DEAR WHITE FOLKS: You Don't Know How Easy You Have It (Über hurl warning)

Ebony Magazine ^ | April 6, 2012 | Professor David J. Leonard

[2ndDivisionVet]

David Leonard has spent years fighting racism and White privilege--and he's ready for his Caucasian brethren to get on board and see just how wrong things still are in this country.

Dear White folks:

Between the racist comments, the constant use of the race denial card (this country's most frequently used "race card") and the absurd claims of White victimhood, you have really grated my last nerve.

Sure, we got teary during The Blind Side and Antoine Fisher; we maybe even gave money to KONY2012 and after Hurricane Katrina; we maybe even donned a hoodie to protest the murder of Trayvon Martin. I don’t even doubt there are individuals out there who are genuinely concerned about racism and injustice; I don’t doubt that there are many Whites that marched with Dr. King and whose “best friends” might be Black. None of this matters if African Americans continue to die at the hands of guns held by security guards and police officers all without justice.

I have heard that “we are all Trayvon Martin” over the last few weeks, yet we are not Trayvon Martin – and we never could be. White America is never suspicious. White America can walk to the store without fear of being hunted down. White America can count on justice and a nation grieving at the loss of White life. We aren't Trayvon Martin, we are George Zimmerman: presumed innocent until proven innocent.

I want you to close your eyes for a second, and imagine that your son or daughter, sister or brother, granddaughter or grandson, ventured to the corner store for some Skittles and tea but never returned? Can you imagine if Peter or Jan were gunned down right around the corner from your house and the police didn’t notify you right away? Can you imagine if little Sydney or Bobby sat in the morgue for days as you searched to find out what happened them? Can you even imagine the police letting the perpetrator go or the news media remaining silent? Can you even fathom learning about background and drug tests on your child? Can you imagine the news media demonizing your child, blaming your child for his own death?

Can you imagine the outcry if seven White youths had been gunned down by police and security guards in a matter of months? Can you imagine the extensive political interest, the media stories that would saturate the airwaves? Can you imagine Fox News or any number of newspapers reporting about a school suspension for one of the victims or doctoring pictures in an attempt to make these victims less sympathetic? Can you imagine a person holding up a sign calling these victims “thugs” and “hoodlums.”Just think about the media frenzy, the concern from politicians, and the national horror every time a school shooting happens in Suburbia or every time a White woman goes missing...can you imagine if women routinely went missing from your community and the news and police department simply couldn't be bothered?

No, you can't. And you don't have to.

Yet, from Florida to Los Angeles, from Atlanta to Wisconsin, from Chicago to Ohio, Black families are burying the innocent and the future. Doesn’t that make you sad; doesn’t that make your angry? Our silence is telling. We can barely say their names much less acknowledge the epidemic in our midst: Stephon Watts. Trayvon Martin. Ramarley Graham. Wendell Allen. Dante Price. Bo Morrison. Rekia Boyd. Kendrec McDade.

All have lost their lives; and we don’t even say their names. All have died under similarly disturbing circumstances. All should have prompted national outrage and action; or at the least for us to say their names.

I don’t care if you cried during The Help and if the 'feel good' movie of the year featuring chicken-frying maids and affluent White women made you feel all post-racial tingly on the inside. Did you cry at the report of yet another lost Black life? If so, what have those tears done – have they led you to join a rally, to demand justice? I don’t care if you voted for President Obama; have you demanded dramatic changes to our criminal (in)justice system? It is time for us to check ourselves, to listen and demand a better America starting with ourselves. It is time to stop denying racism and defending White privilege, distracting and deflecting with “what ifs” and excuses. It is time to demand justice for the Trayvons and the Rekias, not because it could have been one of our sons and daughters--it couldn't--but because it is simply the right thing to do.

Sincerely

A member of White America

[Eagles6]

The most obvious injustice is that this talentless, deranged, racist hack is suckling at the gubmint teat no doubt making twice my dearly salary.

[Dr.Deth]

Critical Race Theory. Learn it. It is in play.

[Smokin' Joe]

I'm not prejudiced. I could be, could have been, easily, had I chose that course in life and decided to blame others for the evils that have befallen me. From the first time I got 'jumped' in Junior High by four 'youths', to the riots in the first couple of years of High School, I could have chosen a different course in life.

But life is what you make of it.

My black roommate in college and I got along quite well, although admittedly we haven't kept in touch. But for that matter, I haven't kept in touch with anyone from my undergraduate years. That is simply how it worked out.

Part of not being prejudiced, I discovered, was to not treat one's self as perpetually being 'put upon': I am not a victim.

I can honestly say I haven't had any troubles, but then I avoid situations which lead to trouble as much as possible.

There is no way anyone could tell me that I would not be greeted with suspicion (if not violence) while walking through a predominantly black neighborhood at night, even if I had just gone to the 'corner store' a mile away in the rain for an RC and some potato chips.

If I find I am not constantly looking over my shoulder, perhaps there is a reason, unlike a Rev. Jackson who admitted he'd be relieved to find the folks following him down the sidewalk on a dark street at night were white.

It is time to end the victimhood of being victims, however. It is time to level the playing field, remove the checkboxes which ask what my racial/ethnic background is, because, after all, in the absence of racial preferences and quotas where only ability counts, all that is irrelevant. While we are at it, let's get rid of "hate crimes", too. Not one was perpetrated out of love for the victim, and even the phrase is redundant (as well as flies in the face of 'equal protection'.

Sorry folks, but inequities of the past cannot be erased by heaping counter-inequities on people who were not involved in the inequities of the past, anyway, to benefit people who were not born yet. All that does is start a fresh set of inequities, a new grievance, and foster hatred for generations yet unborn.

[Dr.Deth]

I challenge this guy to grow up 3 blocks away from the LBJ Projects. Go on. Try it.

[Dr.Deth]

Gotta reply to Smokin’ Joe’s post #103. You speak the words I wish I could speak, but never think about until after I hit “post”. Not to get too far into it but I think I know much of what you speak from firsthand experience.

Until we once again have a society where men judge the actions of men, and God judges the motives of men, we shall have these conversations.

[Chgogal]

I'm looking for that Ivory Subscription.....

Oh, that's right. THAT would be racist. But calling a magazine Ebony is just lovely. Give me a break.

I am really sick and tired of this black/white thingie. Now all you jerks go away and leave us unhyphenated Americans alone.

[Post Toasties]

Sounds like he’s complaining mostly about black on black violence which is where 90% of it comes from that victimizes blacks - how the hell does he expect white people to fix that? - that’s a black on black problem.

[dagogo redux]

“I always wonder what makes a seemingly uninterested poster post something like “yawn.” What made you do it?”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Yawn” can represent a response to some inane, hackneyed or cliche’d statement by a member, or - as in this case - a statement about how tired I’ve grown about the crap that stupid libs are saying about me or us White Folks or about things in general.

“Groan” or “Geez” or “Ah come on” says about the same thing. Note that the poster, himself, did not even grace the article with a comment except “Uber hurl warning”.

[Beach333]

“White America can walk to the store without fear of being hunted down.”

Really? Then why did I get robbed at gunpoint by a hoodie-wearing Trayvon while walking to my car after leaving a Christmas party?

[Right Wing Assault]

Research

While seemingly disparate in topic, ranging from the prison industrial complex to the NBA, from post–Katrina hip-hop to Shawn’s Green’s religious/baseball identities, Leonard’s work is linked by its commitment to examining the ways in which racial meaning is constructed, transformed, and challenged across time and space. It focuses on the manner that representations and dominant discourses teach race within the popular imagination. His work also explores narratives and ideologies within a myriad of popular cultural spaces, examining the ways in which media culture becomes a space of contestation, rearticulation, reification, and even resistance. Dr. Leonard investigates popular culture as both a space of violence/white supremacist affirmation and opposition. Focusing on sports, he underscores the importance of the historic moment of production and consumption, thinking through what we can learn about race, gender, nation, and class through examining popular cultural representations and audience reception.
Research Interests

Comparative ethnic studies
African American studies
Video games
Popular culture/racialized representations
Cultural politics of sport
Race and sport (NBA)
Black popular culture (film, television, and hip-hop)
Social movements (grassroots organizing)
Black freedom struggle
Prison industrial complex

Teaching

While at Washington State University, Dr. Leonard has taught and/or developed a myriad of classes, including the following:

Introduction to Black Studies
Hip Hop around the Globe
From Malcolm to Black Panther Party
Cultural Politics of Sport
Black Freedom Struggle
Black Popular Culture
Cinematic Representation of Blackness
Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex
Race and Popular Culture
Global Inequality
Social Justice and American Culture
Theories of Racism and Ethnic Conflict

[Right Wing Assault]

This doof studies “Race and sport (NBA).”

Well, there we have a perfect example of black privilege. The NBA discriminates against young white men and I hope the professor is trying to do something about that.

Many a young white boy has yearned to become an NBA star but only a few (nowhere near the white percentage in the population) ever achieve that goal. This is institutional racial discrimination at its best.

I know a young white man who is 5’9” and weighs 140 pounds who will never be allowed to play in the NBA. This injustice means he will never have the joy of signing a $50 million NBA contract due to the racial inequities practiced by the NBA.

And this travesty is supported by the white majority who spends hours watching the NBA and spends billions supporting is sponsors, thus betraying their own sons who are largely restricted from becoming NBA stars. This must stop! We must stop supporting the racist NBA and its racist stars!

How does that sound, professor?

By the way, you look like as ass wearing that stupid hat.

Where do you live? I want to see your house and your neighborhood.

[MaxMax]

Since White Folks are all lumped together let me say,< BR> Hey Black folk, hard work pays off and waiting for the Gov to pay you doesn't.

I'm so sick of this crap. They are seriously trying to create racism and
force white people to become angry so they can point and say (SEE ITS TRUE).

Well FUBO and your worshipers! FU-ALL!@

[aruanan]

While seemingly disparate in topic, ranging from the prison industrial complex to the NBA, from post–Katrina hip-hop to Shawn’s Green’s religious/baseball identities, Leonard’s work is linked by its commitment to examining the ways in which racial meaning is constructed, transformed, and challenged across time and space. It focuses on the manner that representations and dominant discourses teach race within the popular imagination. His work also explores narratives and ideologies within a myriad of popular cultural spaces, examining the ways in which media culture becomes a space of contestation, rearticulation, reification, and even resistance. Dr. Leonard investigates popular culture as both a space of violence/white supremacist affirmation and opposition. Focusing on sports, he underscores the importance of the historic moment of production and consumption, thinking through what we can learn about race, gender, nation, and class through examining popular cultural representations and audience reception.

Here are the relevant words for understanding what he's up to: identities, racial meaning, time and space, focuses on the manner, explores narratives and ideologies, popular cultural spaces, a space of contestation, a space of violence/white supremacist affirmation.

This means he defines everything evanescent in a culture's relationship to sports that can be described in terms of race, which terms he also defines according to his own predilections and imagination, and gets paid for it. The difference between his gig and the rambling, monomaniacal musings of "The End from the Giant Asteroid is Near" guy in a sandwich board on the street corner is that he is able to spin a slightly more sophisticated line of BS and that he appeals to and somewhat palliates the liberal guilt felt by his patrons. He's sort of like a practitioner of upper colonics: he defines the terms, he scares his clientele by it, and he gets paid to stick it to them in intimate, humiliating, and potentially dangerous ways that are mutually titillating and guaranteed to keep the process going.

[lentulusgracchus]

A professor with a made-up job whining about white privilege.

Exactly. Must have heard about some budget austerity next year and having to let some tenure-track people go at WSU.

But he's reality-challenged. He wouldn't have written half that drivel about murder rates if he lived anywhere close to downtown Baltimore or the New Orleans projects (thankfully gone now) or on the west side of Dallas. Not even mentioning L.A., where Reginald Denny got brain-damaged with a chunk of concrete and damn near killed just for being white. He'd really have been dead, if a black minister hadn't put himself between the helpless Denny and the Eight Trey Gangsta Crips.

[Right Wing Assault]

Is this our man? I’m not sure. I don’t want to be like those racist black fools who put out the address of the wrong Zimmerman. Odds are pretty good, though, since the school is in Pullman and there probably aren’t that many people with this name in Pullman in that age range.

David J Leonard
Bella Vista Dr
Pullman, WA
Age: 35-39

Bing aerial shot http://binged.it/HJIs2k

Google aerial shot http://g.co/maps/58gsf

I wonder how many black people live in a house as nice as these. I wonder what percentage of black people live in this development. I wonder how many black welfare people live on his street. None? What is he doing that prevents black welfare people from living on his street? I wonder if he would like the occupy people to occupy his yard. This boy needs to spend a summer in Gary, Indiana, selling magazines door to door.

Just some questions to understand if he would like to increase “the power of disruption” in his life and his neighborhood. I am attempting “to disrupt the ways that we produce knowledge and learn about new topics” such as David J. Leonard.

[Right Wing Assault]

Is this our man? I’m not sure. I don’t want to be like those racist black fools who put out the address of the wrong Zimmerman. Odds are pretty good, though, since the school is in Pullman and there probably aren’t that many people with this name in Pullman in that age range.

David J Leonard
Pullman, WA
Age: 35-39

Bing aerial shot http://binged.it/HJIs2k

Google aerial shot http://g.co/maps/58gsf

I wonder how many black people live in a house as nice as these. I wonder what percentage of black people live in this development. I wonder how many black welfare people live on his street. None? What is he doing that prevents black welfare people from living on his street? I wonder if he would like the occupy people to occupy his yard. This boy needs to spend a summer in Gary, Indiana, selling magazines door to door.

Just some questions to understand if he would like to increase “the power of disruption” in his life and his neighborhood. I am attempting “to disrupt the ways that we produce knowledge and learn about new topics” such as David J. Leonard.

[lentulusgracchus]

Someone got the relevant crime stats handy to destroy this Uber-azz's "point" here?

It's in the thread about "The Talk", the one that got the author, John Derbyshire, purged from National Review.

Thread here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2869225/posts

It's pretty drastic.

The original article is at Taki's Magazine (e-zine), here: http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire#axzz1rM3zyf2y

[liberalh8ter]

Just like Sharpton and Jackson, this guy profits from ‘racial divisions’ so naturally, it's in his best interest to perpetuate it. I'm not denying there are racial divisions and racism in America, I'm merely saying this idiot is pointing in the wrong direction.

If we can ever get this Country back from the Commies and race hustling Marxists, entitlement reform and the abolishing of government funded "studies", such as the type this moron makes a living conducting" would go a long way in ending this nonsense.

[silverleaf]

he tryin’ to be what the local cultures call a “fig newton”

[lentulusgracchus]

Then why did I get robbed at gunpoint by a hoodie-wearing Trayvon while walking to my car after leaving a Christmas party?

Christmas, 2029: Typical party favors for Christmas guests leaving at the end of a delightful evening include a vintage, but very reliable, 1938 Smith & Wesson Chief's Special in .38 Spl. loaded with Black Talons, for the walk back to the car. Just common courtesy, you understand.