77 White Squares

Earlier this week saw the release of "The State of Black Madison 2008: Before the Tipping Point", a report documenting the disparities between the lives of blacks and whites here in Madison. Some of the lowlights:

~~~Blacks in Dane County were 13 times more likely to be newly incarcerated than the population as a whole in 2002.

~~~A larger percentage of Dane County's black population lived in poverty in 2000 than did the nation's black population.

~~~Almost a third of black students in the Madison School District were in special education programs.

~~~Blacks in Dane County are 10 times as likely to rely on government-provided health insurance than the population at large.

The report came out shortly after reading former Cap Times copy editor Raymond Johnson's bitter farewell last week. He said:

"Madison's not my kind of town, and I didn't want my daughters to grow up there. Smug, phony-liberal, deep-seated prejudice...obvious to any black person or non-white minority."

Mr. Johnson commuted to Madison from Milwaukee where, apparently, there is no deep-seated prejudice.

A couple days ago I got into a discussion over the Black Value System of Trinity United Church of Christ on the south side of Chicago led by the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. A co-worker handed me a copy of the above webpage and said, "Replace 'black' with 'white' there. This Wright guy is a racist." This coming from a co-worker who had a couple months ago told me that he had reservations about Obama because he thought he could be a Muslim. That is, the guy thought that Obama might have been converted as a child in Indonesia. Presumably, my co-worker no longer harbors suspicions that Obama is a Muslim.

After reading the list, I replied, "I don't see how this makes him racist." What I did see was a set of values laid forth by a black preacher who ministers a mostly black church on the mostly black south side of Chicago and these values extol self-respect and the pursuit of excellence, among other things. If we replace "black" with "white" here, my co-worker is right – it sounds racist. But it sounds racist because of a legacy of white people espousing similar things who donned white hooded robes, hang swastikas in their living rooms, and, until a century ago, thought lynchings were a good day of family fun.

Maybe I'm just a smug liberal but, when I read Wright's Black Values, I saw a black minister speaking to his mostly black congregation and addressing their shared situation and common experiences. Nowhere do I read that all whites are horrible people. Check out a couple of Wright's Talking Points:

To have a church whose theological perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center, is not to say that African or African American people are superior to any one else.

African-centered thought, unlike Eurocentrism, does not assume superiority and look at everyone else as being inferior.

With all this in mind, I picked up a copy of 77 Square, the new Cap Times free arts & culture weekly. On 48 pages, I found a paucity of photos of non-white folks. There was Michel Joelsas, the young star of The Year My Parents Went on Vacation and one of the members of The Dirtbombs, a Detroit rock band. (Three if Michelle Oster is of Asian decent as appears possible.) Unsurprisingly, 77 Square is full of stuff white people like. There's indie rock, wine, architecture, et al.

John McWhorter argues for the existence of a black culture in "Blackness: A Quick and Dirty Primer" up at The Root. And I read that Wisconsin is becoming more brown every year. Yet there's no indication from the progressive arts & culture weekly that there's anything but white culture in Madison.

I'm as pale as they come and, honestly, I found many things of interest in the inaugural edition of 77 Square. It looks to be a welcome addition to Madison's print landscape for many. But I'm always open to new things. In addition, my girlfriend is bi-racial which means her kids are a quarter African-American. I think it's fair to say that the boys identify as white – they enjoy Dungeons & Dragons, Doctor Who, and musical theatre, amongst other pursuits – but I think it's important that they are at least given the chance to encounter black culture. While they may identify with white culture, they should not be denied a heritage which is also theirs. Ergo it would be nice if African-American culture here in Madison got a bit more press.

I don't doubt that the folks behind 77 Square are nice people and well-meaning but, by the looks of it, they're all white. And I understand that the paper needs the money of advertisers who, by virtue of Madison's racial make-up, are generally looking to sell products and services to middle-class people and the better off who are mostly white. But even something simple and non-threatening like the UW Gospel Choir's performance on Sunday was omitted. (Memorial Union Terrace @ 18:00 – admission is free) Now, perhaps this is because the choir itself did not alert the publication – I don't know. What I do know is that amongst the $100+ bottles of wine and all the lilywhite faces, there was little to nothing acknowledging that, like the rest of the country, Madison is getting browner. And that means that more African-Americans, Latinos, Hmong, etc. are living here next to bohunks like myself. These folks have their own cultures which no doubt overlap with mainstream white culture but also diverge from it. If Madison wants to call itself multicultural, then perhaps 77 Square ("powered" by the progressive Capital Times) and others can give even just a hint of a micro-inkling of some of the other cultures. Get out of the middle of the road and head for the ditch.