A Beat Down In Polite Society

After the revelation of the video of the horrific treatment of a special needs white man by four black men and women, spinners spun to characterize the beating, knifing, toilet-water-drinking, and abuse in a way that somehow would distinguish it from the hypocritical rush to vilify others. The tables turned, the races reversed. Neither gender nor race fit the paradigm, and an intellectually challenged 18-year-old just to make everything worse.

But the day before all of this hit the fan, Paul Caron posted an “op-ed” by Daryl Jones, interim Dean of Florida A&M Law School, entitled “The Racial Rules That Keep Us Apart.” Timing can be a bitch.

Jones’ post was about Oregon Lawprof Nancy Shurtz’s boneheaded decision to wear blackface to a Halloween Party. But it wasn’t a post from the perspective of an academic. Nor a scholar. Not even a dean. In fact, Jones’ post had nothing to do with law at all. Rather, Jones wrote as a black person because, he explained, the racial barrier can never be broken.

Somehow, I am made to feel defensive by calls for her punishment.  It just makes me very uncomfortable and I don’t want her stoned in the public square for my vindication.  If I were on the faculty at Oregon I would feel compelled to protest the crowd’s outrage ostensibly expressed in recognition of my heritage and feelings.  But I might just sit, quietly grinding my teeth and hoping that the whole thing would just die down.  It is the punishment, the demand for this poor woman’s head on a platter that makes me uncomfortable.  There are clear dangers in an African American saying so.  I imagine that some colleagues might shake their heads in disgust at my own lack of outrage.  There is always the danger of being labeled an “uncle tom” or an apologist for racists if one doesn’t adopt the hot tone of indignation.  Or just plain ignorant.

So you aren’t outraged? You don’t think her blackface belongs on a platter? But you’re too much of a coward to say so because they might call you mean names?

Once it is accepted that she intended no offense (though that was the result) but rather wanted to bring attention to a book she clearly must have enjoyed, so much so that she felt like she was “one of us” and wanted to prove it, the response ought to move from retribution to dialogue and education.  She made a huge mistake and in doing so likely exposed what?

So she was really one of the good guys allies who just didn’t get it, that as passionately as she believed in the eradication of racism, she would never be invited to the black sleepover party?

But history distorts her actions and makes it as if she uttered the N word amongst her closest friends who happen to be African American, thinking she has crossed the cultural divide.  The rules require that she take a beat down and that those of us who ought to have been offended by her mistake participate in that beat down.  From now on, she won’t forget and we won’t let her forget; no matter how much she admires our culture, the fortitude with which we have earned our rights in this society, no matter how much she secretly wishes she too had participated in civil rights marches, or had been the pioneer in a literary worthy racial struggle, she will never be one of us.

So what you are trying to say, but lack the courage to admit, is that you really favor the beat down, but don’t want to personally get your hands dirty by admitting such a vulgar desire, so you dance around it, but really want it.

Everyone ought to be sadder for that fact.  Meanwhile I don’t want to participate in the beat down even if the rules say I must.

Of course you don’t. You’re a black man who sits in the deans office of a law school, You go to faculty teas and stick your pinky in the air to be just like all the other scholars, pristine and above the nasty fray. But you want the beat down, even if you’re not man enough to say so. Hell, are you even man enough to say “man enough”?

These four black defendants in Chicago may be 18-year-olds, but they’re stupid kids. Who did an evil thing to a white kid who suffers from an intellectual disability. That’s your beat down. And they’re entitled, under your race rules, to use “the N word,” as if calling it “the N word” somehow made it less of “the N word.”

So they get to come to your black sleepover party and Nancy Shurtz is excluded because, as well-intended an ally she may be, she can never be black, she can never violate your race rules. These four black defendants will never share a glass of sherry with you at a faculty tea.

Do they really care about Trump or have their ears been filled with voices like yours decrying the end of times? Is it entirely different for them, because they come from a race that suffered historic and systemic discrimination? That makes their hate less hate then someone else’s hate? If Shurtz deserves the black beat down, even if you don’t have the balls to be the one to do it, what do these found kids deserve?

It’s your race rules that have given rise to the Newest Jim Crow, the good segregation on campus, where black students are entitled to their safe space at lunch so that no white person be allowed to sit at their table. Same deal as the lunch counters of old, except this time it’s your rules so it’s entirely different?

Sorry, Daryl Jones, but the only real difference between these four kids in Chicago and you is that they have the guts to do what you want to do but are too “refined” to admit. And if what they did was wrong, and it’s insanely, horribly wrong, then it’s just as wrong for you to maintain that secret desire to beat down your whitey ally for violating the race rules you have in the back of your head.

And if it’s unacceptable that some white lawyer is telling you this, too bad. What are you going to do about it? Beat me?

If there happens to be a black sleepover on 143rd Street tonight, chances are a whole lot better that I’ll be invited and you won’t. It’s not that they aren’t black like you, but they would rather have someone there who will have their backs* than someone with whom they only share skin color. For a while, we were getting beyond race, and here you are, blocking the bridge so people of that other race can’t pass.

*While you chose to teach tax law, I chose to stand in the well next to criminal defendants. Want to guess which one of us has spent his career doing more for blacks and Hispanics, not to mention whites and women and gays and trans and every other flavor of humanity?

34 thoughts on “A Beat Down In Polite Society

  1. delurking

    Why can you not take his words at face value? He says in simple terms that he thinks there shouldn’t be punishment for the professor, that there should be dialogue and education. He laments that in his childhood, a white friend who made a similar error was also punished, and he further laments that the incident had a permanent effect on their friendship. He says everyone should be sadder because of the black community’s response to such events. He even admits that were he at Oregon rather than at Florida A&M, he may not have said in public what he is saying now, for fear of retribution from his colleagues.

    You have to twist his words really hard to conclude that he secretly supports the punishment.

    1. SHG Post author

      I took his words at face value, and his words came out of both sides of his face. Either he wants the beat down or he doesn’t want the beat down, and there was no point to the post but reach his conclusion that Shurtz, despite everything, needs the beat down because she’s not black.

      1. delurking

        He doesn’t want the beat down. He is a black person writing an opinion piece decrying the response of the black community and many of its white supporters. He is saddened by the existence of the racial divide, not supportive of it.

        1. SHG Post author

          Oh wait. When you say it again, it’s must more persuasive. I fully appreciate that his wiggling, in combination with your need to confirm your bias, has utterly befuddled you, but “strenuously objecting” isn’t how it works.

        2. davep

          Jones: “The rules require that she take a beat down and that those of us who ought to have been offended by her mistake participate in that beat down.”

          The “rules” require no such thing. One can choose not to participate in the beat down. One can choose not to be offended. One can choose to argue against the notion that there is a requirement.

    2. David

      Jones’ op-ed was crafted to accomplish exactly what you took away, an op-ed pretending to say one thing while saying exactly the opposite. And there you are, falling for it. Somebody has to play the fool, and you were kind enough to be the one.

  2. Dwight Mann f/k/a "dm"

    I’ve read the dean’s post twice and your post twice and I just don’t understand how you arrived at your conclusions about what he was trying to convey. I think you’re way off on this one, but maybe it’s me. I look forward to seeing if other commenters read it your way or mine (or perhaps a mix). Anyway, Happy New Year.

  3. JonasB

    Afraid I’m in the confused camp. Jones’s topic seems to have the following main points:

    -He doesn’t think calls for Shurtz’s head on a platter are appropriate and that the right response should be dialogue and education
    -He feels that, as a black man, there are social expectations that he become outraged by the conduct and join in the condemnation and shaming
    -He feels that there is potential for someone with his less-than-outraged view to be considered an uncle tom or apologist or ignorant by not abiding by the “standard” script
    -He’s dismayed that Shurtz, no matter how much she admires or may feel an affinity for black history/culture/etc., will always be considered and held to standards of the “other” (this part I am less certain of)
    -The culmination of the above is that everyone should be saddened by this course of events and that he will not join in the condemnation of Shurtz even if the “rules” (social/societal?) say he should be outraged by her

    I’m not really sure what in the blog gives the idea that he favors the beat down. I also don’t really understand the ties you’re trying to make to the Chicago attackers.

    1. SHG Post author

      Read the last paragraph carefully. Don’t recharacterize his words. Read them. And that he doesn’t want to be the one who does the beat down doesn’t change that the beat down must nonetheless happen. At no time does he say that she should not be beaten down, just that it’s sad that she must, but she must.

      1. JonasB

        I’m going sentence by sentence through the last paragraph here and listing the meaning I understand from them.

        “But history distorts her actions and makes it as if she uttered the N word amongst her closest friends who happen to be African American, thinking she has crossed the cultural divide.”

        -Historical connotations of blackface have made the prof’s offence appear worse than it was

        “The rules require that she take a beat down and that those of us who ought to have been offended by her mistake participate in that beat down.”

        -Society is mandating that black people become offended and do the beat down.

        “From now on, she won’t forget and we won’t let her forget; no matter how much she admires our culture, the fortitude with which we have earned our rights in this society, no matter how much she secretly wishes she too had participated in civil rights marches, or had been the pioneer in a literary worthy racial struggle, she will never be one of us.”

        -No matter the prof’s intent or admiration, she’s now a pariah and has been forcefully reminded that she is the “other”

        “Everyone ought to be sadder for that fact. Meanwhile I don’t want to participate in the beat down even if the rules say I must. ”

        -This situation sucks, people should be saddened by it. The beat down is going to happen despite the fact that the “rules” (or whatever you call it) say that it will and that he, as a black person, must be part of it.

        At best, I could see that there is an acceptance of the fact that the beat down will happen, as much as he doesn’t like it. However, I don’t think saying something -will- happen is the same as believing it -should- happen.

        I’ll grant that he doesn’t explicitly say “this treatment is wrong, stop it”, but he does say that he doesn’t want Shurtz stoned in the public square and that if he were on the Oregon board he would protest her treatment. Saying you think the public evisceration is uncalled for, that you are uncomfortable with the idea you are expected to join in the public condemnation, that the response (“the beat down”) is the wrong approach compared to education and conversation, and that the current scenario is saddening, all reads to me like someone who doesn’t approve of the situation.

        Or, to put it another way: even if Jones doesn’t specifically say the treatment of Shurtz should stop, nor does he say that the beat down should happen/is justified/is appropriate.

        I’m not trying to be obtuse or recharacterize a plain meaning. This is what I understood Jones to be saying. I’ve tried, but I’m afraid I don’t see what you appear to.

        1. SHG Post author

          It’s fine that you don’t see it. but please don’t waste my bandwidth with pointlessly long comments like this or they will be trashed from now on.

        2. davep

          JonasB: “The beat down is going to happen despite the fact that the “rules” (or whatever you call it) say that it will and that he, as a black person, must be part of it.”

          That’s the thing. He *doesn’t* have to be part of it.

          1. Dragoness Eclectic

            What I read in Jones op-end is “I am a coward intimidated by the SJW POC crowd so I won’t condemn the stupidity like I should, but just whine that I wish I had the nerve to.”

            1. SHG Post author

              Notice how some people talk about “what I read” while others talk about what Jones wrote? There’s a name for that distinction. Can you guess what it is?

            2. davep

              There’s enough to say about Jones’ words directly without having to imagine a backstory. Try to avoid the attraction of imagining a back story. Or, keep in mind that you can choose not to disclose it.

    2. Ben

      Being “saddened” by something is not the same as calling for it to stop. He says the former, not the latter.

  4. Nobody

    Not that it should matter, but I’m African-American and read it exactly as you do. He’s tricky, trying to cover his ass in all directions, but it’s clear as can be. But I don’t have to hide behind a fear of being called racist, so I don’t have to make apologies.

    1. SHG Post author

      It shouldn’t and it doesn’t matter what color (or anything else) you are. That’s the point, but you already get that.

  5. BJC

    I also don’t quite get what you’re getting out of the dean’s letter.

    But maybe it’s because I’m drawing a distinction between “wants the status quo” and “too afraid/fatalistic to change the status quo” that you think is meaningless.

    1. SHG Post author

      Do you think either of those “distinctions” explains the purpose of the post? Look to what he says rather than what he equivocates about.

      1. BJC

        I think he’s trying to justify not doing better by saying he can’t. He’s a coward.

        Dean Jones talks about “the rules” as something outside him, that he can’t change. It’s as if a particular approach to race is some sort of natural law. He beat up a friend of his because of peer pressure, and he isn’t going to try to stop a fellow professor’s career from being torn to shreds for the same reason. The equivocating indicates to me that he knows, deep down, that he’s done bad things because he’s too much of a coward to stand up for what’s right. So he dresses it up with fatalism.

        By making “the rules” some sort of force he can’t control, he could agree with you that “the rules” caused the beating in Chicago, but still he’s not responsible, because there was nothing he could do about “the rules.” Maybe I’m wrong, that he does secretly “want” what “the rules” demand, but it could just as easily be an excuse for not sticking his neck out for change.

        1. SHG Post author

          If he was simply a coward, then he could have been a coward without writing this op-ed to alert the world to his cowardice and fatalist stance. But he didn’t. He needed to write about. He needed to tell others about the rules. Cowards don’t need to tell the world they’re cowards, they need to get their point out in the only way cowards can do so.

  6. Mike G.

    Jones would be the kind of “friend” who you might go out drinking with one night after work and after a few, cajoles you into using a word one would normally be uncomfortable using at any time, but most especially in mixed company. When he finally convinces you to use the word after pestering you for an hour, you do and he laughs it off saying; See, its just a dumb word.

    But after that, he ignores your calls and doesn’t want to work with you or be associated with you anymore and would be the first person to call for your head on a platter as a racist.

  7. Miles

    I think the reason there’s so much confusion is that he’s saying everything and nothing. As you said, talking out of both sides of his mouth. But your point, that while he admits he’s a coward and saddened, he never says Shurtz shouldn’t get the beat down, is the bottom line. It’s just hard to see buried under his excuses.

    1. Patrick Maupin

      Actually, if anything, you’re being too kind. He offered lots of mitigating information, then said the rules required a beatdown, and finally, didn’t challenge the rules, either in general, or as-applied, while simultaneously claiming they troubled him.

      He’s a strict constitutionalist, but his unwritten constitution isn’t one you or I recognize. I would say he’s made a terrible mistake in this admission, except that most of the comments here prove he knows exactly what he’s doing.

    2. delurking

      “Once it is accepted that she intended no offense (though that was the result) but rather wanted to bring attention to a book she clearly must have enjoyed, so much so that she felt like she was “one of us” and wanted to prove it, the response ought to move from retribution to dialogue and education. ”

      I see that as being equivalent to “She shouldn’t get the beat down”

      1. SHG Post author

        Sigh. Your last comment on this post.

        If he had ended there, your view might be correct. But he didn’t, and you can’t ignore the rest of what he wrote.

      2. davep

        “ought not” is a weak objection (weaker than “shouldn’t”).

        Then, later, Jones claims that the “rules require” the beat down.

        Jones: “The rules require that she take a beat down and that those of us who ought to have been offended by her mistake participate in that beat down.”

  8. John Barleycorn

    Polite society? You just can’t help yourself can you, esteemed one!

    How many times do i have to tell you…,sonner or latter you are going to have to start accepting those lunch invitations or your head is going to explode.

    But anyway, what i really want to know, is how the hell can [nope, deleted] and every other fuck that came out of a duck doesn’t need a good tax attorney?

    Jesus Christ esteemed one, I hate to be the first one to break the news but believe it or not there are more than a handful of non-Jewish people that have to pay taxes too.

    Granted CDL’s have to deal with plenty of shit but gee whiz! You make it sound as though all tax attorneys think their shit smells of roses  and when they get around to trying to explaine the nuances of why that isn’t the case you just have to go there and rub salt on their ruptured hemorrhoids after they squeeze out a grumpy.

    Just how you can pull this off with such effortless zeal without breaking the rhythm of your effervescent personality is mind-boggling.

    P.S. This “Restorative Justice” thingy, is that kind of like make up sex with an orgy twist or something else entirely?

    1. John Barleycorn

      [Nope] you say? And here I thought inclusive racist slang was coming back into fashion now that everyone has, or is working on, breaking on through to the other side.

      Bummer, this is definitely going to hold up the orgy in restorative.

      1. SHG Post author

        Maybe elsewhere. Not here. You can, however, use “boy” and “girl” if that makes you feel better.

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