With all my emphasis on what I call "level-two" - covert and institutional or societal and "state-of-being" - racism (see this for just one recent example), I occasionally forget how many full-blown, flat-out bigoted "state-of-mind" ("level one") racists there still are in the United States.
Sometimes people like "Helen Hall" write to remind me of full-blown racism's continuing existence in the United States.
What follows below is an actual e-mail exchange that took place between "Helen" and I after ZNet published my somewhat widely read (I've gotten a lot of messages and that's my main measure) essay on United State mass black hyper-iincarceration (so great that one third of black male adults in the U.S. now possess the lifelong mark of a felony record) as a form of "racial reparations in reverse." The essay was supposed to be a book chapter but there were some communication and focus problems between and among some well-intentioned book editors and a publication editor at The New Press, a remarkable publishing house)
To understand the exchange that follows, which show the somewhat bemused minds of a hard leftist and a far rightist (an American Fascist to be honest) coming in strange conflict, it's probably best to look first at the last article linked above.
Here goes:
Helen Hall 1:
Oh, boo hoo hoo for black people! You know they committed all those crimes they were locked up for, and that's not even counting the ones who were never caught and the ones who got off easy. Let's think outside of the box -maybe what the country needs is fewer black people!
Helen Hall
Street 1:
Dear Helen Hall:
It's not often that I get contacted by such an openly racist person. No, I take that back: I've never been contacted by anyone so openly racist as you. Not once.
You are entitled to your views of course but I'm curious about four things:
(i) how you came to this perspective. What do you think happened to make you hate blacks so much?
(ii) how you would propose to reduce the number of black people in the U.S. Sterilization? Banishment from the country? Extermination? Some combination of these? Something else?
(iii): how would you expect me to react to this note if I was black (as it happens, I'm not, but you would have had no reason to know that before you wrote is my guess)? Would you be surprised in that case if I concluded that America very much needed fewer Helen Halls and her ilk? Wouldn't you be concerned that I might want to find out who you are and where you live?
(iv): from one technically white person to another; are you concerned at all about the historical and ongoing role of racial division and hatred as a tool for very rich (and generally white) people --- I'm talking about the top 1 percent that owns more than a third of the wealth in this country --- to keep ordinary folks diverted from thinking about the crimes of the "elite"? Remember that these crimes are very considerable and probably go far beyond anything that's being or been done to you by some black person (and please consider that most black crime is black on black crime, reflecting among other things the fact that blacks continue to be heavily segregated/ghettoized in the United States). With all due respect for Condaleeza Rice (do you hate her too by the way?), it's mainly rich white guys like Bush and Cheney et al., not some poor black over in the ghetto, who do stuff like:
* send mostly working-class kids off to die (without enough equipment and with under-fundeded and inferior health services when they return) in illegal and unjust wars.
* slash taxes for the mostly white rich, making it harder and harder for government to pay for anything decent anymore.
* pollute the environment and change the climate in dangerous ways.
* close down factories and take jobs away form the U.S. and set them in places where people have no choice but to work for nothing..
etc (I could go on).
I think some of my fellow "white Americans" spend so much time hating blacks and/or Latinos and/or Arabs that they take their eyes off the real and greatest culprits that are actually doing the most to screw up our lives.
These are serious questions, meant with perhaps less hostility than you might think.
Street
Hellen Hall 2:
Who said anything about hate? Don't be so excitable. I think the same as George Washington, and all the rest of the founding fathers. They knew what they were about.
I agree with you, now the country is run by gangsters, but these gangsters are children of the same tribe that pushed desegregation and welfare and all the rest of the Great Society communist crap on this country.
When I was in college in the 70s, professors were flapping their gums about poor black people and racism and too many people locked up in prison, and I'm sure in decades to come it will be the same. You know why? Because the more we change from a white, Christian country, the worse everything gets. The same thing happens in every white nation. It's very sad.
Street 2:
Well, I said "hate," HH, not you...correct, and I stand by it. Nothing all that "excited" or "excitable" about that elementary observation. If you don't think there's rich racial (and indeed racist) hatred behind your note, you are simply fooling yourself in my opinion. The rest is pure nonsense and totally vile in my opinion, except for the observation that "the country is run by gangsters" - on that we agree. Your use of the phrase "white nation" tells me you are some kind of a fascist, not simply an ordinary run-ofthe-mill racist. You must be very proud of your whiteness.
Paul Street
Helen Hall 3:
Okay, Mr. Scientist, where is the formerly white, Christian nation or neighborhood where "diversity" and "civil rights" brought the crime rate down? Hmmm?
Street 3:
Helen Hall:
Don't follow the question to be honest but the crime rate is basically tied most strongly of all correlations to the business cycle with particular reference to job creation and to the availability of decent paying work for lesser skilled workers. Strong economy with good job creation means crime rate goes down; weak economy with bad job creation means crine rate goes up. In the 1990s, you had a "strong economy" (within real limits) but incarceration rate went up even as the crime rate went down. This had to do with the war on drugs which was was executed in very racially disparate ways. We whites use "illegal" drugs like crazy but are much much less likely to get arrested and sentenced to prison. People from other industrialized democracies are just amazed that we incarcerate so many people for non-violent and especially for drug offenses --- nowhere else in the world do public authorities resort to the very expensive ($35 K a year to incarcerate young inner city offender versus $8-9 K a year to educate him [meanwhile Jody and Buffy in Lake Forest and Gross Pointe etc, are being "publicly" educated at 20 K a year or much more in private schools]) and counter-productive and indeed criminogenic (crime-causing and crime-exacerbating) strategy of mass imprisonment. Basically incarceration and felony marking just deepen the disadvantage and the propensity for cirminality so you just start a big game of inmate recycling which prisons towns like and which you and I both (whatever our very different racial attitudes andpolitical orientations) both pay for. It's quite expensive and it's a scam: prison guards and prison wardens and the corporations that supply and invest in prisons like it alot; so do legislators in prison districts (they get more money and voting power). You (coming from the far right) and I (coming from the left) both pay. But you don't have to worry all that much about the criminogenic consequences of racially disdparate mass incarceration: segregation (which you certainly support) makes certain that most black crime is black-on- black crime.
Here's a movie I recommend renting: "American History X." Its about a white supremacist who gets incarcerated and realizes he's wrong on race. It's very well done. I was somewhat racist myself for a short time (though not on anything like your scale, which appears to be part of organized white nationalism/fascism) in high school and had certain experiences that fundamentally changed my racial attitudes and helped me realize that race and racism were techniques of divide and rule serving the rich and powerful gangster class, which is mostly white but certainly includes some blacks (eg. Condi Rice and Obama). As for the "Christian" talk, my strong and fairly educated sense is that Jesus was anti-racist (and militantly opposed to economic inequality) and probably has many more true followers in the black community than in your "white nation."
Regards,
Paul Street
Helen Hall 4:
I recommend you don't rent any more Hollywood movies as they are all propaganda for the New World Order and you seem like you have imbibed more than enough propaganda already.
Whether one gets arrested depends a lot on whether one is stupid or smart. This probably explains the disparity in rates, right there. The idea that blacks just want a crack at economic opportunity and everything will be peachy has been exploded for decades. Blacks have a thieving nature and poor common sense or self control and this gets them in trouble all the time. Blacks are always a criminal problem, everywhere, and their sort of "religion" which has to do with putting funny hats on their heads and jumping up and down and screaming has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity.
Helen Hall
Street 4:
Well, there was some tiny progress...not much but a little I thought but no none at all really: you end on vicious racist absurdity ("blacks have a thieving nature") so we are done. I really wouldn't write further if I were you. Farewell, Helen Hall, I have the distinct impression that you are an American Fascist, which is an interesting if (in my opinion) totally vile thing to be. There is simply no peaceful resolution between myself and someone who thinks and write as you do.
Paul Street
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Hello, I am a female
By White_kitten, Dawn at Sep 19, 2007 18:35 PM
Hello,
I am a female White Nationalist and I am as racist as they come. Racist as in I would never be romantically involved with a nonwhite male.
(Had to get that out of the way for clarity.)
When I read other people's work, including anti-racist stuff, I believe I give it fair consideration and try to be reasonable.
I read this thread here and also just read some of Tim Wise's stuff. You guys are so single minded about Race. As a married working-class (and anti-Bush) female who had the unfortunate experience of living among urban blacks, you are missing an entire segment of the White population, those who do not live privileged lives in the suburbs.
Now, I know it will do no good to explain to you all the negative things a White family living in a nonwhite neighborhood can/does or will experience. You will just explain to us that White Imperialism is to blame and we should all get on our knees and be shot in the head. So I see no need to go there at this point. I will just say we will never reside in a majority nonwhite area again.
There's a few questions I would like to ask you. Why recommend a movie like American History X? The movie actually makes some good points about Race. Did you know the original ending had the main skinhead character shaving his head again, after his brother was murdered by a black guy? Which represents the cycle of racial violence we are continuously stuck in. Yet individuals like you tolerate to some extent black on White violence, and use history to justify it.
Violence begets violence, and all you do is see the black point of view. That's why I do not think you are a true anti-racist, but rather anti-White. It does not matter to me if you are White, or if Tim Wise is White, it makes no difference. Plenty of Whites are anti-White.
White people, especially the younger generation ARE thinking about their Race, unlike what you stated in a previous posting. How could they not? Their Race is shoved down their throats through popular media and public school every day.
I notice Tim Wise talking about the black guy going to jail for being with a White girl. He says it with such anti-White undertones, it's hard to miss. For instance, every "anti-racist" I've seen calls White men "white boys". Personally, I think that is derogatory. Of course it is, it's meant to be that way.
Questions: Do you care anything at all about White people? What's your opinion on Europe's deadly birth rates? Do you think a Muslim takeover in Europe would be a good thing? Would it bother you if you never saw another child of European descent exist on earth? If not, what makes you want Whites ethnically cleansed? I'm assuming you support interracial breeding. What made you turn your back on your own Race?
Really, I am curious what you are thinking "on the other side".
Dawn.
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More Responses
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 14, 2007 07:10 AM
To Kelvin Y I can only say how sad that even leftists appear to be saying that the people are not fit to rule their own affairs in occupied Palstine and neoliberal S. Africa. When I worked for a few (well, five) years at a "liberal" mainstream (post-) "civil rights" organization in the Chicago ghetto, I picked up enormous contempt from many in the agency's more middle-class (in CEO's case literally uppeer-class/bourgeois) staff for people living in hyper-segregated and deeply impoverished neighborhoods. It's hard to advocate for people you don't respect and this along with funding dependencies and other factors pretty much guaranteed that the agency's ostensible social justice mission was routinely trumped by subservience to the business class and City Hall. But this was not a left agency.
Nick that's very interesting about the artists' subculture. I once went through a few Antique shops in northern Indiana that were just loaded wth "Negro memorabilia" (little statues of black caricatures) and also with Nazi war-related things. I had a brief conversation with the one of the shop owners --- long enough to discern that he was some sort of fascist. There and elsewhere I've picked up some indications of a racist subculture of sorts in the "collectibles" sub-economy.
Some of these folks I've talked to put this populist spin on their right to be racist --- they feel positively entitled to hate blacks and/or gays and/or immigrants and/or etc. ---- as part of their resistance to the politically correct dictates of a liberal-secular-humanist-libertine ruling class of filthy rich and amoral bicoastal bisexual and over-educated elites. I can just see these folks watching U.S. television and grinding their teeth in rage and feeling endlessly provoked (and I suppose being endlelssly provoked).
Jeff you get to you live in the number one country for human development according to the UN - it's not fair but I think Thomas Jefferson would understand. In one of his movies, Woody Allen said the way to talk to Nazis was with a baseball bat, but what you say is probably better: tell them they can't win, show why perhaps and then step away while they shoot off a few rounds to feel better.
"Anonymous:" (a) get a name (everyone needs a name, even a fake one); (b) nonsense. There are no assertions (and no belief) here that U.S. is the most racist country in the world. I don't know who is but God knows there's plenty of racism (and the same level one and level two dichotomy) in Latin America, Europe, down under, Asia...really everywhere; I was just talking to somebody about Brazil, where savage class inequalities are heavily racialized (as is widespread in Latin America). I do think and argue (quite carefully and with hundreds and hundreds of sources and endnotes) that the U.S. is institutionally racist (though I'm curious about recent indications of possibly resurgent level-one racism, especially around the immigration issue) and (less "controversially") that the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world...but that's different than what you accuse.
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Jeff, you wrote: So,
By Anonymous, Anonymous at Mar 14, 2007 04:58 AM
Jeff, you wrote:
So, erode that belief. They stand alone. They do not have the support of Jesus, they do not have the support of the Founders, T. Jefferson, of course is my fav. and they do not have the support of a population which believes in but doesn't understand democracy and equality.
Sadly it is a central doctrine of the far left that the U.S. is inherently racist and it is the most racist country in the world. It logically follows that the bigots do have the support of the population if you subscribe to that premise. Once again the far left and the far right converge. Your very sensible argument unforntunately will fall on deaf ears here.
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Neo nazis and acceptable racism
By In, Jeff at Mar 14, 2007 00:06 AM
Hey Paul,
Liked the posting, thought it was time to chime in.
Since we can't watch an opportunity to confront a racist sob pass by, might I just suggest a change in tactics? They are unintellectual and largely irrational. We must never underestimate their ability to discount logic and outright reject objective truth in the face of overwhelming evidence. Frankly, there are some people who just do not like the principle of equality or democracy. I wonder if reaching out to them isn't just a waste of time. But, since we have time to spend on worthwhile, if lost causes . . . .
Avoid the intellectual, and strike at the primal. They believe they are right and that they have allies, or that we are all potential allies when we aren't race traitors, that is.
So, erode that belief. They stand alone. They do not have the support of Jesus, they do not have the support of the Founders, T. Jefferson, of course is my fav. and they do not have the support of a population which believes in but doesn't understand democracy and equality. What makes them think that, as 'their country is being over-run' that they deserve to or will triumph in the end? Jessie Owens showed indisputably the flaw of physical superiority on nazi home turf. Communists showed that a population sufficiently motivated can turn back the wehrmacht, the Japanes Empire and the U.S. Marines at great sacrifice to both. And, since they won't listen to studies or citations from books they want burned, it is pointless to show, as James Pool and Parenti have, the importance of the tall money boys in supporting 'the movement.'
And when push comes to shove, and they get the race war or revolution they want, what makes them think that they will end up on top?
My comradely best from the top of the world -
Jeff.
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there's a reason that song
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 13, 2007 07:08 AM
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Just a note: I actually
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 13, 2007 07:06 AM
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"Moral" issue
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 13, 2007 06:52 AM
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Responses
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 13, 2007 06:45 AM
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level one racism
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 13, 2007 03:30 AM
What a wonderful little exchange Prof. Street, of the many conversations you and I had at NIU centered on this very topic, "just how much level one racism is there within this country?" is one I remember very well. I fear and feel that level one racism is alive and and doing remarkably well. I've had two exchanges within the past couple of months to remind me of this, dare I say "inborn" racism.
In one exchange a family member told me that "blacks" deserve to go to jail. Why, I asked, does anyone "deserve" to go to jail? The answer was because there would be no crime if they were in jail. My reply was "I didn't realize that Skilling and Lay were African-American. I was then informed that I did not "understand the bigger picture," as this person moved away from me. Of course I don't understand this persons "bigger" picture then again we might be looking at different pictures.
A second exchange with a person, whom I do not know, occurred in a line at a store while waiting to return an item. Holding up the line was a Mexican male who did not speak English all that well, but his (I'm assuming) daughter was translating. Behind me a well-dressed woman started to complain about the lack of security at the borders. I was not really confused about which borders she was talking about but I asked her anyway "Would the borders you are referring to be international state borders or the ones within your diversified mind?" At first she didn't understand that I had confronted her and when she did finally understand that I was confronting her, she refused to respond. Apparently, I should have nodded knowingly and smiled.
My fear about this "hidden" racism is that, as a society, we are barely above the threshold of allowing lynching to re-introduce its ugly self. When we "allow" Bush to torture, human beings, for "information" to falsely protect ourselves from imaginary dangers, when we shrug our shoulders at hate crimes and do not confront these very self defeating actions we are in fact giving the racists more incentive to continue their democracy destructing ways.
Mike B.
What is so wrong about peace, love, & understanding?
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"Benefit of the doubt," as I
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 19:37 PM
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Mr. Street, I'm sorry,
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 19:31 PM
Mr. Street,
I'm sorry, but am I supposed to be completely uncritical? I've never said anything that isn't "nice," nor frankly do I know what you're trying to get at there. And I don't have a "politics," whatever that is supposed to mean.
Should it become a prerequisite in being a member of a forum to just agree unthinkingly? That is what I'm gathering, at least.
Back to the topic at hand, and away from your unnecessary ad hominem you used to conclude your otherwise well-put reply: this HH person, whoever he is, may simply be a total ignoramus who doesn't know his ass from his elbow; isn't that within the realm of possibility?
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Couldn't disagree with you..
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 15:42 PM
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huh...
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 14:27 PM
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Mr. Street, People don't
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 12:34 PM
Mr. Street,
People don't respond when they're called names. Calling someone a racist, even a fascist, white nationalist, etc., may well be merited here, but that's not a good way to talk to people. It might work better to reason with people like this if you give them the benefit of the doubt that they're right (even if, clearly, not so in this case) and then go through their logic.
Throwing labels, however correctly, makes people shut down and become defensive, shutting off any hope of a reasonable discussion. Personally, racists don't talk to me; and I tend to ignore them anyway because they're not worth my time.
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One value of racism
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 10:25 AM
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Yes, there's a dance between levels one and two
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 09:07 AM
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Level one sustains level two
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 07:44 AM
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Response
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 12, 2007 07:02 AM
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Getting a reaction
By Wholesomedick, Wholesomedick at Mar 12, 2007 04:28 AM
Did you ever do things growing up just to get a reaction out of people? I think that's what was going on here.
Extremists seem to like to get a rise out of people, get attention, etc.
I say don't give it to them. If you get an email like that again I'd just delete it without a second thought.
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Another and crazier example (see link) of Christofascism
By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 11, 2007 18:37 PM
I meant to add that this wasn't my first confrontation with American Christian fascism (did I just invent a word above: "Christofascism?")
For a more specactular and even sort of mind-blowing example, see the bizarre Christofascist rantings of "Pastor Dan" related in my 2004 article "Love Motivates Us to Kill the Enemy: From the Evangelical Church of the New American Fascism."
www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec2004/Street1228.htm
Well Edson yes it is disheartening but I've run into quite a bit of open racism in my day now that I think about it. A bunch of level-one racists are still out there, I'm sure. I remember training to be a bus driver in DeKalb, Illinois in the early 1990s and and the guy that was "teaching" me how to handle a bus taking special delight in pulling away from black people without picking them up. He would drop "N" bombs along the way. This guy was a pathetic sort of fellow; he had been reduced to whiteness as his last tangible form of status.
I remember a supervisor at Del Monte Plant #111 (long since closed) looking for someone to do an especially dangerous cleaning job and saying "I won't ask you guys to do this, I need to find a spic for this job."
I remember a fellow bus driver hating blacks so much that he would claim to "drive over to the West Side of Chicago and just start shooting into crowds of niggers" (I didn't believe him; he didn't own a car).
Another driver told me how he "hated all blacks" because he used to work at a Domino's Pizza that "got robbed by a black guy." And so on and on...
I've heard this sort of commentary in some sections of the working class (which I've been in and [after mid-1990s mostly] out of since graduating high school in the late 1970s), where people don't have the sort of power and resources to engage in the more politically correct institutional and top-down racism that does by far and away the most damage to racial equality today.
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