Race and Reality in a Front-Porch Encounter

"All Americans, not just people of color, need to be better schooled in the subtle yet complex ways that race actually works in the 21st century. Racial literacy requires familiarity with unconscious bias as well as structural racism. It demands a far more nuanced approach than typical charges of racism or race-carding.

To understand what happened on that Cambridge porch, we must free ourselves of the stereotype that racism is always overt—a police officer with a dog and a fire hose. Race and racism are today more like passive smoke. We all inhale the toxic fumes even if we are not the one lighting up the cigarette. And if we take the time to lift the curtain that postracialists insist on pulling over our eyes, we might begin to realize that a porch encounter ostensibly about racial profiling is nevertheless a sign of larger and more systemwide injustices."

by Lani Guinier, professor of law at the Harvard Law School. Click for complete article.

Cheers is Back!

This news story goes from bad to worse and now to beer. Let me see if I understand “the facts.”

A White police officer arrests a Black Harvard professor in his own home because the professor yelled at him. Everything I have read so far says that one can yell at a police officer in one’s own home, especially if one feels that one’s rights are being violated, which the professor did feel. I have also read many commentaries on how one should not yell at police officers. I agree that it is not so smart to yell at officers even in one’s own home, although I think it should be more than okay to do so, in fact, it is protected speech under the Constitution – remember that document we kept saying Bush – Cheney ignored when they weren’t busy shredding it? But I digress.

To continue: The professor had shown his ID and proved that he lived there. He was not a burglar. The Caller who dialed 911 said that he could be a resident of that house. She could not say for sure that he was an intruder. In the 911 tapes that is clear. No one has contested this fact. But the Professor kept yelling (according to the police) and was arrested for disorderly conduct. The Professor says he was not yelling. The charges were later dropped. So, no charges, no problem, right?

Well, the President of the United States of America weighed in when asked a question about the arrest and said, “The Cambridge police acted stupidly.” I agree with that, but what was the President thinking to let that inside voice out? Did the President think he could actually speak his outrage out loud as a person of color? Didn’t his friend over at Harvard just get arrested for that?

Next day, lots of back tracking and talk on “calibrating words” from the President. That was really a bummer because I thought for once he had said something right out of his own anger (without a speech writer) about race and racism. But, he is the President and he was not supposed to comment or worse yet, get angry over a “local issue.” The police were upset because the President didn’t have all the facts of the case before he spoke out.

Today, the Caller says that she disagrees with the police report because she said NOTHING about race to him. NOT A WORD. The only word the Caller ever uttered about race was while being questioned by the 911 Dispatcher. She answered that one of the men might be "Hispanic" (I’ll write about that another day).

The Caller has not been invited to this new multicultural post-racial (huh?) all-male version of Cheers. I guess she would complicate the staging. She was level headed in her 911 call, her attorney says she doesn't like beer and, oh, yeah, she's a woman. Although, in Cheers it usually turned out to be the (two) women (out of seven main characters) who knew what was going on.

All the facts?

Guys, maybe the beer should wait until racial profiling is a thing of the past. Cheers was a make believe TV series, remember?

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Check out what the Caller said at a news conference today. The 911 audio file is here as well:

Caller in Gates Case Says She Didn’t Mention Race
By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: July 30, 2009
Lucia Whalen, the 911 caller, presented a version of events that contradicts the report by Sgt. James Crowley.

And in neighboring Boston the Mayor has another problem and says it's "a cancer." Get out the cooler:

Officer suspended for Gates slur in e-mail

I Love Sonia

"It’s the American way that we judge people as individuals, not as groups. And by that standard we can say unequivocally that this particular wise Latina, with the richness of her experiences, would far more often than not reach a better conclusion than the individual white males she faced in that Senate hearing room. Even those viewers who watched the Sotomayor show for only a few minutes could see that her America is our future and theirs is the rapidly receding past." Frank Rich, NYTimes, They Got Some ’Splainin’ to Do

The Very Thought of Education

My dear friend, Deborah Britzman, Distinguished Research Professor at York University, has written a new book, The Very Thought of Education: Psychoanalysis and the Impossible Professions. It was just published this June by SUNY-Press.

Britzman's work over these many years of engagement with the practice of teaching and learning has sought to uncover what she thinks of as the "unconscious of education." This is the place where we (teachers, teacher educators, professors) don't gently want to go. Instead, we resist knowing what we feel and think to be true. For example, our own bigotries and prejudices; our own injuries; our desires for repair; our hatreds; our loves.

What is unconscious in education, however, permeates the classroom just as unspoken and unacknowledged emotions will permeate an intimate relationship. We can know what we feel both in the classroom and in our relationships -- indeed teaching is a relational process -- but only if we are open to engaging with what we do not know, not just with what we do know. Teachers and professors teach what we know, but Britzman asks what would happen if we began with what we do not know? What could education be then? Can we even think about, have a thought about, education as an emotional place of not knowing? What would be at stake for teachers and professors to admit that we do not know? And begin the lesson plan, the curriculum, the time of learning there instead of beginning with all we know.

I have taught a course called, Hate Crimes, but I do not know why Dwight DeLee murdered Lateisha Green. Do you? What happens within us when we hate? When we love? How can education answer these questions? James Baldwin has written that hate crimes arise out of what is normal in society; they are not aberrations but manifestations of what society feels to be true. Hate crimes, while carried out violently by individuals, are also the brutal actions of the unconscious hatreds that are imbedded in the social psyche. We are all implicated in these hatreds and in these murders even if we refuse to know it.

In an interview published in YFile: York's Daily Bulletin, Britzman explains that “The desire to become a teacher is also grounded in one’s experience of growing up in education, and teachers and professors tend to unconsciously repeat or even try to repair their childhood experience," she says. And this plays out in the classroom, in the lesson plan, in the syllabus, in the office hours and so on."

“The shadowy world of education is what I’m interested in exploring,” says Britzman. “The things we can’t see. The unconscious and the shadow it casts."

For full interview and further description of the new book, click here.

Jury delivers guilty verdict in Onondaga County's first hate crime murder trial

Lateisha Green

by Jim O'Hara / The Post-Standard
Friday July 17, 2009, 11:18 AM

Syracuse -- A county court jury this morning found Dwight DeLee guilty of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime in the fatal shooting of Moses Cannon last November.

[Jim O'Hara and Post Standard, please use Lateisha Green's name as does her family, see their statement below]

This was the first hate crime homicide trial held in Onondaga County.

DeLee, 20, of Gifford Street, now faces a minimum of 10 years in state prison, and a maximum of 25 years, when he is sentenced by Judge William Walsh Aug. 18.

The jury of six men and six women acquitted DeLee of a more serious charge of second-degree murder as a hate crime.

Click for complete article


Following the verdict, Lateisha Green's family released this statement:

"Teish, a beautiful girl. A wonderful daughter. A brave soul. Teish was all of these things despite the adversity that regularly tried to weigh her down and overshadow her love of life. She was taken away from us too soon. All it took was one bullet.

"A bullet from a rifle that pierced her lungs and heart. And it took this one mere bullet to end Teish's life because she happened to be a transgender woman. We have spent months waiting for this day to come.

"8 long months that have kept our family captive to our fears, sadness and anger. Afraid to leave our homes, sad to have lost Teish and angry that we couldn't prevent this from happening to our little girl. But today, the jury delivered a verdict that will end most of the horrors experienced by our family and friends.

"The jury convicted Dwight DeLee of killing Teish in cold blood. They found him guilty of targeting Teish simply because of her difference. And the jury has made it clear that any loss of life in our city and county because of anti-gay and anti-transgender bias is unacceptable and wrong. Justice has been done.

"But we will never get to see Teish ever again. She will forever live in our hearts and minds. And it is our duty to share her story so that Teish's memory will be kept alive. We do this so this series of painful events will never happen again to any other person because they are different.

"Our family and friends will continue to talk about Teish so others may know the love and support that every child deserves regardless of their differences. We want to thank everyone who stood behind us and gave our family strength during such difficult times. The overwhelming amount of support has meant so much to us. We want to close by saying life is precious. Teish knew that and that's why she would tell everyone here to be brave. To be authentic and true to yourself. And Teish would give a beautiful and bright smile to everyone here. Thank you."