Debra Pickett

Believe it or not the number of us who abhor, deny and scold the use of the "C", the "RN", the "WB", the "S" the "N", etc., is much higher than the number who use these negativities. Our platform for talking against it is just smaller but we are outraged!!!

There needs to be some out in the media open acknowledgement that this is happening. Not a finger pointing but a, "Hey! People of different persuasions are using these , , , negative epithets and we all need to stop. If you want respect you have to give respect and forgoodness sake you need to respect your self".

There are a lot of comedians and musicians who use these words. They think it is okay and they may be so misguided to think spewing this stuff over the air waves takes the sting out of the words but they couldn't be further from the truth.

DEAR MR. WHITE DR. KING YOU DONT HAVE A CLUE DO YOU .DO YOU KNOW WHERE "CRACKER" CAME FROM ? RACIST LOSERS SITTING AROUND A CRACKER BARREL TALKING TRASH ABOUT HOW SUPERIOR THEY WERE , "HONKIE" FROM THE NASEL INFLECTION IN THE AFOR MENTIONED FOLKS VOICE ."NIGGER" ANY MEMBER OF A DARK SKINED RACE , BUT BEFORE ,IT WAS USED FOR AFRICAN SLAVES ,IT MENT SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED . IF YOU WERE TO USE THAT PHRASE IN FRONT OF ME, YOU WOULD BE LOOKING FOR YOUR TEETH IN THE TOILET AND I'M NOT BLACK , JUST NATIVE AMERICAN . THIS COUNTRY HAS TRUE AMERICANS THOSE WHOSE BIRTH RIGHT IS THIS LAND AND THOSE WHO WERE BROUGHT HERE AGINST THIER WILL . WE ARE THE ONES THAT GET THE CRAPPY END OF THE STICK NOT YOU, AND YOU REALLY DONT HAVE A CLUE ! SO GO CRY SOME WHERE ELSE BECAUSE YOU DONT KNOW THE PAIN THAT IS PAST DOWN THROUGH GENERATIONS . HA HA HA THE WHITE DR. KING YEAH RIGHT MY MOTHER INLAW KNEW DR. KING SHE HAD FAMILY DIE JUST BECAUSE THEY WERE BLACK . IVE HAD FAMILY KILLED FOR DATING THE WRONG COLOUR PERSON, SO YOU KNOW WHAT DUDE NOT EVEN A GLIMER OF A CLUE !!!!!

Finish the day like any other. Just before you go, collect those back issues of People, Cosmo and Us Weekly along with those liters of unfinished diet coke and column-writing crayons and leave journalism for good. I’m sure Neil Steinberg can get you something on the back page of a suburban shopper; take him along while you’re at it - please. No one of any conscience will notice. As if they ever have.

What to say about a woman whose immediate response to crude racist cowardice is thinking how awkward it would sound recounting to a gaggle of her yuppies comrades, whose visceral reaction is the fear of echoing a preachy collegiate stereotype, who furthermore witnesses and buys into appropriate responses that stagger from wry cynicism to sophisticated detachment, who naively thinks she can exonerate herself on the cheap with her own chai tea-latte self-flagellation. And this is not just and not only some upwardly-mobile trixie in her Jetta, but a woman whose thoughts actually spill out on page 2 of a major daily newspaper in its post-Conrad Black ascendancy.

And it gets worse.

Only an extremely coddled ego, itself untrammeled by meditations of real empathy, would fatuously think it capable of explanation and responsible for apology, and then cowardly claim ignorance, never thinking twice that this man and his girls might know just a little more about strife, violence and hatred than she does. She then leaves us thinking that the only nugget we’re supposed to pull from this is her own skewed view of society’s response, which I guess is valid if you swill in her social circles.

God save us from white girls who think they care.

I would like to address this comment to Terry Delaney (and john song pay attention as well). What exactly is the point of this diatribe here? You're quite the wordsmith, but you really have nothing to say. You accuse Ms. Pickett of wry cynicism, but I have rarely seen such cynicism as you display in your comments. I'm not quite sure what you believe Ms. Pickett, or others of us who feel the same sense of outrage at these acts, should do. If we are white and/or privileged we therefore shouldn't have an opinion? We shouldn't publicly grapple with our responses to something that we don't have a personal experience with? We should all move to the suburbs and pretend these sorts of things don't happen?
Not to stray too far from the point, but your comments display a distinct lack of civility and represent a real degeneration of discourse in this country. Rather than concisely state what your issue with Ms. Pickett is and use it as a time for instruction and dialogue, you have instead chosen to simply call her names and hide behind clever words and simple nastiness.
I gather from the "crude racist cowardice" comment that you are also appalled by what happened to this family. Ms. Pickett is as well. Don't you think a bit of unity is warrented here? Or should we all be saved from well white boys who think they care as well?

Andrew,

I couldn't have said it better myself, so I won't even try.

I commend Ms. Pickett for reaching out and touching hearts. Mine as well as those of the Sambola family.

Those who would trivialize and ridicule her honest efforts to support the Sambolas are as much as part of the problem as the graffiti racists.

ANDREW , VERY GOOD I APPLAUD YOUR COMMENT , WITH THE DEATH OF MRS.KING MAYBE ITS TIME TO TAKE A BREATH AND TO REFLECT ON HOW WE TREAT EACH OTHER . BUT LIKE IN SOME OF MY PREVIOUS STATEMENTS THERE IS A LOT OF PAIN AND ALOT TO OVERCOME I LISTEN TO MY MOTHER INLAW TALK ABOUT RIDING IN THE BACK OF THE BUS AND HAVING TO GET UP FOR WHITE FOLKS, DOGGS BEING LET LOOSE ON THEM ,WATER CANONS BLASTING THE FLESH OFF OF THERE BONES . MY UNCLE TALKED ABOUT HIS BROTHER AND COUSIN DYING BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT BE ADMITED TO A WHITE PERSONS HOSPITAL AFTER A MINE ACCIDENT . OR MY UNCLE DAVID MURDERD , NECK SNAPED AND DROWNED BECUUSE OF DATING A WHITE GIRL . MY WIFE WHO SPEAKS SPANISH VERY WELL WAS NOT WAITED ON IN A SPANISH STORE AND HAD INSULTS HURLED AT HER UNTIL SHE ADRESSED THE BUTCHER IN SPANISH ,WELL THEN THAY APOLOGIZED .I WAS SUPRIZED TO LEARN THAT SOME WHOME HAVE BEEN HERE ONLY A SHORT TIME AND REAP THE BENEFITS THAT SO MANY NATIVE TO THIS LAND FOUGHT AND DIED FOR HAVE SUCH A HATEFUL ATTITUDE . OR WHEN SHE WAS IN SCHOOL, BEING TOLD TO REMEMBER HER PLACE AND DONT TRY TO ACT TO SMART . OR ME BEING LOCKED IN A BROOM CLOSET AND BEING CALLED NIGGER FORCED TO CARRY A BABIES RATTEL BECAUSE I READ TOO WELL, BETTER THAN MOST IN THAT SCHOOL . OR SOME TWENTY SOMTHING NAZI WANABE THREATENING MY TWELVE YR. OLD SON TELLING HIM HE'LL BE CUT AND BEAT ,I DID TAKE CARE OF THAT MY SELF IN MY WAY AND IT FELT GOOOOOOD . SO DO I HAVE A CHIP ON MY SHOULDER ? MAYBE BUT AGE HAS MELOWED ME , THAT BEING SAID RACISIM IS NOT BOUND BY ETHNICITY , RACE OR COLOR ,SO DO YOU UNDERSTAND MY VIEW , THE WHITE DR.KING WONT ,THAT I KNOW . I TALKED TO A WHITE LADY WHO IS A CITIZEN NOW FROM YUOGOSLAVIA AND SHE WAS TOLD THAT BLACKS WOULD CATCH YOU AFTER DARK AND EAT YOU .MY UNCLE AL WHO WITH HIS FOUR BROTHERS SERVED DURING W.W.2 SAID THE PEOPLE IN THE NEWLEY LIBERATED LANDS THOUGHT THAT THE BLACK SOLDIERS WOULD GROW TAILS AFTER MIDNIGHT THE WHITE SOLDIERS SPRED THAT CRAP. NICE . SO IF YOUR SO DIFFRENT HELP STOP THIS MADNESS AND I'LL DO THE SAME ,SPEAK UP FOR CIVIL RIGHTS CIVIL LIBERTIES AND EQUALITY BACAUSE AFTER 225 YRS ITS NOT HERE YET .

I was angry with my friend
I told my wrath, my wrath did end
I was angry with my foe
I told it not, my wrath did grow
A Poison Tree
- William Blake

Bravo Mr. Wyatt.

I appreciate your reply. My fondest hope for you is that your long-hoped-for bowel movement draws nigh.

Well-thought, spirited discourse has that effect. A steady diet of politically correct, congealed commentary tends to strangulate the nether regions of thought and analysis. You’ve no doubt spent too much time in places similar to Ms Pickett’s dinner party milieu where moral indignation is relegated to constipating awkwardness.

Now that the path shows faint signs of clearing, so to speak, you will note that mine is no simple-minded, ad hominem rejoinder to Ms Pickett’s column, but rather a looking glass held up to self-serving, simplistic outrage. A careful reading shows that I proffer no cynicism in answer to racism or seek to temper outrage with a lack of first-hand experience, as you allege. But, opinions such as yours are like your hoped-to-be liberated nether regions - everybody’s got ‘em and when left there are no better than the socially correct etiquette that Ms Pickett admittedly resorts to at her gatherings. Her “caring too much� is not caring at all. All she has to offer us is her own inchoate rant against rants about social justice. When it comes time for action, however, she falls short. She “lied� (her words).

Your other accusations and call for unity have the validity and consistency of this same pabulum. If that’s unity, I smell more than a rat.

I'm glad there's some discussion -- largely civil, though I could do without the whole constipation theme -- going here. That was something I very much hoped the column would stimulate.

Still, there's the question of action: What should people who care about race relations (human relations, really) in Chicago actually do to improve things? What can we do?

Let's accept (as I do) Terry Delaney's point that I am obviously just yuppie scum.

Well, the sad the truth is that there are (increasingly) wide swaths of the city populated with people just like me. Some possibly even more shallow and self-centered. Many without the whole do-gooder volunteer thing going on.

Do those people have no role to play in the civic life of our city? Or is there some responsibility they have in making this a safe, welcoming place for people who come to live and work here from all over the world?

I wrote last Friday's column because I'm truly at a loss for how to deal with (or even explain) the hateful act that has so devastated my friends. My sense was that the first step to dealing with such a thing is to talk about it and name it. But that's ONLY the first step.

I'm wondering what comes next.

Yuppie Scum?

I may have employed some spirited hyperbole, but never resorted to name-calling. Not once. As for the truly mean and dangerous epithets that appear in this discourse, let’s just say I do not truck in such rubbish. Not even to make a point. Scares me even to see ‘em in print.

Yet Ms Pickett herself, sensitive as she is to pungent metaphor, hurls a sticky one and attributes it to me, and in the same breath blithely wonders what to do next. Well Dorothy, you’ve always had the power to get back to Kansas, and you don’t even need that magical pair of Manolo Blahniks, er, ruby slippers. Start right there; keep the name-calling and subsequent attribution in check.

That persistent self-recrimination of yours does smack of back door absolution and only serves to further confuse and distort. Thinking yourself capable of explaining and responsible for apologizing for persistent racist evils is symptomatic of just-so-much navel-gazing. It bespeaks less of your inner hippie chick and more of your inner Miss America wannabe exhorting adherents to her simplistic platform on world peace.

I do know that shrill grandstanding of an important issue wades dangerously close to Bob Greene-Baby Richard waters. Any of us with an attention span can still smell the stench from that funeral pyre. Besides, that ferret-like predator mincing around your door just might be a colleague who’s no stranger to such journalistic carrion.

By your own exhortation it’s your friends and others of your ilk, and admittedly you yourself, we’re considering here, not those graffiti cowards. Just say no to that next dinner party and hang out more with Mariama and Jariatu. They seem to see and understand more that you give them credit for.

PICKETT replies:
While I understand that "Manolo Blahnik" functions as an easy shorthand for the glamorous life I lead as a writer making union scale at a daily newspaper, I can assure you that I do not acutally own any such shoes. And, in fact, the most expensive footwear I have ever owned is a pair of hiking boots.

ANDREW , WHERE ARE YOU MY BROTHER BY ANOTHER MOTHER .YOU WERE ON THE RIGHT TRACK , DONT BE BULLIED YOU HAVE SOME GOOD THOUGHTS , I DONT KNOW YOU BUT THEN WHO REALLY KNOWS ANY ONE . FOLKS THAT I WORK WITH ALL DAY SUPRIZE ME SOME GOOD SOME BAD AND THE BAD BOTHERS ME ALOT. WHEN THE BANTER BECOMES RACIAL IN NATURE AND THEY ARE CALLED ON IT ,WELL THEY DIDNT MEAN IT ,YEAH RIGHT. PEOPLE THAT CRITISIZE OTHERS TALK A GOOD GAME , THEN THE TRUTH COMES OUT "CLOSET RACIST" . FOLKS WHO FEEL SUPERIOR IN STATURE AND INTELECT , AND WE HAVE SEEN SOME OF THAT HERE. FOLKS WHO FEEL THE STATUS QUO IS SHIFTING OR IS IN DANGER , THEY DISLIKE ANYONE WHO DOES NOT GO WITH THE PROGRAM , THOSE WHO ARE NOT DAZZELED BY THIER LOFTY STATURE OR STATION IN LIFE.WORDS ARE WORDS NO MATTER HOW IMPRESSIVE THEY ARE NOT ACTION ,SO DONT LET YOUR MOTIVATION FALTER KEEP ON BROTHER KEEP ON ......JOHN

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."

Proverbs 31:10

John – thanks for wondering where I am. I especially appreciate the reminder that this isn’t just a matter of black and white, but involves people from many ethnicities and backgrounds. I didn’t want to write immediately because Mr. Delaney’s comments irritated me so much and I didn’t want to turn this into a pointless back and forth. I mean, we’ve already seen a potentially interesting and valuable discussion about race relations descend into comments about my bowel movements and Ms. Pickett’s shoes. I suppose that kind of discourse is Mr. Delaney’s style, but he’s welcome to it. I don’t find “spirited hyperbole� particularly enlightening, and I’m suspicious of anyone who feels that they are somehow above the fray and it is their job to hold up a looking glass for the rest of us undereducated rabble. I also don’t appreciate someone who has no clue who I am or what I do deciding what “milieu� I spend my time with. Believe me, I had a lot more to say two days ago, but I wanted to cool down before I wrote more. This isn’t about me, Ms. Pickett’s dinner parties, or Mr. Delaney’s painfully tortuous prose (sorry, I couldn’t resist one last jab).
I think that what is important is to talk about the questions Ms. Pickett asks in her comments from Feb. 1. What, in a practical sense, can we do? I think a distinction needs to be made between individual actions (like we saw painted on the garage door), and more general policies. I’ll give an example of what I mean by policies. A 2002 lawsuit against Mid America bank has accused them of continuing to practice “red-lining�, a policy of excluding certain neighborhoods (in this case African-American and Hispanic) from their lending areas, as well as failing to locate a significant number of branches in these neighborhoods. I’m not going to go into great detail, so here’s the URL if you want to read up on it yourself: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/housing/documents/midamericacomp.htm
Policies such as those can and should be dealt with legally, and is an important step in this process. But how can you deal with the feelings behind them, especially when those feelings translate into impersonal policies that are probably explained away by Mid America as a simple matter of economics? At the risk of incurring Mr. Delaney’s wrath again I’d like to suggest that talking about it is one of the best things we as individuals can do. However, I do agree with Mr. Delaney that we don’t need to just talk with like-minded people about this. We need to tell call people on their racist comments (as innocent as they may think they are), as John Song says. I think it is so important to be kind and generous when we talk to people as well; people generally don’t respond well to anger, sarcasm, or outright yelling. Let me give you an example.
My cousin is what many would call “white trash� although I can’t tell you how much I hate that term (but that is a whole other discussion and involves me taking Ms. Pickett to task for using the term “redneck� in one of her blog entries). He works blue-collar jobs, lives in a trailer, and has some questionable views on certain things. We were talking at a family gathering and he mentioned that he “didn’t like the n---ers who come and get the good jobs because of affirmative action.� I said to him, “I’ll bet you that right now some of these people you call n---ers are sitting around talking about how the crackers get paid better just because they’re white. Meanwhile, the owners of your company are making 100 times the money you’re earning and laughing at you fighting over the scraps.� I didn’t say he was a bad person for making racist comments, but suggested that there might be other ways to look at the issue. I don’t know what impact I had, but we can’t force people to change their minds, we can only create discussions.

ANDREW , EXELANT YOU ARE CORRECT ,DIALOG IS AND SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED YOU’RE A MUCH BETTER WORDSMITH THAN I ,THIS IS NEW TO ME AND ALL, YOU KNOW THE CAPS. THING . THAT BEING SAID , I AGREE THAT SET A SIDES AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARE IMPORTANT TO EQUALIZE THE PLAYING FIELD. I ALSO UNDERSTAND FOLKS THAT FEEL RIPPED OFF IF THE JOB THAT THEY WERE GOING FOR, THEY MISSED OUT ON BECAUSE OF THE PROCESS. BELIVE IT OR NOT IT HAPPENED TO ME WITH THE FIRE DEPT IN 1979 . I TOOK A JOB WITH COMED SO IT WORKED OUT WELL ANY WAY AND THE GUYS THAT WERE HIRED BY THE FIRE DEPT. WERE ALL VERY QUALIFID GOOD MEN THAT ARE STILL THERE . I FIGHT ALL OF THE TIME FOR EQUALITY IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN AND NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE THE INEQUITY IS. ALSO FOR MY 2 BOYS AND DAUGHTER, WHOS BACK HOME BECAUSE HER HUSBAND IS WITH KILO CO. IN IRAQ. WHEN MACK GETS HOME WHAT WILL HE FIND ESPESIALY WHEN HE IS OUT OF THE MILITARY? ALSO THE CONTRACT COMPANIES THAT ARE MINORITY AND WOMEN OWNED ARE A SHAM, NOT ALL BUT A LOT. IF THERE WERE NOT LAWS AND RULES ,THAT BY THE WAY THIS GOVERNMENT SEEMS TO WANT TO OVERTURN, WOULD THE CORPORATIONS AND SCHOOLS HIRE OR ADMIT ANYONE REGARDLESS OF THER RACE, COLOUR OR CREED? WELL I THINK NOT. IF YOU WERE TO BE FAIR, ANY POOR OR DISADVANTAGED CITIZENS SHOULD BE ALLOWED AN EQUALIZER BECAUSE OF THEIR DISADVANTAGES IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM THAT CONSISTANTLY FAILS THESE COMMUNITIES. I CAN SEE ALL THAT HAS BEEN FOUGHT FOR IS BEING DSMANTELED PIECE BY PIECE AND THAT URINATS ON THE MEMORIES OF THE ONES THAT FOUGHT AND DIED FOR THE RIGHT TO BE EQUAL AND FREE. WITH THE GOVERNMENT ALLOWING SO MANY JOBS TO LEAVE THIS CONTRY ESPICIALY IN THE MANUFACTURING AND CUSTOMER SERVICE FIELD ,� JOBS THAT SO MANY WHO CAME FROM THE SOUTH IN THE 30’S , 40’S & 50’S�,TO FIND A BETTER LIFE, THE PICKINS WILL BE SLIM AND WILL CREATE A NEW SLAVE CLASS . I HONESTLY BELIEVE THIS TO BE THE TRUTH .ANY WAY MY BROTHER BY ANOTHER MOTHER TIME TO HIT THE SACK TOMARROW IS COING TO BE ANOTHER BACK BREAKER AND THANX FOR THE INFO …….JOHN SORG