European American Holiday Traditions

California Revels celebrates European American culture each year in the SF/Bay Area.The Revels was founded by John Langstaff in 1971. Many different Revels productions occur annually in nine cities across the country, and many smaller Revels-inspired productions are performed in various small towns throughout the nation. This "all cultures welcome" approach to celebrating shatters the myth that European celebrations are always  "Eurocentric."

You Are There

About five years ago I was driving around the Berkeley hills with someone I'll call a comrade in the arts. A very "well educated" Celtic-Anglo-French American mother of two; happily married and fortunate enough to live in one of the wealthier, very nice parts of Oakland, California. A friend that I performed music with and often did some work for. I consider her a great talent though I have not seen her in ages. As the conversation turned to talk of my occasional presentations in area schools she commented:

"I hope you don't have to deal with all those diversity Nazis, you know? The ones that are always on about how bad I'm supposed to feel because I'm white? With the whole 'don't you wish you weren't related to all those oppressors' and I'm like actually 'no', in fact I'm proud I come from highly intelligent composers, conquerors, writers and artists! We actually have a hell of lot going for us historically! And my kids are not going to feel ashamed about who they are either."

The rest of the conversation was pretty much along the same lines. Add to that the very negative experience  she had working a retail job while attending  CAL, continually being bullied by two African American girls and there were not many discernible elements of patience and equanimity to be found regarding her views on race:

"They'd touch my hair and say 'you're good looking, for what you are and sit on their fat asses, never do any work and make nasty comments for no other reason besides the fact I'm white." More of the same type of statements followed including how shopping out in " Walnut Creek aka whitey town" (her words said with gusto) was always preferable.


It is uncomfortable for an anti-racist to know how to respond to such an acquaintance's experience. You may have a similar conversation with a stranger whom you happen to sit with for ten minutes on a park bench and  possibly you've said similar things yourself. Societal conditioning tells white people to nod their heads and/or try to either change the subject or commiserate and let out the "inner rabid racist" that supposedly all POC feels lives inside every white person. The latter position has some truth to it, as the subconscious thread in American race relations, buoyed largely by the media's pandering to historical stereotypes , that says because the white power structure is omnipotent and all knowing that it will label, or worst, cast out, those who dare dissent and side with the "others". And because ultimately most people bow down to power.

Granted this was not a friend in the close sense, this was an employer and someone I was friendly with through the arts. It made me wonder how many white employees nod along. Yet, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that her experiences were hurtful and that she has every reason to want to raise her children without guilt. Yes you'll hear people of all races act as she did. The upper middle white liberal guilt and self hatred in the Bay Area is legend and much of its well intentioned original principles that grew out of the Free Speech Movement at CAL long gone in favour of conspicuous consumption and blatantly  hypocritical attempts at diversity (eg: marching for Tibetan liberation while paying women poverty level wages for childcare etc). Meanwhile the miserable poverty and crime that many African-American, Hispanic, Asian and  White people endure in the SF/Bay lower class is some of the worst  in the country. (Due to the sharp class and race distinctions in Oakland, virtually all white wealthy parents have their children in private schools at some point.) Alongside those two, very real extremes is a small but very committed, very stalwart community of every type of person, activist, economic background, age, race and combo thereof  imaginable (many of them parents) who "keep it real", get things accomplished and who make community groups in places like Berkeley and Albany the storied torch-bearers of successful  diversity that they are.

My friend was not interested any of the aforementioned groups and in fact she recoiled from all of them openly and I'm sure she still is; that is her choice. In the end, I told her that my views were very different. Even if I had lived a few of her exact same experiences and acted just as she had,  I had simply seen the nastiness of few far too many times to let it harden me. I won't be a cog in the continuous human machine of hypocrisy and primitiveness that is racism. I refuse to not continue to judge people as individuals and assess situations as I came upon them and that is how my children will be raised. But hard nuts to crack aside, when, after acknowledging our own experiences and responsibilities  with internalized or blatant racism, how does a friend stay true to the good fight when a friend or acquaintance (of any race) acts like a bigot?

Explain how you've decided that you  cannot yield to stereotypes and racism in the bigger picture? Or if you embrace racism (be it subtle or outright) than explain why.  What do you think?

Hate Crimes Against Whites

Many white racists claim that hate crime legalization works in a similar fashion to affirmative action; only to safeguard the rights of non-whites. In turn many people of color and anti-racists feel that a perceived umbrella effect of white privilege makes abject discrimination of whites next to impossible or at least nothing that could rival their shared experiences. Great discomfort immediately floods the proceeding should one want to raise this topic. The inexcusable history of white supremacy, police brutality, lynching, Jim Crow and unfair employment practices aganist African Americans and other POC casts a shadow that clearly makes it off limits to some. This sadly puts many of us committed to a fair dialogue on race, humanity and crime in a no-win situation that needs little introduction.

On a few of the mainstream comments threads that follow the often unreported victims of minority on white crime, opinions read like this:

"...cross burning, racist slurs against blacks by white terrorists, slavery and the Jim Crow effects. This assault will not change my negative views on most whites regarding to cowardice expressed by their distorted views."

"Well gee, if you guys and gals are so angry over hate crime incidents, now you know how black people feel and have felt for decades - or centuries."

Attorney General Holder when appointed proclaimed: "we are a nation of cowards on race."

This is one specific example of cowardice. The above two statements by the bloggers are very racist and pointless yet many anti-racist whites would be risking an argument (or worse) if they were to disagree-in fact they are expected to agree without equivocation in most anti-racism and liberal circles. This creates regression in societal thinking. It says one has to negate and belittle the pain (even death) caused by violent crime because someone else's historical pain "matters more."

Two violent black criminals who brutally murdered eight police officers this past year are clear examples of heinous crimes committed against whites that fall within the parameters of what constitutes a hate crime.


Recently, there was a deadly shooting near Seattle, in the town of Lakevile, Washington.  Four white police officers,  Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and Officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Greg Richards, 42 were all murdered in cold blood by an African American parolee with a horrendous criminal record named Maurice Clemmons. It is clear to anyone who follows the media that had this been a white parolee shooting four African American police officers in cold blood it would have been reported as a hate crime immediately.

The fact that Clemmons does not, as of yet, have any obvious ties to black extremist groups makes the issue less cut and dried than say the shooter who murdered Stephen Tyrone Johns, a six-year veteran of the National Holocaust museum's security staff.  Johns' killer, James W. von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist from Maryland had a Neo-Nazi website that clearly showed a motive. Clemmons had a clear motive though too, he hated society and he was very conniving. When one looks closely at who Clemmons was, the only matter of conjecture regarding white police officers is that his murders were not planned sooner.

Born, raised and incarcerated in Arkansas as a teenager only to emerge as a Frankenstein monster of the American penal system eleven years later, Clemmons lied his way out of prison twice, once with the now infamous assistance and culpability of Mike Huckabee. He went on to commit child rape and in May of 2009,  assaulted two police deputies. Clemmons was placed under arrest  where he told jail workers, "I'll kill all you bitches." Clemmons was charged with two felony assault charges and two felony malicious mischief charges, and released from jail the next day after posting a $40,000 bail bond without seeing a judge. Out on bail he committed the mass murders of the police officers and was subsequently seen and shot dead later that same week. Among those arrested in collusion were Darcus Allen, his alleged getaway driver, and Clemmons' sister, who bandaged his wounds and provided transportation. The murders were clearly planned.

26 year old Lovelle Mixon was a serial rapist who had an extensive criminal history. On March 20, 2009, the day prior to the police shootings that killed Sgt. Mike Dunakin, Officer John Hege, Sgt. Ervan Romans and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, Oakland police learned that Mixon was linked by DNA to the February 5, 2009 rape of a 12-year-old girl who was dragged off the street at gunpoint in the East Oakland neighborhood where Mixon's sister lived. On May 4, 2009 a state laboratory confirmed this link and also said Mixon had robbed and raped two young women on the morning of March 21, 2009, the same day he murdered four police officers who had pursued him on a parole violation. If Mixon had been arrested for his parole violation, he would have faced at most six months in prison; if convicted of rape, he faced life sentences. Mixon waited in ambush.

Sadly, the inane and grotesquely exploitative racist Oakland based organization Uhuru House distributed  flyers in the neighborhood where Mixon was shot dead, inviting people to a rally where they might "uphold the resistance" of "Brother Lovelle Mixon" while others intent on making Oakland look hopeless called his death "genocide." Thankfully, the many sensible community activists of Oakland spoke out aganist their lack of humanity but they were of course ignored by the media and many white journalists who, once again, used the Afrocentric ramblings of a few outdated idiots to unfairly define mainstream Black America.

The answer to both situations never repeating themselves is to study how killers like these are born and raised and to wipe out all poverty. Our President needs to bring the troops home NOW and start focusing on the United States. In the mean time, there can be no excuses for not calling the murders of these eight police officers Hate Crimes. The blatant unfairness of not doing so actually creates more fear by giving many whites the clear impression that if their children are murdered or attacked because of their race, then its guarantee that assailant will face less jail time and fewer charges simply because they, the victim were/are white. Crime is not Affirmative Action  (a concept I fully support despite the obvious drawbacks) a murder destroys the sanity of every family it crushes and in the same way as it mocks the safety of our society that many of us value greatly.

By calling a hate crime what it is, you validate communities and individuals who feel they are at lost as to how to protect themselves for simply being. This important racial distinction in criminal justice was set up to protect victims not racists on sidelines competing in persecution Olympics. It is an unpopular concept to many in anti-racism circles but yes, white people can be victims of violent racism too. To negate it and not include it in the wider anti-racist debate is to practice the ultimate in hypocrisy and blame based assumptions while opening the door to yet more racial extremism. The operative stereotype being that "whites have always been on top so they do not need as much protection as people of color."

I doubt that even Al Sharpton would have the guts to tell that to the families of the eight slain officers this holiday season.

Obama: War we can believe in?

So what do you think? I voted for him as did many progressive folks. I like him but do feel he lied about
"bringing the troops back home"

Be honest, this is not an "Obama walks on hallowed ground" post!

How will Europe react? I think Gordon Brown will need to reconsider the early withdraw or the BNP is assured more seats in the EU parliment. I'm not sure Brown has a choice. Opinions?

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