Its hard to enjoy TV these days. Its hard to read the newspaper, take a walk, listen to music. What makes it hard? Having a critical lens and being able to turn it off. I was relaxing this evening before heading back to campus for a meeting and I watching the election updates on CNN and they were killing time.
Wolf Blitzer was talking to Larry Elder (an african american male) author of Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card--and Lose. Elder said that he felt racism was a thing of the past (as a whole) in this country as can be seen by Barack Obama winning predominately white states. They proceeded to have a conversation about racism in the context of individual and cultural predjudice rather than the system of oppression that we learned about. I was so upset I had to email Wolf and tell him that I had a news story for him and thus gave him an updated definition of racism. What ever happened to just watching TV....the "burden" of moving along to Autonomy (Status 6).
Another incident today was a video I was watching at cnn.com about the Brookside Bar in KANSAS CITY, Mo. who is enforcing a dress code due to numerous fights in the late night hours. They stated that their daytime audience is different than there after 10pm audience. It was clear to me that the daytime audience was middle age and older whites (predominately male in this video) and that their evening audience was african american males. Here is a list from KCTV5.com "Banned from the Brooksider are baggy clothing, bandanas and do-rags. Baseball hats are allowed, but no price tags can be showing. Necklaces must be tucked inside a shirt."
It is clear that they are targeting the african american males with the dress code without stating "we do not want blacks here". One lady in the news report on KCTV5 stated that it is not the clothes who make the person so a dress code won't help. I agree with her but am still appalled yet not shocked that actions like these are never stated as Racist as to avoid stirring up dust and giving someone a harsh label (that they might just deserve!). Heres to less fights due to a dresscode (I mean racist policy...aka Racism).
It like I have some sort of racist radar now. Maybe its my superpower?!
