I haven’t said much about the current nationwide discussion on race that arose in the wake of the George Floyd killing. I did post a recent blog on Robin DiAngelo’s critique of white fragility, given that her book has taken on an enlarged role in this discussion of late. So I am now going to say a few more things — but mainly about Professor John McWhorter’s reaction to DiAngelo. To me, McWhorter maps out a road to reason, something quite welcome in these not-very-well-reasoned times.

I first became interested in American racial issues as a senior in high school, 2 years after the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I have written on the matter of racial relations a fair amount in this blog. I can’t say that I’ve devoted my life to social justice, but I did get involved with a handful of related organizations and causes over the past 40 years. Yes, you can find various traces of white fragility and privilege and implicit bias in me. I’m not perfect, I don’t pretend to be. But I can say that I am concerned, and have been for a long time.

To be honest, I haven’t been all that interested in writings and literature by white authors about “the white problem” regarding race. I have listened a bit to voices like TaNeshi Coates and more recently, Ibram X. Kendi; but as to Robin DiAngelo, I scarcely knew who she was until just a few weeks ago. And that was only because I was reading a reaction to her writings by a black author — the indomitable John McWhorter.  »  continue reading …

I grew up in a fairly devout Roman Catholic family, and we went to church regularly. But I was never an altar boy. However, my younger brother did don the cassock and surplice (and today, he still occasionally serves as an adult acolyte at his local parish — he hopes to get back to that once services return to normal following the COVID pandemic).

My brother did the altar boy thing into his high school years, and he got to know a lot of other kids who wished to be involved in the Catholic mass ceremony (albeit at a rather subservient level). He became friends with several of his fellow servers. One fellow was about his own age, and came up the ranks with him — but unlike my brother, this fellow went all the way up the ecclesiastical stairway. Following high school, he joined a seminary and became a priest after college study in Europe. My brother himself actually had the priest dream, but the circumstances of his life led him away from it.

My brother stayed in touch with his former altar boy now priest friend over the years — let’s call this fellow “Jay” although that’s not his real name. Jay and my brother would go a few years without talking, then come across one another and have a catch-up. About 15 years ago, it became known that Father Jay had been “put on inactive status” while being investigated by the diocese for allegations of sexual contact with a minor. His case was reviewed by the Vatican, which in effect gave him a NOT GUILTY verdict. Despite that, he never served as a parish priest again; he  »  continue reading …

The New Yorker recently published perhaps the first personal profile of former Ferguson, MO Police Officer Darren Wilson since he shot and killed 18 year old Michael Brown. Wilson obviously met with and cooperated extensively with writer Jake Halpern, who gave a detailed overview of Wilson’s life and career experience leading up to the Brown shooting, and since that time. At first, I found the article to be fair and quite informative, a well-needed focus on the perspective of Wilson, given that he unwittingly became involved in an incident where the media overwhelmingly focuses upon the victim and the many reactions from the public. In the end, however, I was disappointed by this article. Halpern had an agenda after all, a very familiar one for media such as the New Yorker; basically, to use Wilson as exhibit 1 in explicating the faults of whites in general, and white police officers in particular, in dealing with African Americans in an organizational context.

Halpern spoke in some detail about Wilson’s choice to work in North County outside St. Louis, as it was a more challenging environment for a police officer than a quieter, more affluent suburb. While working for a different but near-by police agency prior to his employment in Ferguson (in Jennings, MO), Wilson made the acquaintance of Mike McCarthy, another white officer (a field-training officer). McCarthy seemed to have a better understanding than Wilson did of the minority communities they were patrolling, and thus Wilson asked him for guidance in how to best deal with the people living in these areas. Wilson admitted to “culture shock” while addressing McCarthy, who agreed to help Wilson. Halpern seems to indicate that McCarthy’s efforts weren’t in vain, and that Wilson appeared better able to work in relatively high-crime minority communities because of it.

Halpern obviously asks McCarthy how he felt about the Brown killing. McCarthy’s reaction was that Wilson was basically doing his job, doing what any police officer in that situation would have to do, and that the tragic outcome did not have to do with Brown being black and Wilson being white. But of course, Halpern was not satisfied with this, so he pushed McCarthy further. Was it possible, Halpern wanted to know,  »  continue reading …