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Race, Class and Catholicism
The flap over Professor Gates and Officer Crowley with comments of President Obama is an example of the confusing boundaries between race and class. Moreover, it is a conflict that has resonance with the broad history of anti-Catholic bigotry in the United States. The demons of race and class continually complicate social interactions.
For much of the last century and a half, Catholics were on the receiving end of prejudice fomented by such shifting boundaries of race, class and religion. In the 19th century, Irish Catholics were represented with monkey-like faces; Italians were always swarthy and sinister; Eastern European Catholics were terrorists. The so-called Protestant mainstream often foisted prejudices upon Catholics making "Catholicism" synonymous with "lower class." At times the Irish and the Italians were referred to as a "race" different from white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. (American Jews and freed Black slaves had experiences that exhibited the same patterns of prejudice that were often translated with more violent results.)
Against this back drop, Catholic America and Jewish America demonstrated in the 20th Century that they could overcome the obstacles placed in their way. A university like Notre Dame showed that Catholics could compete against the best of Protestants on the ball field and in the classroom. (Brandeis did the same for Jews, but with less emphasis on football.)
But no sooner had Catholics and Jews accomplished general acceptance at mid-century than race burst dramatically on the scene with the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. The national focus shifted to racial minorities. This was the context for the access granted to a select group of qualified minority peoples to enter institutions where they could prove their capabilities, much as had Catholics and Jews of earlier generations. I think Barack Obama as President and Sonia Sotomayor as Supreme Court Justice have satisfied the critics.
That brings us to the heated and exaggerated exchanges in a summer night in 2009 and the blow-up with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge police officer James Crowley. The African-American professor had more education and higher socio-economic status than the white police officer. The inversion of the usual white-at-the-top, color-at-the-bottom complicated the racial issue with questions of social class.
I credit the President both for suggesting that this otherwise forgettable incident was "a teachable moment" and also for including Latinos and Latinas in the mix. As a Latino myself, I have suffered the ignominy of being pulled over by a police officer searching for an "adult male Hispanic with brown hair, brown eyes and a mustache." It is worse yet when the officer in question puts a loaded pistol against your head and threatens to shoot if you reach for ID. How can you ignore prejudice when someone in your family calls a university, only to be told "there is no one named Díaz in housekeeping" -- never thinking that a Latino or Latina could be a faculty member. Since 2001, my adult son has rarely gone through airport security without being profiled for a spot check, probably because many Latinos also look like Arabs.
I suspect that such profiling might happen for anyone. But, as the President stated, people of color undergo such suspicions with alarming frequency. When, as in the cases cited above, the Latino being stopped has superior education to the officer, the situation is often worse rather than better. I conclude that some folks resent people of color who stand higher than they in social class or education. I remember the movie, "In the Heat of the Night," when the black police officer from Philadelphia (Sidney Poiter) asks the white Mississippi police chief (Rod Steiger) "to whom" he should respond. The gum-chewing Steiger shouts back "To WHOM?" accusing the black man of being "uppity."
I think the "uppity issue" is the new stage of race relations. It will not fade because it will become increasingly harder to equate persons of color with a low economic or educational status. WE know who we are, but there are segments of the U.S. population still trapped by stereotypes. Just as Catholics overcame such profiling in the past, we can do it in our future. It only takes about a hundred years.
BY
Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo
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Posted by: ccnl1 | August 1, 2009 9:45 PM
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C C N L: Whoever You'ar This below is for your-Eyes only:
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...A.O!
Posted by: new-world | July 31, 2009 11:19 AM
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Months go by, and Stevens-Arroyo still ignores the Vatican's new inquisition against American nuns.
Posted by: tbarksdl | July 31, 2009 6:43 AM
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"Given the Catholic Church's restrictive views on gay marriage, abortion, birth control, stem cell research, genetic modification, etc., why aren't more people concerned about Catholic over-representation on the US Supreme Court?"
Change the "Catholic Church's" to "Baptist Church's" and you get the same thing. Catholics do have far superior art, music,literature and architecture though.
Posted by: aries4 | July 30, 2009 2:56 PM
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Slight correction:
Note: James210 has appeared before on these blogs as what appears to be a probability wave-
According to Drs. Lanza and Berman in their new book,
"Biocentrism", the last frontier is Consciousness.
An excerpt:
"However, the Grand Canyon or Taj Mahal are only real when you get there." p. 160.
"Third Principle of Biocentrism:
The behavior of subatomic particles- indeed all particles and objects- is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves." p. 93.
"So the table has been set in the public mind for biocentrism's jump to the reality that its all only in the mind, that the universe exists nowhere else."
Posted by: ccnl1 | July 28, 2009 1:34 PM
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Dear Mr.Stevens-Arroyo:
found your column very interesting. I would like to reprint it in our Parish Bulletin in Oak Park, Mi.
D. Zaffina
Posted by: dz4law | July 28, 2009 1:05 PM
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Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo
Interesting statement in you post: "The so-called Protestant mainstream often foisted prejudices upon Catholics making "Catholicism" synonymous with "lower class." "
Wasn't it the "rif-raf" of Jesus's society that seem to take a cotton to Him whereas the "learned" of the day seem to look down upon Him, something to think about.
Of course this was not universal, some of the "learned" were not "stuck-up" and some of the "everyday people", so to speak, wouldn't listen.
By the way, what is wrong with working "in housekeeping"?
I remember somewhat a story that I was once told about a Cathedral being built in the Middle Ages: Some were asked: what are you building? Some replied: I am building an Altar, I am building pews, I am putting in flooring. A lady with a broom cleaning up was asked and she replied: I am building a Cathedral.
We are all in it together, even those who look down on others for whatever reason and man seems very good at coming up with "reasons" to look down upon others.
Take care, be ready.
Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.
Posted by: ThomasBaum | July 28, 2009 11:30 AM
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Note: James210 has appeared before on these blogs as what appears to be a probility wave-
According to Drs. Lanza and Berman in their new book,
"Biocentrism", the last frontier is Consciousness.
An excerpt:
"However, the Grand Canyon or Taj Mahal are only real when you get there." p. 160.
"Third Principle of Biocentrism:
The behavior of subatomic particles- indeed all particles and objects- is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves." p. 93.
"So the table has been set in the public mind for biocentrism's jump to the reality that its all only in the mind, that the universe exists nowhere else.
Posted by: ccnl1 | July 28, 2009 10:28 AM
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A higher educated taking lessons from a movie. That's comical.
In respect of the Church, I'll Defer on the ethnic racism.
Rules of the street, for the Elite, Educated.
1. Respect the Badge and what it stands for. I don't care what color you are.
2. Request permission to retrieve ID, if in concealed position.
If you don't want a gun put to your head.
Perhaps the educated should and I'm sure there are some, ride with Law, to see the other side.
J
Posted by: James210 | July 28, 2009 7:30 AM
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Not only have Catholics overcome the obstacles in their way in America, they are now quite capable of placing obstacles in the way of others.
Sotomayor's confirmation will install a Catholic supermajority on the US Supreme Court. 66% of the Supreme Court (6 of the 9 Justices) will be Catholic, in a country where less than a quarter of the population is so.
If ethnic diversity is an asset to the Court, why is religious diversity less so? Someone's ethnic background might affect how that person views the world, but that person's religion absolutely does.
I was surprised that Sotomayor's religion was not an issue during her hearings. Given the Catholic Church's restrictive views on gay marriage, abortion, birth control, stem cell research, genetic modification, etc., why aren't more people concerned about Catholic over-representation on the US Supreme Court?
Posted by: bpai_99 | July 27, 2009 5:03 PM
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Hmmm, New World aka an improbable wave? has again brought strangeness to this blog.