New Year Resolutions

I was messing around on the internet this fine Friday and came across this post which made me giggle every so often: New Years Resolutions Every Gay Should Live By. Read it. It's great.

Then I decided to read the comments as my people are a rather hilarious people. And I came across this comment which sums up a lot of which we need to be cognisant:

As a gay black man, I felt pretty much left out of this conversation. While I can do most of these things, and have done most of them already, it would be nice to be ‘spoken to’ versus completely left out of the conversation. I love being gay and I love our culture, but at times we forget that we are more diverse than any subculture group in the world and we need to recognize that. Not just beautiful, thin, white men. Here’s a New Years resolution for all us gays; open your mind to the fact that gay does not equate to just white. Plus, I look damn good with my beard.

I don't have much to add. 

A Bantu In My Bathroom - so far

(image from PanMacMillan)

I am currently reading Eusebius McKaiser's A Bantu In My Bathroom, and am absolutely enthralled. There are two specific parts of the book thus far (I am only halfway through) that have really dug into my head, which I thought I would spend a few words on. 

(If McKaiser or anyone involved in the publishing or creation of the book wants me to take down the parts I recite here, please let me know and I will happily do so.)

The first part of McKaiser's book deals with race, a naturally significant concept in South Africa. While the issue raises hackles in South Africa faster than a cat being prospectively thrown into a pool, there are some excellent points he makes; you have likely heard them before but there is one in particular that combats the constant criticisms of the constant dialogue of race we speak about as South Africans. And he offers a healthy perspective:

"We'd better get over our fear of the language of race, and talk. There is no reason why the language of race should logically lead to racism. I can recognise which of my friends are black, coloured or white without using that recognition as a reason to be racist. We should stop blaming racialism for our racism. It is a bit like blaming your sexism on the fact that you can see women and men look different. Racism's the enemy. The language of race, and seeing differences in each other, is not the enemy" - A Bantu In My Bathroom, page 79. 

I have lived in the UK and currently live in the US (in Chicago, nogal, a very racially divided city), where race, racism, racialism and so on are a non-topics. They don't get discussed a) because people don't like speaking about racism, particularly when they're on the good end of it, and b) because of the easy, yet mistaken, notion that speaking about racism doesn't fix it. It is unhealthy to not acknowledge race at all as it is, quite frankly, a very large part of who many of us are. Not acknowledging race, and therefore never speaking about it, is to deny many truths about many people. Forgoing any talk of race under any circumstances because of holistic belief that to achieve a non-racial society is to live under the illusion that races aren't different is nonsensical. "Fear of the language of race, and talk" limits our ability to grapple with the exact issues. 

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On page 41, chapter three entitled "Cape Town's dirty coloured secrets", McKaiser begins with a story about how he was accosted by two beggars as he walked along Long Street whom he described thus: 

"They looked about twenty, or perhaps slightly older, but with the bodies of eight-year-olds, and certainly not taller. They were incredibly persistent as they begged for money, running in front of me blocking my path. They looked and behaved like feral animals. I felt a mixture of emotions: anger, annoyance, sadness." - A Bantu In My Bathroom, page 41.

McKaiser then goes on to explain how he told this story to a liberal white friend of his who took exception to his use of the word "feral" to describe the two aforementioned men - in the book McKaiser says he cut the argument short and later said "And my white liberal acquaintance can go to hell as far as I am concerned." 

Sadly, this story didn't strike me because of the recollection of who populates the streets of Cape Town. Although I only lived in the city for a year I am well acquainted with such experiences, which are replicated far too often (of course, in Johannesburg, where I spent most of my life). But when I read this story I too initially took exception to the word "feral" to describe people - a word, for me, that dehumanises humans. What McKaiser went on to explain really got my thought machine ticking:

"But for the guy who was disgusted by my description, coloureds are objects of academic study: for him, only unemotive language will do. He humanises the bergies (beggars) of Cape Town with language. I choose language that bears witness to the stripping away of their humanity" - A Bantu In My Bathroom, page 43. 

And this made a fundamental point for me. I grew up in the completely out-of-touch English South African liberal bubble and have spent the last eight or so years learning how much of South Africa (and the world) exists outside my scope: a hell of a lot. I am aware that the glass through which I view the rest of the country shows me a remarkably different picture to many other people - in this case, McKaiser, but an experience that is replicated plethorically. This was a reminder of just how often it occurs. 

I am enjoying the book immensely, and I, thus far, at least, recommend you put it in many Christmas stockings this festive season. 

Your grannies are going to hurt you, Republicans

This is an example of an old voter. Thank you to CapitalGazette.com

Republicans face a problem in 2016 - this has been well documented thus far. The electorate is now full of brown people, which makes lacing a campaign with racial dog-whistles to hustle up old white people much trickier than before. Plausibly, the next person to sit atop the Democratic Party will also be a white folk (Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Martin O'Malley etc.) which means that whole Muslo-foreign-brown-person-birth-certificate-no-that's-not-a-real-birth-certificate argument will work even less successfully in 2016 than it did in 2012.

While those demographics are a-changin', so is one core Republican constituency: old people. The Baby Boomers started turning 65 last year, and there are bucketloads of them. There are going to be more people older than 65 in America than ever before, and they vote in numbers, in any weather, and they lean Republican. 56% of them voted for Mitt Romney; assuming Obama won the other 44%, that's a 12-point gap. In American politics that's a solid win.

"Yay,"I hear you cry, "that's great news for Republicans - our very own growing demographic!" No, according to some reports I looked at (and I am open to argument here as I am no anthropologist), the bloc of +65s, while growing, is not growing fast enough to counter-act the increase in groups favouring Democrats. However, it is a MASSIVE bloc within the Republican Party: ie. primaries that pick the presidential candidate (and others, of course). 

The coalition that makes up the Democratic voter coalition - brown people, young people, vagina-d people, gay people, poor people - by virtue of its existence kind of leans toward immigration rights, same-sex marriage (although this is hardly universally popular), liberalism, atheism and agnosticism*, a belief that there is a role for government in improving the country, and so on. 

As per the New York Times:
Beyond political parties, [young and old people] have different views on many of the biggest questions before the country. The young not only favor gay marriage and school funding more strongly; they are also notably less religious, more positive toward immigrants, less hostile to Social Security cuts and military cuts and more optimistic about the country’s future. They are both more open to change and more confident that life in the United States will remain good.

Old people tend to vote conservatively, particularly on immigration. Take, for example, this year's election result in the state of Arizona - Romney won 67% of the votes by people aged over 65. This is the state where immigration is the hottest political topic - the home of the "papers please" law which would have enabled police to request the papers of anyone who seemed to be there illegally (eg. because of brown skin or a funny accent). Romney openly backed Arizona's plethora of restrictive immigration laws this year and two-thirds of old people went along with him. To be clear, the presidential candidate for Republicans in 2008, John McCain, who has previously backed paths to immigration reform, finished the election then with 11 points less amongst this age group than Romney did - McCain is from Arizona!

Old people tend to make up a fat portion (50% to 70% over those older than 50, depending on which state you are in) of the vote in Republican primaries - and candidates with strong anti-immigration messages will therefore likely have a strong platform on which to stand. It is likely that the elderly will support such measures.

A quick count tells me 21 states have open primaries (anyone can vote) to elect party presidential candidates, plus California and Louisiana which have another kind of system, which means 27 states (plus some other territories) do not (which means only registered Republican Party members, and sometimes independents) can vote). In other words, old people, and their concerns, will be hugely influential in 27 closed state primaries. But this influence will not help them in the general elections.

If the elderly's influence on the Republican primary process continues to grow, the party runs a serious risk of selecting an unelectable presidential candidate. Again.

And the party will pay dearly for only waking up in 2012 to the changing country they wish to run. 

*EDIT: A friend of mine on Twitter, @shans, points out: "Perhaps just a matter of wording, but wouldn't say D. coalition "by nature of its existence" leans atheist/agnostic. Brown people and poor people are generally MORE religious than the gen pop. Not sure about women... And Pew which does most reliable research on religious trends says women more religious than men." She is quite right. In my clumsily worded paragraph above I used the phrase "atheism and agnosticism" in a list of characteristics of the Democratic voting coalition. I intended it to reference the young people who are part of this voting bloc, as well as the acceptability of secular legislation, but I referenced it awfully. 

An interesting... differentiation, repeated a thousand times over

Mukoma Wa Ngugi, a Kenyan writer who posted in the Comment is Free section of the Guardian today that he’s noticed that white people in America treat black Africans differently to how they treat black Americans. He’s managed to write a whole column on something I feel doesn’t really exist in the USA any more than it does around the rest of the world.

As we grow up to be racist – and by that I mean differentiating by race, not necessarily hating on people – and we do, particularly in places like South Africa, we forget that race is not the only factor we have when it comes to hating people. Look at the Irish – they only have white people there so instead of race conflicts, they fought over Christianity. The Sunni Muslims and Shi’ite Muslims played out a similar scenario. Cantonese-speaking Chinese think they are a level up from Mandarin-speakers while in India, a land where most people are Hindu and Indian, there are class criteria which exclude.

Even here in South Africa, a chit-chat here and there will make one realise that not all black folks are the same – good god, nine of the official languages are taken up by them! The other two are split amongst white folks, who have also gone through some troubles together – an English-speaking South African should never respond to “It’s been 16 years. Blacks should just get over apartheid” with “They probably will when you get over the Anglo-Boer war”.

So while Mukoma Wa Ngugi may feel that white Americans do indeed prefer foreign black folks to homegrown ones (and I doubt he has ever visited Arizona), I argue that it is a trait which is hardly exclusive to America. There is no one single degree of any group you could point out, as we tend to think.

And this begs the question: are differentiation and prejudice the same thing?

No, they are not. While these two concepts often walk hand in hand, and the former is necessary for the latter, it is incorrect to assume that because one acknowledges that one is not the same as someone else, that hating them is the next logical step. It is tempting, I suppose, because it is easy. But it is an intentional decision, not part of the deal.

History may not be so kind to my interpretation, but I find there are more people willing to break the divides down nowadays than there ever have before. So to ascribe something to America in blanket fashion is to propagate something westwards that applies everywhere. And to allude to the fact that this is exclusive to the USA is not just a lie, it is easy to jump on to. I certainly don’t deny the existence of racism in the States. What I do deny is the fact that it is more prevalent there than anywhere else.