"Ghetto Fabulous" Parties: the New Face of White Supremacy

From CounterPunch, my favorite journalism professor, UT's Robert Jensen, on the administrative reaction to a racist party thrown by some University of Texas law students:

Racist, sexist, and heterosexist images and words are a problem not merely because they offend but because they help keep non-white people, women, and lesbians and gays in subordinated positions. Framing the problem of oppressive systems as a question of offensiveness often leads people to argue that the solution is for the targets of the offensive speech or actions to be less sensitive, rather than changing the oppressive system. Sager's email doesn't suggest that, but it could play into that common feeling among people in the dominant classes. We live in a world in which the legitimate concerns of non-white people about racist expression and actions are often met by white people saying, "Stop whining -- get over it." In such a world, white people trying to resist racism should be careful not to do anything that could contribute to that.

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I forget where I originally read it, but this quote has stuck with me for years: "The University of Texas has been described as both the nation's biggest white university and the nation's whitest big university." If the racial makup of the student population at Texas is approximately the same now as it was when I was an undergrad there in the late 80s and early 90s, I'd say that quote is right on. Especially when compared to what I see here at LSU. Lots of non-white faces here, but relatively very few at my old school. It seems to me that what amounts to near racial exclusivity at Texas only makes such scandals inevitable. They happened back when I was there and they're happening now. UT's really got to clean up its act.

Anyway, the excerpt above reminds me of a controversy I inadvertanly caused when I was teaching high school in Baytown. Some student, I forget who, asked me during a class discussion why it is socially acceptable for black comedians to make fun of white people but not the reverse. I laid out what I believe to be a pretty much indisputable case: there is a long history of racism in this nation, which heavily infected American entertainment, and continues to do so today. I talked about the minstrel shows. I talked about Gone with the Wind. I talked about racial stereotyping in recent films. Then I explained how there is no such history, in terms of scale, when it comes to portraying whites, and that, by and large, whites continue to be the major power holders in America. My conclusion, that it doesn't really matter if black comedians make fun of whites, but there is a great deal at stake when the tables are turned, really ruffled some feathers. White feathers, that is--my African-American students, on the other hand, totally understood what I was getting at.

I mean, some of my kids were really pissed off at me. One of them even tried to get me fired. No one who disagreed with me, unfortunately, really tried to address or understand my arguments; they just couldn't seem to get out of their limited perception of fairness: "if they can make fun of us, then we should be able to make fun of them."

What I learned when the heat had died down was that many, many white Americans have absolutely no understanding of the racial dynamics in this country. They don't really know the history, or seemingly even care to know. All they know is that racism is bad, and because they're good people they can't be racists or engage in racist behavior or thinking. At the same time, however, they appear to be mired in an "us versus them" mindset, utterly oblivious to the fact that whites continue to enjoy great privilege in America relative to people of color. The bottom line is that buttloads of white Americans just don't get it. They think racist speech is all about being offensive, which it is, but, of course, that's simply one tiny corner of the entire situation: racist speech is far more about indoctrination into and legitimizing of the racist power structure that rules the nation.

Try explaining that to a pissed off fourteen year old who claims to only want equality, which, to her, means the right to make fun of black people. Sometimes I fear we're never going to change.

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