Funeral For the Race Card

The race card is dead. I knew that it was virtually in hospice care when I used it in this week's WaPo piece. But it could not hold on no longer and -- as many of you so helpfully pointed out -- it is cold and decomposing.

Don't get me wrong: the phenomenon of using ju jitsu where you use the history of racial exploitation to your own ends is still with us, it's just that the term is hackneyed, threadbare and, at this point, obscures more than it illuminates.

Rick Rubin held a funeral for the word "Def" and the NAACP (prematurely) buried the so-deemed N-word. We will do no less for the race card, which has been with us for so long.

We hold an official homegoing later in the week. In the meantime we are holding a digital memorial service.

Please pay your respects and to share your remembrances below.

Comments

[David]

Hmmm. So the recent killings of black men in California and Texas can't be linked to race? What are you actually saying???

[DeAngelo]

Kill that sucka! Love this idea, dawg. Yous a baad dude.

[andgarden]

heh.

[Janasa]

in response to David's post:
- the proverbial 'race card' and legitimate instances of racially-motivated physical assault are not to be confused.
or are you actually linking the Burris Senate seat debacle with the recent killings of black men in California in Texas?

i'll be glad to see a compulsive history of subversive race-baiting evolve towards a broader discourse on identity politics. so in that respect, may the 'race card' (in its oppressively singular capacity)rest in a a cryogenic state of social-stasis until further notice.

-janasa xx

[David]

As long as we are hated in this country in solely on the the basis of our race, and this negatively impacts us in every area of human reckoning: politics, education, medicine, etc. etc. etc., there will be valid cause to point to race as a legitimate reason for disparities in those areas.

Perhaps I don't understand what you all are defining as "the race card", but what really has changed to make us think that race is no longer a major problem on this country. Of course there are those that are hypersensitive to race issues, but really help me understand what has changed to even make such dialog relevant?

I hope we don't think that one singular event, regardless of it's symbolic significance, has changed racial dynamics to the point where race is no longer the huge issue that it was prior to November 4th. Please help me understand.

[Lester Spence]

In some ways I wish we didn't have this burial.

Because that bastard owes me money!

[jelani c.]

Lester: Good luck on collecting -- on top of everything else, race is also a deadbeat.

David: note what I said in the post. Racism and racial manipulation continue to exist; the term "race card" however has become a meaningless way of describing it.

Some idiot tried to say that Obama was "playing the race card" by trying to get superdelegates to support him -- wth? Isn't that what he was SUPPOSED to do?

At this point the term has simply been applied to everything under the sun and when everything becomes racial, in effect, nothing is racial. Ultimately, I'm saying we need to bury the term precisely BECAUSE three black men have been shot by police in the first 8 days of 2009.

Check the blog entry for yesterday on the shootings titled Three the Hardest Way.

[Kenya K Stevens]

I never liked him anyway! Just a poor excuse for a man. (Think about that one). Jelani if you bury it now it's because he died on my post back in November. Thanks for the invocation... http://hakashamut.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/finally-after-many-tears-and-joyful-dance-profound-words/

[David]

Jelani...

Who coined the term "race card" in the first? Was the term coined to give credence to claims of racism, or to diminish the validity of claims of racism? I'm clearly no expert on the term, but I imagine that the term was created by white people to dismiss ANY claim (regardless of its legitimacy) that race played a role in some form or another of discrimination.

If you're saying that the term is no longer 'useful' because it's a condescending way to describe REAL racist occurrences, then I'm following you... AND the statement that the 'race card is a meaningless way to describe racism and racial discrimination' would instantly become redeemable... BUT I don't think that the usage of the term "race card" has ever been really embraced by black people who have been victims of REAL racism and faced with a painfully racist reality day in and day out. Also probably not by a black person who has been the victim of racism then subsequently hushed due to this emerging perception that calling a (racist) spade a spade has somehow become passe'

It would be more appropriate for a white-owned national news station, or a Ku Klux Klan member, to 'bury' the term "race card" due to how rampant it has been thrown around in news reports and by racist people to dismiss REAL racist claims, than for black people, who have been victims of racism and then BOLDLY told that their perception that their victimization is race-related is somehow imaginary or exaggerated.

I don't think black people have excepted the characterization of our racist experiences with the term "race card" to the point that we, black people, now need to bury the term...

I'm not trying to be overly argumentative, I really just didn't understand what you were getting at. We can definitely agree to disagree on this one though brother... I DO view you as a brilliant thinker and writer.

[jelani c.]

I'm not sure what we're agreeing to disagree about. I'm basically saying that the term is opaque and there are real instances of racism. I do think we differ on one thing, though.

I don't think this is a term used exclusively by whites. There have been plenty of black people -- particularly black politicians -- who have used a bogus charge of racism to camouflage their own personal failings. (Marion Barry, Kwame Kilpatrick, Barry Bonds, et al)

I have no tolerance for that behavior since it makes people that much less likely to believe when real instances of racism occur. And I don't think I'm in a minority as a black person in calling that a cynical manipulation of our brutal history or -- as we used to say once upon a time -- playing the race card.

[David]

If the Marion Barber's, Kwame Kilpatrick's, Barry Bonds', et al, represented the rules as opposed to the exceptions, then the point would be much more salient.

A black politician using the charge of racism is not the same as a white person diminishing that charge on the basis of this all-dismissive "race card"...

A black politician, guilty or innocent, would not explicitly say,"I'm gonna pull the race card on this one!" The term itself is condescending... That's the point I trying to make... It's a term generally used by white people to dismiss a black person's charge of racism... So again, why would black people need to bury the term???

If you are simply saying that black people need to stop using race as an EXCUSE for their shortcomings, then okay... I gotcha.

[David]

Just for clarification's sake... I'm not questioning the reality that there are people out there that use race as an EXCUSE for their own personal failings... Of course there are people out there like that... And they, indeed, do a disservice to people that are faced with REAL incidences of racism and have to defend their position from a point of deficit due to the many disingenuous cries of 'wolf'.

The term itself, however, is not a term that I feel black people use to any major extreme in characterizing other black peoples' accounts of racist experiences... Where I'm from (North Carolina), we have EARNED the benefit of the doubt as it relates to the credibility of our accounts of racism.

Take care man.

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A black politician using the charge of racism is not the same as a white person diminishing that charge on the basis of this all-dismissive "race card"

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