Barack Obama on Race

Quote of the day:
“Voters of all stripes have warmed to talk of a ‘new kind of politics,’ regardless of which candidate is promising it. But can such a thing ever exist without a new kind of media?”
--John Mercurio at nationaljournal.com

There’s been quite a bit of discussion about Barack Obama’s speech about race.

Y’think?

But get this. The New York Times reports that more people have read the transcript of the speech on its site than any of its reporting about it. And almost two million people have watched it on YouTube.

An awful lot of people just don’t care much about the analysis and punditry. They want the real thing.

It’s just as well, because most of what has been said and written is not insightful but rather reductive. According to virtually all the reports I’ve seen and read, the whole speech comes down to two questions. Did it reverse damage done by Jeremiah Wright’s comments? And, did it change the course of racial discussion in America?

The first question is about passing politics, and is of just a little bit of interest. The second question is general and grandiose and sets expectations impossibly high.

I will put aside my usual annoyance at the stunning lack of courage and thoughtfulness among reporters and talking heads. They continue to endlessly parrot phrases they are fed. Polly wanna cracker.

It took me a moment, but I have put aside my annoyance. Really.

Obama’s speech was important to me because he brought into the open the dirty little secret that all of us have attitudes about race that we talk about only in private. These attitudes are shaped by our generation and by what we learned as we grew up.

What we learned as we grew up was affected by our social class and our environment. A comfortable upper-middle class family with college-educated parents will talk about race (and many other things) differently than a struggling lower-class family with parents who did not complete high school.

Merrie and I have a 92-year-old neighbor who in passing will sometimes make a derogatory reference about race or ethnicity. He grew up in a very different time and culture than we did.

My very sweet grandmother once used the “n” word in the rhyme “Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.” Being seven and having been taught that the word is a no-no, I was shocked. She could tell something was wrong. I still remember the look on her face as she tried to explain.

She was born in the 1890s, a very different time than the 1960s. Which was a very different time from the 2000s.

And in the 2000s, it’s getting to be time for us to come clean with each other about what our attitudes are and where they come from.

That’s what Barack Obama said. He’s right. Kudos to him.

See America's Future, Look West

Quote of the day:
“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’"
--Charles M. Schulz

Quote of the day no. 2:
“In California, we’re the precursor of what’s projected to be happening for the rest of the country for the next half century.”
--John Weeks, director of San Diego State University’s International Population Center

On February 12, the San Diego Union Tribune reported on a forecast by Pew Research Center that, by 2050, America will “look much like California does today as it morphs into a far more racially and ethnically diverse nation....” The U-T said that “most of its population growth [will come from] immigrants and their offspring.”

I have been maintaining since just after I moved here in 1978 that for America to see its future, all it had to do was look at California. This is true for all kinds of trends, including population makeup.

This is why it always seems so ill-informed and snooty to hear the rest of the country dismiss this state as everything from a collection of fruits and nuts to a bastion of sodomites and immoral Hollywood liberals.

What is most curious to me is how such statements combine good-natured teasing with both envy and genuine loathing. I think many people realize perfectly well that California is a vision of their future, and they don’t like what they see.

All I can say is, too bad. Like it or not, this is your future. Get used to it. Better yet, begin to appreciate that California, while it has its problems, is a vibrant, widely diverse, very interesting and innovative place.

Isn’t that what America is supposed to be?

We're Shopping like Homer Simpson

Quote of the day:
"Be still when you have nothing to say; [but] when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot."
--D.H. Lawrence

Related to yesterday’s posting, Christopher Jencks wrote an excellent analysis of the immigration debate a few months ago.

The reason it’s excellent is that it’s not the usual clobber-you-on-the-head polemic that everything written about immigration seems to be. Among other things, he looks at the sources of various data that have been cited and waved around by various people with agendas.

By doing this, he makes an important and seemingly-obvious point. The results of surveys about American attitudes about immigration are mostly dependent on how questions are asked.

Two important variables are the words used in questions and the number of answers people have to choose from.

See Jencks’ piece here.

Perhaps “closer to home” in this busy shopping season, James Surowiecki makes a fascinating observation about how retailers use pricing as a marketing tool.

He notes that Homer Simpson’s wine-selection strategy is the way many of us choose what we buy. Homer always buys the second-cheapest wine on the menu.

For example, when choosing a microwave oven and given the choice between a $110 Emerson and a $180 Panasonic, most people will choose the Emerson. But if a $200 choice is added, most people choose the $180 Panasonic.

After all, we want a good deal but we don’t want to be cheap.

See Surowiecki’s piece here.

Why Such Heat About Immigration?

Quote of the day:
"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."
--Oscar Wilde

It doesn’t surprise me that most Americans are concerned about illegal immigration. What does surprise me is the near-violent fervor with which so many talk about this issue, as if our nation’s very existence is at stake.

Clearly, serious problems need attention, including systemic strain and the health and welfare of immigrants. But what drives the close-to-the-surface strong feelings about this issue?

I have a theory. Big surprise.

When we’re babies, each of us learns that we are separate from other humans and the world around us. It’s the process of individuation.

While childhood development is fairly well understood, the effects of the earliest months of life remain mostly a mystery. I suspect that, during those very early months, something--like abuse or a pathologically over-attentive parent--may hold back individuation.

Later, during adolescence, we begin to establish autonomy--a life of our own. This natural process also can be disrupted. For example, our parents may over-control our lives and make every decision for us. Abuse is a serious risk here also.

When disruption happens, our growth is stunted and a long struggle within ourselves ensues. We find ourselves sensitive to times when we think our fragile autonomy is being threatened.

The fear of invasion is a classic way in which this sensitivity manifests itself.

When we look at the way the immigration issue is frequently talked about, we can see a real fear of invasion and takeover: “They’re taking our jobs, using our healthcare system, using our education system They’re taking resources away from me.”

As I said, there are real issues here that need attention. It would be constructive if we were at least aware of our personal fears being tripped.

We're All One At Party Time

Quote of the day:
“Goodness isn’t just cool, it’s the new snowboarding.... Too many people seem to see goodness as the kind of tree that doesn’t exist unless someone is around to hear it fall. And that’s no way to save a forest.”
--Meghan Daum in the July 21 Los Angeles Times.

Last Friday Hector Tobar of The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about the residents of Naco, a town in far southeastern Arizona that straddles the border with Mexico. This is what he said:

“The residents of the two Nacos occasionally gather along the border for a party. They recently met on the western edge of town where the tall steel barrier ends. Only a low fence made of rail ties marks the border there: it is a hurdle so short and insubstantial that a toddler could cross it.

“’They served hamburgers on the American side, and we served tacos on our side,’ [city employee Rene] Siqueiros recalled.

“At first, Americans and Mexicans stayed in their respective countries, passing hamburgers and tacos across the short fence. ‘We were a little timid,’ he said.

“But after a few beers, people started to loosen up. ‘We crossed over to the American side and they would jump over to Mexico,’ Siqueiros recalled. After a while, Mexicans and Americans were all mixed up on both sides of the frontier.

“When the party ended, everyone stepped back into their own country and went home.”

Language in the U.S.

Quote of the day:
“Invoking simple solutions to complex problems is an easy and effective rhetorical device. No need to do research, check facts, consider complexities--just assert the solution and, as long as it is close enough to what people are ready to believe, the argument is won.”
--John Moore, chair of the linguistics department at the University of California San Diego, and Ana Celia Zentella, professor in the department of ethnic studies, UCSD.

Moore and Celia Zentella are quoted from an excellent column they wrote in the June 28th San Diego Union-Tribune about the issue of Spanish and English usage in the U.S.

They continue:
“From media discussions, one would think that Latino communities are Spanish-only language ghettos where no one is willing to learn English. However, the facts say otherwise. More than 70 percent of Spanish speakers in the United States are also fluent in English, and a very large number of U.S. Latinos can only speak English.

“Those who do not attain fluency in English are almost exclusively first-generation immigrants who came to the United States as adults....

“[T]hese first-generation Spanish speakers are learning English in greater numbers than has ever been the case in our history as an immigrant nation, and many of their children are learning little or no Spanish.

“The perception that Spanish speakers won’t speak English is simply false--they do and they do so faster than earlier immigrants did.”

Republican Illumination

Quote of the day:
“Problems will always torment us, because all important problems are insoluble: that is why they are important. The good comes from the continuing struggle to try and solve them, not from the vain hope of their solution.”
--Arthur Schlesinger

CNN sponsored the debate among the Republican presidential candidates on Tuesday night. Viewership was low. This is too bad, not because it’s important to learn about the candidates at this very early date, but because the program was both oddly illuminating and entertaining.

The record of the current administration and Republican leadership in Congress wouldn’t exactly lead you to turn to the GOP for illumination. Yet this unexpectedness made it all the more interesting.

One such moment came when Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee responded to a question about abortion. He articulately, authentically and concisely laid out the case for supporting a “culture of life.” He said we must do more to care for and support all human life, especially children and older people in poor or compromised circumstances. Even though I disagree with his position on abortion, I admired him for making this clear and heartfelt statement.

Another moment was also illuminating because of its unexpected genuineness. It came just after various candidates had finished pelting each other about how high and thick to build the wall to keep all nasty immigrants out. (This is evidently the extent of the immigration debate among some Republicans.)

When the dust had settled from this, John McCain stood up and said in his low-key way that immigrants had always been the strength of this country, and that they will continue to be. He said that we should focus on supporting immigrants, not just limiting or regulating them.

Imagine that. A suggestion that we approach an issue reasonably rather than with fear. And during a Republican debate. I’d call that a moment of unexpected refreshment.

Most of the rest of the debate was made up of posturing, bloviating and grasping for far-right-wing votes. (Repeat after me: “I’m more conservative than you!”) This was so obvious that it became entertaining.

How Do Our Leaders Get Things Done?

Quote of the day:
“If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.”
--Gelett Burgess

Quote of the day no. 2:
“We like so much to hear people talk of us and our motives, that we are charmed even when they abuse us.”
--Marie de Sevigne

Quote of the day no. 3:
“I said, ‘Now is when we have a chance here, and you want to have it all perfect. It won’t happen. You’re not the majority.’ I said, ‘When does that get into your mind? You’re not the majority.’”
--California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a private conversation recorded in March 2006. He was referring to his fellow Republicans in the legislature.

This quote comes from CNN. The governor also compared his experience as a child in post-World War II Austria to plans to build a fence along the Mexican border:

“We had the Berlin Wall; we had walls everywhere. But we always looked at the wall as kind of like the outside of the wall is the enemy. Are we looking at Mexico as the enemy? No, it’s not. These are our trading partners.”

Immigrant Assumptions

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices."
-- Edward R. Murrow

From Pew data compiled from U.S. Census Bureau household surveys of San Diego County:
Percentage of undocumented workers in farming occupations: 1 percent.
Percentage of undocumented workers in the service industry--hotels, restaurants, health care, landscaping and janitorial: 44 percent.