Cobb

"white lurkers in black fora always give black folks the creeps."

Do I give you the creeps?

That's a toughy, about the law student. It's hard to believe anybody in this day and time saying such a thing in public. I guess the student has to ask himself exactly what the damage is and how far he wants to take it. What does he want the end result to be? Does he *want* to make a big deal, or does he want her to understand how what she said affected him and to be more careful in future? Maybe the best thing for him to have done would be to go up to her after class, without an audience, and just tell her that she really hurt his feelings with her comment and that now he's going to be thinking that because he's black, she views him as a thug. Shock, horror, apology, no repeat, end of story.

As to white people accidentally offending black people - I was at work one day standing around with my black female coworkers, when the boss's visiting mother came around to say goodbye. She said "Bye, ladies" and we said bye. Subsequently one of my coworkers remarked that she thought the boss's mother almost said "Bye, girls" and caught herself in time. I said, "So what? We are girls." They explained to me that that would have been a racial putdown. I said, "With me standing here, and her obviously including me too?" "Yes." Live and learn.

Ha, well, my comment obviously went with your archived post.

This is hardly a black forum. I'm talking about something like ohh.. 'Mysteries of Black Folks' on Salon's Table Talk. But that's not even close. Something like the Afam-L or the BRC email distribution. I can't say with any certainty because I don't even know what black forums are out there. When I wrote that I was most certainly thinking about soc.culture.african.american, the Usenet group. And I know there have been instances where people have popped up and said stuff like: "I'm white and I have been reading this forum for six months and I haven't wanted to say anything until now, but I'm really surprised that any of you people defend OJ Simpson." I mean that is just wrong eight ways.

There are a million ways to offend people. I'm not about to enter into the business of diagnosing, healing or curing.

"Anonymous" up there was me.

Joanne Jacobs had a post about Bill Cosby's statements a while back that turned into a long, long discussion among black people who had never posted at her site. Never saw them again, either. There was another such thread at Rosenblog. I think there's a time and a place for people to shut up, and in discussions like those, for white people that's one. In my opinion. It didn't stop me from reading them because I'm curious about human nature. I guess they had to know white people might read their comments though, so it wasn't quite as creepy as it might have been.

I used to do Table Talk, a long time ago.

Funny, I feel annoyed about whitefolks getting traffic discussing black issues. I shouldn't, because I really don't market Cobb as much as I should. But there has long been a perception that the blogosphere is a white male domain.

But I do recall the volume of traffic rose around here when Cosby spoke out. Then it died down and went away.

I don't think whitefolks should ever shutup, just that they shouldn't lurk and then spring out of the corners with non-productive comments. It makes them whiter than they need to be. It's a dicey subject which I can take seriously when I choose to, but I haven't been the race man for a while.

I'm one of those people who believe that blackfolks and whitefolks need absolutely no prompting whatsoever. I think 'race relations' is a joke subject that has nothing to do with combatting racism. There are very few people who are interested in combatting racism, but zillions who would like to be 'correct'.

"Correct" keeps you out of trouble.

The reason I thought white people ought to shut up about the Cosby conversation is that it seems like anything one of us said would be like "Yeah, y'all ought to straighten up" or "Oh, y'all aren't so bad." Either way, inappropriate.

If I had piped up, at least one thing I would have said is that I don't like putting the way kids dress at the same level of outrage as irresponsible adult behavior. Kids have ALWAYS found a way to irritate their elders with their appearance. Back in the 1920's, bobbed hair and flapper dresses were supposed to signal Armageddon. I think the comic in Mr. Crosby (Are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up?) got the better of him on that point and diluted his message. It tickles me to see kids - and they're usually black teenage boys, but that may be the demographics where I live - walking down the sidewalk with their shorts pulled down so low the crotch is between their knees and they're having to kind of duck-walk. I think that if they could look back at that scene when they're my age they would wonder what possessed them to look such a fool. But that is classic kid stuff. Classic. Nothing to really gripe about, IMO.