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I\u2019ve stayed away from the Bundy story until now. It seemed like the latest bit of 24-hour news sensationalism, and I still think it is. Even as I type these words I\u2019m not exactly interested in the whole story. I don\u2019t plan to do my homework and could care less what I\u2019ve missed or what will show up later.<\/p>\n
I only became interested in the story after the racial remarks Bundy made that were decried by every ideological color on my spectrum of social media. That was what caught my attention.<\/p>\n
I read this piece<\/a> by the New York Times<\/em>, that distilled his remarks about, in his words, \u201cthe Negro.\u201d In these remarks it is hard to understand what he is talking about, but he does wonder aloud about whether slavery was a more free condition when compared to the than the plight of Black America today, which, prima facie<\/em>, may seem ridiculous to some people.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Let me say two things about this:<\/p>\n 1. Bundy\u2019s subject position, as a white man, gives him very little to no credibility, but that does not change the fact that he is pursuing a line of reasoning that does have some precedent. It was Frederick Douglass\u00a0who, with infinitely more credibility than Bundy, said<\/a> \u201cI denounce the so-called emancipation as a stupendous fraud\u201d in 1888. It was Carter G. Woodson, founder of Negro History Week and Black History, who wrote, in\u00a0The Miseducation of the Negro<\/em>, what Robert Nesta Marley and Lauryn\u00a0Hill would go on to echo as \u201cmental slavery,\u201d a psychological, spiritual, and structural form of lynching.<\/p>\n That Bundy should not to be leading the public conversation about race in America goes without saying, but taking his words as being intentionally racist would be, on my reading, a serious and grave mistake. I don\u2019t think Bundy has much to say about Black America that we haven\u2019t heard before, but the salient point is that, for those of us concerned about the mass incarceration of Black men and other forms of inequality that persist for people of color, this is nothing particularly new or even controversial. One might call it a rather odd blend of Leftist social critique, mixed with Right wing political theatre. The controversy is that he dared to speak in words that are not presently sanctioned in public discourse, and mostly for good reason.<\/p>\n 2. There is the other racial group that Bundy spoke about. The Mexicans. You wouldn\u2019t know that if you didn\u2019t listen to the actual clip of his ramblings. (And, no, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a big liberal media conspiracy; after all, both sides are ignoring it, and both sides just need the TV ratings.)<\/p>\n Watch it, here. It\u2019s less than four minutes:<\/p>\n