By Courtney Anderson
When actor Daniel Radcliffe said that he had racist friends, I wasn’t surprised.
When he said that he “vehemently disagreed” with them, I was relieved.
It’s always nice to know an actor whose work you grew up with isn’t a racist.
But when he said that he remained friends with those people because he didn’t believe friendship “should be drawn on those lines,” I was disappointed and confused.
I couldn’t understand how anyone could remain friends with a racist.
How is it remotely possible for you to feel comfortable in presence of someone who deploys racial stereotypes and epithets?
How could one even think it is okay to be associated with people who actively participate in oppressing people of color through their language and actions?
It made no sense to me at all.
I can’t imagine even being able to be in the same room as a racist person, let alone feel comfortable enough with them to refer to them as a “friend.”
But then I remembered the fundamental difference between Daniel Radcliffe and I (besides the wealth, and the fame and the acting abilities).
He’s a white male, and I am a black female.
Only one of us can actually experience racism, and it isn’t him.
It seems to me that white people are able to have racist “friends” because racism does not directly impact their lives.
Black and non-black people of color cannot afford these types of “friendships,” because racism not only impacts us, but it dehumanizes and traumatizes us, as well.
This is where I have to remind people of the sociological definition of racism, wherein racism is achieved through a combination of racial prejudice and societal power.
Oftentimes, people only want to refer to the more palatable Webster dictionary definition that would place the onus on everybody in a given society to not be racist.
However, this is a society—and world, really—where the only people with societal power are white people.
White people are the only people who are not negatively affected by racial stereotypes.
While they may hurt some feelings, racial stereotypes about white people do not contribute to a societal structure that allows for discrimination in almost every aspect of life.
“Racism” against white people is just language and maybe some jokes about not seasoning food. Racism against black and brown people can literally lead to our deaths.
And since racism does not affect white people the way it affects black and brown people, they are also the only ones who can safely have “dialogue” with racist individuals.
Discussing race with a racist individual is an emotionally, mentally and spiritually taxing task for black and non-black people that often yields little to no results at all.
We are not just discussing language when we have these conversations: we are negotiating our right to have our humanity recognized and respected.
We are asking someone with societal power that we do not have to acknowledge that power.
We also ask them to acknowledge that they are using that power to oppress people when they behave in certain ways and use certain language.
We are asking to be respected, cared for and to have our experiences validated by people who have never had those experiences.
And it hardly ever works.
All these conversations really do is waste our time and energy.
White people have the privilege of not having their humanity on the line when they have to pull their racist friend to the side and request that they stop being so racist.
White people who actually believe in racial equality should be challenging themselves to stop calling racist people “friends” and put forth the effort to educate them on why their racism can’t fly.
They should also stop putting the onus of education on black and brown people all the time.
We really don’t have time for all that, anymore.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Elen Nivrae/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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The Day The Bough Should Break
Cover Photo: The podium collapsing after Trump’s birther statement at the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C.
This morning, Donald Trump lied to the American people in front of a group of Medal of Honor recipients.
His lie was more insidious than his usual boasts and brags about his penis size and net-worth.
After hijacking cable news attention for over 30 minutes, having promised a press conference in which he would address his longhand belief that President Obama was not born in the United States, Trump said 67 words on the matter.
“Now not to mention her in the same breath but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean. President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making American strong and great again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you every, thank you.”
None of what he said is true and it needs to matter.
Hillary Clinton never personally mentioned the birther issue on the campaign trail. Her campaign never officially mentioned the birther issue on the campaign trail either.
Even Fox News says Hillary Clinton didn’t start the birther movement.
— Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) September 16, 2016
Yes, some of her supporters did float the idea that Obama was not really from middle-America and may have been born in another part of the world.
But Trump is being supported by former KKK Imperial Wizard David Duke, so what are we are really talking about here?
Donald Trump did not “finish” the controversy. There never was a legitimate controversy.
President Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to a woman who lived most of her early life in Kansas.
He is as much as an American citizen as any other, including Donald Trump.
Donald Trump had the temerity to use military veterans as a human shield and refused to take any questions after his breathtaking series of lies at the event.
No apology. No disavowal. No regret. The absolute best the Republican presidential nominee could do was acknowledge a fact and then flee.
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) September 16, 2016
His supporters regularly use racially charged rhetoric on social media and seem to be blind in their support for him.
Asked if she is a birther: “No. If Trump says Obama was born in America he was. Whatever Trump says is true.” pic.twitter.com/pbNKzz6kCr
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) September 16, 2016
And now he wants us all to erase five years of questioning the birthplace of the twice elected President of the United States Of America with two lies.
He never even apologized for what many have seen as a racially charged attack and attempt to delegitimize the first African-American President.
With 58% of Americans now approving of the job that President Obama is doing, today could turn out to be the day in which the bough breaks for Trump’s nationalist campaign.
We should all do what we can to make sure that actually comes to pass.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Sopan Deb/ Twitter
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Hyperbole Abounds in Coverage of Oregon “Militia” Takeover
Armed.
That’s the word that every media outlet under the sun is emphasizing in their coverage of a small group of ranchers and extremists who have decided that knowingly entering and remaining upon a Federal facility (the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge) while it’s closed is a good idea. By the way, that amounts to a “petty misdemeanor” under Federal law.
Sure there is a lot of banter, and they have guns. Okay. But even if these ‘militiamen’ broke in to the building, or entered through an unlocked door, under Federal Statutes, it’s still just a burglary. Yes, it’s also unlawful to carry weapons on Federal property. Still not a violent act in and of itself.
So while it may not be a wise career move for me to dispute our Opinion Editor’s position, I’m going to, simply on the basis that what’s unfolding in the high plains desert of Oregon is in to no way terrorism.
Could it reach the threshold of terrorism? Yes. But at this point in time, this is a group of folks who perceive a long history of grievances against the Federal government, some based on the historical events within their own family – and some who simply align with the Mormon / LDS religious beliefs of the ideological leaders of this undertaking, the Bundy family.
As I’ve spoken to before, terrorism involves violent acts, or acts dangerous to human life. That again is based in Federal statutes. So where has it been reported that a single shot has been fired in this ‘armed takeover’ of this Fish and Wildlife Service facility? It hasn’t. Because it hasn’t happened.
These are dangerous people, with dangerous ideology, a grudge against the Federal Government of the United States,
The facility is in an area with a lesser population density than Wyoming, or Alaska. Even if there was a shot fired, there’s no one around for miles. How does this present an act dangerous to human life, if there’s nobody to get shot?
Yes, when Law Enforcement enters the area, the likelihood for an armed conflict rises exponentially. This is a group with which Federal law enforcement has some experience, and though these folks profess to be ‘ready to die for the cause’, the much more attended events at the Bundy Ranch were resolved peacefully.
Then again, they also weren’t occupying and refusing to leave a Federal facility in that case.
Brass tax – I am not delusional.
These are dangerous people, with dangerous ideology, a grudge against the Federal Government of the United States, and who have displayed a willingness to use violence, or the threat of violence to achieve the outcome that they desire.
The Bundy Ranch standoff is fresh in many people’s minds. But let’s not blow things out of proportion either. Yes, the headlines are flashy, and it gets people all worked up, which generates click-throughs and ratings – but at the end of the day – we have not reached the point of terrorism.
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Why Do We See Pop Culture As A Barometer For How The Country Is Doing?
Watching the Academy Awards a few weeks ago was a bit of a stressful experience.
I was obviously stressed about whether or not Emma Stone would finally win an Oscar, but the stakes were bigger than that.
From the very beginning of this awards season, the conversation was clouded by last year’s Oscar’s So White controversy, where the show’s 88th run was criticized for a lack of diversity among its nominees.
This year’s ceremony was definitely a test of the relevance and awareness of the Academy, but it represented something more.
The entire country watched this year’s Academy Awards with bated breath, with a sense the results of the ceremony said more about themselves than the actors.
Collectively, we tend to use pop culture as a barometer for how we’re doing as a country; is that really fair to either?
For the few (brief) moments La La Land was 2016’s Best Picture, I could almost see the furious typing of Buzzfeed opinion columnists, writing the think piece of the year about what La La Land’s defeat of Moonlight meant about race in America.
They appeared within minutes when Adele’s 25 beat Beyonce’s Lemonade for Album of the Year a few weeks earlier at another high-profile awards show.
It’s not an unfair criticism to make, it might even be a necessary one.
Commentary and discourse about the results of the biggest acknowledgement of excellence within the entertainment industry is what keeps it moving forward.
The problem occurs when we take it a step too far.
An interesting phenomenon has popped up in the discourse about Hollywood’s diversity: the application of that discussion for a wider purpose in the political sphere.
There looms a need to connect entertainment stories to more “important” stories, such as ones related to the political climate.
Everything that happens in the world of entertainment is played off to represent something bigger.
A perfect example of this was the inaccurate announcing of La La Land as Best Picture.
The unfortunate mistake saw Moonlight literally taking the most coveted award in the movie industry from La La Land’s hands.
The conflict between those two movies lasted all throughout awards season, and many saw it as a direct reflection of the political polarization taking place in America.
The trend of the underdog win has not gone unnoticed in the last several months, either.
From Donald Trump unexpectedly winning on election night to the Patriots’ fourth quarter comeback in the Super Bowl, many saw Moonlight as a reiteration of that same trend.
It provides an easy answer, and, in Moonlight’s case, it’s exactly the answer we want.
In a time of unprecedented political polarization, it feels good to think we can all be as accepting as Moonlight.
The reality is not that easy.
Pop culture isn’t really a direct reflection of our political climate.
In fact, it’s often the opposite.
One of the biggest reasons La La Land was so dominant this awards season was because of its sense of escapism – it was refreshing to see something so not important.
It wasn’t trying to reflect our current political climate, it wasn’t trying to teach the audience a lesson.
It was simply telling a story, which is what all pop culture really goes back to.
The age of Trump has turned everything on its head, however.
La La Land didn’t win Best Picture.
Moonlight did, and that’s whatever the opposite of what escapism is.
That detail may be indicative that people are looking for a more relevant pop culture.
Still, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s nothing more than wishful thinking.
Here’s what it comes down to: both entertainment and politics are a reflection of who we are.
Both take the struggles of real people and harness those emotions on a national stage.
There’s a fundamental difference between the two, however.
Politics is a direct reflection of who we are; politicians are elected by the people, after all.
On the other hand, entertainment is often a reflection of who we want to be.
The stories that are told, from Moonlight to La La Land and Lemonade to 25 represent where we want to be going, not necessarily where we are.
Using pop culture as a barometer is only somewhat effective.
Moonlight’s win at the Academy Awards does not mean racism in America is over, in fact it doesn’t even mean racism in Hollywood is over.
The Pop Culture Barometer as a construct is an oversimplification.
Hollywood’s failures are not America’s failures, their successes are not our successes, and vice versa.
Pop culture is a representation of everything we want to be, and it’s often a reflection of the very best of ourselves.
Using it to try to explain things like political polarization is where the comparison fails.
At the end of the day, understanding where we want to go is crucial to understanding ourselves, but it doesn’t do anything to describe where we are now.
So while it’s great to know we all want to be Emma Stone, it’s important to realize we’re not quite there yet.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
This is an opinion piece. It is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of RISE NEWS.
Cover Photo Credit: La La Land/ Facebook
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