sense, people from that part of the world did it and any dead towel-heads will do.

Looking at the mainstream media in America, however, one would think that the question of racism in America has been solved. The truly shocking issues of racism are routinely glossed over, ignored, or denied. These Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel articles are good cases in point. They argue that there is no racism, and promote hostility against those standing up against racism. When the Washington Post pretends that racial and ethnic equality have been achieved, one must question if they are living on the same planet, or just lying to achieve some other goal.

The Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel are corporate newspapers. Like all of the mainstream media in this country they are corporate owned, and in addition, sell advertising to other corporations. As such, these papers are beholden to corporate interests, and do their duty spreading corporate propaganda on behalf of the ruling American capitalist class. That capitalist system was racist from birth in profiting from slavery and the mass murder of Native Americans, and profits from racism now through war, prisons, and paying less for the labor of immigrants and people of color.

While pretending to hold no bias, the bias of the Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel are so pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, and pro-racist that their main tactic of debate on these issues is to pretend the words that describe them don’t even exist. The most insidious racists in journalism are those who either ignore the problem or insist that problems of institutional racism do not exist.

It took a mass movement outside of the capitalist power structure to win the rights that people of color have achieved so far. Yet there is still a long way to go until we can declare victory and full equality. Closing our eyes will not make racial and ethnic divisions disappear. It will only be through recognizing the prevalent nature of problems such as racism and American nationalist chauvinism that we will be able to achieve equality and justice, not by glossing over these problems and pretending they don’t exist.