Spike Lee vs. Eddie Murphy letter to editor

By: Dr Arthur N Lewin Feb. 19, 2001


In the Eddie Murphy movie, "Coming to America." The young African king, played by Murphy, comes to America to find a mate. Does he find one? Yes. She is attractive, and has a light complexion. Her sister, which he does not choose, is also attractive. However, she has dark skin and an evil personality. Not surprising, you say? A typical stereotype?
Several years later, enter Spike Lee with "Mo' Betta Blues." Denzel Washington’s character has two girlfriends. One is sincere. The other is not. The sincere one is dark. The opportunistic one is light. Guess which one he settles down with in the end? (Remember, it’s a Spike Lee film.) You got it. The dark one.
However, isn’t that also a stereotype? An anti-stereotype, to be sure, but isn’t that still a typing, bound to hurt someone, nonetheless? A necessary "antidote" to the generations of the opposite stereotype, you say? But, after all, isn’t an antidote still just a drug?
Returning to Murphy's "Coming to America," the prince is smitten by the girl as soon as he sees her, before she even opens her mouth. Recall the scene. She walks out on stage at a community play, and Murphy's character suddenly blurts out, "I'm in love!" before she even gets to say a word! It is her image he falls for.
Now back to Spike's "Mo Betta' Blues." You may say, "What would you have him do? Follow the old tradition? Have Denzel settle down with the light skin girl? No. But couldn't he have shown the women with the same, or much closer, hues?
Let's ask another question. Is racial prejudice in America, a completely separate (segregted?) question, from color prejudice within African America? Or are the two, in fact, deeply-seated, mirror images of each other?
Many Americans villify those of another race, or another shade. Some openly, some only in the presence of others like themselves. Is one type of "badmouthing" really all that much better than the other? They say it about "us," you say? Well don’t you think, they say that "you" do too? And you do. What would Dr. King say; what would Malcolm say, about all of this? But they aren't here. What would YOU say? Write us. We'd love to hear!
Lewin, Arthur
my web site
e-mail me
Milltown, NJ, 08850
SHORT FREELANCER BIOGRAPHY
I am the author of the book Africa Is Not A Country: It's A Continent. I also wrote the book Ourstory: 1950 - 2000 and the book Caribbean. I have been a member of the Black and Hispanic Studies Department at Baruch College in New York City since 1979. I received my docotorate in Sociology in 1978 from the City University Graduate School. I was born in Harlem, New York in 1950.
I am intensely interested in writing essays for the internet that will be viewed widely.

RAPE BY ANY OTHER NAME....

RAPE BY ANY OTHER NAME....
By: Dr Arthur N Lewin Jan. 01, 2004


(Posted on Sun, Dec. 28, 2003 on DuluthNewsTribune.com) "Let's Not Talk Nicely Of Strom Thurmod's Sordid Act"
by Barbara Ransby

...The flurry of media coverage around the recent announcement by Essie Mae Washington-Williams that Thurmond was her biological father has danced rather timidly around some of the more sordid implications of this revelation.
Since the rape of slave women by plantation owners in antebellum days, white men have been able to reconcile their sexual encounters with black women with their support of antiblack public policies. That is because racism has never been simply about separation of the races but about the subordination of one group to the will and interests of another.
The sexual exploitation of powerless black women by powerful white men was the corollary to the lynching and castration of black men. It was painful, violent and sometimes deadly.
Whatever the details, Sen. Strom Thurmond's sexual relationship with a black teen-age maid in South Carolina in 1925 was a form of sexual exploitation. It was not an "affair," as Thurmond's dignified but beleaguered black daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, attempted to suggest. Even though there is no evidence that Thurmond brutalized or even threatened Carrie Butler, Williams' mother, there is little chance she could have consented freely.
In 1925, most blacks in the South were disenfranchised and utterly powerless. There were virtually no black judges, police or politicians, and black citizens were treated as second-class in every respect, with little recourse.
The dictate of the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision that proclaimed "black men have no rights that white men are bound to respect," although overturned by Reconstruction, was still very much in place. This applied to black women, as well. It was against this social and economic landscape that Carrie Butler entered into a sexual relationship with the young Thurmond. He had all the power and privilege, and she was at his mercy.
So, could Carrie Butler have said no to her employer's son? Yes, in an absolute sense, perhaps she could have, but there would have been dire consequences. In small towns such as Edgefield, S.C., everyone knew everyone else. Black servants were fired on a whim, and without a recommendation that she was trustworthy and compliant, who would have hired her? With no financial resources and no education, where would she have gone?
This was not a harmless boyhood antic or a benign "mistake," or something terribly at odds with his avowed racist views. This was a harsh violation of a vulnerable black girl that had more severe consequences for her life than for his. The baby was taken from her mother to prevent awkward embarrassment for the Thurmonds, and the young mother lived out her days in shame and silence.
Race aside, it is important to note that Butler was only 16 when her child was born and probably 15 when the sexual encounters with Thurmond began. She was a minor, under the age of consent in most states. Thurmond, who was 22 at the time, was an adult. While his actions speak to a larger pattern of sexual violation, they also seem to represent a case of statutory rape.
This case reminds me of something very personal. When I was 10, I visited the South for the first time. I met my Mississippi relatives, who ranged in skin color from light cocoa to dark chocolate, and then there was the pale green-eyed cousin who stuck out like a sore thumb.
Who is he? I asked my mother naively. "That's your cousin," she replied, "Aunt Lilly's boy."
"You mean Uncle Fred and Aunt Lilly's boy?"
"Not exactly," my mother replied with hesitation. "Aunt Lilly was taken by a white man when she was 14, and that's what happened," she blurted out.
The white man was a prominent businessman in town. He provided financial support, I learned later, and never visited. I asked no more questions. But I remembered my mother's word: "taken."
Something had happened to Aunt Lilly that she and the family had no power to prevent. Life went on, but there were scars -- scars on black women's bodies and minds.
Strom Thurmond left his scars, too. He was, if nothing else, consistent in his violation of black people, publicly and privately... by Barbara Ransby www.DuluthNewsTribue.com
----------------------------------------------------------- BARBARA RANSBY is associate professor of black studies and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and executive director of The Public Square. This column was prepared for the Progressive Media Project distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. ------------------------------------------------------------
Lewin, Arthur
my web site
e-mail me
Milltown, NJ, 08850
SHORT FREELANCER BIOGRAPHY
I am the author of the book Africa Is Not A Country: It's A Continent. I also wrote the book Ourstory: 1950 - 2000 and the book Caribbean. I have been a member of the Black and Hispanic Studies Department at Baruch College in New York City since 1979. I received my docotorate in Sociology in 1978 from the City University Graduate School. I was born in Harlem, New York in 1950.
I am intensely interested in writing essays for the internet that will be viewed widely.

White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society by Ghassan Hage

White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society by Ghassan Hage

--> Publisher Comments: Anthropologist and social critic Ghassan Hage explores one of the most complex and troubling of modern phenomena: the desire for a white nation. In this prickly, strongly argued book, he asks whether that desire is indeed limited to "racists." Drawing upon the Australian experience, Hage draws conclusions that might also be applicable in France, the United States, of Great Britain, each being examples of multicultural environment under the control of white culture. Hage argues that governments have promise white citizens they would lose nothing under multiculturalism. But on the ground--where people live--migrant settlement has changed neighborhoods, challenged white control, created new demands from non-whites, and led to white backlash. This provocative book suggests that white racists and white multiculturalists may share more assumptions than either group suspects.*

Book News Annotation: Using the experience of immigration policy and the rise of Pauline Hanson's neo-fascist One Nation party in Australia, Hage (anthropology, U. of Sydney) argues that white racists and tolerant multiculturists both see their nation structured around a white culture that they control, with aboriginal people and migrants as exotic objects. His study was first published in 1998 by Pluto Press in Australia and Comerford and Miller in Britain. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

ISBN: 0415929237 Subtitle: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society Publisher: Routledge ; Copyright: 1998 Subject: Multiculturalism Subject: Discrimination & Racism Subject: Minority Studies - Race Relations Subject: Anthropology - Cultural Series: Radical writing Series Volume: no. 15 Publication Date: October 2000 Binding: Paperback Language: English Pages: 288 Dimensions: 8.50x5.48x1.88 in. .50 lbs.

The Tribal Basis of American Life: Racial, Religious, and Ethnic Groups in Conflict by Murray Friedman

The Tribal Basis of American Life: Racial, Religious, and Ethnic Groups in Conflict by Murray Friedman

--> Publisher Comments: For 300 years, American culture and society have been shaped by ethnic conflict. This book reveals how the unique characteristics of the American socio-political system have impacted intergroup conflicts. This contributed volume collects the most current thinking on intergroup dynamics and on specific conflicts and specific groups with a special emphasis on the Jewish-American experience.

Synopsis: An examination of ethnic conflict revealing how it has shaped American culture and society and how the unique characteristics of the American socio-political system have had an impact on intergroup conflict over the past 300 years.



--> Introduction: The Tribal Basis of American Life by Murray FriedmanChanging American Group SettingImmigration, Pluralism and Public Policy by Gary RubinThe Religious Roots of the Culture Wars: How Competing Moral Visions Fuel Cultural Conflict by James Davison Hunter and Kimon Howland SargeantCase Studies of Ethnic ConflictThe Tribes of Brooklyn: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the Crown Heights Riots by Jonathan RiederThe Persistence of Anti-Asian Hatred by Gary OkihiroThe Dynamics of American Intergroup Conflict and Responses to Bigotry by Philip PerlmutterBecoming Insiders: Factors Affecting the Creation and Maintenance of Boundaries for New Immigrants by Judith GoodeThe World Setting and ResponseEthnic Conflict at Home and Abroad: The United States in Comparative Perspective by James KurthHow Should We Talk About Intergroup Conflict? by Nathan GlazerIndex

Subtitle: Racial, Religious, and Ethnic Groups in Conflict Editor: Friedman, Murray Editor: Isserman, Nancy Publisher: Praeger Publishers Subject: Social groups -- United States -- Congresses. Subject: Group identity Subject: United states Subject: Social groups Subject: Race relations Subject: Minority Studies - Race Relations Subject: Minority Studies - Ethnic American Subject: Ethnology Subject: Discrimination & Racism Subject: Discrimination & Race Relations Edition Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Series Volume: bk. 1 Publication Date: April 1998 Binding: Hardcover Language: English Illustrations: Yes Pages: 184 Dimensions: 9.57x6.42x.82 in. 1.07 lbs.

Understanding Families #1: Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices by Paul C. Rosenblatt

Understanding Families #1: Multiracial Couples: Black & White Voices by Paul C. Rosenblatt

ISBN: 080397258x Subtitle: Black & White Voices Author: Rosenblatt, Paul C. Author: Powell, Richard D. Author: Karis, Terri A. Publisher: Sage Publications Subject: Married people Subject: Interracial marriage Subject: Minority Studies - Race Relations Subject: Sociology - Marriage & Family Subject: Discrimination & Racism Edition Description: Hardcover Series: Understanding Families (Hardcover) Series Volume: 1 Publication Date: July 1995 Binding: Hardcover Language: English Pages: 320 Dimensions: 9.24x6.17x.95 in. 1.48 lbs.

--> Book News Annotation: Juxtaposed excerpts of interviews with 21 couples in which one is black and the other white, reveal patterns and differences in how they became a couple, their relationships with their families of origin and the community, how they define themselves as individuals and as a couple, how they defend against racism, their parenting experiences, how race manifests within their relationship, and what they learn from each other. Begins a series for scholars of family studies, of which some volumes may be suitable as texts for graduate or undergraduate sociology courses. Paper edition (unseen), $21.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Synopsis: The problems of mixed race families in a racist society are fully explored in this qualitative, narrative study. Interviews with 21 biracial couples offer deep insights into their relationships and how they perceive society has viewed their marriages. The interviewers, a biracial couple themselves, ask their subjects such questions as how their churches, families, friends and community treat them and their partners. They also examine the interactions between spouses in biracial marriages and relationships between these couples and their parents and children.