About The Great Debaters (and a little about race)

We did get to see The Great Debaters on Saturday, and it was just as good as I thought it would be.   It was, at its heart, a formulaic sports movie (more on that in a minute), but its predictability was overcome by some incredible acting performances.  Denzel Washington’s direction was, I thought, very well paced, and he shrewdly allowed his character to fade somewhat as the movie went along, because Washington is so electric onscreen it takes away from other performances.

Even though it was based on true events, the movie very closely mirrored another underdog story, Hoosiers, even going so far as including a scene where the members of the small school team look in awe at the arena they’ll be fighting Goliath in.  (BTW, I’m pretty sure Sylvester Stallone invented this device, in Rocky).

The debate scenes (and there were few actual debate scenes), were true to life, and pretty much how I remember things, except in our public high school debate tournaments, we only had judges present when we debated.  The scenes when the debaters are researching before the big debate really rang true to me (especially arguments about approach).  It occurred to me on the way home that things have REALLY changed in respect to debate research since I last debated in 1982.  They have the internet now, and it changed everything.

As an aside, in Nashville, the part played by the Harvard debate team would be that of Montgomery Bell Academy’s team.  They have always been the gold standard.  I will never forget when my partner Darren and I had our own Rocky moment.  We defeated a team from MBA, and everyone in the room knew it.  The judge gave the round to MBA anyway, but we walked away knowing we had beaten the best, even though we didn’t get the first place ribbons.

It would have been nice if the Wiley college team would have been shown arguing the negative on an issue for which they really wanted to argue the affirmative.  This is the magic, and the greatest teaching tool, in debate.  You don’t get to choose which side you argue, and have to be ready to defend either side.  It really makes you seriously think about all arguments about an issue, and makes you a better advocate for the side in which you really believe.  It would do us all good to try it once in a while.  Could Aunt B write an argument for outlawing abortion that wasn’t a caricature?  Could Kat compose a compelling argument against the death penalty (or in favor of using PCs over Macs)?

Those who can only write compelling arguments for issues they are passionate about have an Achilles heel that can be exploited.  Debate makes you see the flaws in your own arguments, the strongest arguments of the other side, and makes your arguments that much stronger in the end. 

Of course, we had long discussions with our kids about the Jim Crow south, both before the movie, and afterward.  One thing really stood out to me as I heard their questions: their personal pronouns were all in the third person.

Let me take a step back.  In the US, and especially in the American south, discussions of race are always, always,always  implied to be about black and white.  This is perfectly natural of course, considering our history.  And, let’s face it, this isn’t San Fransisco.  As of the last census, Asians made up a little under 1% of Nashville’s population.  Asians are almost always an afterthought in these discussions.  I’m not saying they should be in the forefront, it’s just the way it is.

But it struck me as we spoke about these things: they haven’t picked a “side”.  There is no “we”, when they ask questions about race.  Did you have any idea the opportunity Lintilla and I have here?  There are no centuries-held hatreds, no generational grudges, no automatic racial defensiveness.  Based upon the questions they asked, and how they asked them, it is obvious that their views are not poisoned with the personal baggage that we whites and blacks carry (and lately, Hispanics). 

This is when I knew that our experiment in living our lives as cross-racially as possible without pointing out that doing so was any big deal, or even pointing out that we were doing it, is starting to pay off.  We will continue to do so, no matter how much criticism we receive for it.

 I do not discuss race directly on blogs anymore,  because I’m tired of people who do not know me questioning my motives, or claiming that their life experience should carry more weight than my own, simply because of the color of my skin.  There are too many people who live for the fight, then get angry when you do not give it to them.

It took a long time to retrain my mind, but now, every time I see an interracial couple, I smile.  It will not happen in my lifetime, but eventually there will be enough “inter” marrying and parenting, that one day the entire population of the United States will be a nice shade of light brown.

Then y’all are going to have to find something else to hate each other about.

Too Rich

Mack has an interesting post about an incident where somebody left their minivan running for over 60 minutes at WalMart.  Lots has been said about this at his place and at MCB. But everybody (including Mack, interestingly) is ignoring the subtext of the post, and the conclusions drawn. He links to an article that lambasts “suburban sprawl”, suburbia, and suburbanites.  Mack seems to agree with the original article.

The irony is so rich you could almost cut it with a knife.

I am a suburbanite. The suburban life is all I’ve ever known.

I have been reading about this subject for years.  Now, the article Mack linked to was high-brow, and lacked some of the usual invective we see aimed toward suburbia and suburbanites.  Yet the subtext is there for all to see:

Suburbanites are to the far left what illegal immigrants are to the far right. 

• Instead of streaming across the border, we are spreading into the countryside.
• We are ruining the American (and world’s) way of life.
• Instead of the right complaining about 12 to a house, the left complains about 1 to a car.
• Both groups are described like spreading vermin.
• We (suburbanites) must turn aside from our own culture, and adopt the “right” culture to save America.
• The left looks down upon our stores, our restaurants, our entertainment, our purchases, our voting patterns. We need to be more like them, and then maybe we’ll be accepted.
• The left sees this country as their birthright, and “we” are taking it away, and must be stopped.
• We are generally unclean (driving SUVs) and make a mess of things (global warming).
• Instead of a wall, “smart planning”, restrictionist coding, etc are what’s advocated to keep “us” from advancing.

I was raised in suburbia.  It’s all I’ve ever known.  The commute, the multiplex, the mall, WalMart are all part of my “culture”.  Many of the left consider themselves multiculturalists; we must accept others as they are, the argument goes, and not make anyone feel bad because they are different.  Demands of assimilation are totally out of  bounds.

I wish they’d apply their own standard to suburbanites.  After all, our strength is our diversity.

Edited to Add: In no way do I wish to convey that Mack, personally, has made these arguments.  This post is a refutation of many arguments I have heard through the years.  Mack’s post just got me going.  Except for being like, a liberal, Mack is an all-around cool dude.  Sorry I gave the wrong impression

To The Man In The Treadmill Room

You remember that scene early in Philadelphia, when the lawyers are in the steam room, making jokes about homosexuals, having no idea that Andrew Beckett was, himself a homosexual? 

You just recreated that moment.

I’m sure I looked “safe” to you.  Even when you asked if the shooter at Va Tech was in the country illegally, I let it slide.  Stupid, but harmless.  I have no quarrel with you.

I realise that the reports are now that a South Korean national committed the atrocities at Virginia Tech.  I know we’re trying to make sense of it all.

I sure don’t look Korean, because I’m not.

Yet, when you disparage a whole nationality, a whole race of people, you are disparaging my children.  Now, we have a quarrel.

I let you know how stupid your comment was, and your embarrassment showed me that I hit the mark.  Yet, if I were a better man, we would have taken it outside.  As it is, I wish I had not been so polite to you; I wish I had a little more Aunt B in me, then I really would have told you how I felt.

And no, the Chinese and the Koreans are not just alike.  Many in China look down on Koreans, so they share your bigotry.  At least get the nuances right, OK?

I’ve wasted enough time with this.  My company is having its own memorial service, with a simulcast of the one in Blacksburg.  We work for a good company, no matter what anyone says.

I will pray and mourn, and you will be a forgotten memory.

Idiot.

Bob, I Understand, But HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND???

Bob Krumm has decided that it’s important that we know the name of the accuser in the Duke Rape Case.  Chris Wage is appropriately outraged (but for the wrong reasons). 

Few people in the Nashville area know more about this case than me.  It’s been an obsession of mine since the charges were first leveled, and I was privy to much evidence that was known in Durham, but went under the radar here in Nashville.  I had close contact with someone in the court system in NC, and she told me what she legally could.  I know what I’m talking about when it comes to this case.

Now, I commented at Bob’s place, gently rebuking both Krumm and Wage, and giving my own thoughts.  But, Bob’s off doing Bob-Krumm-Work-Thingy-Stuff, and the comment is awaiting moderation.  I post it here in full, because I think there’s a very important middle ground between Bob’s Fry Her  attitude, and Chris’ It probably did happen, there just isn’t evidence attitude (OK, I exaggerate):

Chris,
One clarification. The AG in North Carolina went out of his way to value-add his statement. He did NOT say “there is insufficient evidence”, he said specifically “no crime was committed”. He even emphasised and repeated those words. If you’d like, I’ll link to his statement. He wanted to make it clear that “no crime was committed”. It’s an important distinction.

I’ve known her name for over a year. (I think I know more about this case than is healthy). That being said, I do not like the idea of vindictively throwing her name out there, for two reasons. One, she’s mentally ill (this has been documented, and confirmed by her family).

And two, she may have lied, but by being so vindictive toward her, we might be discouraging future [real] victims.It’s kind of like the first amendment: yes, we have to suffer idiots, but it’s for the greater good. So, let her hide behind the rape shield laws. The larger issue is too important.

She has her own demons to deal with. Mike Nifong is going to get his just desserts. The biggest injustice here is that Duke’s president still has his job, Nancy Grace has not publicly apologised, nor have the “community” leaders, or the students, academics, and columnists who made the players’ lives a living hell.

What we had here (and I’ve known this for a long time), was a dispute over payment, a mentally ill girl who cried rape to avoid the drunk tank, a prosecutor running for reelection in a minority district, and the usual biases inherent on college campuses in your various “studies” departments. The perfect storm.

I know it seems weird, but I find the accuser to be way down on the blame scale. Everybody saw what they wanted to see.

Leave her alone.

He Stole Home!

This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of the the day Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League baseball.  If you haven’t learned about the life of this great man, there a myriad books you can read.  I’m sure there will be television specials.  Educate yourself.

Robinson was a great man: he held his tongue, he held his temper, and he changed the world.  The civil rights movement got an incredible jump-start through Robinson’s bravery.  All Americans owe him a debt of gratitude for his courage and class.

He was also, as we easily forget, a GREAT baseball player.  There may have never been a better technician in the craft of stealing home than Robinson.  Think about it.  It’s the most difficult play in baseball (save the triple play).   No other player since World War II has stolen home more than Robinson.  That’s incredible.

Do yourself a favor.  Check out one of the resources listed on Robinson’s wikipedia page.  Educate yourself about this quiet Giant of American history.

As a postlude, I’ll add the fact that Robinson was a Republican.  That little factoid tweaks all the right noses.

More Harm Than Good

Oh, what “group” based politics hath wrought!

A cautionary tale:

When you see a potential rapist in every person with a penis, and potential racists in every white face, well, let’s just say you see what you want to see, facts be damned. 

Where are the womyn pan-bangers who posted “Wanted” signs and marched shouting “come clean”?  Where are the “community” leaders who proclaimed guilt and even shouted “dead man walking” at a preliminary hearing?  Why does the president of Duke University still have a his prominent position? 

They all saw what they wanted to see.  Their group-based glasses clouded their vision.

Whatever good comes from group-based politics, it is far outweighed by the harm it does.

It is far better to judge every person based on the facts about them, personally.  From the linked article:

Too many commentators and academics who didn’t know the facts were hasty to believe the “privileged jocks gone wild” scenario. Too many civil rights leaders seemed to draw the wrong lessons from the days when young black men in the South were convicted or lynched based on flimsy rape accusations from white women. Due process and the presumption of innocence got lost in the uproar.

One day, we’ll get past all this race crap.  Are you going to stand for brotherhood and reconciliation, or are you on the side of strife?

Choose.

Those Awful, Horrible Rutgers Basketball Players

Yesterday, during my workout, the press conference of the Rutgers basketball team was on the TV in the treadmill room.  It was quite intriguing and gave lie to the implication of Imus’ comments.  I thought it was appropriate, and even great theater.

But, it occurred to me: here, we have a group of young women, each of them a subset of a larger “group” (the team).  Nasty, horrible, racially-charged comments were made about the group.  And yesterday, each of these fine women stood up before the press, and told what the “incident” meant to them personally.  They not only declared their personal hurt (which is quite an effective argument), but each woman, as she spoke, killed the stereotype inherent in Imus’ silliness.

I’ve been told time and again that this form of argumentation is wrong, and hurtful, and out of bounds.

I’ve been stuck here in my cocoon, but I assume the Rutgers players have been widely criticised for personalizing the argument.

Right?

FYI - in my exile, I am being reshaped by God’s hand.  I’m used to feeling sadness, and betrayal, and depression.  But slowly, I’m getting a new emotion, one I haven’t felt in a long time: righteous anger.  When I return to the fray, you may not recognise me.  I can tell you one thing: nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to dictate my form of argumentation to me.

I intend to follow the lead of the Rutgers basketball team.  And I’ll call any double standard BS I see, as well.

It would be best if you prepared yourselves.  I was entertaining as an eloquent doormat.  I will try to keep what eloquence I have, but I will be a doormat no more. 

The time is not yet here, but it is near.

Broken Up Day

The kids get out of school early today.  They’re off tomorrow, and then again on Monday.  No, it’s not spring break, they’ve already had that.  There’s one thing about sending your kids to a Catholic school:

They sure take this Easter thing quite seriously.

I wonder why?

Otis and Missy (boy, does that sound like a sitcom?) will be happy to see us.  Especially Missy, I think.  She’s a crotchety old Cocker spaniel, and you can tell by the looks she gives that she doesn’t appreciate playing nursemaid to a rugrat all day. 

Otis just wants to nibble on something.

I think you’ll find my disposition improving greatly over the next several days.  I’m getting plenty of good, restful sleep, Easter is the time that reminds Christians of our greatest joy, and I’m going to cut myself off from political blogs for a while - especially “level 1″ discussions.

You might remember, there are three forms of philosophical discourse: Level one is high-theoretical, egghead discussion.  Aristotle, Plato, and all that,  Level two is the arts, which in the US usually means film, television and music.  Level three is person-to-person, “kitchen table” discourse.

One of the big rules I learned studying the writings of Ravi Zacharias was this: to be effective, argue at level 1, illustrate at level 2, and apply at level 3.

Many blogs, both philosophical and political, have a ground rule that the discourse must remain at level 1.  You might as well ask me not to breathe.  Maybe it’s because I’m older.  Maybe it’s because I’m a parent.  But, with every issue that comes before me, my mind quickly turns to, “How does this issue affect my life and those that I love?”. 

I have no time for (and pardon the phrase - I can’t think of a better one) mental masturbation: bouncing ideas back and forth simply as a mental exercise with no thought to how they apply to daily life.  If that’s your thing, fine - I’ve outgrown it.  If discussions cannot travel to levels 2 and 3, I cannot waste my time with them.

I have practical reasons for discussion of race issues.  I do not know what it’s like to raise children of color.  There are issues I face as a parent of Asian children, that I am “winging”.  It’s kind of scary.  Most of what I learned about parenting came from watching my own parents raise my brothers and me.  Well, there are issues that have and will come up with my children that my parents have no clue how to deal with.

So, I spend a lot of quiet time racked with doubt.  Am I doing it right?  There’s no one to tell me.  That’s why I need my “web family” to help, to guide me in parental matters of race, especially non-white bloggers.  Unfortunately, because of the way people are conditioned, my status as “white man” causes a many to have their claws out before we can even strike up a friendship.  (Update: I am not guiltless in this regard - many times an offhand comment brings my white man claws out, as well) .  We argue, and I’m left hurt and just as confused as I was before the conversation.

I’ve gone far afield, as I’m wont to do.  My wife last night, asked me what was wrong with me.  Why was I so despondent, not eating, not talking?  What was I going to do, tell her that some person whom I had never met managed to get under my skin and hurt me to the core?  Sounds silly - so I just said “nothing, I’m fine”.

You know what?  It’s just not worth it.

So, it’s back to DaddyBlogging, recipes, blogging about my own weirdness.  I will remain clueless when it comes to raising children of color; no one wants to take discussions of race to that level.  God will show me the way (nobody else will).

I cannot languish in bitterness for long.  So, I will take myself out of those situations that cause bitterness.

So, I’m better now.

There Is Only Justice

I believe that God gave mankind several gifts that, once we fell, we were completely unable to handle; with these gifts, we are like a toddler with a loaded gun.  An obvious example is sex.  We’ve been messed up on that one from the beginning, with no cure in sight.  Another obvious one, one that has been coming up over and over lately, is race.

I should have known better.  I’ve watched every Super Bowl since 1971; I should have known that every little thing gets amplified by a power of 100 during the hyped-up week of the Big Game.  In the back of my mind, I had to have known that having two African American coaches would be hyped and examined to the nth degree.  I DID know, and I expected what happened.  Those of us who advocate societal color-blindedness should have seen it for what it was (just typical SB hype), and kept our mouths shut.

But, they sucked me in anyway.  It’s near impossible for me to avoid these discussions at TCP, mainly because Aunt B’s over-the-top sledgehammer approach is fascinating to a subtle, scapel guy like me.  Regardless, the damage is done, and now I feel a need to explain where I come from.

I realised when thinking about my readership, that I don’t know any of you who are both my age and from Nashville.  The closest, I think, is Hutchmo, but he’s a little older than me, so his experience would have been different.  But if any of you are 38-43, and were born and raised in Nashville, I’d love to hear about your experiences to compare them to mine.

I started first grade at Charlotte Park Elementary in the fall of 1970.  Later in the school year, the US Supreme Court approved bussing as a means to achieve immediate desegregation.  Apparently there was quite a fuss over this in Nashville, but little 6 year old Slarti knew nothing of such things.  By 2nd grade, my family had moved and I now attended Martha Vaught; my beloved teacher (Mrs Prince) and best friend Moses were both what we called at the time “black”.  I didn’t think anything about it.

We moved several more times, mostly because my parents always seemed to be in money trouble, but I’m sure we were also caught up in the white flight of the time.  Once again, I didn’t know about or understand “white flight”, I was a grade schooler concerned with collecting Wacky Packages stickers and getting my Evil Knevil motorcycle to jump over my brother. 

My Dad never really gave an opinion on Martin Luther King, Jr, but my Mom sure looked up to him.  I remember her beaming when the news would show footage of his “I Have A Dream” speech.  I was a little too young to understand what Dr King was talking about, so Mom explained that we should always ignore the “color” of other people and just treat people like people.  She explained that some people didn’t do this, and that’s why Dr King made the speech.  I was a mama’s boy; I got my love of flowery prose from her. I can tell you, if Mom looked up to Dr King, so would I.

As a boy growing up in the 70’s, it seemed almost every adult of influence that I encountered was trying to teach me color-blindedness.  It was in the curriculum, it was taught at church, they had Norman Lear shows on TV that preached it.  It seemed like a natural point of view for a pre-teen like me, so I was a good boy and adopted the mindset as my own.

In the late 70’s, I went to Bellevue Junior and Senior high.  At Bellevue, I was known as the slightly strange little brother of a highly-popular basketball star.  I wasn’t popular myself, but I was tolerated.  I liked my life (which, during puberty is about all you can ask for).  I was too busy daydreaming about Tracy Whatshername to think about the fact that there were only four or five African Americans in our entire school.  That was about to change.

In 1979, Judge Thomas Wiseman (funny how I can still remember his name) ordered several Nashville schools closed, and one of them was Bellevue HS.  You must understand, the high schoool was the absolute center of the community back then.  Bellevue had a McDonald’s, a Kroger, and the high school.  All of community life revolved around the school.  The residents fought the closing for a year, but 1980 was the last graduating class of Bellevue High School.

Starting in 1981, I had to get up before 5 in the morning to get ready for my over an hour bus ride.  I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong; all I knew is that because adults couldn’t get their act together about race, my life sucked.  I was forced to go to a new school where I didn’t even have the “little brother of a basketball star” reputation; now I was just a weird kid.  I was bullied and treated horribly, especially on that long bus ride.

Here’s the funny thing: the kids from Cohn and Pearl, who were also being bussed into Hillwood from the city, also resented the lives they had known being ripped apart.  They also had hour long bus rides.  And, the local Hillwood kids resented all of us, city and country “bussers”.  The city had closed and consolidated three schools, so we were incredibly overcrowded.  The teachers did the best they could, but it was a very hard environment in which to learn.  Whatever lesson the adults were trying to teach us by throwing all of us together, we were learning an entirely different one.

I spent two tumultous years at Hillwood.

Through it all, I retained the color blindedness that Mom, the school system, and Norman Lear had taught me.  It served me well and allowed me to have a wide, racially diverse circle of friends.  To me (and I keep this viewpoint to this day), skin color is just another physical characteristic, like eye color and shoe size.  Then, in the early 90’s, I remember watching the news and learning that my outlook was considered passe. 

There was some kind of race conference at Fisk, and I remember like it was yesterday, some panelist said that the goal should no longer be color blindedness.  Son of a gun.  They had moved the goalposts on me while I wasn’t looking.  My reaction was anger.  When I calmed down, I decided I wasn’t going to play the game anymore.

By that time, I was a Christian, and I had adjusted my outlook to just living the Golden Rule.  Like Jesus, I would treat all human beings as children of God - everything else was just a distraction.  This is my attitude to this day.  If anybody else gets hung up on anything else, that’s between them and God.  I’m getting off the race merry-go-round.

I am now on a lifelong experiment to see just what a colorblind life looks like.  It’s been interesting, and I’ve gotten criticism from some very unexpected quarters.  But I don’t really care what anybody else thinks.  This is between me and my Lord.  He will judge my life by its fruits.  

I will fight injustice no matter what the reasons for the injustice.  In my mind, phrases such as “racial justice” mean nothing to me; there is only justice.  I realise this is a radical approach, but I’m trying to follow the example of Jesus. 

Anyway, there’s the context of my attitude about race.