How Do You Know It's Over?

When they tell us it is. Like the war in Iraq, which we have won a hundred times over, the right wing wants us to believe that we have eradicated racism in this country. Over at FDL a thorough (read: long) and thoughtful piece by David Niewert. My favorite excerpt:

The notion that racism is dead has been a favorite theme of the right for awhile now. It began, probably, with the Thernstroms’ America in Black and White, and continued with Dinesh D’Souza’s The End of Racism. In a similar vein, the new White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, suggested awhile back that he thinks racism a dead issue:

"Here’s the unmentionable secret: Racism isn’t that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It’s rapidly becoming an ugly memory."
— Tony Snow, on an October 2003 edition of Fox News Sunday

What Snow is really doing, of course, is defining racism away. This is only true if "racism" is largely just the purview of the Ku Klux Klans and Silver Shirts, the David Dukes and Hal Turners and the National Socialist Movements of the world. It’s also only true if you believe that the only racism of possible significance is that which might be condoned by public officials — that racist acts by ordinary citizens are of no consequence.

Here is my response to Snow: live one week with an average black family (whatever average is), not an affluent one like his own, and tell me racism is over. People like Snow like to trot out their favorite brown skinned people like D'Souza or Sowell who comfort us and make us all feel good about being white. Does this look like the biography of an average person raised in an "average" black family?

Snow was born in Berea, Kentucky and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. After graduating from Princeton High School in Sharonville, Ohio, Snow obtained his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Davidson College in 1977. He also studied philosophy and economics at the University of Chicago during the 1978-79 academic year. He taught physics and geography in Kenya, and was a substitute teacher in Cincinnati, teaching everything from calculus to art. He also worked as an advocate for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled in North Carolina.

He is an avid musician. He plays the flute, saxophone and guitar, and belongs to a cover band, Beats Workin', which features fellow Washington-area professionals. Beats Workin' has played publicly with a number of bona fide rock stars, including Snow's friends Skunk Baxter (The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan) and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. He was featured on an episode of VH1 Classic's "Rock And Roll Fantasy Camp."

In 1987, he married Jill Ellen Walker. They have a son and two daughters as well as several pets, including three dogs, a cat and three guinea pigs. Snow and his family live in Virginia.

Looks like the kind of upbringing that threw him not only the challenges of puberty and adolescence, but also the pernicious effects of growing up black in a white world. Systemic illiteracy, the problems with inner city or rural public education in poor areas, family history that didn't include college even if one finished high school, being excluded from jobs despite qualification, based solely on your race, and, best of all, just being treated differently, not in overt ways, based solely on your skin color.

Yep, there is a guy that understands what it means to have to deal with racism because he surely knows it so well. Snow isn't any different than millions of people like him, it makes him feel okay about who he is, where he is, his millions of dollars in the bank, if he knows that this is America where anyone can make it with enough spit and polish. It ain't that easy Tony, trade places even for a week and you'll know racism is alive and well in the You-nita States of America.

Here's to you Tony, born a poor black sharecropper: