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Showing My Color: Impolite Arguments on Race and Identity
Explores the key issues of race, gender, and ethnic identity that have arisen since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, with essays on the pervasive nature of racism and its inherent politics.
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First published February 1, 1996
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June 15, 2024
AN ATTEMPT TO “EXAMINE THE GARMENTS OF RACE AND IDENTITY”
Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist and columnist Clarence Page wrote in the first chapter of this 1996 book, “Sometimes you can still hear black people say, in the heat of frustration, ‘I almost showed my color today,’ which is a way of saying they almost lost their ‘cool’… Losing one’s cook can be a capital offense by black standards, for it shows weakness in a world in which spiritual rigor is one of the few things we can call out own. Those who keep their cool repress their ‘color.’ It is cool, in other words, to be colorless. The title of this volume… emerged from my fuming discontent with the current fashions of RACIAL DENIAL, steadfast repudiations of the difference race continues to make in American life… Many demand that we ‘get past race.’ But denials of a cancer, no matter how vigorous they may be, will not make the malignancy go away.” (Pg. 4-5)
He continues, “This book attempts to examine the garments of race and identity to loosen their camouflage and constraints on the naked self, on its strengths and vulnerabilities, so that we might trust more confidently our naked selves. Only then, beyond the confining fashions of race and nationalism, can we express the full rainbow of our true identity.” (Pg. 27)
He suggests, “The most important question black Americans must answer for ourselves as the nation faces a new century is: How best can we cope with the pain in ways that help liberate us from the tribal mindset, break through the walls of social apartheid, and enhance our choices as individuals, the prize on which civil rights marchers ostensibly kept their eyes?” (Pg. 38)
He observes, “it is significant to note how, in all the critiques that spew out about victimania, few trouble themselves to critique America’s newest self-proclaimed victim class: heterosexual white males… They complain of ‘reverse discrimination,’ even in the workplaces they dominate. They are confused by the new, ever-changing laws, rules, regulations, and court decisions regarding sexual harassment and hostile workplace environments… As one exasperated white male executive put it, ‘Geez… we let the gals into the game and all of a sudden they want to change the rules.’ Maybe so. Or maybe the rules NEEDED changing.” (Pg. 86-87)
He acknowledges, “I learned … during the mid-1980s rise of AIDS activism…[that the] new movement … rejected the labels ‘patient’ or ‘victim.’ They preferred to be called ‘people with AIDS’… which the gay press sometimes shortened to ‘PWA’… I thought their insistence on this linguistic nicety was… dangerous nonsense, a pretentious euphemism that needlessly trivialized the tragedy this deadly virus has brought… PWA, I wrote in a newspaper column, sounds to my ears ‘like a name for some new airline,’ not a name for someone who truly deserves sympathy and support. I quickly regretted that attempt at rhetorical cleverness… mail, telephone calls, and icy personal comments flowed in… Suddenly, I felt a taste of what I am sure it is like for white liberals … to be stung by the charge of racism. It is not pleasant.” (Pg. 90)
He notes, “It is chic in black conversations to view feminism as a white women’s movement, inappropriate for the black community, where women seldom had the luxury of male-dependent roles that educated white women have been trying to escape… So goes the popular romantic image. Any evidence to the contrary---rape, abuse, divorce, abandonment---or any plea for power or protection is shouted down by the resounding defense: Women don’t need equality. Or putting a black spin on it, black women don’t need the same type of equality the middle-class white women who led the feminist movement did.” (Pg. 103)
He points out, “When the doors to economic opportunities opened up on the late 1960s, those… who were left behind, the group social critics came to call the underclass, hardened … into a pyramid of power that exerts an attraction with terrible force for the young and impressionable… ‘street’ values gain the upper hand over the ‘straight’ among those who were left behind. More unemployed or unemployable men father children out of wedlock and leave the mothers to go on welfare. More teenage girls get pregnant… Fewer children get the time and attention they need… More boys and girls join gangs to find love and a sense of affiliation. More deal or use drugs. More commit violent crimes… A spiral of pathologies sucks everyone down into a maelstrom of sinking hopes.” (Pg. 126)
He states, “[Louis] Farrakhan … may figure that his attacks against Jews will enhance his prestige among orthodox Muslim political leaders in the Middle East. Libya’s Moammar Ghadafy loaned Elijah Muhammad $2 million in the early 1970s to purchase a new mosque, and Farrakhan told me he was seeking ‘hundreds of millions’ more…How ironic, I thought, to cut ourselves loose from the white man in America only to hold our hand out to Arabs in the Middle East. What does it profit us to escape one plantation to plant ourselves onto another, just as limiting, but calling itself a ‘black nation’?” (Pg. 149-150)
He proposes, “Capitalism works. Our task must be to find ways to make it work for everyone. The biggest ‘black tax’ leveled on inner-city entrepreneurship has been lack of credit. The remedy may be as close as the corner church. Churches and other community groups have a natural base for organizing rotating credit associations… it can once again take the lead in fostering a new era of grass-roots economic progress.” (Pg. 190-191)
He says, “White people must also do their part. The big question for the future of American conservatism is whether it can move beyond its feigned racial innocence into a genuine and aggressive assault on racism, beginning with its own ranks. The willingness of WHITE conservatives, after decades of benefiting directly from racial division, to meet this obligation will be the true test of their virtue and sincerity at century’s end.” (Pg. 214)
He admits, “I sympathize with those whites and males who feel they have been … victimized by affirmative action… I sympathize because I can empathize. Lone before there was affirmative action there were racial and gender preferences for white males. This fundamental preference may have diminished … but they have not gone away. None of us is immune from the fundamental affinity that causes us to prefer the company of people who are as much like us as possible.” (Pg. 232)
He concludes, “I reject Afrocentrism, Hispanocentrism, Asiacentrism, feminocentrism, and any other line of study when its placing of one group at the center of its universe results in a bending of history and reality to suit the cause of ethnic or gender therapy or cheerleading. Multiculturalism, it has been said, is pluralism without walls. It is a call for inclusion… Multiculturalism should be and increasingly will be considered an integral part of one’s education in the coming multicultural century.” (Pg. 275) He adds, “The future of race in American will win a freedom not only to be black but also to discover and appreciate one’s own individual humanity… Black self-determination is an empty victory if it is not accompanied by one’s individual ability to control one’s own fate. American will have to go through race to get beyond race.” (Pg. 301-302)
This book will be of keen interest to those seeking informed commentaries on racial/ethnic issues.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist and columnist Clarence Page wrote in the first chapter of this 1996 book, “Sometimes you can still hear black people say, in the heat of frustration, ‘I almost showed my color today,’ which is a way of saying they almost lost their ‘cool’… Losing one’s cook can be a capital offense by black standards, for it shows weakness in a world in which spiritual rigor is one of the few things we can call out own. Those who keep their cool repress their ‘color.’ It is cool, in other words, to be colorless. The title of this volume… emerged from my fuming discontent with the current fashions of RACIAL DENIAL, steadfast repudiations of the difference race continues to make in American life… Many demand that we ‘get past race.’ But denials of a cancer, no matter how vigorous they may be, will not make the malignancy go away.” (Pg. 4-5)
He continues, “This book attempts to examine the garments of race and identity to loosen their camouflage and constraints on the naked self, on its strengths and vulnerabilities, so that we might trust more confidently our naked selves. Only then, beyond the confining fashions of race and nationalism, can we express the full rainbow of our true identity.” (Pg. 27)
He suggests, “The most important question black Americans must answer for ourselves as the nation faces a new century is: How best can we cope with the pain in ways that help liberate us from the tribal mindset, break through the walls of social apartheid, and enhance our choices as individuals, the prize on which civil rights marchers ostensibly kept their eyes?” (Pg. 38)
He observes, “it is significant to note how, in all the critiques that spew out about victimania, few trouble themselves to critique America’s newest self-proclaimed victim class: heterosexual white males… They complain of ‘reverse discrimination,’ even in the workplaces they dominate. They are confused by the new, ever-changing laws, rules, regulations, and court decisions regarding sexual harassment and hostile workplace environments… As one exasperated white male executive put it, ‘Geez… we let the gals into the game and all of a sudden they want to change the rules.’ Maybe so. Or maybe the rules NEEDED changing.” (Pg. 86-87)
He acknowledges, “I learned … during the mid-1980s rise of AIDS activism…[that the] new movement … rejected the labels ‘patient’ or ‘victim.’ They preferred to be called ‘people with AIDS’… which the gay press sometimes shortened to ‘PWA’… I thought their insistence on this linguistic nicety was… dangerous nonsense, a pretentious euphemism that needlessly trivialized the tragedy this deadly virus has brought… PWA, I wrote in a newspaper column, sounds to my ears ‘like a name for some new airline,’ not a name for someone who truly deserves sympathy and support. I quickly regretted that attempt at rhetorical cleverness… mail, telephone calls, and icy personal comments flowed in… Suddenly, I felt a taste of what I am sure it is like for white liberals … to be stung by the charge of racism. It is not pleasant.” (Pg. 90)
He notes, “It is chic in black conversations to view feminism as a white women’s movement, inappropriate for the black community, where women seldom had the luxury of male-dependent roles that educated white women have been trying to escape… So goes the popular romantic image. Any evidence to the contrary---rape, abuse, divorce, abandonment---or any plea for power or protection is shouted down by the resounding defense: Women don’t need equality. Or putting a black spin on it, black women don’t need the same type of equality the middle-class white women who led the feminist movement did.” (Pg. 103)
He points out, “When the doors to economic opportunities opened up on the late 1960s, those… who were left behind, the group social critics came to call the underclass, hardened … into a pyramid of power that exerts an attraction with terrible force for the young and impressionable… ‘street’ values gain the upper hand over the ‘straight’ among those who were left behind. More unemployed or unemployable men father children out of wedlock and leave the mothers to go on welfare. More teenage girls get pregnant… Fewer children get the time and attention they need… More boys and girls join gangs to find love and a sense of affiliation. More deal or use drugs. More commit violent crimes… A spiral of pathologies sucks everyone down into a maelstrom of sinking hopes.” (Pg. 126)
He states, “[Louis] Farrakhan … may figure that his attacks against Jews will enhance his prestige among orthodox Muslim political leaders in the Middle East. Libya’s Moammar Ghadafy loaned Elijah Muhammad $2 million in the early 1970s to purchase a new mosque, and Farrakhan told me he was seeking ‘hundreds of millions’ more…How ironic, I thought, to cut ourselves loose from the white man in America only to hold our hand out to Arabs in the Middle East. What does it profit us to escape one plantation to plant ourselves onto another, just as limiting, but calling itself a ‘black nation’?” (Pg. 149-150)
He proposes, “Capitalism works. Our task must be to find ways to make it work for everyone. The biggest ‘black tax’ leveled on inner-city entrepreneurship has been lack of credit. The remedy may be as close as the corner church. Churches and other community groups have a natural base for organizing rotating credit associations… it can once again take the lead in fostering a new era of grass-roots economic progress.” (Pg. 190-191)
He says, “White people must also do their part. The big question for the future of American conservatism is whether it can move beyond its feigned racial innocence into a genuine and aggressive assault on racism, beginning with its own ranks. The willingness of WHITE conservatives, after decades of benefiting directly from racial division, to meet this obligation will be the true test of their virtue and sincerity at century’s end.” (Pg. 214)
He admits, “I sympathize with those whites and males who feel they have been … victimized by affirmative action… I sympathize because I can empathize. Lone before there was affirmative action there were racial and gender preferences for white males. This fundamental preference may have diminished … but they have not gone away. None of us is immune from the fundamental affinity that causes us to prefer the company of people who are as much like us as possible.” (Pg. 232)
He concludes, “I reject Afrocentrism, Hispanocentrism, Asiacentrism, feminocentrism, and any other line of study when its placing of one group at the center of its universe results in a bending of history and reality to suit the cause of ethnic or gender therapy or cheerleading. Multiculturalism, it has been said, is pluralism without walls. It is a call for inclusion… Multiculturalism should be and increasingly will be considered an integral part of one’s education in the coming multicultural century.” (Pg. 275) He adds, “The future of race in American will win a freedom not only to be black but also to discover and appreciate one’s own individual humanity… Black self-determination is an empty victory if it is not accompanied by one’s individual ability to control one’s own fate. American will have to go through race to get beyond race.” (Pg. 301-302)
This book will be of keen interest to those seeking informed commentaries on racial/ethnic issues.
December 29, 2020
This was a really excellent book. He manages to state things in a non-accusatory way so as not to alienate people who need to hear his message. Yet his observations on race in America are extremely insightful and still very relevant today. I highly recommend this book, especially to people who might bristle at some of the more strident arguments and accusations flying around out there on race. This is a great book for people who might need to hear some of these perspectives but who perhaps find themselves getting defensive when these topics come up. Page does such a great job of explaining these ideas without accusing the reader of anything. You might think of it as a "race primer" or something - something to start conversations with people with whom you might normally argue on these topics.
August 7, 2013
Good book for white people to read. Author does a lot of sharing, letting us know how it feels. For example, on pages 2-3:
. . . it quickly became apparent to me that my white friends were growing up in a different reality from the one to which I was accustomed. I could tell from the way one white friend happily discussed his weekend at LeSourdesville Lake that he did not have a clue of my reality.
"Have you been?" he asked.
"Colored can't go there," I said, somewhat astonished that he had not noticed.
"Oh, that can't be," he said.
For a moment, I perked up, wondering if the park's policy had changed. "Have you seen any colored people there?" I asked.
My white friend thought for a moment, then realized that he had not. He expressed surprise. I was surprised that he was surprised.
. . . it quickly became apparent to me that my white friends were growing up in a different reality from the one to which I was accustomed. I could tell from the way one white friend happily discussed his weekend at LeSourdesville Lake that he did not have a clue of my reality.
"Have you been?" he asked.
"Colored can't go there," I said, somewhat astonished that he had not noticed.
"Oh, that can't be," he said.
For a moment, I perked up, wondering if the park's policy had changed. "Have you seen any colored people there?" I asked.
My white friend thought for a moment, then realized that he had not. He expressed surprise. I was surprised that he was surprised.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews