White and Wrong in Philly

By Selwyn Duke

When your article inspires a big-city mayor to refer your
case to a "human-relations commission," you know you've hit a nerve.
And when that article is the recent "Being White in Philly" piece by liberal
Robert Huber, you know it doesn't take much truth to hit that nerve.

That's the scary part. Huber's article contains mostly tepid
examples of whites' negative experiences with blacks and primarily black
neighborhoods, such as a Philadelphia resident whose grill was stolen from her
backyard but "blames herself" for not fencing it in. Its tone is
basically apologetic, absolving a drug dealer of responsibility because he was
just "trying to get by" and describing the US' racial history as
"horrible and daunting." Yet this wasn't good enough for Philadelphia
mayor Michael Nutter and his comrades. They still want Huber silenced.

Oh, they won't get what they want…at least not exactly and
not yet. But, nonetheless, writes
Philly.com, "In a scathing letter, Mayor Nutter last week requested that
the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission consider whether the magazine and
Huber deserved to be rebuked for the article." Why is this significant?
Well, when we hear about Englishmen, Canadians, Australians, Swedes, or other
Westerners being imprisoned or fined for criticizing Islam or homosexuality — yes,
this does happen — guess what the instruments of their oppression are.

Human-relations commissions.

Of course, they're usually called "human-rights"
commissions, and the entities that actually judge those charged with "hate
speech" are called "tribunals." And they have proliferated in
the West. You can bet your state has one, and your county may, too. But, no,
you won't be silenced by them — at least not exactly and not yet. We have that
pesky thing called the First Amendment (for now).

But Huber certainly was rebuked. In a Monday panel
discussion moderated by the editor of his Philadelphia Magazine, Tom
McGrath, he was criticized by what appear to be promising future human-rights-tribunal
judges. Fellow journalist Solomon Jones scored the publication for having a
"history of racial insensitivity," while People's Emergency Center
president Farah Jimenez said that the "[m]agazine, which has an all-white
editorial staff, was not the right 'messenger' for a story encouraging racial
dialogue," writes
Philly.com. I wonder, does anyone ever say that the all-black NAACP or
Congressional Black Caucus is the wrong agent of racial dialogue? Huber's goal
was to bring white people's feelings and beliefs on race to light, and for this
white people may be the ideal messengers.

Critics at the discussion even questioned whether the
individuals cited only by first name (or pseudonym) in the article were real. I
suppose they wanted full names, addresses, and telephone numbers, which surely
would have encouraged honesty in racial dialogue. But when whites are portrayed
in history as slave owners and oppressors, or when blacks charge discrimination
today, do the powers-that-be question whether the stories are true? Why, there
wasn't even the necessary skepticism in the Duke Lacrosse rape frame-up case.
Of course, though, why even ask? White privilege ensures that whites never,
ever have bad experiences with black people.

Not surprisingly, the magazine and its "defenders"
responded to the lynch mob with deference. McGrath opened the discussion with
an apology, and journalist Christopher Norris said, writes Philly.com,
"that he understood the outrage over the article, but simply viewed the
piece as the work of an older white man writing about his experience."
Yes, and Nutter's actions are simply the outrage of an older black man airing his
complaints. Jimenez' comments are simply a middle-aged Hispanic woman
expressing her feelings. How did that sound? Should we try to discover truth or
just dismiss messengers based on race?

Having said all this, Huber gets no sympathy from me. He
says in his piece that white people are stuck being "dishonest by
default" on race and that "[w]e need to bridge the conversational
divide so that there are no longer two private dialogues in Philadelphia —
white people talking to other whites, and black people to blacks — but a city
in which it is okay to speak openly about race." Yet his expressed desire
for open conversation rings hollow. When John Derbyshire was fired
from National Review for speaking openly about race, or Rush Limbaugh
lost his position as an NFL commentator for saying far less, did Huber defend
them? Did he even defend their comments as part of that initiation of racial
dialogue? I suspect that he was happy to see a political opponent twist in the
wind. But if Huber now wants to have that conversation on race, okay, let's
have it.

At the beginning of his piece, Huber speaks of a young woman
he calls Susan and writes:

She lost her BlackBerry in a
biology lab at Villanova and Facebooked all the class members she could find,
"wondering if you happened to pick it up or know who did." No one had
it. There was one black student in the class, whom I'll call Carol, who
responded: "Why would I just happen to pick up a BlackBerry and if this is
a personal message I'm offended!"

Huber explains that Carol assumed Susan targeted her because
she was black and for a long time thereafter gave Susan the cold shoulder. Here
is what Huber didn't have the guts to say: such paranoia is the result
anti-white bigotry. It's just as when a person is irretrievably biased against
someone in his personal life and then sees the individual through colored
glasses. Every innocent misstep is then interpreted as a malicious act:
"Why, that's just the kind of thing he would do!" is the
thinking. With whites, they're always "racist" because that's just
the way they are.

And this has consequences. It's easy to justify hatred of
and discrimination against people whom you believe are inherently biased
against you, and whites suffer as a result of this phenomenon all the time. Oh,
Huber won't talk about this, and it is why, if you want the truth, forget his
article. Read the comments under it. For while the anonymity of the Internet
enables some ugly talk, it also encourages expression of some ugly truths.

Just about a year ago I investigated
a racially motivated fire attack on a 13-year-old Missouri boy named Allen
Coon, who was one of fewer than 20 white children attending East High school in
Kansas City. During the course of extensive interviews with parents and
students, I learned that Coon and other white children had been subjected to
severe racial harassment not just by classmates, but also teachers. One teacher
called the tow-headed Allen "Casper" and encouraged other students to
participate in the teasing; other times students would initiate the harassment
and the teachers would chime in. I also spoke with two sisters, ex-Texans, who
were verbally attacked in front of their class by a teacher who said,
"Everybody from Texas is ignorant rednecks" and that all white people
were responsible for a 1998 attack upon a black man in Jasper, TX (the James
Byrd killing) because "[their] skin is white."

And similar ugly truths are revealed in "Being White in
Philly's" comments section. There's the white poster who said that in
fifth grade in his primarily black school, the teacher would purposely ask him
questions too difficult for his grade level and then, when he couldn't answer,
make him stand in front of the class wearing a sign reading "White
Dunce." And here are a few other examples (edited for punctuation and
grammar), with respondents identified by screen name:

White kid in blackgradeschool

I was targeted daily throughout my
childhood because of my race — that was made explicitly clear (verbally). Even
teachers in my school were unsympathetic and would look the other way. And the
manner in which race was spoken about in an all black school really inflamed
students to the point where everything done to me was completely justified in
their minds because, as a white person, I was finally getting mine, and some of
the teachers I know felt that way too.

Under the bus

I couldn't open my mouth in class
without half of the kids shouting "Shut-up, white boy," or many
similar things. … [T]he majority of my teachers just looked the other way,
and many, though not all, black teachers seemed to support it.

SaraEdward45

The demographics at my daughter's
school suddenly changed one year with black children becoming the majority, and
she became a target.

Xena

I attended a small elementary
school in Georgia. …I was bullied daily by black kids. Several loudly
expressed that they hated white kids, yet could not articulate WHY.

JenB

[T]here was the black librarian who
joined in with the [black students'] bullying. I had never experienced a
teacher who was openly hostile to the white students. …I had to sit there
surrounded by the librarian's favorite black bullies, while she bullied as
well.

Of course, we'll now be told that these testimonials are
invalid because, well, you know, these might not even be real people. It's
always nice to have full names so that those who dare speak truth can be
scorned, ostracized, condemned, and fired from employment. As SaraEdward45 put
it, "No one wants to [air these problems] out loud because you are
automatically labeled as a racist and your experience is invalidated, leaving
you to feel bullied once more."

But, hey, it's great that we're having this conversation.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

recent posts

about