Racism du Jour

There’s general agreement on the facts in Shirley Sherrod’s being fired by the Agriculture Department. Most of the commentary, which has come from the left, draws two conclusions; that foul play was used in editing the recording of Ms Sherrod’s speech and that the initial response by the administration and NAACP was craven. I agree with both. The intent of the caper was proving that anti white racism also exists among blacks. This is one of the few things on which I agree with these folks. So what else is new?

I find the following anecdote relevant. In 1994 six of us white males were customers on a charter fishing boat the day the O.J. Simpson acquittal was announced on our radio. The news was followed by a continuous stream of “nigger” jokes. Fishing was slow so the jokes continued to the point where I felt the need to interrupt. I mentioned that I was a jazz musician, that many of my heroes and friends were black and that I’d appreciate changing the subject. I was accommodated in my request. But not before receiving a “fuck you” from a man who later became solicitous to the point that I’m sure he was trying to make up for his incivility. Another later quietly told me that he understood and agreed with me.

How can anyone believe that there isn’t a black counterpart to this sort of interchange and why does the right feel the need to prove there is? Considering the physical response to the Rodney King verdict we can be sure there were some very unkind things said about us whites, or ”ofays” as we were called us in the old days. That’s pig Latin for foe. Not having been privy to any of these sessions, I’m curious what their current equivalent of the n word is. “This redneck (or cracker) says to the other….?”

Racism is with us, has been with us and will be for some time to come. On one hand it can be argued that more than two centuries of slavery and Jim Crow can’t be dismissed. On the other, most of today’s black Americans experienced neither, many have received some extra tax dollars and are at times beneficiaries of a modicum of preference in college admission and modest paying jobs. On balance it’s my opinion that, all things being equal, an American being born white still has been dealt a better hand.  

Prejudice is part of human nature and most of us are subjected to it in varying degrees. In a civil society it’s imperative to keep it within limits of respectability. Public figures exceeding these limits are not hard to identify. Picking Shirley Sherrod as one of them must have been a case of mistaken identity.