Thursday, April 15, 2010

Should the South Rise Again

Two articles got to me today, and they're loosely related. On my 45 minute drive home from work, I contemplated these seemingly unrelated articles and realized they both hit at the same sore issue for me. Let's dig into these articles, and you can see if you relate.

The first article is here:
http://www.ncatregister.com/confederate-history-month-is-a-joke-1.2221569

This article is one of many that explores Robert McDonnell's declaration of April as Confederate History Month. McDonnell failed to include the topic of slavery in his declaration, and many groups were offended. They claim such an important piece of confederate history should be included.

In a way, I can't blame them. When the topic of Confederate history or the Civil War comes up in schools or in intelligent discussion, the topic of slavery cannot be a mere footnote. As a child of the South, it pains me to recognize the devastating effects of slavery on this country. It is a huge dark mark on the country.

Schools should be able to show both sides of an issue. I appreciate a classroom that can teach evolution and creationism, liberal and conservative ideas, and other such dualities and let parents teach their kids what is right and wrong. (This comes with the obvious condition of "within reason" and some indoctrination has slipped through the cracks.) Yes, parents are often absent, but I'm not one to believe in fixing a symptom of the problem instead of the problem.

Is Confederate History Month a time to point out all sides of the story, though? Must we detail every gory bit of Southern history so as to show all sides? There is a lack of knowledge about what led to the Civil War, southern culture, and integration in the South.

The concept of the "dumb hick" or "redneck" is what jumps into most folks' minds when they think of someone from Alabama or Mississippi. Many believe Southerners are automatically racist, intolerant idiots who want to rape, murder, and maim. Just driving home from work, I heard 3 commercials mocking southern-folk.

So maybe the lack of knowledge is not reason enough to justify a month of positive-only thoughts. If that is true, why is Black History Month not approached with a similar thorough research. Why not explore inner city violence and drop out rates? Why not point out the high incidence of black-on-black crimes or the many unborn African-American children who are aborted?

Black History Month serves a purpose, and exploring the negative effects of a race of people would counter that purpose. Besides, why paint a whole subset of the country with such a wide brush? Yes, racism exists among African Americans. Yes, the inner city communities made up of a majority of African Americans have high drop-out, violence, and abortion rates. Not all African-Americans partake in such damaging actions, and to look at those during a month celebrating African Americans is certainly not necessary.

Southerners are a similar subset of American culture, and yet media are allowed to use their wide brush when depicting them. Not all Southerners are racist or intolerant or stupid or slow. To allow such blatant and incorrect labels is the very definition of racist, knowing that those labels are only applied to Whites.

I was preturbed all morning after reading that article at home before work. To be fair, the gentleman who wrote that article is a completely biased idiot. Other accounts have been much more civil, reasonable, and, frankly, historically accurate. Mister Eustache might be wise to check out the facts about the events he explored.

After work got my mind off the hypocrisy and stupidity of the Confederate History Article, I stumbled on more hatred over my lunch break. Self-hatred. Here is article number 2.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AjvqiAIVugI7iXEI7mBHd00RvLYF?slug=jp-jackie041410

In this article, Jeff Passan discusses the plight of the African American baseball player. The number of black Major Leaguers is very low. The reasons are well documented; lack of space in inner cities makes baseball harder than football or basketball, for one. Though Major League Baseball has a huge number of minorities, mostly Hispanic but also including Asian players, the lack of one race has become reason for concern.

Nobody's decrying the lack of Middle-Eastern players because, hey, they don't play baseball. If African-American children choose to pursue other choices, it must be institutional bigotry, right?

In this article, Passan defeats the arguments that racism exists in baseball. He points out the numbers of African Americans returning to the game, as well as the reasons they left. He shows young players coming up and established black veterans. He even links to a study that statistically shows a lack of bias.

At the same time, Passan points out obvious issues in the thoughts of those ballplayers who see racism. He shows where they get the seed from: the stories passed down to them. He points out white players with no jobs. My personal favorite: He inadvertently points out baseball's institutional racism that says "we'll pay more to get the inner city black kids playing baseball so you'll get off our tail."

Then, in the end, he makes it clear these players have genuine concerns because there may be racism in "small doses." If by "small doses" you mean Jermaine Dye is dumb, you are correct.

For those of you non-baseball folks, let me clarify. Jermaine Dye is an unemployed baseball player, and there are those who believe he is unemployed because he is black. Jermain Dye doesn't play good defense. He doesn't hit particularly well anymore and he doesn't run the bases well. He doesn't have a reputation as a particularly outstanding teammate, though he's not a particularly bad one either. He is a standard old-guy player, which is well and good until you consider he's asking for millions of dollars. The man has turned down multiple contract offers looking for more money.

Is it racism that is keeping Jermain Dye unemployed? Nope. It's his own greed.

But, we can't point that out. Instead, let's have Yahoo! (who is surprisingly biased if you observe the poop they put in their stories) declare MLB a racist institution of racist teams with racist owners. Ignore that these are not cases of racism. The biggest case of racism in the story is a black player calling dark-skinned hispanics "imposters," but that's excused because only the powerful white guy can be bad.

I exaggerate the point to make the point. (Damn you, Lafontaine!) Passan doesn't go that far, but he proves why I'm so freakin' frustrated. Why does Passan work so hard not to offend someone. He writes an article full of reasons to call Jermaine Dye and Orlando Hudson the racists they are and then let's them have the benefit of the doubt in the end.

This is like catching the kid with his hand in the cookie jar, with crumbs on his face and a distended stomach full of cookies and saying "the Cookie Jar might have fallen on you, so I'll let you have a cookie instead of slapping your hand." Is there any logic here?

No, there's not. As a society, we go out of our way to be politically correct, but only when certain minorities are the target. If we're talking about the majority, all is fair game. Let's just keep on cementing the suppressed majority. As a WASP, I should shut up and feel guilty.

Screw you. I'm proud of my heritage. I'm pumped about the soul food from my home state, and I can get into country music and line dancing. If you're too blind to accept that these aren't racist, don't enjoy them. Go listen to your music or eat your food.

But don't come back at me and expect me to grovel repeatedly at your feet or anyone else's. I'm not proud of certain aspects of my people's past. I'm not pleased caucasians enslaved folks, nor do I like that German Nazis killed Jewish people. I have never enslaved or killed anyone, nor have I had the urge. I don't judge people by their skin color, and I am more than just a descendant of those who did.

So get rid of the ridiculous double standard. It's April, and it's Confederate History Month. Take some time this month to drink a Dr. Pepper or eat some barbecue. Watch a John Wayne movie. Maybe even recognize that Hell does not begin at the Mason Dixon line. I'll be enjoying it while I wait for the next group to get their moment in the spotlight and a different party for all of us.