It’s taken me a while to complete this piece as I wanted to sound rational and not as hyperbolically hysterical as I was initially when I heard and read about the events discussed herein. The Republican debate hosted by Fox News on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday exposed shocking behavior and commentary about the lack of racial sensitivity among the candidates as well as the audience. I refer to Fox News commentator Juan Williams asking Newt Gingrich about some of his recent statements referencing race.
Williams asked Gingrich about his having said that blacks have no work ethic and choose to be on food stamps. He asked the former Speaker about the Gingrich janitorial work plan for black children. Specifically, he asked Gingrich,” Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans but particularly to Black Americans?”
Gingrich shrugged and said, somewhat flippantly, “No, I don’t see that.”
The largely White audience gave him a standing ovation, cheering and whistling as Gingrich went on to underscore his plans for poor Blacks. Juan Williams, in contrast, was booed! Cheers and applause for proud racial insensitivity? Boos for Juan Williams when he asked again if Gingrich’s comments were meant to belittle the poor and racial minorities? Boos. More boos for Williams. Condescension from Newt. I felt that I had been transported back to the pre-Civil Rights Era of my youth and young adulthood.
Gingrich even doubled down and reiterated his “plan” to help poor children in general and black children in particular—who have no work ethic, according to him--and he laid out his plan. He suggested that poor black children work as janitors in their schools. He seemed nonplussed as he ignored long and humanely established Child Labor Laws and asserted that black children grow up without a strong work ethic because they don’t see anyone around them working. (I would urge Mr. Nasty to get up very early one morning, drive to a poor neighborhood, and see all the men and women lined up at the bus stops, waiting to report to work, many of them African-Americans. Or he could watch the night cleaning shifts, for example, who work when he is sleeping.)
The Gingrich plan for impoverished black youths goes something like this: Fire the “union” janitor and let the children clean the school. There, they would develop a work ethic and earn money. “The average salary for a school janitor is $18,000.”* If we use the Gingrich number of 30 children for each janitorial position—“Hire 30 kids for the price of one janitor. They’d be getting money which is a good thing for the poor. Only the elites despise earning money.”—each of those children would net $600 a year and miss getting an education, thereby trapping them into a life of poverty in perpetuity.
School janitors’ jobs are more than sweeping floors and cleaning restrooms. They must know how to use and dispose of dangerous chemicals for stripping floors and cleaning problem areas. They clean up science labs, repair equipment, use heavy machinery for that cleaning and repair, move heavy furniture and equipment, etc. Janitors arrive before the school opens and are there afterward. They have to be certified in several safety and chemical use procedures. These are not jobs suitable for children! For a complete look at requirements and jobs for a school janitor,
consult this website:
http://www.mymajors.com/careers-and-jobs/School-Janitor
Next, note that Gingrich gleefully called President Obama the “Food Stamp President.” He then added that “Black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps.” First, I agree that more people are on food stamps. That is a fact. But that has a lot to do with a shrinking middle class as well as disasters like fires, floods, and devastating tornados and storms, most recently in Alabama. Food stamps are just one of the safety nets when disaster strikes. If you want facts, look it up. Here is just one site:
http://www.dailyjobsupdate.com/public/food-stamps-charts
As Gingrich continually attempts to don the Regan mantle, it might be interesting to see what Ronald Regan himself said about food stamps. In this one case, Gingrich is somewhat correct. The usually pleasant demeanor of the former president was not in play when, in 1976, he referred to “welfare queens,” saying these women defrauded the government by applying under multiple names for Medicaid, food stamps, and any other free program. That may have been true in a few cases, but certainly not in all cases.
Extrapolating on his comment that President Obama is the Food Stamp President, Gingrich tied Blacks to food stamps as if they were the only people in need of this aid. This belies facts, facts being something with which Gingrich plays pretty fast and loose. One need for increased numbers of people on food stamps is the increased rate of poverty in this country, something that has been occurring for about 10 years plus. Politifact rated the statement about President Obama’s being responsible for the increased number of people receiving food stamps—food stamps being the term still used although food stamps are actually SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—as half true. Here is their conclusion, but you can read the entire
decision at http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/17
“.…One last point: The number of food stamp beneficiaries had started to head upward under President George W. Bush, partly because of more aggressive efforts to get eligible Americans to apply for benefits, and partly because of changes in the rules that had the effect of broadening
eligibility. The experts we spoke to agreed that both policies began under Bush but were retained by Obama.
“Our ruling
“The number of SNAP beneficiaries is at a record level, and it has risen in most months of the Obama presidency. But Gingrich oversimplifies when he suggests that Obama is the root cause. Much of the reason for the increase was a combination of the economic problems Obama inherited combined with a longstanding upward trend from policy changes. But Obama has supported those policies. On balance, we rate Gingrich’s statement Half True.”
It is impossible for me to overlook the Gingrich comments because I continually hope that race relations in the United States will continue to improve. For decades, I have been teaching young people about the history of race in this country, and what I see and hear from them is so heartening that I become convinced that all is going to be well. I refuse to believe that that is delusional of me, and I continue to believe that the hope lies in this next generation since members of my generation represented on the debate stage seemed not to have evolved very much on the question of racial equality. Much of what Gingrich said about people of color was not just code for the racists in the audience. It was blatant racism. If Gingrich wanted to delve into the issue of food stamps, he could just as easily said that he wanted people—not black people—to demand jobs, not food stamps. His comment was not at all subtle. And yet, not one other candidate on the stage commented that Gingrich was making racist statements or said the GOP should not engage in racial divisive comments. No, they were silent and now Gingrich is
raising money on clips of what he said to Williams at that debate. It should make South Carolinians angry about what Newt Gingrich is saying about them.
To make matters even more clear that we had entered a time warp and fallen back into another era, a white woman in the audience of a Gingrich rally the following day told the former Speaker that she was proud that Gingrich had put Williams “in his place.” I hadn’t heard that kind of openly racist statement in years. Where is the place of a black news commentator in that woman’s estimation? Gingrich just smiled, and the audiencecheered and clapped. Yikes!
This country has made progress since our Constitution counted blacks as 3/5 of a person. Real servitude ended after the Civil War with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made the economic servitude resultant from Jim Crow laws illegal. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it illegal to keep people of color from the ballot box.
After the Supreme Court finally overturned the “separate but equal” decision of Plessey v. Ferguson, our country witnessed a violent reaction in some parts of the country. Who can forget Alabama Governor Wallace’s proclamation of “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”? After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, we’d watched and read about the murder of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. We’dseen the beaten and jailed college students attempting to integrate lunch counters. We’d witnessed beatings and murder of some trying to integrate interstate bus transportation. We’d seen the murder of three Civil Rights workers attempting to register blacks to vote. We must remember those church bombings, those lynchings, the fire hoses and police dogs attacking children, the marches and peaceful demonstrations. We have come far since the march across the Pettus Bridge that led President Johnson to underscore the 15th Amendment with the Voting Rights Act. But when I hear things like the utterances of Gingrich and the responses of some in the South Carolina audiences, I wonder just how far we have come after all.
Williams asked Gingrich about his having said that blacks have no work ethic and choose to be on food stamps. He asked the former Speaker about the Gingrich janitorial work plan for black children. Specifically, he asked Gingrich,” Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans but particularly to Black Americans?”
Gingrich shrugged and said, somewhat flippantly, “No, I don’t see that.”
The largely White audience gave him a standing ovation, cheering and whistling as Gingrich went on to underscore his plans for poor Blacks. Juan Williams, in contrast, was booed! Cheers and applause for proud racial insensitivity? Boos for Juan Williams when he asked again if Gingrich’s comments were meant to belittle the poor and racial minorities? Boos. More boos for Williams. Condescension from Newt. I felt that I had been transported back to the pre-Civil Rights Era of my youth and young adulthood.
Gingrich even doubled down and reiterated his “plan” to help poor children in general and black children in particular—who have no work ethic, according to him--and he laid out his plan. He suggested that poor black children work as janitors in their schools. He seemed nonplussed as he ignored long and humanely established Child Labor Laws and asserted that black children grow up without a strong work ethic because they don’t see anyone around them working. (I would urge Mr. Nasty to get up very early one morning, drive to a poor neighborhood, and see all the men and women lined up at the bus stops, waiting to report to work, many of them African-Americans. Or he could watch the night cleaning shifts, for example, who work when he is sleeping.)
The Gingrich plan for impoverished black youths goes something like this: Fire the “union” janitor and let the children clean the school. There, they would develop a work ethic and earn money. “The average salary for a school janitor is $18,000.”* If we use the Gingrich number of 30 children for each janitorial position—“Hire 30 kids for the price of one janitor. They’d be getting money which is a good thing for the poor. Only the elites despise earning money.”—each of those children would net $600 a year and miss getting an education, thereby trapping them into a life of poverty in perpetuity.
School janitors’ jobs are more than sweeping floors and cleaning restrooms. They must know how to use and dispose of dangerous chemicals for stripping floors and cleaning problem areas. They clean up science labs, repair equipment, use heavy machinery for that cleaning and repair, move heavy furniture and equipment, etc. Janitors arrive before the school opens and are there afterward. They have to be certified in several safety and chemical use procedures. These are not jobs suitable for children! For a complete look at requirements and jobs for a school janitor,
consult this website:
http://www.mymajors.com/careers-and-jobs/School-Janitor
Next, note that Gingrich gleefully called President Obama the “Food Stamp President.” He then added that “Black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps.” First, I agree that more people are on food stamps. That is a fact. But that has a lot to do with a shrinking middle class as well as disasters like fires, floods, and devastating tornados and storms, most recently in Alabama. Food stamps are just one of the safety nets when disaster strikes. If you want facts, look it up. Here is just one site:
http://www.dailyjobsupdate.com/public/food-stamps-charts
As Gingrich continually attempts to don the Regan mantle, it might be interesting to see what Ronald Regan himself said about food stamps. In this one case, Gingrich is somewhat correct. The usually pleasant demeanor of the former president was not in play when, in 1976, he referred to “welfare queens,” saying these women defrauded the government by applying under multiple names for Medicaid, food stamps, and any other free program. That may have been true in a few cases, but certainly not in all cases.
Extrapolating on his comment that President Obama is the Food Stamp President, Gingrich tied Blacks to food stamps as if they were the only people in need of this aid. This belies facts, facts being something with which Gingrich plays pretty fast and loose. One need for increased numbers of people on food stamps is the increased rate of poverty in this country, something that has been occurring for about 10 years plus. Politifact rated the statement about President Obama’s being responsible for the increased number of people receiving food stamps—food stamps being the term still used although food stamps are actually SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—as half true. Here is their conclusion, but you can read the entire
decision at http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/17
“.…One last point: The number of food stamp beneficiaries had started to head upward under President George W. Bush, partly because of more aggressive efforts to get eligible Americans to apply for benefits, and partly because of changes in the rules that had the effect of broadening
eligibility. The experts we spoke to agreed that both policies began under Bush but were retained by Obama.
“Our ruling
“The number of SNAP beneficiaries is at a record level, and it has risen in most months of the Obama presidency. But Gingrich oversimplifies when he suggests that Obama is the root cause. Much of the reason for the increase was a combination of the economic problems Obama inherited combined with a longstanding upward trend from policy changes. But Obama has supported those policies. On balance, we rate Gingrich’s statement Half True.”
It is impossible for me to overlook the Gingrich comments because I continually hope that race relations in the United States will continue to improve. For decades, I have been teaching young people about the history of race in this country, and what I see and hear from them is so heartening that I become convinced that all is going to be well. I refuse to believe that that is delusional of me, and I continue to believe that the hope lies in this next generation since members of my generation represented on the debate stage seemed not to have evolved very much on the question of racial equality. Much of what Gingrich said about people of color was not just code for the racists in the audience. It was blatant racism. If Gingrich wanted to delve into the issue of food stamps, he could just as easily said that he wanted people—not black people—to demand jobs, not food stamps. His comment was not at all subtle. And yet, not one other candidate on the stage commented that Gingrich was making racist statements or said the GOP should not engage in racial divisive comments. No, they were silent and now Gingrich is
raising money on clips of what he said to Williams at that debate. It should make South Carolinians angry about what Newt Gingrich is saying about them.
To make matters even more clear that we had entered a time warp and fallen back into another era, a white woman in the audience of a Gingrich rally the following day told the former Speaker that she was proud that Gingrich had put Williams “in his place.” I hadn’t heard that kind of openly racist statement in years. Where is the place of a black news commentator in that woman’s estimation? Gingrich just smiled, and the audiencecheered and clapped. Yikes!
This country has made progress since our Constitution counted blacks as 3/5 of a person. Real servitude ended after the Civil War with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made the economic servitude resultant from Jim Crow laws illegal. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it illegal to keep people of color from the ballot box.
After the Supreme Court finally overturned the “separate but equal” decision of Plessey v. Ferguson, our country witnessed a violent reaction in some parts of the country. Who can forget Alabama Governor Wallace’s proclamation of “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”? After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, we’d watched and read about the murder of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. We’dseen the beaten and jailed college students attempting to integrate lunch counters. We’d witnessed beatings and murder of some trying to integrate interstate bus transportation. We’d seen the murder of three Civil Rights workers attempting to register blacks to vote. We must remember those church bombings, those lynchings, the fire hoses and police dogs attacking children, the marches and peaceful demonstrations. We have come far since the march across the Pettus Bridge that led President Johnson to underscore the 15th Amendment with the Voting Rights Act. But when I hear things like the utterances of Gingrich and the responses of some in the South Carolina audiences, I wonder just how far we have come after all.
Only someone who is obsessed with race would believe in "coded racism." The current system is broken. There aren't any jobs for young people thanks in part to minimum wage laws that a vast majority of economists oppose.
ReplyDeleteHow can our society survive if 40% of its citizens are born out of wedlock? This isn't a race problem it's a morality problem. The Democratic party has become the party of "anything goes." When "anything goes" everything goes down the toilet.