Being clueless in Philly.

This "Being White in Philly" article still has legs with the local media and some folks here in my hometown. Most folks seemed to be upset about it, I suspect, though, that the folks at Philly Magazine love the shine that they are getting from their one sided race relations hit piece.

My girl Jenice Armstrong just wrote about it for Philly.com, and I am sorry I read the article.

Apparently some folks now want to organize a mass kumbayah love in at....well, Love Park. (Where else would it be?)

"Organizers hope Philadelphians of all races will turn out next week for an event at Love Park called “Being in Philly.” The gathering, scheduled for 4 p.m. on March 20, is in response to a controversial Philadelphia magazine cover story called “Being White In Philly.” In the piece, based on anonymous interviews, Robert Huber makes the claim that white people are afraid to talk about race for fear of being called racist.

The article has a lot of problems, many of them well documented already. But the first-day-of-spring event isn’t so much to address the issue of bad journalism but to present another view of what’s happening in Philly.
“The goal is to have an intellectual dialogue and discourse that promotes a positive outcome and interactive cultural understanding,” Chris Norris, a lead organizer, told me last week.   

Organizers also hope to bring Huber, the author of ‘Being White in Philly,’ to Love Park to introduce him around.

“To introduce him to organizations like Rising Sons and to introduce him to the Black Male Engagement Project that the Knight Foundation is spending millions and millions of dollars on to change the narrative in this city and Baltimore and Detroit. To introduce him to people like Gregory Walker (founder of the Brothers Network)…Gregory Corbin and Solomon Jones. That’s the goal. Not to make him feel scared, to make him feel like there’s going to be an angry black mob waiting for him. That there’s going to be intellectual black men waiting with open arms to embrace him because, hey, he needs a hug. “

Now I respect some of the people involved with this event, and I actually consider Solomon Jones a friend, but I have to question the wisdom of this planned outreach and racial lovefest.

Why do we have to go out of our way to show some naive journalist and folks who think like him that we are normal? Mr. Huber is a grown ass man; if it takes people having a planned event to bring him in contact with "educated" black people in a city like Philadelphia, well then maybe Mr. Huber and his cohorts are the ones who need to be doing some soul searching.

This, of course, is easier said than done. It is folks like Mr. Huber who are now playing the victim card and reverse racism is now the meme of the moment. (I think "white tears" is trending somewhere out there in social media land.)

Sorry folks, I would like to be on board, but I cannot. I understand the real reason folks like Mr. Huber have issues with people who are different, and why they fail to understand that there are other factors that affect people's behavior besides their race.

"We want to encourage Philly magazine to write a part 2 (called) being a Philadelphian. Not being white. Not being black. But being a Philadelphian. That’s really important,” pointed out Rashaun Williams, 18, a Temple University sociology and history major who's helping organize the gathering.

In addition to all that, organizers say there will be free musical performances and a water ice giveaway. Editors at Philly mag also have been invited."

I need a break.

Blaming the left for a lack of morals in America.

"Field, why aren't you posting about the dude who said black women are not as attractive as other people"?

That is typical of some of the e-mails I have gotten. I thought I would ignore this clown who posted his study in Psychology Today , but apparently you all won't let me. (WTF is an "evolutionary psychologist? I swear you academic types keep coming up with new ways to get paid every day.) Calm down people, this man is not all right upstairs. I am surprised that he is allowed to peddle his craft at a fine institution such as the LSE. But hey, it takes all kinds.

All I have to say about this subject is that "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder", and the top twenty...hell top one hundred most beautiful women in the world (starting, of course, with the lovely Mrs. Field) in my eyes just so happen to be sisters.

For a wonderful article on the subject read what my girl Jenice Armstrong wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It should give all of you who were stressing over this latest bit of junk science a bit of perspective.

Now on to something that has been bothering me all day. It was an article I read by a so called conservative thinker by the name of Walter Russell Mead. His article focused on the moral decay of what he calls the progressive elites in this country, and their lack of moral leadership.


"Here in the early years of the twenty-first century, the American elite is a walking disaster and is in every way less capable than its predecessors. It is less in touch with American history and culture, less personally honest, less productive, less forward looking, less effective at and less committed to child rearing, less freedom loving, less sacrificially patriotic and less entrepreneurial than predecessor generations. Its sense of entitlement and snobbery is greater than at any time since the American Revolution; its addiction to privilege is greater than during the Gilded Age and its ability to raise its young to be productive and courageous leaders of society has largely collapsed.....

...Many problems troubling America today are rooted in the poor performance of our elite educational institutions, the moral and social collapse of our ‘best’ families and the culture of narcissism and entitlement that has transformed the American elite into a flabby minded, strategically inept and morally confused parody of itself. Probably the best depiction of our elite in popular culture is the petulantly narcissistic Prince Charming in Shrek 2; our educational institutions are like the Fairy Godmother, weaving shoddy, cheap, feel-good illusions into a gossamer tissue of flattering lies."

Oh please! This is more right wing "gobblygook" written to make it look as if progressives are the morally bankrupt ones in this country and not folks like W and his band of merry men who took us to war and caused the loss of thousands of lives for god knows what.

Bill Bennett, on his radio program, actually tried to connect what this clown wrote to the latest moral failings of The Governator and the horny little Frenchman who tried to get his jungle fever on with a chamber maid at his hotel without her permission. Talk about a reach.
He actually said that the moral decay of those in power started with Clinton. Clinton!

Hmmm, I wonder how many of our Founding Fathers were getting their jungle fever on with the help? The little Frenchman got caught. They, on the other hand, had children and sent them off to work in the fields (and sometimes to the house) to work with the other slaves. I suspect that many of them were just like The Governator: getting it on with the help.

"I am not, repeat not, saying this was a bad thing. Having grown up under Jim Crow, and having seen the University of North Carolina deny my mother a chance for an advanced degree because it refused to admit married women into certain professional programs, I have no nostalgia for Tara. Count me in with the carpetbaggers, scalawags and civil rights activists; I’m marching with Martin, not sulking with Scarlett.

But it has given the United States a complicated and kinky relationship to our national past. The racist, Indian-killing, woman-oppressing America of the past was not a perfect society, but it was the source of the values that enabled us to grow. Disentangling the good from the bad and finding a way for society to connect ever more deeply with the good in our roots without resuscitating old evils is one of the essential skills national leaders need.." [Article]

"A SOURCE OF VALUES THAT ENABLED US TO GROW"? Mr. Mead, maybe it's time you revisit your value system