Blog | Myrtle Beach reader to Issac Bailey: Of course whites stereotype black people - because blacks forced them to
Related: President Obama to hold multiple Ferguson meetings.
I’ve received a good bit of response from readers in the Myrtle Beach area, and beyond, to this piece:
Without comment, here is a sampling:
Issac,
I enjoyed reading your article today, some of it I agreed with and some of it I disagreed with. Like you, I was born and bred in South Carolina, specifically on a tobacco farm in Georgetown County. also, like you, I care about what happens to all people, no matter their color. I have seen race relationships between whites and blacks change dramatically in South Carolina in my lifetime, which is a good thing.
I am truly sorry that Michael Brown is dead and was killed by a white police officer. I do feel if the police officer was black, the result would have had the same outcome. What concerns me most, is not police officers having to shoot either black or white people but the staggering rate that young black men are killing each (black on black crime) . I heard a statistic on the news this week that 93% of young black who are murdered are murdered by other young black men. That broke my heart.
You asked in your article if we care and how do we change. Yes I carer, but have no idea how to change it. I do have this one observation though. When a man like Bill Cosby, who spoke out against the young black thugs for their behavior a few years ago and then got criticized by people like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, it just makes me wonder who the black community should really be listening to., race baiters or people like you who for the most part have great thoughts and ideas.
I appreciate you reaching out to young black men in our community. Thank you for your efforts.
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I am the Caucasian guy who sent a note to you several months ago about my experiences in the 1960s in Tennessee after spending my first twenty years in Ohio. You published it in one of your columns. I respectfully disagree with a few of your comments in this piece. I firmly believe that Caucasians have a strong distaste for criminal activity regardless of racial background. Personally, had an African-American police officer shot a Caucasian criminal when feeling threatened, I have no problem with the officer protecting himself. I believe that most Caucasians are perplexed by situations in which many African-Americans defend others who perpetrate crimes. Until young African-Americans are encouraged, maybe required, to value education and the acquisition of employable skills over gangster music and gang activity, and a disappointing number of Caucasian youngsters try to emulate them, we are all witnessing a deterioration in our society. I blame the media for encouraging a chasm between the races that ultimately negates genuine discussions and meaningful solutions to criminal activity, professional policing of all neighborhoods, employable life skills acquisition, and an opportunity for all young people to become solid, productive citizens. An overlooked issue amidst the criminal chaos is the stress that all police officers endure, regardless of race. They are under great pressure daily, and occasionally their response is overdone. However, this stress does not condone unnecessary force. Perhaps officers need more time off to relax away from their daily job requirements. I also firmly believe that officers who walk or bicycle through neighborhoods and converse with everyday citizens would be helpful. Until genuine discussions and useful solutions are found, the chasm between races regarding crime and police response will fester. Personally, if an African-American officer patrolled my mostly Caucasian neighborhood, I would welcome his presence and ask what I could do to assist him. I believe that many Caucasian officers feel an uneasiness in African-American neighborhoods because they believe they are disliked because of their skin color. As stated earlier, until we all come together for genuine discussion and solutions, all of us suffer a societal deterioration, much of it based on erroneous perceptions that engender a growing problem.
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Related: Will Ferguson change policing and race relations?
It was during the Olympic boxing trials, leading up to the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal. I was a big fan of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports”, not a big fan of boxing. But on this particular Saturday afternoon, I sat in the living room in the company of my mother watching the next crop of U.S. Olympic boxers try to make it to a spot on the Olympic team.
This was the year that Leon and Michael Spinks and Sugar Ray Leonard made it onto the team representing the United States. But in the trials, there were many boxers whose names were completely unknown to me. During one match, the boxers were introduced and began their fight. I had never heard of either of them, and truthfully do not remember their names. This was an early round, and even if I searched for them today I don’t know that I would find out who they were.
I only know that they had names that sounded Hispanic. I will now, for lack of knowing their names, call them Sanchez and Rodriguez. I watched them both very carefully, studying them, trying to find some distinguishing characteristic by which I could tell them apart as they fought.
They had the same color boxing shorts. They had the same color shoes. They had the same socks.... Oh, but wait, one fellow’s socks were white with three colored stripes at the top. The other fellow’s socks were white with TWO colored stripes at the top.
I turned to my mother and declared, “I know who is who. Sanchez is the one with the three stripes on his socks.” I’ll not forget the look my mother gave me. I said, “What?”
She said very slowly and carefully, “Cathy, Sanchez is white; Rodriguez is black.” I looked back at the TV screen. Oh my, I thought. I didn’t see that. How did I not see that? All the while I was studying these two men to see what was different, I never noted the color of their skin. I believe that this was a result of having come of age in the 1960s. I watched the evening news every day and saw the reports of riots in Watts and Detroit. I remember feeling apart from it, and angry about the wanton destruction. It seemed like riots were just a thing that inner cities experienced each summer, without reason. I read Life magazine every week as soon as it arrived at my home. I recall seeing a photo on the cover of a dead black boy in the street, killed during one of the riots. I did not feel pity.
But one summer, the university near my home offered some one day seminars and I signed up for the one about race relations. That led to me and my mother visiting a camp dedicated to building bridges between teenagers from a variety of different backgrounds. The day was spectacular, as summer days in southern New Hampshire have a habit of being. I left the camp that afternoon and we had a silent ride home through the countryside. Arriving home, I saw the same Life magazine lying on the end table. This time when I picked it up and looked at the dead black boy, I wept.
I was thirteen when Dr. Martin Luther King gave his wonderful speech in Washington DC. I was seventeen when he died. I followed the presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy closely. I had great hope for him, feeling that he would be a leader the country needed. I was eighteen when he died. Eight years later, having graduated from college and working, I couldn’t see the difference between a white boxer and a black boxer. It was puzzling to me to see as the years went by how our culture stopped seeing people as individuals and began identifying them by what group they belonged to. I recall having conversations with my boss at work about this trend. Working in university administration, we were on the front lines of this phenomenon. I remember saying things like, “human beings are not members of a hive.” And making a point that if two kids on a playground argue about whose turn it is, it’s just a normal, natural playground squabble, unless one kid is black and the other kid is white. Then it’s a ‘racial incident.’ Fast forward through the intervening decades. Now, it seems to be generally accepted that groups have rights, and an individual’s rights are solely dependent on which group he or she belongs to. There are even “specially protected” groups, defined, as I understand it, as groups who have experienced discrimination in the past. Affirmative Action takes into account the racial and ethnic background of applicants to college and employment and in some well-documented cases, provides an advantage over equally or more qualified members of a different group. Minorities, homosexuals, transgendered people, et al, have special protections under the law. Hey, whatever happened to “equal protection” under the law? So it surprises me to read a column entitled “Why do a few bad people reflect all blacks?” (The Sun News, November 30, 2014) by Issac J. Bailey. I’ll tell you. For decades now, you have been requiring American society and culture to see you as one entity. Individual misdeeds cannot be judged as belonging solely to the individuals performing them because you have required us to see those individuals only as members of a group. On the flip side, you have required us to give individuals credit for belonging to a particular disadvantaged group when those individuals sought admission to college or sought employment, etc. Why would we now, after having been trained to see all the members of a group as one, think that the misdeeds of a few do not reflect the many? How do you think we can come to that conclusion, given what you have been telling us for the past thirty, forty years? Do you mean to say that you now want us to judge the actions, good or bad, the talents, great or small, and the potential of individuals based solely on them as individuals, and not as members of the group? You’re way too late. You cannot disassociate yourself from the actions in Ferguson. Don’t blame us for seeing you as a member of that group. You’ve been working toward this for a long time. You long ago left behind the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, who dreamed of an America where an individual would be judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. You preferred to reap the harvest of using skin color to get an edge when it suited you. Don’t think you can now claim to want to be seen as an individual, and not as a member of the group burning businesses down.
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You used the word "WHY" over and over in your article today. One of your queries caught my attention when you asked, "Why aren't they more curious about the origins..............?"
Take a piece of paper and with a magic marker, draw a big fat "M" in the middle of the paper and set it between us on a table top. When I ask you what you see you undoubtedly will say, "I see a "W""
Let's place two more people on our left and right, one a Jew and another an Arab Muslim. The Jew would say, "Well I see only a "3" and the Muslim will counter with, "You're all crazy......it's an "E"!
Try sitting in all four chairs and view the same thing from four different perspectives. That's called enlightening. That's called education. But it also entails "changing your viewpoints!" Oh no....not that!
But you...... you make your living being myopic and expounding only one point of view. It's not to your advantage to question too strongly. Jack Nicholson's "You can't handle the truth," comes to mind here.
So quit asking the "why" question........no non black takes you seriously and it's just appears disingenuous.
The truth is that oil and water do not mix. God knew what he/she was doing when he/she separated the races by oceans. It's a chemical law of nature, not open to change. You can emulsify by placing blacks in a white majority culture (USA) or by placing whites in a predominantly black population (Sudan) but you will never "MIX" them because there are certain laws of nature that are FIXED and UNCHANGABLE.
To prove a point, take a saucer of water, sprinkle salt and pepper on the water, add one drop of dish detergent (representing a job application) to the edge of the water.
It "is" what it "is!"
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Mr. Bailey, I read and enjoy your columns each Sunday. I am a married 56 year old white male with two children. I grew up in Spartanburg. I have also lived in Columbia, Raleigh and Atlanta. I was general counsel of Progress Energy Carolinas when Duke Energy bought the parent company of Progress Energy Carolinas in 2012. I accepted a severance package and retired. My wife and I then moved to North Myrtle Beach. We have vacationed in North Myrtle Beach all of our lives. Attached is an article I wrote in August of this year about the Ferguson, Missouri tragedy. It was published in FITSNews.
The reason I am writing to you is to attempt to answer the questions you posed in today’s editorial. But first please allow me to provide some context for my response.
I have been threatened with a knife twice in my life. Both times by young black males. I have had my car stolen by young black males. When my son was twelve years old he was threatened with a knife and robbed by young black males on the sidewalk in front of his school as he started to walk home. Ironically, the next day a male black school mate offered him a knife to protect himself on the walk home.
Neither myself nor any members of my family have had any such incidents with whites.
A few years back I ventured too close to Atlantic Beach during Bike Fest week. I saw practically naked women being fondled in broad daylight. I have heard young black people (male and female) loudly saying “MF this” and “MF that” too many times to recall in public places such as Walmart. I have also seen far too many young black men walking around with their pants down to their knees. Again, I have not witnessed this behavior from whites. To be fair, several years ago I attended a college basketball game. There were several students behind my wife and I and the other couple with us. The students had been drinking and their language became profane. I told them to shut up or leave. One of them said “I have not been reprimanded in ten years.” I told him if he didn’t shut up I was going to give him a good beating. My point is, I took action to stop the behavior.
When I watched the non-stop CNN coverage of the Michael Brown tragedy, I saw a large young black man (Michael Brown) manhandling the convenience store clerk where he stole the cigars. I saw young black people looting and setting fire to stores.
At the end of your column you ask: when am I going to question “my people”? Apparently the question I am to ask “my people” is: what are “my people” going to do about “racial disparities and the structural problems plaguing this country…” If one of the racial disparities to which you are referring is law enforcement’s attitude towards young black males, from my perspective they have brought this upon themselves by their behavior. (I am talking about an attitude that assumes as my grandmother used to say “they are up to no good.”) As I state in the attached article, many young black males exude disdain and disrespect for whites and law enforcement. If they want respect pull up their pants, watch their language in public, take off their hoods, and show some respect. I have spent at least the last 14 years down here for Bike Fest and all I see is disrespect.
Having said that “my” people and all people need to force law enforcement and the district attorneys to respect the US Constitution and the Civil Rights Act. The New York City “stop and frisk” policy was clearly unconstitutional and was rightfully stopped. “My people” need to be vigilant and aggressive in stopping these abuses. “Your people” need to change their behavior so “my people” will have more sympathy for them when their rights are violated.
Finally, with regard to the educational and employment racial disparities, yes, we all need to work together to encourage young black people to attend school, try hard, study and do all they can to get a good education. We all need to properly fund all schools so a good education is available to every child. We need to enforce the laws that prohibit racial discrimination in the work place.
Let me leave you with two more stories. First, my son is in college. He has a part time job working the front desk for a business. Last week a black employee called the main office. My son took the call. The caller said: I am quitting my job because I am now making too much money and I am going to lose some of my government benefits.” A couple of years ago when my daughter was in college her professor asked the question: If you are unemployed then the economic answer to the question should I take a job paying minimum wage if that is all I can get is obviously “yes”. “Any money is better than no money.” The only black person in the class raised her hand and said she disagreed. The proper analysis she said is to compare the wages from working and earning minimum wage to unemployment benefits.
The incidents I describe I am sure were perpetrated by a small minority of young black people. However, they are the basis for legitimate stereotypes. If you want to eliminate the stereotype you need to eliminate the behavior upon which it is based.
We all want things to change. To do that “your people’s” attitude and behavior must change.
This story was originally published December 1, 2014 at 10:41 AM with the headline "Blog | Myrtle Beach reader to Issac Bailey: Of course whites stereotype black people - because blacks forced them to."