Bigotry Isn't Only a Southern Brew

I'm a native North Carolinian and my state turned to the dark side this past Tuesday, voting to amend our state constitution to prohibit gay marriage, indeed any type of union other than a so-called traditional marriage between a man and a woman. I don't know if that means in the tradition of Kim Kardashian or if those who voted for the amendment have something a bit bit longer in mind before it counts as a marriage.

I voted against the amendment as did all the people with whom I'm still speaking. I have no patience with bigotry of any sort and there is no rational basis for such beliefs. The "I'm entitled to my opinion" argument doesn't fly with me. I'm entitled to discontinue all association with you if you choose to be a bigot.

However it is not my intent to rant about bigotry in this post. 

I am disturbed at a trend that I've spotted among quite a few non-southern folks to declare this anti-gay marriage bigotry to be a southern problem. It's not that I mind well deserved criticism directed at my state for the recent vote to add legalized discrimination to our state constitution. I am disturbed because as long as it's the other guy who is responsible then we avoid uniting in a collective effort to dismantle these laws as in clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  History is littered with denials of rights up to and including genocide in which everyone says, "Who me? I didn't approve of it. It was ________." (fill in the blank).

Thirty-one states have amended their constitutions to declare that marriage is between a man and a woman. Unless the South has cloned itself, this problem extends way beyond the south. 

Only the gray states lack an amendment prohibiting gay marriage.

It was particularly disturbing to read one person's comment, on a blog post about NC's recent vote, asserting that she lived in Virginia and would not set foot in NC because of the passage of Amendment One. Virginia already has a constitutional amendment preventing gay marriage. It's as if the country has been asleep since around 2004 when state legislatures began amending state constitutions to enshrine bigotry as legal.

What NC has done is draw attention to this problem yet again. By the way. Minnesota plans to vote on this issue in November 2012. I'm not good at geography, but I'm pretty certain that Minnesota is not in the south.

Only six states and the District of Columbia allow same sex marriages as of May 2012. Wikipedia has a good article identifying which states have passed anti-gay marriage amendments and the effect of those amendments that is accurate up until May 2012. It includes NC's recent vote.

Until we face the reality that bigotry knows no geographical boundaries, we're simply going to engage in periodic indignation when homophobia slaps us in the face, blame it on the south and then go on about our business, secure in the myth that only those other people practice bigotry. Thirty-one states down, only 19 more to go. This is a national issue, not a southern one and we need a national strategy to address it.

The President and Gay Marriage

After hearing the president's announcement of his personal support of  same-sex marriage, I just wanted to enjoy the president's positive statement. I figured that there would be affirmation and support for the president among progressives. Was I wrong!

PZ Myers post over at Pharyngula is an accurate reflection of the critiscism that the president is reaping from some progressives and some members of the LGBT community who feel that the president's statement was weak and insignificant. Myers writes:

That’s the best we’ve got from Obama? Seriously? It’s taken him this long to “evolve” to the point where he can take a personal (not even a political) stand on civil rights? 

What do people expect from this president? He has gone further than any president has before. What is there to be skeptical about? This was not a clever campaign move designed to garner votes. In taking this position he stands to lose some Black and Latino votes, two groups with numbers significant enough to make a difference in November. What he may gain from the LGBT vote will not be nearly enough in numbers to compensate for the votes that he stands to lose. I think that he did the right thing because it was the right thing to do.

But I am flabbergasted at some of the responses from his critics who identify with the progressive movement. Everything does not happen at once. During his administration, DADT has been repealed and cannot rear its ugly head again unless Congress passes another discriminatory law. Unlike what could have happened if he had merely ended DADT with an Executive Order that would have had limited authority for enforcement and that could have been easily rescinded by the next president without congressional approval.

Now he has taken a very public position on an issue that no president before him has ever addressed. What's the alternative position? Would you prefer that he have continued to say nothing? Exactly what nefarious reason could he have for making this declaration in favor of equality?

And the notion that his speaking out two or three years ago would have made any difference in North Carolina's recent vote to amend the state constitution to declare that marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic union recognized in the state is ludicrous. This particular legislation has been proposed every legislative session for at least the last five years. NC joins 30 other states that have already passed similar constitutional amendments. The majority of voters still don't believe in same-sex marriage as evidenced by the 31 states where citizens came down firmly against safe-sex marriage by referendum. No other president has said a word about gay marriage and now this man finally speaks up and the whine is, it's not enough? Obama made history today.

Obama has been in office less than four years and in those four years it seems that people expected him to undo the biases and prejudices that have been firmly entrenched in this culture for centuries. Myers and his allegedly progressive cohorts sound like petulant children and don't offer any constructive criticism, only complaints that Obama hasn't done enough. For the 100th time, presidents don't propose nor write legislation and an Executive Order is not a magic wand. Most of what the public believes can be done with an EO is based on a total misunderstanding of the scope of the president's power.

All of you who feel betrayed by President Obama, would you feel better if he hadn't addressed the issue at all? What's your plan for November? Quite a few critics of the president's statement in support of same-sex marriages also declared their intent not to give their vote to Obama in November. I can only assume that they somehow believe that helping Romney win the presidency will teach Obama and the Democrats a lesson. I think that this is what it means to cut off your nose to spite your face.

Think this is far fetched? Perhaps you missed the story from West Virginia about Tuesday's primary. Keith Judd, currently incarcerated in Texas, managed to get himself on the ballot for West Virginia's Democratic primary. Judd got 40% of the Democratic vote. It seems that 40% of Democrats cast their vote for Judd in order to to vote against President Obama. You can't make this stuff up. If we end up with a President Romney, there are a whole lot of people who are going o have some explaining to do.

Living While Black

It is a sensational story. An unarmed, black 17-year-old male is shot while walking in a residential neighborhood in which he was visiting while coming back from the store with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. The only thing that we are certain of is that the man who shot him thought that he looked suspicious,and that the man who shot him says that it was self defense. 

The basic problem that I have is the willingness of so many to accept George Zimmerman's account of events as fact. Without the public outcry of the black community and some whites there were no plans to charge him with anything. This case should have always been headed for trial to determine the facts. You cannot kill someone and say it was self defense without offering facts to support your claim. That's what is meant by an affirmative defense. Yes, I killed someone but I had good cause.

There is nothing cut and dried about Zimmerman's claim of self defense. There still has not been a medical report confirming Zimmerman's allegation that Trayvon Martin broke his nose. We don't know that Trayvon initiated the fatal confrontation. He could have resisted Zimmerman's attempt to detain him. On the 911 call, Zimmerman expresses his frustration with how "they" always get away. He doesn't specify who "they" may be. 

I find it of interest that the partial police summary clearly states that Trayvon was found face down. Was Trayvon on top of Zimmerman when Zimmerman shot him? He would have had to be on top to be banging Zimmermans head on the ground or was it the sidewalk? If Trayvon was on top and he was face down when the police arrived, did he fall over on Zimmerman when he was shot and Zimmerman wriggled out from under his body? No pun intended, but Trayvon would have been dead weight and wouldn't it have been easier for Zimmerman to push Trayvon off of him rather than slide from under Trayvon? And if he did push Trayvon's body off, is it likely that Trayvon would have landed face down? I don't know but it's something for forensic experts to consider and answer.

Why is there an assumption that Trayvon was obliged to treat Zimmerman as someone with authority? One thing that Zimmerman has not alleged is that he ever identified himself as part of the neighborhood watch to Trayvon.

Why is it that some people apparently have no problem with ZImmerman following Trayvon? Put yourself in Trayvon's shoes. There is a strange man following you. You don't know what he wants but he keeps following you. I would be wary and fearful and act defensively. How was Trayvon supposed to guess that Zimmerman was a member of the neighborhood watch and thought that he was thereby authorized to follow people? 

Zimmerman lost track of Trayvon but was so determined to follow him that he got out of his vehicle to track him down. He alleges that he couldn't find Trayvon and was heading back to his vehicle when Trayvon initiated contact with him. 

Evidently, the right to defend oneself only applies to Zimmerman. Trayvon was followed by an adult male whom he did not know. For all he knew Zimmerman was a pedophile or a kidnapper or both.

Zimmerman states that Trayvon asked, "do you have a problem with me?"  Why didn't Zimmerman identify himself as a member of the neighborhood watch and explain why he was following Trayvon? Instead, according to Zimmerman's account, he shrugged off the question and indicated that he didn't have a problem with Trayvon at which point, according to Zimmerman, Trayvon said, "Well now you do."

The majority of people have opinions on this case including those whose opinion is that the media has stirred up the frenzy about racism. Nope, living while black in this country is what makes some of us talk about racism as a factor in Zimmerman's conclusion that Trayvon looked suspicious. That and the willingness of some to declare that Trayvon was a thug and offer as proof that he was suspended from school three times and may have smoked pot. He wasn't a thug; he was a teenager. But even if he were a thug,it doesn't matter; he's dead and Zimmerman killed him, and now Zimmerman must show that he had just cause for doing so.

Zimmerman will have a trial. He will get a chance in a court of law to convince a jury that he shot and killed Trayvon for justifiable reasons. Trayvon cannot tell his side of the story. It is up to the DA and forensic experts to make certain that his side of the story is told.   

I've read stories that state that Zimmerman cries a great deal. So do Trayvon's parents.

The Problem with White Guilt

I recently read an article by Mark Judge in The Daily Caller entitled, The end of my white guilt. Mr. Judge recounts how the theft of his bike on Good Friday made him let go of white guilt. Judge concludes that black people use "...the moral authority of past generations for their own personal gain and self-aggrandizement." But his grand conclusion is that black pain is no different than white pain, which is the fall back position of the "but I'm not a racist" crowd. We're all alike and it's black people who insist on holding on to the past. 

It's a convenient position. It allows white people to take no responsibility for current discriminatory laws and policies and to blissfully attribute racism to the willingness of black people to play the race card. Of course, they never consider that black people play the cards but white people deal the deck. When we insist that racism is still a factor in the social, political, ad economic structure of this country, they shake their heads in dismay, quickly declare, "I'm not a racist," and feel that should be the end of the conversation. 

We are not all alike; we share a history but the role in that shared history is very different based on many factors including race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and nationality. This fixation on our being one homogeneous group generally results in those who are non-white being pressured to assimilate as fully as possible, giving up our own cultural identities and accepting fully the culture of the white majority. That is the foundation of the "English only" movement. Ask Native Americans about the efforts in the United States to forcibly transform Native American cultures to European culture from 1790 to 1920. The assimilation policy included removing Native American children from their families and ending them to boarding schools to receive a "civilized" education. Canada developed a similar system of assimilation that involved removing Indian children from their families and placing them in residential schools with a goal of forced assimilation.

I'm tired of the generalization on the part of far too many white people that they have somehow borne and continue to bear the great burden of white guilt and that they've been treated so unfairly. Bullshit.  If I generalized to that extent, I would mistrust all white people and shoot them on sight. 

How often do you hear of a group of bored black teenagers deciding to kill a white man and run him over with a truck for sport? (Anderson story) How often have  black men dragged a white man behind a truck simply because he's white? (James Byrd) How often have black people covered their faces and burned crosses in people's yards to intimidate them? (Ohio cross burning 2012) How many times has a black person been acquitted after killing a 14-year-old white boy, beating him so viciously that he was unrecognizable as a human being? (Emmett Till, disturbing photo) How many 14-year-old white boys have been tried by an all black jury, convicted of murder and executed with no physical evidence tying him to the murders? (George Stinney Jr.) 

How many white bodies swinging from trees with the signs of torture applied before death have been immortalized in photographs and postcards that show hundreds and in some instances thousands of people--men, women, children, grandma and grandpa--all standing around on a family outing to watch the lynching of men and women, thrilled when the victim was a woman eight months pregnant (Remembering Mary Turner) whose belly was ripped open to insure the death of her unborn child? (American Lynching, Without Sanctuary, from Life magazine, Bill Moyers Journal)  All of these documented events took place in the 19th and 20th century, not some distant days of slavery.

There have been no instances of black adults spitting on white school children as they attempted to integrate public schools. And now, in the 21st century, black boys are being shot down for walking on a neighborhood street or for the way they are dressed; five black people in Oklahoma are shot by two white men who selected the victims based on skin color. 

I'm tired of white people insisting, "Black people commit crimes and black people kill white people too," as if that somehow mitigates the killing of black people by white people simply based on race. Of course we kill people too. People have been killing according to the tale of Cain and Abel since the beginning of time and there is nothing acceptable about the murder of anyone for any reason.  However, perpetrating this nonsense that white people are justified in fearing black people and that black people are somehow inherently dangerous and dishonest is blatant racism. 

No one ever asked white people to feel guilt. What we asked for was to be treated with equality. What we received was decades of Jim Crow laws that lasted well into the 20th century. The civil rights movement isn't ancient history and racism and racial prejudice is alive and thriving in the 21st century.

Most of the time I am in a conciliatory mode when it comes to race relations. When I was 14 I learned to play the guitar, stuck peace signs all over my guitar case, and earnestly sang Kumbayah and all the verses of We Shall Overcome. I believed with all the earnestness of the very young that our newly integrated school system was the start of a better society where we all lived together in brotherhood and sisterhood. I held on to that belief for as long as I could, with the desperation of a novice trying to climb a rock wall. 

Somewhere, deep in a brightly lit recess of my soul that belief still survives. But after 57 years on this earth, I find myself having more and more moments when the light is so dim that I can't see it any more and I truly wonder if has been extinguished. So far, like Pandora, I always eventually find that light again. But I'm older and I'm tired. Every day that I come across blatant racism, splattered across the Internet, shouting from social networking sites, reported on in the daily news, it swallows a bit of that light and I fear that one day I will remain in the darkness, angry and bitter and thoroughly disillusioned.

If you are white, and you feel uncomfortable or even attacked by my consistent reference to white people as including every white person in this country, you have experienced to some extent what it is like to be black in this country when every infraction committed by any black person is attributed to the character of all black people.

Augusta Masters: Some Traditions Need to be Buried

The Augusta National Golf Club's no women allowed policy has been in the headlines for the last couple of days. The golf club's membership is populated by Spanky and Alfalfa of Our Gang fame, who would on occasion declare that their clubhouse was off limits--no girls allowed!

Since it's inception in 1933, Augusta hasn't allowed women to become members and just began allowing black males to wear the hallowed green jacket in 1990. The headlines pose the same question, Masters Controversy: Should Augusta Golf Club Admit Its First Female Member? Why now? Well, in addition to its tradition of not admitting women, Augusta also traditionally bestows membership on the CEOs of the Masters' three corporate sponsors. One of those sponsors is IBM, and its CEO is a woman, Ginni Rometty.

Augusta is confronted with a quandry as to which tradition to follow, the one that discriminates and treats women as second class citizens or the one that bestows a green jacket on the CEOs of the corporate sponsors of the Masters. What are chauvinistic reprobates with 19th century values to do?

It's 2012, this should not even be a question that needs to be asked. Membership in the club isn't simply about playing golf. These all male networks developed as social and business organizations. At the time of their inception, women did not play any role in the world of business or industry.

However, for some time now women have been making their way in a formerly male dominated world of business and industry. To deny women access to forums where much of the networking that is an essential part of the business world takes place is to impede the ability of women to fully participate and compete in the world of business and industry.

News anchor, Paula Faris, of ABC's World News Now, defended Augusta's practice declaring that it is a private club and it's exclusion of women is no big deal, after all there are boy scouts and girl scouts, and girls schools and boys schools. Paula, you need to go back and think it through a bit more.

This discriminatory tradition is not comparable to girl scouts and boy scouts, organizations primarily intended for children and where no one indulges in making business deals involving major corporations. Nor is it comparable to private schools segregated by gender. I personally find such gender separated institutions abhorrent, and a poor preparation for a world that isn't neatly divided by genitalia. However, I'm not making that argument today. Instead my focus is the exclusion of women from the big boys club where power deal are brokered and significant business connections are made.

We cannot have institutions that are a key part of the world of business be
closed to women based on antiquated notions of a woman's role in society or her lack of a role in the world of business.

If Augusta wishes to maintain it's male only status then it needs to strictly be a golf club and the only negotiations by its members need to be about golf. Augusta has made itself into an important cog in the world of business and industry and as such it should not be allowed to deny membership based on gender any more than it can deny membership based on race or ethnicity.

The days of "No Jews and No Coloreds" at the golf course are over. It's time to bury the "No Women Allowed" policy along side of them.

By the way, word is that Ginni Rometty plays golf.

The Suspect Was Black and Looked Suspicious

Trayvon Martin was 17. On February 26, he walked to the store and then headed back home with his Skittles and a can of ice tea. George Zimmerman, captain of the neighborhood watch,(an unofficial group as it was not properly registered), followed Martin, declaring to the 911 operator, "This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something."

Zimmerman never said what there was about Trayvon Martin that made him deem Trayvon to look suspicious. The operator told Zimmerman that there was no need for him to continue to follow Martin as law enforcement was being dispatched to check out the suspicious looking person. 

We know that Trayvon was aware of Zimmerman following him because he told a female friend with whom e was chatting on the phone that there was a guy following him. At some point, Zimmerman and Martin interacted. Trayvon Martin, 6' 4" tall and 140 pounds, died from a gunshot wound inflicted by Zimmerman,who said that he killed Martin in self-defense. Zimmerman outweighed Trayvon by at least 80 pounds and Trayvon Martin was unarmed. 

The investigating police officer said that Zimmerman had a bloody nose. Zimmerman was treated at the scene but said that he didn't need to go to a hospital. Zimmerman was allowed to go home. So far, there has been no arrest.

I don't know that Zimmerman is guilty of murder but neither do I know that he is not. Local law enforcement did not treat the site of Trayvon's death as a crime scene and didn't conduct the usual forensic tests that help determine if a crime has taken place. The Sanford police chief said that Zimmerman had the right to defend himself under Florida's Stand Your Ground law. The section upon which Zimmerman's claim of self-defense apparently relies is subsection (3):

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

As many Americans clamor for Zimmerman's arrest, an effort to paint Trayvon as a juvenile delinquent has arisen among Zimmerman's supporters. No matter what offenses are attributed to Trayvon Martin, none of them are relevant to the events that resulted in his death. This type of character assassination of the victim reminds me of the efforts often made to discredit rape victims by insisting that it was the victim's clothing or behavior that made her a target of the rapist. It doesn't matter what Trayvon wore or his school suspensions. It wouldn't matter if he was a gangsta selling pot. The issue is did Zimmerman have a reasonable fear for his life that justified his taking of Trayvon's life?

To answer that question, a jury needs to examine evidence of all of the events of that evening. Was Zimmerman justified in following Trayvon? Who initiated the confrontation? What about Trayvon's state of mind? He realized that he was being followed, he told his girlfriend that there was someone following him. Would it be reasonable for Trayvon to fear for his own safety? Did he not have a right to defend himself based on a reasonable fear that the stranger who approached him meant to do him bodily harm? Would there have been any type of altercation if Zimmerman had not continued to follow Trayvon after the 911 operator expressly advised him not to do so?

Are we to accept that Florida's Stand Your Ground law only applied to Zimmerman, that only he was allowed to act based on a reasonable fear of imminent death or bodily harm? Martin was approached by a stranger who was following him and that stranger had a gun. Isn't it reasonable that Martin would defend himself and try to take the gun? If this did indeed occur, then it was Martin who was threatened and who was fighting for his life. Martin didn't bring the gun to the fight. Seems plausible that Trayvon Martin was perfectly justified in attempting to disarm Zimmerman.

Zimmerman was not a law enforcement officer. Martin had no reason to follow any command that Zimmerman gave him. According to Zimmerman's own account, he must have drawn his gun at some point, otherwise how did Martin know that he had a gun and attempt to take it? It is a valid argument that Martin was the one with a reasonable fear that his life was in danger and any damage that he did to Zimmerman was in self-defense.


I cannot declare Zimmerman guilty or not guilty, that is a task for a jury. However, I do know that it is unacceptable that black men are viewed as suspicious and a threat simply for walking through a neighborhood wearing a hoodie. Black parents should not have to warn their children not to wear certain clothing and to be careful when walking on a public street not to frighten white people with their very presence. When I was a child, my mother taught us rules. We knew not to try and sit down at the lunch counter at Woolworths or Roses. We knew better than to look a white person directly in the eye and to always step aside if a white person wanted to use the sidewalk even if it meant stepping into the rain filled gutter next to the curb. Any black person over the age of 50 who grew up in the south is likely to have had similar experiences. 

President Obama said that if he had a son he would look like Trayvon. Newt Gingrich, raised in the south, went stupid and declared that the President's observation was racist. Gingrich is a fool who intentionally pretends to have forgotten the past. If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon. What frightens and angers me is that to people like George Zimmerman, my son would also look suspicious and deserving of killing. I have no doubt that was the point of the president's observation.

Limbaugh, Santorum, and that Palin Woman

There is so much going on in the world that it is difficult to settle on one thing to write about. 

Some topics have already had more than enough attention. Rush Limbaugh for example--how many ways are there to say that he is reprehensible and shouldn't be allowed on the airwaves without a keeper?  Of course, Ms. Fluke isn't the only object of Limbaugh's derision. I see no evidence that he has learned anything from the unfavorable critiques of his sexist and vulgar attacks on Ms. Fluke. 

For the last three years Rush has delighted in referring to President Obama as a man-child, and on this past Thursday's show (03/08/12), Rush called the President a boy.  Limbaugh is 61-years-old, definitely old enough to have direct knowledge of Jim Crow laws. Boy is a racist term used in the Jim Crow era to belittle black men and Rush knows this. 

Limbaugh was up to his        usual shtick, mocking the  way he thinks that liberals regard Republicans, "You notice how everything Republicans do is venal? Everything is calculated for political advantage? Everything is done to try to harm our little boy  president, Barack Obama." Ironically, as Rush has lost a lot of his paying sponsors, he insulted the President in between playing PSAs for the United Negro College Fund. The entire text may be found at the Hinterland Gazette. For the full Limbaugh effect, listen to the clip from his show.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum could also use someone to whisper,"Hush,"every time he attempts to share his views on anything to do with women, sex, or contraception. Unless Santorum has a revelation to make, I assume that he does not have a womb and I can think of no valid reason for him to attempt to regulate mine or any other woman's.

Santorum is not alone in his fixation on women's reproductive health and rights. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 19 states (number may have gone up, the Institute's report was released while 10 state legislatures were still in session) passed a total of 80 laws restricting abortions, more than double the number of restrictive abortion laws passed in 2005 the second highest year with 34 laws passed.  All total, in 2011, states enacted 162 new provisions related to reproductive health and rights. In addition to imposing new restrictions to limit access to legal abortions, the new laws also reduce or eliminate family planning funding to such organizations as planned parenthood,and attempt to prohibit private insurers from provide coverage for reproductive health issues such as contraceptives.

All of the candidates need to be forbidden from invoking the name of God or Jesus as a campaign strategy. No more talk of religious freedom and contraception or abortion in the same sentence. Religious freedom has nothing to do with imposing one set of religious beliefs on everyone. You believe what you want and I get to believe what I want and that may mean that I don't believe in anything. Freedom means that we all are free to make our own choices not that some people get to dictate which road that we must all follow. 

Then there's Sarah Palin who has announced that President Obama wants to return the days before the Civil War. Sarah, you need to use your brain for something other than occupying that space between your ears. Your ignorance is astounding and it is revealed every time that you open your mouth. No this is not libel. Libel consists of publishing untruthful statements defamatory to the character of another to a third party. Prove to me that her brain functions.