Do the Wes!

Last week for all of ten minutes you could have thought Real Change was a cult. Almost all us "staff" showed up around the big table for the monthly staff meeting. We're collectively reading Class Matters, a book about class and class-activism by Betsy Leondar-Wright, and working through the discussion questions. That's like Number 5 amid the Top Ten Signs you are in a cult.

[Above: Typical Real Change staff meeting.]

We were pretty much in agreement about everything, talking about identity politics, when the illusion that we were a cult was shattered by an exchange that condenses to: "White People don't have a culture," "Nuh-uh. Do so," "Like what?" "Give me time, I'll think of some." I won't say who any of these people were, because it would only distract me from my goal, which is to (figuratively) dance around the question raised, gesticulate at it, and run away laughing insanely.

I wasn't going to do it, but then Saturday I saw the AP story about the 5 high school students in Galesburg, Illinois, who were denied keepsake diplomas at graduation because their friends and family cheered them too much. And I read that the 5 consisted of 4 Blacks and 1 Hispanic.

Now, there's no evidence that Galesburg is unusually racist. Within two years of being settled, the first Illinois anti-slavery society began there, and it became a stop on the underground railroad. Also, Carl Sandburg was born there, who never owned a slave, unlike George Washington, who had 364.

Still, it makes you pause. You've got a population that's roughly 84% White and yet it's 5 non-White students that get denied diplomas. The odds of that happening at random is around 1/100th of 1%. What up?

The first thing everybody did was ask themselves if the problem was that the White People of Galesburg weren't taking the cultures of Black People and Hispanics fully into account. Here's where I do my weird dance, where I fling my hips out, fly off the ground and land on my head (figuratively) and say, no, they aren't taking White People's culture fully into account. I say it's White People culture that says everybody should be quiet and respectful while the names of the graduates are read off.

Think about it. They say it's a matter of not being able to hear the names read out. But why should the ceremony be set up so you have to be able to hear? Why couldn't they have some clowns or mascots or whatever run around the stage holding up big cardboard signs letting people know who's who? Then they could play music through the whole thing, people could cheer and shout all they wanted and dance in their seats and in the aisles, and you'd have something to remember.

They can't do that because they're too White, that's why. So, yes, Virginia, wherever there are quiet boring ceremonies that drag on forever and put you to sleep, White People Culture lives, in our hearts, in our souls.

Now for the running away laughing insanely part. I can't resist pointing out that racism is a cultural artifact. So to the extent White People are overtly racist, that's culture. Conversely, take that overt racism away, as has genuinely happened in the 57 years of my lifetime, and you create a big void. So the fact that Whites are seen as cultureless can be a good thing.

Oppressed People's Cultures always seem richer. This is usually explained by saying that being oppressed makes your people more interesting somehow. So, Christians got interesting by being martyred. Blacks got made slaves, so now even I listen to Hip-Hop, it's so interesting.

I say, rubbish. The truth is, Christianity took hold because Rome had became mind-numbingly boring as soon as it was politically-incorrect to throw Christians to hungry lions.

If your culture is largely about social domination, then as that piece falls away, it leaves a vacuum. Anything looks better than a vacuum!

[Right: Me, looking better than a vacuum, a quarter-century ago.]