White People

LOS ANGELES -- On a radio talk show shortly after the verdict in the O.J. Simpson case, a caller half-jokingly urged whites to riot. The talk-show host and subsequent callers concluded that, of course, white people don't riot. But in reality, if ''to riot'' means something like ''to wreak havoc on others,'' then white Americans have been rioting for some time. But when white people riot, they do it silently, almost invisibly, albeit painfully.Who are these white people? They are mostly the powerful elites who control decisions and shape public opinion.

Last week I wrote about a young community organizer named Dayvon Love. Mr. Love and his fellow activists in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, a grassroots advocacy organization he cofounded, may be the city's strongest proponents of black empowerment. Baltimore is majority African-American, but the heads of its most influential nonprofit organizations are usually white. Race still plays a role in which voices gain access to media outlets, policymakers and funding. So in LBS' view, if their goal is to help predominantly African-American communities, white nonprofit leaders must redress this power imbalance and do whatever they can to support a social policy agenda that is shaped and led by black people.

WASHINGTON - Our question for today: Do white people matter? It's Bill Cosby who inspires me to ask. In May, you'll recall, he made headlines for criticizing the "lower economic people" in African America for what he saw as their ungrammatical locution and dysfunctional behavior. On July 1, he was at it again, saying in an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's annual conference in Chicago that black youths are the "dirty laundry" many people would prefer he not criticize. "Let me tell you something," he said.

I suddenly find myself concerned about my blackness. It had never occurred to me to worry about it before. Then came the incident last month on ESPN's "First Take" program that initially got commentator Rob Parker suspended and then, last week, fired outright. It seems Mr. Parker, who is African-American, analyzed what he saw as the insufficient blackness of Robert Griffin III, rookie quarterback for the Washington, D.C., football team that is named for a racial slur. Having returned their team to relevance for the first time since the Clinton era, RG3, as he is known, can do no wrong in the eyes of Slurs fans.

Here's what white privilege sounds like:.....I'm sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support.The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that being white has advantages in the United States. Have either of us, I ask, ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people?

CounterpointOn July 19, Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas, wrote a Perspective article that said many whites have prospered merely because they're white. The ultimate white privilege occurs when whites concede that they have unearned privilege and ignore what that means, he asserted. Today, Michael Holden takes an opposing view.The problem with white privilege is that it gives rise to articles such as Professor Robert Jensen's "White Privilege Shapes the U.S.," which appeared in Perspective July 19.For starters, Jensen apologizes for being born white in a majority-white country.

I suddenly find myself concerned about my blackness. It had never occurred to me to worry about it before. Then came the incident last month on ESPN's "First Take" program that initially got commentator Rob Parker suspended and then, last week, fired outright. It seems Mr. Parker, who is African-American, analyzed what he saw as the insufficient blackness of Robert Griffin III, rookie quarterback for the Washington, D.C., football team that is named for a racial slur. Having returned their team to relevance for the first time since the Clinton era, RG3, as he is known, can do no wrong in the eyes of Slurs fans.

Last week I wrote about a young community organizer named Dayvon Love. Mr. Love and his fellow activists in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, a grassroots advocacy organization he cofounded, may be the city's strongest proponents of black empowerment. Baltimore is majority African-American, but the heads of its most influential nonprofit organizations are usually white. Race still plays a role in which voices gain access to media outlets, policymakers and funding. So in LBS' view, if their goal is to help predominantly African-American communities, white nonprofit leaders must redress this power imbalance and do whatever they can to support a social policy agenda that is shaped and led by black people.

On the fourth-floor suite in an Owings Mills office complex stands arguably the greatest optimist in the Baltimore real estate market. Roy Dowe is wearing an elegant black suit and a crisp white shirt with monogrammed cuffs. He is open for business. After leaving O'Conor, Piper & Flynn ERA to start his own agency - Platinum Realty - Dowe is venturing into tough territory. It's difficult to make it as a new real estate broker, going against the likes of OPF and Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. Tougher still if you're an African-American broker.

Black-oriented blogs have had a lot to say about the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. (above). Here are some recent blog posts collected on the Web site afrospear.wordpress.com: "When Mr. Wright says god should damn America, white people take this personally for America is white America. ... America is the corporate environment where white people rule the upper management, white people make up the vast majority of middle workers, and black people make up the bottom rung of the corporate ladder.

Timorous after having been hammered for years by cries from the right of leftist bias, and hampered by a simple-minded understanding of objectivity that gives sober attention to cranks and zanies, American journalism often winds up serving a bland gruel. But those cries of political bias (which often boil down to "You're not biased in the direction I prefer") are exaggerated and far from the whole story of the limitations of our journalism. The biases are both more widespread and subtler than is generally recognized or acknowledged.

You are such a racist nigger."- reader e-mail To answer your questions: Yes, the e-mail is quoted in its entirety. Yes, it's authentic; I received it a year or so ago. And, no, it is not unique in its sentiment, its coarseness or its deafness to irony. That note has always struck me as a stark benchmark of our slide into racial incoherence. Here's another: Last week on "FOX & Friends," Glenn Beck, the FOX News host, declared President Obama a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King, Jr. That's for Marion Barry, who seems to need the reminder. The former mayor and current city councilman of Washington, D.C., is a longtime supporter of gay rights. So observers were stunned last week when a bill committing the city to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere passed the council on a vote of 12-1.

If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments. I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win American Idol. But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was Election Day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

Dear Chris Rock: I apologize in advance for the language that will shortly follow. And yes, there is a certain irony there, given that you are one of the most profane men on the planet. Also one of the funniest. That's why I eagerly anticipated your new HBO special, Kill the Messenger, even though I knew there would inevitably come a moment that made me embarrassed for you. And sure enough, it came. During your routine, you noted how, last year, the NAACP held a symbolic "burial" of the N-word.

Someone is going to think this column is racist. That person - he or she will be white - will be unable to point to so much as a semicolon that suggests I believe in the native superiority of my, or any other, race. Rather, the accusation will be based in the fact that the column discusses race, period. It's a phenomenon I've seen many times, most recently when a friend of mine told me that a friend of hers regards me as racist because I write about race. To which I gave my standard answer: If that's how it works, I'll start writing about money.

IT'S A SIGN of these sorry political times that this subject even has to be broached, but isn't it time we defended white people? Before you cavalierly pooh-pooh the notion, consider the publication of Race Traitor, a journal dedicated to the proposition that the white race needs to be abolished and uses the invidious but nonetheless catchy slogan "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity." Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey, of Harvard University and New York University, respectively, are two white guys who started Race Traitor in 1992.

DENVER -- Five skinheads in handcuffs appeared in court here yesterday, accused of being the latest protagonists in a series of white supremacist attacks that have marred Denver's reputation.Early on Thanksgiving Day, police said, the five white youths shouted racial epithets and then beat up a 26-year-old black woman, Shomie R. Francis, who was shopping at a 7-Eleven store."They just jumped me, simple as that," Francis, a customer service representative and a lifelong Colorado resident, said in an interview.

Black-oriented blogs have had a lot to say about the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. (above). Here are some recent blog posts collected on the Web site afrospear.wordpress.com: "When Mr. Wright says god should damn America, white people take this personally for America is white America. ... America is the corporate environment where white people rule the upper management, white people make up the vast majority of middle workers, and black people make up the bottom rung of the corporate ladder.

When you're not driving around in a Prius, you're standing still at concerts, eating expensive sandwiches, raising multilingual children, worrying about dinner parties, listening to public radio, joining Netflix, hating your parents, doing yoga and sipping fair trade coffee. You're so white. At least, you are according to Stuff White People Like (stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com), a blog that with a wink explores the art and science of being embarrassingly Caucasian. It's among the hottest sites on the Internet and even inspired a book due this summer.