Ron Christie, who’s black: I trace this to the middle of the 19th Century and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
When you ask what does it mean to be acting white, I first had to ask, what does it mean to act black?
To act black in the middle of the 19th Century meant you weren’t literate, you weren’t religious, and you weren’t a strong family person.
All of the major black characters in that book, with the exception of Uncle Tom, could pass as white because they were literate, religious and committed to family.
If you go to the turn of the 20th Century, you had Booker T. Washington accuse the first African-American to graduate Harvard as acting white. According to Booker T., the place for blacks was on the farm.
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were accused of acting white.
Jesse Jackson accused Barack Obama of “acting like he’s white.”
The breakdown started with the rise of the black power movement where it was no longer chic to assimilate but blacks drew a lot of strength from being separate.
I was tutoring this inner-city first grader who said to me, “Mr. Christie, why do you dress white and why do you act white and why do you talk white?”
Because I didn’t act hip hop, I was being inauthentically black.
Dennis: “There is no parallel to this. Armenians, Jews, Chinese who retain their identities, all of them value study and hard work and never assume that means you’ve assimilated. Why only blacks?”
Ron Christie: “It’s been a dominant aspect of black culture that education is the province of whites.”
Dennis: “What do they say about Asians? Asians outdo whites in dressing well and studying well and playing in orchestras well?”
Ron: “I’m as stunned as you are. I’ve seen this in my own family. Looking at grandparents and looking at cousins, they’ve eschewed educational achievement because that’s acting white.”
Congresswoman Maxine Waters told Ron Christie, “You are a sell-out to your race. White people work for Republicans.”
Dennis: “Is there any other group that says you are a sell-out to your race?”
Luke Ford says: I remember walking past the basketball courts on Robertson and Airdrome in 90035, and these young black men started yelling at this black teenager that he was trying to act like a “white schoolboy” because he was walking past them carrying books.
As I am writing this people are once again outraged by something R. Ovadiah Yosef said, in that he attributed the fires in Israel to lack of Sabbath observance. Obviously, this is not the sort of comment that appeals to those with a modern temperament, but in traditional societies it is an expectation of the people that the leading rabbis will find some spiritual reason to explain tragedies. So why I am mentioning this now? Because in the document from Arieli, no. 38, he quotes R. Kook as saying something that people will find even more shocking than anything R. Ovadiah has ever said. (I don’t think you will find the students of R. Kook ever repeating it.) R. Kook wondered if the 1929 pogrom in Hebron was perhaps due to the fact that the Hebron Yeshiva brought in their “modern” ways to Israel, by which he means their way of dressing, hair style and beardless faces.
I call her Thursday morning. “When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
Sharon: “In the beginning of my life, I said I wanted to discover the cure for cancer. That mutated into wanting to be a neuro-scientist. When I started college, I started dancing. Once I was dancing, I said, I can’t be a doctor, I have to dance. It led me into Alexander Technique, which I feel is the perfect combination of movement and dance and the brain and neuro-science.”
“I was about 25 and I had excruciating hip pain. I’d be doubled over and I’d have to leave work and go home and lie down. I thought something was serious wrong with me. Another dancer suggested that I try the Alexander Technique. When I left my first lesson, I didn’t have any pain in my body. That planted a seed.
“After taking lessons for two months, I felt this ability to deal with the stress of my job, I worked with children with autism, so that at the end of the day, I wasn’t completely drained and miserable. I knew it was directly related to my work in the Alexander Technique.
“Around that time, I was trying to figure out if I was going to get a master’s degree to continue working with children with autism, or was I going to become an Alexander Technique teacher. My insides were saying Alexander Technique. It was a gut decision. And everything fell into place.”
Sharon: “I could recognize how I was responding to stressful situations in ways that didn’t serve me — such as clenching my jowls, holding my breath, tightening my chest. Alexander Technique gave me the skills to recognize that and then to release the release muscular tension of stress. I learned how to release my neck and to release my chest and ribcage. So rather than being in a physically tight response to stress, I could be open and think more clearly.
“It also allowed me to move into my full height. I have scoliosis, which created a lot of back, shoulder and hip pain. Being able to release the physical tension of that scoliosis so that I have a more dynamic use of my body eliminated my pain.”
Luke: “What sort of feedback did you get from other people when you started studying Alexander Technique?”
Sharon: “Most people were like, huh, what’s that? Most people don’t know what the Alexander Technique is. Or, the other response is to try to stand up straight by lifting their head and pulling their shoulders back and say, oh, Alexander Technique, that’s posture therapy.
“I laugh at that. Good posture is a by-product of the work.”
Luke: “What did you find most challenging about your Alexander Technique teacher training?”
Sharon: “Shedding old habits. There were moments when I didn’t want to see my own patterns [of compression]. When you’re freeing up all the time, your old self comes in and says, don’t touch me. I want to be tight. I want to be the way I’ve always been.”
“When you look at yourself and your own habits on a daily basis in an intense way, it is sometimes shocking. We often assume that what we’re doing is right and what it really is is just familiar. To recognize that what you’re doing is wrong and harmful is difficult to deal with.”
“I had to work during my training. In the beginning, I worked with children with autism. I was going to the training in the morning and then driving around Los Angeles to work with these children. That didn’t last long because it was exhausting. Then I got a job working as an after-school program director. That was much easier, because driving around LA and doing Alexander training don’t mesh well because they are too exhausting.
“I was so envious of the people who were able to just train. One woman would go to the training in the morning and then go home and nap for two hours. I was so envious.”
Luke: “Tell me about the transition from graduating from teacher training to becoming a full-time teacher.”
Sharon: “After I finished the training, I continued to work with children. At the same time, I was building a practice.
“A pre-school offered me a full-time job with benefits and I started crying because I knew I wanted to teach the Technique. So I didn’t take the full-time job and I realized that I had to make this work. I built a website. Through the website, I got a lot of Alexander students. Now I go to networking events, I do interviews like this, I joined a public relations group to learn how to market, I teach workshops… Financially, it goes up and down, but I am so driven. Every time the option of getting another job it fuels the fire. This work is too powerful.”
Luke: “What have been your biggest challenges as an Alexander Technique teacher?”
Sharon: “Using the computer to reach out to people. I chose this line of work because I love to stand on my feet, I love to move, I love to interact with people. The way the world is going is to use the web to reach more people and I can’t stand to sit at the computer and to work on the website and the marketing. I resist it. I complain about it. I have business coaches who help me and tell me to get over it.”
Thursday, December 09, 2010 Radio Show
H1: One Puff
Prager H1: The Surgeon General contends that inhaling a single puff of cigarette smoke, even second-hand, can kill you… We have all the energy we need right here in North America… Dennis highlights another great Imprimis speech; this one by Richard John Neuhaus in 1982 about the importance of religion to America’s past, present and future.
Thursday, December 09, 2010 Radio Show
H2: Sarah Hate
Prager H2: There is no limit to the Left’s hatred of Sarah Palin. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s obscenity-filled screed in The Huffington Post is the latest example… Dennis talks to Ron Christie, professor of political science and strategy at George Washington University and Haverford College. His new book is Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur.
Thursday, December 09, 2010 Radio Show
H3: The Emperor of All Maladies
Prager H3: Dennis talks to Siddhartha Mukherjee, oncologist and Professor of Medicine at Columbia University. His new book is Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer. Dennis also revisits the killer puff and hate Sarah issues.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010 Radio Show
H1: Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
Prager H1: Who is proposing tax cuts for the wealthy? All the Republicans asked for is to extend the current tax rates. Dennis reviews the tax compromise and the President’s “tax cuts for the wealthy” rhetoric. Callers weigh in.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010 Radio Show
H2: Male/Female Hour: What Women Want
Prager H2: Last week Dennis discussed what men most want from their spouse. This week, what women most want from their men is the topic.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010 Radio Show
H3: What’s Wrong with Kansas?
Prager H3: If tax cuts for the wealthy are the “holy grail” for Republicans, why do so many people who are not wealthy vote for GOP?.. New study reveals that allergies have been over diagnosed. That’s putting it mildy… Parent revolt over their poor school in Los Angeles… Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, is in the pocket of Hugo Chavez, getting suitcases full of cash to fund his campaign to bribe judges and rewrite that nation’s constitution.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010 Radio Show
H1: Such Things Tragedies Are Made of
Prager H1: A teenage boy does something very stupid in Israel and 42 people die. Countless lives are impacted… Dennis talks to John Eastman, founding Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, about the latest legal developments of California’s constitutional amendment to define marriage as one man and one woman, Prop 8.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010 Radio Show
H2: The Inquisition
Prager H2: The President and the Republicans reached a deal on taxes. The Left is furious… 19 countries are boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize Award. The recipient is a Chinese dissident… The music industry has covered itself in shame once again. This year’s Grammy nominees for Record of the Year are typical.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010 Radio Show
H3: Ultimate Issues Hour: The Founders and Deism
Prager H3: Were the Founders of the United States of America deists who didn’t believe in the Judeo-Christian ethical monotheistic view of God? Were they really atheists?
In a 1994 lecture on Gen. 50, Dennis Prager talked about verse 17: “And Joseph wept when they [his brothers] spoke to him.”
Dennis: The rabbis taught in a midrash — “he who shows himself merciful to his fellow man proves thereby that he is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and he who is cruel to his fellow man proves that he is no descendant of theirs.”
Dennis: “Do different peoples have different traits? While I’ve always believed in the sanctity of the individual and that you can never say that this individual is a member of this group and therefore has the following traits, that is pure racism, it is silly to deny that different cultures produce characteristics.
“When Jews have defined themselves, what did they define as their best trait and worst trait? The worst trait is that they are stubborn. The positive trait that Jews have defined themselves as is merciful.
“Every Jew is merciful? Obviously not, but it is an interesting thing that the rabbis isolated that trait. If you are cruel, you’re not really a Jew.
“There is some truth to it. Israel has been at war many times. I don’t think an army in history has raped and pillaged as little as the Israeli army has.
“I don’t believe this is racial. I believe certain characteristics are engendered.
“Peter Singer points out, and I certainly have problems with his book Animal Liberation, and he can’t stand any religion, he says that while he has a lot of problems with the Bible, at least the Hebrew Bible has lots of laws on how you treat animals while the New Testament is silent on this issue.
“Cruelty to an animal is alien to the Jewish consciousness. There is a story told, even if it is not true it is interesting that it is so widespread, that a Jew in Poland being taken away to Auschwitz to be gassed, he yells out of his train to his Polish neighbor, ‘Don’t forget to feed the chickens.’
“Even as he is taken away on the train, he remembers the animals that he left.
“I speak about the importance of goodness. I attribute this to my Jewish upbringing, to being steeped in Judaism in the healthiest way. There are unhealthy ways to be steeped in Judaism and any religion.
“The Jewish predilection to compassion, even when it is misguided in political life, is derived from this definition.
“It is interesting to see how people define their own religion.
“You can see here that Joseph cries for his brothers’ pain.”
In a 1994 lecture on Gen. 50, Dennis Prager said: “It is a rare parent who wants to know all the details and it is a foolish child who tells all the details even though they know it is not necessary the parent knows it and it might hurt them, such as about their sex life. Kids who don’t follow in the exact religious ways of their parents. Do they have to announce to them, ‘I run my home differently than you do’ and hurt their feelings. There might be certain acts you put on to make them happy. With a family, ‘Let it all out!’ is a ludicrous principle. It is foolish to live an act but you don’t need to announce who you slept with last night.”
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"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
On Thursday, Dennis Prager talks to Ron Christie, professor of political science and strategy at George Washington University and Haverford College. His new book is Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur