Speech traces racism through U.S. history

Even as the country’s first black president finishes his first term, a member of the Texas…Even as the country’s first black president finishes his first term, a member of the Texas A&M University faculty argued that systemic and institutionalized racism is still a devastating issue in America.

Joe Feagin, a professor of sociology at Texas A&M University, gave a talk titled “Obama’s Campaigns and Presidency: No Post-Racial America” yesterday in the School of Social Work’s conference center on the 20th floor of the Cathedral of Learning. Feagin spoke as part of an annual lecture series hosted by the school’s Center on Race and Social Problems. The series deals with racial problems in the United States and is currently in its 11th year.

Feagin’s remarks began at noon and lasted for an hour and a half, including a Q-and-A session. He discussed at length evidence for what he called systemic racism within the United States, citing both historical evidence and evidence from President Barack Obama’s own career. He asserted that systemic racism has been part of the U.S. since the beginning of its history and that American political and social institutions still serve the interests of a white elite.

Larry Davis, dean of the School of Social Work and director of the Center on Race and Social Problems, greeted the audience and gave credit to Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney PC for sponsoring the lecture series, adding that most law firms would avoid such controversial issues. He also noted that interest in Feagin’s work had more than filled the seating in the conference center.

Joyce Bell, assistant professor at the School of Social Work, took the stage after Davis to introduce Feagin, discussing his many accomplishments, including the nomination of his 1973 book, “Ghetto Revolts,” for a Pulitzer Prize.

Early in his lecture, Feagin stated, “We are by no means a post-racial society.”

Feagin laid out his argument largely along chronological lines, beginning with the framers of the Constitution, pointing out that all were white men. Additionally, he said that 40 percent of those framers owned slaves and wrote racism into that document. As an example, he pointed out blatant racism in Thomas Jefferson’s writing. Feagin went on to say Americans often ignore such historical truths.

Feagin focused on the example of Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery to become a pre-eminent writer and orator of his time. Feagin discussed a speech in which Douglass attacked the institution of slavery by explaining that to a slave, the praise of Americans for principles like liberty and equality would sound like “swelling vanity” and “hollow mockery.” Douglass described Americans as unrivaled in “revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy.”

“Some of these strong words still describe our society today,” Feagin said.

Feagin went on to cite the makeup of present-day Congress, whose membership is overwhelmingly white and male, as further evidence of institutionalized racism. The Senate — 96 percent of which is white and in which only 17 women serve — particularly reflects for Feagin the dominance of an elite comprised of white men.

While the Democratic party has become more diverse since the repeal of the Jim Crow laws in the 1960’s, Feagin argued the Republican party continues to favor the interests of white men.

Feagin also said that voting trends, including statistics from the 2008 presidential election, reflect a society fragmented by race. Hispanic and African-American voters overwhelmingly supported Obama, while Sen. John McCain’s base of support was almost entirely white.

“Obama has been forced by this reality to operate as an outsider within,” Feagin said.

Feagin said this status has forced Obama to compromise with the white elite in his policies. It has also made him the target of racist attacks, both overt and otherwise.

Feagin pointed to the presence of websites with names like Niggermania and Your Nigger President. Additional evidence of Americans’ private racism includes millions of searches for jokes that include that same pejorative term, often along with the president’s name.

Feagin singled out as an example one chief federal district judge who was exposed for having sent an offensive joke about both the president and his mother via email. The judge, he said, sent the joke from a court building and email address.

Feagin said that Obama will again need minority voters if he is to win re-election. However, he pointed to recent legislation such as voter ID laws, including the one enacted in Pa., as evidence that white conservatives seek to suppress minority voters.

Following his remarks, Feagin invited the audience to ask questions.

Seth Beckerman, a former faculty member at Washington State University who currently works as a freelance writer and editor, was one of those who spoke up. He asked about the link between the American educational system and systemic racism.

“One of the casualties of our political system has been critical thinking,” said Feagin, beginning his reply to Beckerman.

He elaborated by saying that American schools teach a historical narrative that ignores the faults and inherent racism of American institutions and of Thomas Jefferson and other founders. He said these founders left African-Americans and other minorities out of many of the ideals they claimed they served when framing the Constitution. School curricula also ignore many of the achievements of non-whites in the nation’s progress.

“Blacks have made huge contributions in pushing this country, kicking and screaming, towards making that [constitutional] framing a reality,” he said.

Speaking after the lecture, Beckerman echoed many of Feagin’s statements.

“I think many of the things [Feagin] was talking about reflect the failure of our educational system to teach critical thinking,” Beckerman said.

Despite the weighty nature of the talk, Beckerman felt that it was constructive and reminded Americans to keep working for racial equality.

“[Feagin] highlighted not only how far we’ve come, but how far we have to go,” Beckerman said.

But not all attendees agreed with Feagin.

When he called on one middle-aged member of the audience seated near the podium who had raised his hand, the man began to say that he took exception to Feagin’s remarks. He accused Feagin of failing to look at history objectively in discussing the racism in Jefferson’s writings but ignoring an attack on slavery in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Feagin began to answer by pointing out that Jefferson included his criticism of slavery in order to blame it on King George, but the heckler further accused Feagin of criticizing the American political system instead of looking for solutions.

Davis and Ralph Bangs, associate director of the Center, who had moved to the front of the room to stand near Feagin, reminded the man to keep his comments civil as murmurs from the audience for the man to stop increased in number and volume. More than one other audience member wondered out loud why there was no security to eject him.

Finally, the heckler angrily stood up, shouldering a backpack and holding his white bicycle helmet by its chin strap.

“Enjoy the problem that you will never solve because you will never face it,” the man said as he left the room and his shouting became inaudible.

After the lecture, Davis could not help but chuckle when he said that several other attendees, citing the heckler’s exaggerated demeanor, asked whether he had been planted in the audience to demonstrate a point. Davis emphasized that he was not, and had in fact disrupted another lecture in the series earlier this year. However, Davis said that such disruptions remind him to keep working.

“If it were not for people like [the heckler], we wouldn’t have these events,” he said.

Despite the one vocal detractor, most of the audience wanted to hear Feagin speak. Shon Owens, Jonathan Pettis and Cheryl King, all of Aliquippa, Pa., attended yesterday’s talk. They have attended several other lectures in the series and heard Feagin speak once before, during the Center on Race and Social Problems’s 2010 conference, Race in America.

Owens believed that Feagin shared some of his own views on racial inequality and was impressed by the degree to which Feagin researched his arguments.

“It is very much what African-Americans have been trying to articulate for years,” Owens said. “African-Americans have been saying the same things behind closed doors and at the water cooler for years, and he’s articulating them at the national level.”

King said that she appreciated the opportunity to hear Feagin again and valued his work.

“You find someone that dedicated and committed to truth-seeking, and you know it takes courage,” she said.