Re: denny's

[Katha Pollitt <kpollitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, perhaps I'm out of my depth here! It seems to me that when blacks
are persistently discriminated against in choice of schooling, in
housing, in access to credit ( redlining, mortgage applications denied
to blacks with equal creditworthiness to whites, who get mortgages)
,those black farmers denied credit by state land agents of whatever
their called, who finally won a settlement), that IS structural racism.
We are talking about equal-opportunity laws not being enforced, about
people who try to enforce them being sidelined or fired, about govt
agents -- welfare caseworkers, people in charge of govt loan programs,
people in charge of public school admissions and so on. Not bigoted
uncles in the basement, or waitresses who basically care about tips.
According to Barbara Ehrenreich, who wrote an article in harper's based
on her experiences as a waitress (at Denny's, actually) the worst
tippers are "visible Christians" -- huge family groups of white
fundamentalists wearing Jesus paraphernalia, who are very demanding and
leave teensy tips. I bet 'visible Christians" have no trouble being
seated in restaurants though.
  And about tips -- ever cab driver I've discussed this with insists
that the reason they don't pick up black people is that blacks are poor
tippers. But even if so (and is it so? -- or does racism make them
remember the confirming incidents and see good black tippers as
exception), that's ILLEGAL. And if the cab companies permit drivers not
to pick up blacks, and city taxi  agency permits the situation to
continue, then it starts to look  structural.
  When chicago put all the housing projects for black people in a part
of town that was cut off by high ways from access to the rest of the
city , and then deprived black neighborhoods (which the city govt had
created) of equal services, that was pretty structural!
  and when crack is punished --by law -- eight or whatever times as
harshly as cocaine for the same amount, that's structural racism. It's
not an accident that crack is favored by blacks and cocaine by whites --
in fact, people who favor the sentencing disparity explicitly give it a
racial spin: the inner city is so fragile and threatened that crack use
is more damaging to blacks than cocaine use is to whites.

to me, these things are more what structural racism is about, and what
leftists should be fighting than worrying about whether you're a
"cultural imperialist" if you correct black student's non-standard
capitalization. Why is it good for black people to capitalize words
arbitrarily? You're right, Kelley, to see lack of cultural capital as a
big problem for both blacks and poor whites.  But do you really think a
modern technological information society, (with everyone on the web
where a tiny spelling mistake in an address can have big implications)
is going to say -- oh heck, just spell it any old way, write it however
you like? Sure, say "I is" when you give your presentation! I can't see
the defense of non-standard english (of which "ebonics" is only one of
hundreds of variants, right?) as a big left cause.Not only will it get
absolutely no where, It's the nationalism of despair -- ie blacks
feeling so locked out, so doomed to exclusion that they don't see why
they should bother "assimilating." And  teachers desperately trying to
think of ways to reach the kids.
  In fact black english is constantly shaping standard english in
wonderful ways, like the great word 'diss," which everyone uses now.

Katha