Regular Blogenbergers will soon learn that I’m fascinated by a construct: choosing race. My wife is black. We have three children of varying hues. Race relations are very intimate for me.

Top of the news are two examples of choosing race: the Imus outrage and the Duke lacrosse tragedy.

The cackling cacophony that passes for American discourse has chosen race as the battle line over Don Imus. They’ve decided that, when Imus called Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos,� it’s a race relations battle. From Fox News Channel – which I watch every day – to ESPN’s The Dan Patrick Show – proof that an IQ is not a prerequisite for garnering riches in America – they fight over why it’s okay for black hip-hop artists to use these words and worse, and why it’s not okay for a white New York City cowboy radio jock.

They’ve made the wrong choice. They’ve chosen the wrong reason to be angry. For sure, it’s tasteless for white people to say “nappy headed� and “ho,� but it’s not prima facie evidence of racism. (The “n� word is different of course.) Why Imus should be reviled is that he attacked young women with the howitzer of his national radio show who were, certainly within this context, innocent. He destroyed a memory for these young women. Reaching the national championship basketball game will sit in their minds as a soiled, dirty memory – one of the greatest accomplishments of their lives, no matter how long they may live, is, at one level, forever filthy. That’s his crime. Not that he said the words, because I’ll bet my mortgage that he’s used these very words on his show before. (Yes, he made it worse by using words that can have racial connotations. But his real crime was the viciousness he took to young women who, at this time in their lives and until he opened his yap, were at the top of their game.)

But the people pushing the control buttons on TV and radio networks are choosing race as the battle. That’s because, in this country, it’s an easy choice to get people screaming about. Wrong choice. At least not an intellectually honest choice. Because the real reason that Imus should have is butt figuratively kicked is because he was nasty and vicious, even more than his usual act.

(And if he’s off the air, I could care less. Not because I think he offended my wife or children, but because as a father I think we can do without somebody so unfeeling towards the lives of real people, in this case, young women, student athletes, having a microphone.)

Mike Nifong, the infamous Durham district attorney, chose race. Really wrong choice. Judging from what the North Carolina attorney general said yesterday, he may be flipping burgers soon. Nifong, too, saw this country’s racial divide as an easy choice to make, a good way to get reelected. Really, really wrong choice.

The three Duke lacrosse players have been declared innocent. That seemed obvious. Good for them. Equally obvious is that there was some racism at that party. Reportedly, somebody used the “n� word. Reportedly, somebody told a black woman to thank her grandfather for the cotton shirt he was wearing. Reportedly, it’s not the atmosphere I want my kids growing up in, that insular white world where white people join country clubs and send their kids to private schools that are really good for mostly seeing people who look like themselves. It’s why I have mixed feelings about some of the schools that have inquired about my youngest son going there for high school. I don’t want my son pushed by his environment to become, well, essentially, a dark-skinned white boy. Because, at some level, my kids’ lives are about choosing race. Good for them.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 9:04 am and is filed under Race and Ethnicity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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