Phil Robertson: Racist?

First off, I think it's ridiculous sometimes what gets a nation so hot and bothered and takes our mind off of more important things than what a TV celebrity says in an interview. But, I'm more hot and bothered about people's reactions so here goes...

The piece about Phil in GQ is not written in traditional interview question and answer format. It's more or less an article where the author tells of his experience with Phil and his family. Throughout the article he highlights some of Phil's seemingly "controversial" topics. One of them that has brought some heat upon Phil for being a "racist" is what he says about his experience of working with black people in the fields. Personally, I don't see it that way so here's my interpretation:

 

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once." It is totally possible he never SAW the mistreatment. He was a worker alongside blacks. Unless he is just out right lying, he most probably never saw it happen. Not ALL white people, business owners, farmers were racist bigots.

Also, he may have seen it and didn’t realize it. I have friends who have said things that to my ears were racist/ignorant (though I know the person so I know they didn't mean it this way), but obviously not to them. An example of this is when back in high school a friend of mine said the local movie theater was getting more and more ghetto. Well the only apparent change in the area was that more and more black families were moving into our area. So I interpreted her statement that ghetto means black people.

"Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash." I think he’s talking about class. He was poor (labeled white trash) so he was going to be a worker, laboring with his hands. He would be looked down upon due to his status. Blacks were looked down upon due to the color of their skin. Obviously one was historically treated worse than the other. He was a laborer like the blacks, treated like lower class, but obviously it wasn’t the same.

"We're going across the field.... They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.” Why in the world would he have heard the blacks talking about mean white people…HE IS WHITE! They probably would never have talked bad about their white bosses in front of another white person in fear that they would be ratted out. And in those days if a black person were to speak up asking for better treatment, better pay, a raise, they were afraid to be fired, beat, or even have their family threatened. There was no other way to act. It had to be "yes suh" and "no suh".

Some people think racism is dead because they live in a predominately white area and never see the conflict/interaction between races. They have no experience to reflect on. And if they were to see it they may not notice it since they have never had to be on the defense due to the shade of their skin.

I have a good friend who I worked with at a Catholic summer camp. We were in the back woods of Georgia. Our team went into town, Tiger, GA, to get some Dairy Queen on a day off. There's nothing like a Dairy Queen Blizzard in the middle of the hot Georgia summer. He was the last in line and tried placing his order but the lady behind the counter kept saying, "Next...Next...", she wouldn't take his order. We also experienced being treated differently at the local Waffle House. No one would come to our table to take our order. And our favorite, experience was when we ate at Waffle House and the whole time southern rock was on the juke box. Well, once we got up to leave all of a sudden Outkast's "Hey Ya" came on. Coincidence? Anyways, if we wouldn't have told people about Dairy Queen no one would have known. We were the only ones from our group who were in the restaurant. No one would have known a member of the camp staff was ever mistreated due to his race. They didn't see.

But you know what? This is just my interpretation. I can't go and ask Phil to sit down and explain every word to me. But, oh wait, Duck Dynasty is on!