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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / The Reason Matters

The Reason Matters

by John Cole|  April 30, 20158:27 pm| 38 Comments

This post is in: Post-racial America

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I’ve seen a lot of links to these remarks, so here they are via MoJo:

On Wednesday, after the Baltimore Orioles trounced the Chicago White Sox in front of over 48,000 empty seats at Camden Yards, Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter offered a blunt assessment of the ongoing protests happening just beyond the stadium gates.

When a Baltimore resident asked what advice Showalter would give to young black residents in the community, the manager explains [emphasis added]:

You hear people try to weigh in on things that they really don’t know anything about. … I’ve never been black, OK? So I don’t know, I can’t put myself there. I’ve never faced the challenges that they face, so I understand the emotion, but I can’t. … It’s a pet peeve of mine when somebody says, ‘Well, I know what they’re feeling. Why don’t they do this? Why doesn’t somebody do that?’ You have never been black, OK, so just slow down a little bit.

I try not to get involved in something that I don’t know about, but I do know that it’s something that’s very passionate, something that I am, with my upbringing, that it bothers me, and it bothers everybody else. We’ve made quite a statement as a city, some good and some bad. Now, let’s get on with taking the statements we’ve made and create a positive. We talk to players, and I want to be a rallying force for our city. It doesn’t mean necessarily playing good baseball. It just means [doing] everything we can do. There are some things I don’t want to be normal [in Baltimore again]. You know what I mean? I don’t. I want us to learn from some stuff that’s gone on on both sides of it. I could talk about it for hours, but that’s how I feel about it.

Fans watched from outside the stadium gates after demonstrations in response to the death of Freddie Gray forced the team to play the first game behind closed doors in Major League Baseball history. At Wednesday’s press conference, outfielder Adam Jones, who related to the struggles of Baltimore’s youth as a kid growing up in San Diego, called on the city to heal after the unrest.

The piece, as suggested in the title, goes on to note that white people in general could take note and learn something from these guys on how to discuss race. And he’s right. But what he doesn’t explain is why? It’s a pretty simple reason, actually. It’s because Showalter and others has actually spent a lot of time with black people, and he’s spent time with folks who have grown up in just the kind of areas that Freddie Gray grew up in. I think that that is a large part of it.

*** Update ***

Speaking of Mother Jones, they are having their annual fundraising drive. I pitched in 5 a month for a year.

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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Tree With Water

    April 30, 2015 at 8:38 pm

    “I like Charles Murray books to be honest with you, which means I’m a total nerd I guess,” Bush said… Murray authored the highly controversial The Bell Curve, which he co-authored with Richard Herrnstein. Critics denounced it as racist, saying it essentially argued that African-Americans aren’t as intelligent as white Americans because of genetic differences. In 1994 Bob Herbert, then a columnist at The New York Times, described the book as a “scabrous piece of racial pornography masquerading as serious scholarship.”

    Murray wrote an economic treatise ten years earlier that attacked federal initiatives of the 1960’s. Naturally the Bush camp will point to it as the influential writing in question. One fair question, however, is where it can get interesting: Will he grant both works are inseparable from each other? He’ll be cornered into denying there’s any such connection, of course. But there is, and there’s no escaping it. Indeed, no doubt Murray himself would contend as much.

  2. 2.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    April 30, 2015 at 8:39 pm

    I think you’re right. I think it comes down the fundamental concept of looking at people of color as individuals with the same sorts of hopes, dreams and disappointments as white people, or looking at them as some mysterious Other who are automatically suspicious or guilty of the collective sins of their race, real or imagined.

  3. 3.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    April 30, 2015 at 8:42 pm

    Even so, Showalter’s answer was painful. Is it so hard to say people aren’t the sum of their skin color?

  4. 4.

    Renie

    April 30, 2015 at 8:47 pm

    Not sure if this has been mentioned on BJ at all but this is an excellent article by David Simon on Baltimore. For O’Malley fans, it doesn’t speak positive of him at all.

    Marshall Project.com

  5. 5.

    Belafon

    April 30, 2015 at 8:52 pm

    If most of the people he’s trying to talk to actually listened to the problems we’re facing in this country, the rich might not get their tax cuts.

  6. 6.

    raven

    April 30, 2015 at 8:57 pm

    @Renie: It’s been mentioned over and over but most of these dopes have’t read it.

  7. 7.

    Keith G

    April 30, 2015 at 8:59 pm

    More puppy pictures?

    And Steve too?

  8. 8.

    fuckwit

    April 30, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    It’s also a sportsball thing. Pro sportsball players seem to have a well-practiced way of giving non-answers to difficult questions, dealing with difficult topics gracefuly and giving calm and even-tempered answers to the press when asked about things that are very emotional (like: losing a championship, injury of a key player, bad calls that throw games, players traded, scandals and controversies, etc.). His answer falls in that category. I think they’re either trained by their PR handlers or they just learn it from a lifetime of being around it.

    But underneath that training and BS, I think he sincerely does respect the fact that he’s a privileged white guy and has no real right to judge anyone. And I also agree that this is because he’s worked very closely with people from all kinds of backgrounds his whole career, and has learned that kind of tolerance and understanding over time. Certainly sounds like he’s a good guy.

  9. 9.

    Renie

    April 30, 2015 at 9:05 pm

    @raven: They should it’s an eye-opener on how BPD works. Even the NY Times is now writing about the BPD ‘rough rides”

  10. 10.

    fuckwit

    April 30, 2015 at 9:06 pm

    @raven: I read it. I was never an O’Malley fanboi but after reading that I’m definitely not. Sounds like he pulled a Jerry Brown.

    As for Pres hopefuls, I’m more excited about Bernie anyway, and I can expect with him in the mix the Dem primary will get at least some serious debate of important issues that I want to have heard. Of course Hilary will win. But I will very much enjoy the back and forth between the two of them.

  11. 11.

    the Conster

    April 30, 2015 at 9:06 pm

    Good for him, but there goes his post baseball gig on Fox.

  12. 12.

    Schlemazel

    April 30, 2015 at 9:07 pm

    It comes down to empathy. Can you understand that other people have pain you can’t really understand but can empathize with? I had a couple of black friends as a young kid but that all fell apart when we became teens – we grew apart. I saw glimpses of life as a person of color that affected me even if I have no idea what it is like. But I would never dream of assuming I know what it is like. So many white Americans that have never actually known a person of color assume they know exactly what those other should think, feel and do. Even if they are not active racists they lack the basic empathy and understanding of their own ignorance so end up just as bad as the racists.

    His statement was better than I would have hope for from a white guy in his position so maybe there is some hope, someday

  13. 13.

    SatanicPanic

    April 30, 2015 at 9:07 pm

    You have never been black, OK, so just slow down a little bit.– it’s actually pretty cool to hear a public figure say this. I mean, he doesn’t have to say “think this” it’s more just “hey, maybe you should listen”. Being someone who listens is probably more important than being someone who believes any one particular thing.

  14. 14.

    raven

    April 30, 2015 at 9:08 pm

    @Renie: Simon has been on the case for years. Some weenie this morning suggested he was “part of the problem”.

  15. 15.

    satby

    April 30, 2015 at 9:09 pm

    @Renie: I know people from Baltimore and many progressives weren’t fans. I’m not a fan of anyone who instituted stop and frisk.

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    April 30, 2015 at 9:16 pm

    @Renie:

    For O’Malley fans, it doesn’t speak positive of him at all.

    Damn! That is hardcore O’Malley smackdown! It seems almost like he fudged the numbers from the previous administration and then gave the BPD carte blanche to just mass incarcerate black people in West Baltimore. What a set of destructive policies for the city, just to serve his own political ambitions.
    No wonder he’s only at 3% in public polling.

  17. 17.

    Steve from Antioch

    April 30, 2015 at 9:18 pm

    You have never been white, OK, so slow down a little bit.

    You have never been a cop, OK, so slow down a little bit.

  18. 18.

    Hal

    April 30, 2015 at 9:20 pm

    I’m always a little skeptical of coaches, in part because I’m just not a sports fan and don’t idolize them the way some people do. The other is that coaches in movies are always portrayed as white saviors to poor, inner city black kids who never had anyone to look up to until Coach Davis upped and moved his family from Indiana to the mean streets of inner city Detroit.

    But I do like what Showalter said to that person. The question itself I find irritating. People protesting have made it clear that there is a problem with police brutality. People need to start asking how we as a country can fix the problem of police violence instead of asking how black people can avoid being shot in the back or having their spine broken.

  19. 19.

    Renie

    April 30, 2015 at 9:20 pm

    @raven: I missed that comment, I’m always late to threads. Simon’s The Wire is a show that illustrates reality. Anyone who thinks he is encouraging that view obviously doesn’t understand the art of writing. He has a background in journalism so he writes what he sees not what he wants reality to be. Don’t understand how anyone could get that view from his stuff. Weird.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 30, 2015 at 9:21 pm

    @Renie: Some people want all art to be a morality tale.

  21. 21.

    James Hare

    April 30, 2015 at 9:22 pm

    I guess maybe I’m too young to get it but I don’t understand why it’s so hard to understand why black people would feel uncomfortable living in a white supremacist nation. The only thing making a difference today is the widespread availability of mobile phones with cameras.

    One weird thing will be how future humans will look at our treatment of the mobile phone. As a parent it terrifies me but as an anthropology minor I can’t think of any human invention since the wheel that has given individual humans more power. Instant communications anywhere is an amazingly powerful tool — there are theories that photocopiers were responsible for taking down the USSR.

    Everyone carrying a camera means we can’t lie about our society anymore. The last 8 months or so have unfortunately been a revelation for me. I “knew” in that white guy way that our justice system treated minorities differently but things hadn’t really been as stark until recently.Looking at the statistics that makes me sick. How the hell didn’t I notice?

  22. 22.

    metricpenny

    April 30, 2015 at 9:23 pm

    “It’s because Showalter and others has actually spent a lot of time with black people, and he’s spent time with folks who have grown up in just the kind of areas that Freddie Gray grew up in. I think that that is a large part of it.”

    John your conclusion seems logical, but I don’t think it is right.

    I was born black in 1956 and grew up in public housing on the South Side of Chicago. My parents migrated there from Birmingham to escape Jim Crow so they could raise their four future children in a better environment. Three of us made it out (the youngest is a struggling alcoholic). We’ve worked within numerous organizations that employed majority whites. We’ve thrived and succeeded in the workplace.

    The majority of black Americans in the workplace today mirror our history. Just as the case is with some of the players Showalter has managed. However, the majority of whites don’t think like him.

    White colleagues I’ve worked with for decades watch the negative images and stories on black Americans, which our media tends to focus on, and state how it’s a shame black people don’t know how to behave or respect law enforcement.

    So, it’s not because they haven’t been exposed to positive images of black Americans at least 8 hours a day, 260 days a year, and should be making the same statements as Showalter. It’s because they don’t care to.

  23. 23.

    James Hare

    April 30, 2015 at 9:26 pm

    @Renie: I always thought Simon’s view was clear. He played McNulty as a sympathetic character the entire series even when he was doing dirty stuff. Hamsterdam was the the closest the series came to a solution and they even acknowledged how ugly that would be. Simon understood what he was writing about and wrote it pretty dang honestly.

  24. 24.

    raven

    April 30, 2015 at 9:29 pm

    @Renie: She wrote it an disappeared. If you want an unflinching look at the war in Iraq watch what Simon and Burns do with “Generation Kill”.

  25. 25.

    metricpenny

    April 30, 2015 at 9:30 pm

    @Steve from Antioch:

    You have never been the subject of unprovoked police brutality, OK, so slow down a little bit.

  26. 26.

    Renie

    April 30, 2015 at 9:31 pm

    I see John has written a thread on David Simon’s article. Maybe more people will read the interview. Homicide and The Wire were always one of my favorite shows and I respect Simon’s opinions since he talks about what he knows. (Unlike a lot of other journalists – or those who think they are journalists.)

  27. 27.

    Dr. McCoy

    April 30, 2015 at 9:32 pm

    Yeah, well get arrested, spend time in jail, and you learn real fast. It’s just not for A/A folks.
    And this will be tolerated about as long as “Occupy” was.

  28. 28.

    James Hare

    April 30, 2015 at 9:32 pm

    @Steve from Antioch: WTF is that supposed to mean?

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm

    @James Hare:

    How the hell didn’t I notice?

    Don’t be too hard on yourself. Until relatively recently, you wouldn’t have come across the information unless you actively sought it out — and you wouldn’t have known there was information to seek out because you hadn’t come across it. Our media have a lot to answer for.

  30. 30.

    metricpenny

    April 30, 2015 at 9:40 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Preach!

  31. 31.

    mdblanche

    April 30, 2015 at 9:46 pm

    @Tree With Water: Which Bush said that? ¿Heb?

  32. 32.

    Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey

    April 30, 2015 at 10:01 pm

    When white people do it, it’s “standing up to tyranny.” When black people do it, it’s “rioting”.

    All of my fellow white kids from the suburbs on the ‘book are talking about how Martin Luther King never threw a brick. It is taking all my self-restraint to not reply, “and he was shot anyway.”

    They’re also saying that maybe you wouldn’t get shot if you weren’t a criminal. It’s also taking my restraint not to reply, “since when is selling loosies on a street corner a capital crime? Since when is ‘looking suspicious’ a capital crime?” Half of them claim to be fucking libertarians, but have zero problems with cops shooting people dead “just because”.

    “What if the guy he shot was a killer?”

    What if he wasn’t? What if he’s just some dumb kid who doesn’t want to get caught with a joint in his pocket?

    I don’t have to be black to see the problem in 30 foot tall neon green letters.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 30, 2015 at 10:16 pm

    John, I think you, me, and every BJ vet has been informed about race in America by working with African-Americans under the most trying conditions imaginable. And so few Americans benefit from that experience now. Similar to Showalter’s position, and his comments.

    We have a perspective that a lot of our peers do not, and I think it’s important we share it as much as we can, as Showalter has. Hopefully, some of it will percolate out. But in the last few days, I’ve seen how limited that can be. Part of it is due to my own anger issues about race, and how that impairs my ability to communicate effectively, especially in chat formats. I can’t cram enough information in to a few words to express my thoughts so they’re understood. Instead, we fall back to the usual tropes, and attempts to break through are rebuffed because some people are so wed to stereotypes that they don’t even realize it, if they’re even capable of such reflection.

    It’s frustrating, its taxing, it’s hard work to communicate like this.

    But we have to try.

  34. 34.

    Woodrow/Asim

    April 30, 2015 at 10:21 pm

    @Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey: This is a direct MLK quote on rioting you can throw at them next time:

    First, is the guilt for riots exclusively that of Negroes? […] for a perceptive and vivid expression of culpability I would like to submit two sentences that many of you have probably heard me quote before from the pen of Victor Hugo. “If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin but he who causes the darkness.” The policy-makers of the white society have caused the darkness. It was they who created the frustrating slums. They perpetuate unemployment and poverty and oppression. Perhaps it is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but these are essentially derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

    When asking Negroes to abide by the law let us also declare that the white man does not abide by the law. Day in and day out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments. He flagrantly violates building codes and housing regulations. His police forces are the ultimate mockery of law. He violates laws on equal employment and education. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society. Negroes live in them, but they do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison.

    —-From A New Sense of Direction (1968) by Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.

  35. 35.

    Renie

    April 30, 2015 at 10:25 pm

    @ravenI have the dvd set of that show. It was great!!

  36. 36.

    muddy

    April 30, 2015 at 10:26 pm

    @Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey:

    It is taking all my self-restraint to not reply, “and he was shot anyway.”

    I don’t know why you would restrain yourself? It ought to be said. It’s not only true and to the point, but it’s a snappy enough comeback that it doesn’t even sound judgy (putting the poor dears backs up).

  37. 37.

    Aleta

    April 30, 2015 at 10:41 pm

    @Renie:
    Just getting around to reading this now. Not finished, but thanks so much for bringing it up. No adequate words for the contagious disease we have let spread, but I feel sick as hell.

  38. 38.

    AxelFoley

    May 1, 2015 at 1:44 am

    @Steve from Antioch:

    You have never been white, OK, so slow down a little bit.

    You have never been a cop, OK, so slow down a little bit.

    You have always been an asshole, OK, so why quit now?

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