THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF THE MADISON TIMES WEEKLY NEWSPAPER 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We are the potential tone setters of the world, and we can do anything we want to do.”

— Betty Franklin-Hammonds

August 4, 1995

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crackers, Rice, and Sly

There was a big controversy that broke last Thursday just after we printed the paper for the week. John "Sly" Sylvester, a "talking head" for WTDY/AM 1670 radio, called National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice an "Aunt Jemima" and Colin Powell an "Uncle Tom" because they have served in the George W. Bush administration, which has been decidedly anti-affirmative action and whose economic policies have had negative consequences for the strong majority of African Americans.

This comment by Sly has provoked deep anger that has surged against Sly nationwide. Incredulously — or maybe not so incredulously, because Sly has always been cutting and biting and proud of it — Sly refused to back down until the national uproar became strong and unwavering. Even now, even though he has backed away from the terms, he still says Rice is a "Black trophy by an administration who is working so hard to deny that dream to other African American women."

I would have hoped that Sly would have changed his tune because the references were wrong, condescending, and racially charged, if not just down right racist. Even his apology on Monday still falls short of the mark.

Sly's comments provoke so many emotions within me I don't know where to start. When I lived in Mississippi back in 1978 working on the independent congressional campaign of Evan Doss, I was walking around in Port Gibson, the home of  Doss and the closest city to Alcorn State University where I had gone to school for two years. I ran into a former classmate and we talked for several minutes before we went our separate ways. An elderly African American woman was tending to the flowers in her yard, but kept a steady gaze going toward us.

Several weeks later, I ran into the woman again and we stopped to talk again. She laughed and related to me that when we had met before, the elderly lady had stopped her after I was out of sight and warned her "Don't be talkin' to that cracker.” I was the cracker because I was White and someone not to be trusted. I represented all that was wrong to that elderly woman, all of the wrong things that Euro-Americans had done against African Americans and all the things they were still capable of doing.

While I laughed when the woman related the story to me, it still made me feel funny because the term cracker put me in a place where I didn't want to be and felt I didn't belong. The term cracker can be very cutting, especially when it is used publicly in a predominantly African American group. "White boy" has the same effect. I would challenge Sly to subject himself to a similar circumstance that mattered to him and he had no way out.

Rice has worked hard to get where she is. I fully support her right to be Bush's Secretary of State. She is qualified and no level of demeaning racial stereotypes can take that away from Rice. With his terms "Aunt Jemima" and "Uncle Tom," Sly is just trying to keep African Americans on the plantation of liberal Democrats — as opposed to the plantation of conservative Republicans. I didn't hear about Sly calling Defense Secretary Rumsfeld a "cracker" or a tool used by the Bush administration to keep so many "poor Whites" Americans down while the Bush administration implements policies that are not in their best interests. I didn't hear Sly call Rumsfeld a traitor to his race.

And why is that? Because in Sly's world, "White" is right or normal. "White" goes without saying. It's "White" unless it is pointed out that it is something different. Perhaps, Bush, Rumsfeld, and the others are bombing and maiming Iraqis because they have a "White" perspective and would rather have brown-skinned Iraqis killed over there than "White" folks killed in the United States. I don't hear Sly attributing this to their race. So, why is he saying that Rice's and Powell's positions have something to do with race — not even bringing up the fact that Powell came out against Bush's stance on the Michigan affirmative action case, a stance of courage that Sly would never be capable of.

Do I agree with Rice's stances? Hardly ever! Do I support her right to be where she is? Absolutely, because she is qualified, has the training and experience, and she shares the same views with President Bush, whom I never agree with! She is a betrayal to the African American community only in the eyes of Euro-Americans who have a bigoted perception of where they think African Americans ought to be. In the views of the African American community, she has every right to be where she is and should be where she is. After all, why hasn't the Democratic Party ever had an African American Secretary of State before, not to speak of an African American woman?

Outside of disagreeing with her politics, in my view, Sly is completely, absolutely wrong on this issue. The more he tries to explain and defend, the more he exposes his "White" privilege of not having to defend anything based on his race and being able to live his life in a "White" world without ever being conscious of what it affords him. Sly, you had better sign up for Dr. Richard Davis' Institutes for the Healing of Racism to save your moral soul.