The increasingly acrimonious debate over the proposal, recently announced, to name a stadium within the Atlantic Yards complex after the British bank Barclay's is turning shrill, with cries of race war [1] emanating from Room Eight. To condense these cries somewhat, thereby avoiding the necessity of quoting at length, the author (who enjoys the distinction of being the sole individual ever to have his account at this site terminated because of unacceptable behavior) argues that African-Americans shouldn't take offense at Barclay's history, because to do so would unnecessarily reopen old wounds. And besides, 'playing the race card' opens the possibility of a 'race war'.
This is by no means a new argument; it should be hauntingly familiar to anyone who followed last year's primary in the 11th District.
And truth be told, I'm not even entirely sure how I feel about the outrage; but then again, I'm of British descent, an Anglophile, and my ancestors didn't come here as slaves. That does provide a difference in perspective. I certainly don't feel qualified to dictate an authoritative frame of reference to anyone else on the matter.
Here's a question: if, say, a largely Jewish part of Borough Park were expropriated by the state to benefit a private developer, who then proceeded to build a stadium there with public funding, and let the displacees know that he'd managed to sell the naming rights to Deutsche Bank or Lufthansa, would anyone breathe a word if there were outrage? Probably not. The same outcome would likely arise in a hypothetical Algerian neighborhood confronted with a Banque de France stadium, and there would likely be some frame of reference.
So why is it that, when American blacks dare to say a peep about their history, our history, they get accused of starting a race war? Or of being shrill, hysterical or dishonest?
As we learned last year during that primary, it's clear that a certain segment of white, liberal America has a race problem. I'd argue that it's not the problem of racism per se; it's more, and more amorphously, that some are so uncomfortable with the persistence of race as a factor in our society that they believe, at some level, that addressing the racial components of any subject itself validates the lingering issues. This of course can't be done, they likely believe, so that any effort to address race forthrightly perversely becomes, in their eyes, a part of the problem.
And yes, you're right, that's the equivalent of pretending that the car accident in the next lane didn't happen if you just don't look or call an ambulance.
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