You N-Bomber

No grown person owes me anything - including an explanation of his or her behavior.

But if you expect me to respect you on a certain level, a certain amount of transparency would be helpful.

I just left a chatroom where a(n apparently white) guy who's openly and repeatedly dropped n-bombs, continues to have an audience with the other chatters. When I complain about this, no one has any criticism to offer... except about me.

Meanwhile the n-bomber goes on about how he hasn't called anybody a nigger, TONIGHT, as if that makes all the damned difference in the world.

To be honest, I'm definitely typing this while still emotionally charged and I'm not meticulously laying out all of the details of the situation, but I maintain this the above IS a fair representation of the events.

It reminds me of my previous conversations and posts about how it would be strange for me to expect a white friend to cut off a buddy who calls Blacks niggers, but for me to be unwilling to cut off a buddy of mine who's trigger-happy with other epithets, like "fag."

I don't think it's as perfectly black and white as that, but it's close enough for this entry. I don't want to expect a friend of mine to drop a friend of his or hers but whenever I think about being in the presence of such people WHILE the offender is still a part of the group, it feels really, really wrong.

Well, today that scenario went from a hypothetical to a reality. Part of me wonders if I'd feel differently if I'd been called "nigger" more times in my life (to my face, anyway) and had become desensitized to it.

Maybe. But there's another part of me that doesn't give a damn.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Twice By Half

It's been said before within various contexts, but it's never been more apparent in my own life than in recent years: I've got to be twice as good as another associate just to get half the recognition... or none, as the case may be.

Mistakes.
West can't put the wrong font on a page.
Others can produce reports with unbalanced data.

Mind-reading.
West is at-fault if someone asks for A, B, C but really wanted X, Y, Z.
Others who hear West say one thing are free to assume he means something else entirely.*

Memory.
West is a problem because he must be reminded to do things he can't do until others do their part.
Others who fail to do their parts, due to their own faulty memory, are excused because... ummm. Well, just because.

I'm sure a lot of folks just think, "Why don't you quit?!" Well, there are a number of good answers to that question. One is that such inequity is not unique to any given employer or position. I've seen it at various companies, as a "worker bee" and as a manager.

Whenever this comes up, someone usually makes a ton of excuses for the employer. This is probably no exception (assuming anyone comments), but here's a more specific example:

I worked at a place where almost everyone had a pager so they could be contacted at any part of the facility. Not long after I started, I found out that I had a reputation for being unreachable.

Why? Well, it seems that someone messed up and put a pager number next to my name on the directory, but no pager had been issued to me, yet. So people thought I'd been consistently ignoring their pages - but they never said anything about it in-person.

Later, that pager number was eliminated from the directory.

Later still, I'm exiting the manufacturing area when my boss walks by. "There you are. I've been paging you all morning. I didn't think you were in."

"Uhh. J, I don't have a pager."

He looks at me sideways.

"No, really. You said you would, but you never gave me one."

We walk and talk, as I maintain that I've never received a pager from him. We stand by his cubicle for a while, then he seems to have an epiphany and tells me to follow him. We walk toward my cubicle as he says, "This is your and my fault."

I couldn't wait to find out how it was my fault.

We reached my "desk," slips his hand under it, and pulls out a black, plastic drawer I never even knew was there. The drawer was underneath the "desk" writing area and recessed so you had to feel for it to pull it out - which meant, of course, that you needed to know it was there in the first place. I didn't.

In that drawer he pulled out... a pager. He'd put it there some time before, but never told me, so it'd still been sitting there.

I got how that was his fault, but I never got how it was mine. Yet and still, my reputation endured... especially when it was discovered that the pager number they put in the directory was the wrong one. It wasn't even assigned to the pager I'd been given.

By the way, the reason I knew I had this reputation was because a Black guy, whom I hardly knew, took me aside one day and told me what people were saying. Apparently, they had a nickname or an in-joke associated with me. He said not to sweat it too much because the same kind of reputation was attached to him when he first arrived (although I didn't ask if he'd received the same kinda "your fault and mine" blame I had) and he eventually shook it.

He just wanted to let me know, (Black) man-to-(Black)man, what was going on behind my back.

Oh yeah, that boss of mine... he held that pager thing against me when evaluation time came around.

There's always a reason why these types of things couldn't POSSIBLY have anything to do with skin color, yet I can't help notice the similarities between those that have experienced this kind of thing... and those that usually haven't.





* - Example: "In the future, we should make sure x is done before y," means "I don't want to do my job."

"Ching, Chong, Ching"

You may recall that a young Asian man, Kenneth Eng, wrote a newspaper article called "Why I Hate Black People," which, reportedly, expressed his negative feelings about Blacks as well as why other Asian-Americans should discriminate against us.

Cue public outcry, then fast-forward a couple of months.

Why am I mentioning it, now? Well, the subject came up on one of NPR's "News and Notes," podcasts and I just got around to listening to it, recently.

Also, something struck me. While asking some Asian-Americans how they felt about the contents of the article (one shop-owner said she's cool with Blacks and some of her Black customers said Eng's free to say whatever he wants, no matter how ignorant), the journalist approached some young girls for their opinion. The young lady responded by saying that while she didn't think Mr. Eng should've said those things, she and every other Asian person knew where he was coming from.

She was more or less saying she agreed with him.

"They jack us."
"They make fun of us."
"They say, 'Ching, chong, ching.'"

I believe her.

Here's the thing. I don't dig the idea that all Black people are being painted with the same brush, but I do understand the natural human tendency to associate certain behavior with those who most frequently display it - from your perspective, anyway.

I guess I'm saying that "we" shouldn't be so quick to condemn those who say bad things about us, then ignore our own culpability.

I could just imagine members of my own family, whom I love to pieces, saying how messed-up Eng's article was... all the while ignoring the fact that some of them have been referring to Asian people using "Ching, chong, ching" shit*, since I was a child - and probably well before.

White people aren't the only ones with racist legacies (or racial insensitivity, if you prefer).


Questions and comments are welcome.




* - By the way, I defended Rosie O'Donnell's controversial statements, at the time she said them, and I still do. I think it all comes down to intent.

Rosie's statements may not have been too bright, but they weren't about making fun of or discriminating against anyone. I can't say the same about Mr. Eng.

Liz Handlin' Her Biz

Liz's "I'm Not A Racist, But..." post is so incredibly well-written and well thought-out that, at the time, I couldn't even point out all the things I dug about it. I may do this later, but at the moment, I'm at a loss.

All I could do was read it to my girlfriend (after telling her, "Girl, you have GOT to read this...") and then go on about how awesome it was.


Quick notes for after you read it:

1. "...get my stuff waxed..." Rephrase, honey. Rephrase.
2. "It was said with the kind of authority that let me know that Blondie fully expected May to agree with her." That line says oh-so-much about the speaker. Not only ignant enough to say it, but arrogant, self-important, and illegitimately entitled enough to expect agreement. Whoooooooo!
3. Artful ending.

Nice one.

Environmental Racism

On an unrelated note, if you're not reading Liz's blog, here's a reason to start:

"The truth is, if blacks and Latinos get shot in Compton or Philly or DC, on a daily basis, we are not, for the most part, shocked and outraged. We are not calling for more gun control. We are not questioning why someone didn't notice a troubled kid earlier. Heck, I'll tell you what happens to troubled kids in low-income areas. They drop out or are pushed out of school by teachers that don't want to deal with them. And if that troubled kid gets shot, well, that's life in the hood, right? The unsaid message is that that kid brought it on themselves. You know, they were probably involved in drugs or gangs and that's the way it goes. If only they'd stayed in school...and worked harder than they did, right?"

Check out the most recent post to get the proper context.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a recent post, entitled ' "To Serve and Protect"... and Profile ', I recounted a recent experience when I was on the receiving-end of racism from government officials - police officers, to be precise. I truly believe that I wouldn't have been pulled over had I been a gray-haired, old, white man, instead of a bald, younger, Black man. But, it's a long story, so I won't get into it, again, here.

Well, while catching up on my NPR podcasts, I came across the story of a Black woman who seems to have also been on the receiving-end of racism from government officials. The story began with the host explaining that her guest, Sheila Holt-Orsted, had suffered through ravaging effects of cancer, as it touched and claimed several members of her family.

I immediately began thinking about how doctors ask about a patient's family history while determining the patient's risk of cancer and other diseases. I imagined that "the cancer gene" was particularly powerful and prevalent in Ms. Holt-Orsted's family and how sad and scary that must be for her and her loved-ones.

As it turned out, the apparent prevailing factor in cancerous onslaught upon her family was actually the toxic dumping that took place about 56 feet* from her family's 100+ acre property. The guest believes that those toxins seeped into her family's well water - the same water they used for drinking, bathing, and cooking over 20 years or so.

According to the guest, her family continued to believe the water was safe because the government stepped in, tested the water, and told them it was safe, despite the fact that its toxicity level was five times the EPA limits. The guest and her lawyer went on to say that the white families in the area were told about the unsafe conditions as soon as the government found out about them - in some cases, in as little as 48 hours.

If I understood the story, certain laws make the EPA "unsuable." So, it seems Ms. Holt-Orsted can't sue the government, for what happened to her family, but she can sue what's left of the company that did the dumping. Unfortunately, it has been sold, divided, resold, etc. in the subsequent decades - not to mention having filed for bankruptcy.

Ms. Holt-Orsted realizes that no monetary award or settlement will bring her family back, but she's pursuing this action because she believes it is the right thing to do.

Sadly, she's been diagnosed with breast cancer.


The NPR "News and Notes" story can be found on their site: click here.






* - ...or maybe it was 56 yards, but either way... y'know?!