Leadership

I grew up in a relatively poor family.  As a consequence of my family's economic status (or lack thereof), I spent several years living in somewhat sketchy neighborhoods.  It's no secret that our society hasn't reached the age of full equality and enlightenment of which many people dream, so in those sketchy neighborhoods you were bound to find plenty of minorities.  Point the finger of blame wherever you like and explain inner-city social ills however you choose, but the fact remains that the black and Hispanic folks tend to occupy the lower rungs of the ladder, generally speaking.

It would follow, then, that I have never been a stranger to the minority races.  I'm not going to pull the "my black friends" routine like your local newsman does whenever a racial issue arises.  The truth is that I don't have many friends in general.  Of the few with whom I associate these days, none are black.  (My brother-in-law isn't exactly a friend of mine, and it's not like I chose him in any case.)  There's no need to embellish my bona fides here.  I have conservative political views so I'm automatically a racist, or so the conventional wisdom says.  No truth to the assertion, of course, but I honestly don't give a shit.  I've lived my life in all kinds of places and I've known all kinds of people.  I never had a problem with anyone's skin color and nobody seemed to have a problem with mine.

The topic of "black leaders" has always been an intriguing one to me though, and one that nobody ever cared to discuss.  I suppose that my intrigue stems from the bizarreness of the concept that a few self-appointed big shots could speak on behalf of everyone with a given skin tone.  How could that make sense to anybody?  No answer.  Whether they were high school or college classmates, work colleagues, friends from the neighborhood, or employees, I never encountered a black person who had a single thing to say about the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world.  Not a peep.  If I brought it up, they would change the subject or ignore it entirely.  Weird.

The subject came to mind again, in a tangential way, when I caught part of a radio discussion on one of the black talk stations in Detroit recently.  The topic was the FDA's rules regarding flavored cigarettes.  Flavors are introduced to target children, as the story goes, so the FDA needs to ban flavored cigarettes to save the kids.  Is menthol a flavor though?  This is where I tuned into the discussion.  As many of you are likely aware, the black smokers of the world seem to enjoy menthol more than other groups of people do.

In predictable (to me) fashion, the most boisterous participant in the discussion went straight for the racism charge.  In his view, the FDA was a racist organization for trying to ban a product used primarily by black people.  Another participant had a different take.  In her view, the ban might be a good thing because it would encourage more black people to quit smoking and become healthier.  Without missing a beat, the first guy jumped back in and claimed that the cigarette industry was racist for developing a product that got black people addicted in the first place.  I'm not making this up.  It was amusing and sad at the same time.  Amusing to hear the rhetorical gymnastics and the shouting from this guy, in an effort to cover a complete lack of intellectual depth.  Sad to hear that, no matter which side of the issue one chooses, racism clearly explains the other side.

Which brings us to the topic of today's post - leaders.  I don't think for a second that the goofball on the radio in Detroit was considered a black leader, any more than I'm considered a white leader.  He was just one more guy with an (adjustable) opinion.  As I continued northward and lost the radio signal though, I couldn't help but wonder when Al Sharpton would show up somewhere and start making the same charges.

Then this reminded me of one of the very few conversations about this topic that I actually did have with a black guy.  (Yes.  My mind zigs and zags and circles back around again.  What are you gonna do?)  Naturally the guy was a truck driver.  I probably had already written my blog post for the day at the point when I met the fella, but we were in the little lounge area at the truck stop outside Warren, Ohio.  I was looking at the little TV in the corner and the guy mumbled something about his son.  I wasn't sure what he said or if it was directed at me, so I responded with the customary, "Excuse me?"  His son was pissing him off, he clarified.

Then the old black guy sat down (uninvited, natch) and we had a pretty lengthy chat about this, that, and the other thing.  Perhaps it was because I was a stranger or perhaps it was just in his nature, but this guy was interested in talking about all kinds of stuff.  I later learned that he was from the Detroit area, so maybe my Tigers hat convinced him that I was a decent guy or something.  I'm not a conversationalist by nature, as you've probably learned by now, so I did more listening.  I can tell plenty of jokes and I can tell plenty of stories, but I'm not very good at pretending to give a damn about what someone else has to say.  I didn't have to pretend when my counterpart got to Al Sharpton though.  I was genuinely interested.  I already told you that I find the topic of black leaders intriguing.

In what turned out to be a disappointment to me, the guy was no fan of Sharpton.  He thinks that the "reverand" is an uneducated huckster who stirs up trouble to keep himself in business.  In other words - we were in total agreement on the subject.  That's all well and good in its own way, but it did nothing to help me understand how people can consider guys like Sharpton to be leaders.  I would have preferred to hear some sort of support for Sharpton, purely so I could understand the subject a little better.  Alas, the black truck driver was an independent businessman (or O/O to use the common parlance of the industry) and his attitudes reflected as much.  He didn't accept the idea that anybody speaks for him.

I saw something in my e-mail when I got back from Tennessee last night that brought all of this to mind.  "Uneducated huckster" was, if not a direct quote from my aforementioned conversation, a reasonable paraphrasing of what was said.  My truck driving buddy was certain that ole Al was stupid.  How stupid though?  Well...


I'll have to excuse Donny Deutsch for his moronic comment here, not because I'm protecting the white guy but because Donny Deutsch is a fucking moron.  Everybody seems to know this.  Al Sharpton, on the other hand, is the country's chief trafficker in racial grievance.  If he is going back to the tried and true 'Arizona is full of raaaaaacists' meme on a TV show discussing Martin Luther King Day, then he should at least be aware that the state has recognized the holiday, in full, since 1992.  Jackass.

How are leaders chosen?  I guess that's what I'm really trying to ask.