Jun. 01, 2003 - 21:03 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Scattershot

Slogging through the Sunday paper late this afternoon after all our Sunday stuff was done - running errands and all. I find a bunch of interesting stuff.

One is a column by Leonard Pitts a columnist for The Miami Herald. " 'Black' or 'Negro' -- does it matter ?" Who is a bit darker than I am and who likes to be called by name rather than any other description. He discusses the different titles used over time, "The problem is that race does not exist. Experts will tell you it cannot be defined with scientific exactness, has no obective basis in reality. That us why our all our terminology has proved so maddeningly imprecise."

Mr. Pitts continues, "Black ? Most of the people in question are brown or tan and a few, downright beige. Colored ? We're all colored, aren't we ?" (Note - I am sort of pink/sallow you might say - so we are all colored - Bastion) "African American ? So what does that make the white person who emigrated from South Africa ? Negro ?"

Later he points out that this situation exists in other realms of humanity here in our country. "If, for example, one aspires to specificity, one is now obliged to say 'non-Hispanic white' when referring to the people we used to call plain ol' white. This so it is clear that you are not talking about Hispanics who, the Census Bureau will tell you, are defined not by race but by the language spoken in their country of ancestry."

Then he goes into, "Unfortunately, some Hispanics hate it when you say Hispanic because they prefer Latino. Then there are the people I grew up calling Indians until they asked to be called Native Americans, except that everybody who is born in the United States is technically a native American, so now the preferred term is American Indian. At least that is what and editor told me the other day."

He makes a few more pungent remarks, "As for me, I'm not particularly picky. You can call me black or you can call me African American. Just don't call me late for dinner." And then Mr. Pitts says, "years ago there was a scene in one of the 'Star Trek' shows where a man -- we would call him black -- describes an alien woman he is looking for. He says something like, 'She has brown skin, like me.' There was something elegant in the simplicity of that description."

Then, "in a saner world - - - - when somebody asks a non-Hispanic, black Native American Indian what he prefers to be called, - - - - - He'd only have to give one thing. His name." End quotes.

Mr. Pitts makes some great observations I think. In my own thoughts, I can see only one division in all of mankind -- good guys or bad guys (either sex) and note that often a person hops from one definition to the other and back again with rapidity.

Guess tomorrow the big FCC fiasco will come to a head. It has been cussed and discussed from one end to the other and it seems that Powell will have his way, unless by miracle he is converted to sainthood. Molly Ivins of the Creator's Syndicate who often gets as carried away as me says, "Let's raise a ruckus over FCC changes." She quotes, "The Public Integrity People examined the travel records of FCC employees and found that they have accepted 2,500 trips, costing nearly $2.8 million over the past eight years, paid for by the telecommunications and broadcast industries, which are, theoretically, 'regulated' by the FCC. The industry-paid travel is on top of about $2 million a year in official travel paid for by taxpayers."

Molly goes on at length, but comes up with this, "The center - http://www.publici.org - also found that the FCC increasingly relies on industry-generated data to justify sweeping deregulation proposals."

I spent some time at the site of The Center For Public Integrity -- publici.org, read extensively for the amount of time I had, think it is a viable honest organization, which brings out facts that jibe with what little I know. I bow to the expertise of Jim Lawrence who knows the ball game far better than I to give me the skinny on publici.org. But it is obvious that there is much FCC hanky-panking going on. Just thinking, I guess Enron has had prime learning examples by the way our government folks handle the public weal.

Todays paper had many things I'd like to talk about, but my time and your interest are both limited. So, that is tonight's Scattershot . . . . . . . . .

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