Why White People Tend to Pout, Part 2
March 8, 2009 by dwil
And you thought images like this could only be used to depict Barack Obama - guess again.
Too many white people think black people come from a different values system – as if we are not really Americans – and that allows them to think what they like about us and then make those thoughts come to fruition. It is a blindness that, in 2009, is inexcusable. That combined with a proliferation of powerful people who matriculated from the University of Chicago’s general School of Racism.
You see, Chicago is the Midwest’s Yale – it spawned George Bush - while Northwestern University is the same region’s Harvard – which produced B
arack Obama. What is odd is that U. of Chi-town is located smack in the middle of the South Side of the city (well, the Hyde Park part), the South Side part that raised up Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry – oh, and that fellow, Malcolm X. Meantime Northwestern is just north of the city in nice, 65% white Evanston.
On second thought, maybe it isn’t so odd, after all. When professors like Leo Strauss, known as the father of the neo-conservative movement that produced most of the people who constituted both Bush administrations, looked around, they saw a fertile ground for experimentation and for observing all they preternaturally hated about black people. When UC professors like Allan Bloom, who was Strauss’ literary equivalent, navigated their way to and from professing assignments, all that color must have assaulted their lily-white sensibilities.
In Evanston, life is slower, whiter, more liberal than the intensely diverse neighborhoods around UC. The students there are not bothered by the thought of getting jacked if they walk too far off campus – hell on campus, if you’re not careful at UC. If you’re a Wildcat you can dream and chill. You have the time to find the silver lining behind the dark clouds.
In anthropology circles it is widely felt that people who are poor or who are immigrants and rise to college and beyond are more often than not conservatives. They had to scuffle to make it and value every penny. On the other hand, people who grew up with money and time to dream are more often liberals.
And if you believe those absolute statements I have a Los Angeles rental in one of Donald Sterling’s apartment buildings for you.
And maybe that’s why Michael Wilbon, a Northwestern grad and acclaimed Washington Post sports columnist who was raised in the South Side, has become so curmudgeonly as time goes by.
But these U of Chi-town fellows and their philosophies of white-might-and-right have Americans twisted up in a fine mess, despite the fact that we have a Black man in the Oval Office and his Black daughters have a fine, new playscape on the Oval Office lawn, and his Black wife is officially called, “First Lady.”
These white men and their vexation about black people and their pervasive attitudes and philosophies can be held directly responsible for Mr. Barack Obama’s residing in the White House.
The NBA Commissioner, David Stern, took their teachings to heart and even hired one of them – Matthew Dowd – to help him keep Black NBA players from influencing young White boys and set a good example for young black boys. Stern instituted a dress code where no jeans or tee shirts or baseball caps could be worn to or from the basketball arena, or to any NBA function. Though no Black player dared to break that rule, White ballers like Steve Nash, his “bromance” buddy, Dirk Novitzki, and self-described country boy, Brad Miller, were seen in all manner of comparative disrepair as they entered locker rooms before games.
Stern even considered deriving a list of establishments NBA players were to avoid when in a city housing an NBA team (and he still might have passed one around privately). Those establishments included nightclubs, stripclubs, and the like – you know, places only black men visit – at least so Dowd informed Stern.
In Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s people noticed that no young Black boys played baseball in the “projects” – if they could actually find a park there. Selig also noticed fewer and fewer Black people attended baseball stadiums to watch games.
Bud was so concerned about the dwindling visage of dark skin in MLB, he began an initiative to bring more color to the game.
To do so he turned his back on Latin American hustlers and their American counterparts and allowed young Latin players to be sold on the cheap to MLB teams. And to make the task of infusing dark skin into the MLB ranks, Selig turned a blind eye to team executives skimming contract dollars from those same Latin players who had previously toiled for almost nothing in the minors.
Selig then found enough empathy in his heart to turn his back on the steroids issue in Latin countries despite watching a juiced-up Sammy Sosa sweat like a fat man in a sauna while he chased Mark “Paul Bunyan” McGwire for the home run record in 1998 and then watch Sosa look like he was either going to burst or sweat himself into a state of acute dehydration during 2002 All-Star Game Home Run Derby, Then again Sosa was defeated by the overly-pimpled and sweat-greasy Jason Giambi – but Giambi is White and Italian, so he doesn’t count.
Roger Goodell, a new comer compared to old hands Stern and Selig, hit the ground running when he replaced Paul Tagliabue as NFL Commissioner. Goodell was so interested in solving what he saw as the problem of Black self-hate, that he went about suspending every Black NFL player who received more than one speeding ticket or who was charged with any series of misdemeanor offense – whether the athlete was found to be guilty or not.
And Goodell ensured America got the message that he was on the job to help Black people become more self-assured. Every White player who ran afoul of the law and received a suspension had his penalty either reduced or the decision prolonged until his name and offense no longer carried interest in the local or national sporting press.
Goodell’s empathy was not just noticed but matched by general managers and head coaches. Black quarterbacks all but disappeared as starters in the league. By the end of the 2008-09 season, only two black men were starters at the position. The myriad other QBs were either made backups, made to switch position, or suddenly left without a job.
Not to be outdone by the professionals, Myles Brand’s NCAA eagerly expressed his concern for the black, male community by beginning the first comprehensive investigative committee looking into recruiting violations in NCAA Basketball. Brand, perusing the NCAA landscape realized that of all NCAA sports, basketball is the one with the most Black, male participants. He saw that Black men, who were AAU coaches or fathers, or physical trainers, were becoming assistant coaches for major basketball programs at an alarming rate. Brand, growing tired of Black reliance on basketball as a predominant way to earn a well-paying living, lobbied for the forming of a committee to look into stemming the influx of these Black men who might unduly influence college Black student-athletes.
Clearly, what universities need are more Black doctors, lawyers, and professors matriculating from their ranks, and they will not be able to rely on Brand’s NCAA for any help in the matter.
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So, the influence of the University of Chicago crew of high thinkers has stamped their mark, on sports as well as politics. The thinkers at the South Side university finally have sporting America on their side, having pushed a Black man into the White House and pushed both professional and collegiate sports to adhere to their philosophies.
It’s a beautiful day In America.
By the way, does Chicago U. have a nickname, like the Wolverines, or the Badgers, or some other animal that used to roam the Northern Midwestern prairies? Maybe they are the “Platos” or the Real Big Aristiotles.”
They must despise Shaquille O’Neal for stealing their thunder.
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You’ll love this one from the NCAA: Virginia Commonwealth University’s AD has airbrushed the tattoos of the program’s star basketball player, Eric Maynor, from the team’s program/media guide.
Let me get this straight.
1) Other than having two pretty high profile coaches come through your mid-major the last two hires (Jeff Capel and then Anthony Grant,) your program is irrelevant. Don’t you owe it to Eric Maynor to chose to present himself in the way he prefers?
2) If VCU makes the tournament, doesn’t Eric Maynor have a GREAT DEAL to do with that and doesn’t the school owe him the common decency of not air-brushing the truth?
3) If you’re VCU and winning at a pretty good clip, getting good pub (particularly with UVa and Virginia Tech not exactly recreating the Duke/UNC rivalry in-state,) shouldn’t you rake the chips off the table, thank Maynor for doing a good job and STFU?
Interesting write-up! LOL @Wilbon the Curmudgeon…
Phil-
,,,,Just another reason for white people to pout…. their concern for our welfare – and, therefore, the burden they must carry – knows no end.
good post dwil. i’m glad someone is calling out u. of chicago and all the damaging ideas that have come out of that place. it is telling they honored milton friedman with that building recently.
nicole-
Ahhhhh shit! I totally forgot about Milton. Oh well, glad you mentioned him. I have been thinking about some of the roots of this – middle 20th to now furtherance of Western dominance through white, male-dominated Western philosophy – activity, and this piece and “Everything…. for Now” are the results of my ruminating….
the ruminating is definitely on point.
you have always been on some deep ish, and taking it to another level of late. the vigilance and deep thought is much appreciated.
speaking of Milton Friedman his ideas are about as responsible for America’s economic meltdown as anybody else
MODI-
I’m not sure I follow you…. explain please. Friedman, along with his cohorts from UC, Strauss and Bloom, is very responsible for today’s philosophy and our present economic condition.
There is a “downturn” in the economy. Huge conglomerates and corps.like Wal-Mart, Home Despot, errr, Depot and the like charge less for their items than local stores selling similar items. The populace has less $$$$$ and is feels forced to buy from the huge corps. The corps., as a result, make more $$$$$. Mom-and-Pop stores go out of business. With their loss, there is even less $$$$ to go around, which means more people buying from the corps.
And the corps. and conglomerates go around the world following this model, chewing up local economies by “acting locally but thinking globally.”…. and Friedman is responsible for part of that way……………….
dwil,
I think that we completely agree here, and that my last sentence was just really poorly constructed. Friedman is the thinker behind trickle-down Reaganomics. In the mid-1980′s there were only 11 billionaires in America. The reagan deregulated everything and now there are like 700 or something like that.
As you full well know, shit trickled up — not down. CEO salaries are also a prime example. Amongst other things, Friedman underestimated the power of greed.
MODI-
Ahhh, I got it….
Yo! Matt Jones was arrested on a drug related charge and he failed a drug test back in Feb. Think he will be suspended for the year?
That’s just the way that John D. Rockefeller wanted it.
T3-
This is true….
Milton Friedman was a libertarian who didn’t trust government to do a good job in much of anything. “I expected so much out of the Reagan administration and was disappointed.”
Yes, that translates into deregulation. Do you favor a strong central government to be the arbiter of “good” versus free markets, MODI? Not a strong history of that – anywhere, anytime in the human condition thus far, sadly.
He fought against military conscription, stating that the draft was “inconsistent with a free society”.
He supported decriminalization of drugs & prostitution as far less damaging than the current “wars” against them.
He pushed hard for balanced budgets & a flat tax rate as transparent systems with little friction or bias that would keep us living within our means & eliminate tax havens for the super-rich who can afford the best accountants and lawyers, while simultaneously reducing the power & number of lobbyists.
He was an advocate for a negative income tax to replace the current welfare system.
Your point on Friedman underestimating the power of greed is on-point, though. Most economists think simply by recognizing that greed exists and is a significant variable in the Big Equation of Life, that they have sufficiently accounted for greed. They’re usually wrong, as anyone who studies socialism, the 100-year old “War on Drugs”, the pork-tastic stimulus package or the derivatives market knows all too keenly. =(
friedman did have a lot of libertarian ideas – he didn’t not believe in licenses for medical professionals for example.
but in many ways he wanted markets to replace government institutions (which is just another institution in charge) – and while i agree with you proposition joe that government instititions have been disapointing on many levels, i trust the markets far, far less. friedman thought competitive capitalism would ensure economic freedom and political freedom. this was the argument of some like wolfowitz (guess where he got his phd) adavnced for invading other countries.
PJ,
I don’t consider myself a strict ideologue in any one direction, but rather to have sensible regulations on the private sector that could have avoided the runaway greed train.
The 40 fold increase in CEO salaries despite stagnant wages over the last 30 years was unethical, even if not illegal. yet the public either didn’t know, or didn’t find it unethical. This to me, speaks to a much larger cultural lack of values in American culture.
I certainly agree with Friedman on decriminalization of drugs, but I find strict civil libertarians to be pretty dangerous because their ideas are often based on ironclad principles and protection of the individual and not real-world application to the many. In my experience, the strictest of civil libertarians are usually economically well-off, and will not have to personally suffer the consequences for the downside of their principles.
I think that we can all agree that free market capitalism in its purest form is something that no American really wants except for the 10 people who would run the world. So instead of the labels that permeate politics, the question is only how much regulation is necessary.
The problem with Goodell is that he thinks his position is stronger, bigger, better than the law. Punishments that go beyond what society has ordered.
Punishments that do not let me, the sports consumer, decide for myself if I am going to continue to support (and watch) a player who might have gotten into trouble. Because he knows what is best for the fans.
While it sucks to see a learning institution (and it’s largely white collection of professors, coaches, administration, etc.) practice racist sports management, frankly, I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t expect much from an institution that reveres Milton Friedman–a man who believes that the free market will fix racism on its own due to the excessive business costs posed by discrimination. This economic viewpoint all but ignores the social and historical ties that keep white racism alive and well despite so-called opposing “market forces.” If UC can ignore the racist implications of Friedman’s theories, then it makes sense that they could also “overlook” the discriminatory aspects of their athletic programs and policies. They should really know better. I expect more from any institution—especially one that claims to better the minds of young people.