"What color of dog do you hunt?"
It sounds like a silly question, doesn't it? Yet, in the world of working terriers, some people still think coat color matters.
Each to his own, of course, but I think the more time you spend in the field hunting with a variety of dogs, the more you come to realize coat color is a show ring concern.
The fox, groundhog or raccoon do not much care about the color of the terrier in the den pipe, do they?
And yet, coat color seems to be important to a lot of people. Look at Labrador Retrievers, where we have Black Labs, Yellow Labs and Chocolate Labs.
Similar color distinctions are made in the world of Setters and Pointers.
But the birds do not care what color a dog is, or how it is registered.
So why then does it matter to the hunter? It shouldn't!
But, apparently, this is a rare sentiment.
For most people, coat color and registration occupy the top two slots in their selection system. Everything else is subordinate to that.
Such odd fixations are not unique to the world of dogs. Look at the current Presidential race. Political party (registry) and coat color (race and religion) seem to be more important than field performance.
And yet, there are some exceptions, and one can always be pleasantly surprised. Tuesday morning I flipped open The Washington Post to read this headline :
Wow.
Let's see how long that lasts! No matter. It's a start.
And in the start (perhaps) comes a chance to have a new national conversation about race, culture, coat color, and registry.
And yes, I do think it's all pretty much the same. You see, at some level we treat political races like they're a dog show. The focus is on coat color, "movement" and registry.
But with politicians, as with dogs, the real question remains too often unasked: "Can that dog hunt?"
* * *
On Monday, in response to an attack email, I took the time to detail a few quick and truthful bullets about Barack Obama, noting that, among other things, he was elected the first Black president of The Harvard Law Review.
TMM, a reader of this blog, wrote a comment taking offense that I would mention that Barack was the "first Black" anything and suggesting that "[Obama] is as much white as black."
Hmm . . . Well, that that's not quite true is it? Ask any redneck in a hillbilly bar in Virginia, and he will can tell you Barack is Black. So too will anyone else. Race is the ethnic mask we all wear on our face. My adopted children are Asian. I am White. Obama is Black. Most people are about as clear about what race they are as the rest of the world is. And Obama says he is Black, and that is how everyone in American sees him when he walks into WalMart.
To be fair, TMM's confusion comes from his/her confounding race and culture. But race and culture are very different things, aren't they? A black Patterdale Terrier may be a "soft" baying terrier, and a white Jack Russell Terrier may be a "hard" biting terrier, but we do not get confused about their coat color because they do not fit the stereotype for the dog, do we?
Yet, some people do get confused when it comes to humans, and this confusion can make for some pretty amusing conversations.
What is going on here? What is the subtext?
The subtext is that some people define "Black" as a set of meaningful cultural values, while others define "Black," as meaningless skin color.
What's odd here, as I have noted in an earlier piece entitled "Black and White and Redneck All Over," is that "Black" culture is not restricted to Blacks any more than "White" culture is restricted to Whites.
Some years back, the Congressional Black Caucus honored Bill Clinton as "America's first black President."
The writer Toni Morrison echoed that sentiment, noting that Bill Clinton, "displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas." Unsaid was the other "elephant in the living room" -- Bill Clinton's rather casual interpretation of marital fidelity.
While some Black Americans have made Bill Clinton an honorary Black man, some white folks have taken a page from the same playbook, and decided to make culturally mainstream folks like Tiger Woods, Condoleeza Rice and Bill Cosby honorary White men and women.
And Barack Obama, it seems, has fallen into that folder.
Yet, to deny a Black man or woman their blackness is an insult. The reason for this is simple: It denies the reality of what it is to be Black in America. Race and racial discrimination may play a diminishing role in the decision-making process, but it is still a major factor in how we evaluate people.
A White man embraces Black culture by choice. A Black man's skin color is not a choice. And though one can be proud of one's Black heritage and culture, there is no denying that racism still runs riot in America.
And so, the fact that Barack Obama was elected as the first Black President of The Harvard Law Review is a big damn deal. It means a long-standing bigotry was, in this one case, not a life-limiting obstacle ... no doubt because of extraordinary and obvious talent.
To make an analogy, it is as if a black Patterdale Terrier won the blue ribbon at a working terrier show in the south of England (where they prefer white Jack Russell Terriers) after 104-years of discrimination.
To celebrate the black dog's win is not to attack the unity of working terriers -- it is to celebrate the fact that finally a dog was judged for what matters, rather than what does not.
Of course, this time around no matter who wins the Presidential race, it will be a big deal. If Hillary is successful, she will be the first woman. If Huckabee wins, he will be the first Evangelical. If Romney is successful, he will be the first Mormon. If Giuliani wins, he will be the first Italian-American.
Let us be clear: Members of these groups have not been excluded from the Presidency because they are universally stupid and incompetent. They have been excluded because the office of President has always been reserved for a White-Christian-Heterosexual-Man-of-Wealth.
In this sense, the Presidency has worked like a closed-registry system, with all the intellectual inbreeding, twisted ethics, and stunted perspective you would expect.
And, as is so often true in a close-registry show dog system, we have found that not too many of our dogs hunt. Look at Congress. Look at your State Legislature. Nice to look at, but not much use in the field.
But if race, religion and political party should not be our primary, secondary or tertiary concern, what should be?
That's a question people are struggling with. It's a bit like asking how you should judge a hunting dog in the show ring. Perhaps it can't be done, but damn if folks still aren't going to try!
And so, one of the new things folks are looking at is the issue of "culture."
Barack Obama, it seems, is racially black, but culturally mainstream. As a result, White folks are voting for Obama at a greater percentage than Black Americans.
Read that last statement again. A greater percentage of White people are voting for Barack than Blacks are.
Why is that? The refreshing answer is that White folks are voting for a candidate with cultural values they understand and respect.
Color of skin is not as important as content of character and culture.
A lot of Blacks, on the other hand, are a bit confused about Obama. Where is the hip coolness? Where is the easy laughter? How come this brother looks like he needs a meal? What's with the stiff suits and the picture-perfect family group? Not even Cosby was this white!
And so Black Americans, up to now, have been suiting up for Hillary in larger numbers than they have for Barack.
At least with Hillary Clinton you get an Honorary Black Man as First Gentleman.
At some level, all of this is tremendously refreshing.
You see, both Black Americans and White Americans (to differing degrees, perhaps) seem to be voting on "content of character" rather than skin color.
To be sure, a lot of older and poorly-educated Whites are going to have a harder time crossing the race line than Blacks will have crossing the culture line, but movement is occurring on both sides.
Which is not to say everyone values the same culture, any more than people value the same things in a working dog.
Nor is it to give a nod of respect or reverence to the twisted selection process itself. Truth be told, you cannot judge a working dog in the ring.
And perhaps we all know that, which is why we look so hard at past field performance.
Some look at the flip flopper and count that as a positive quality (a "versatile hunting dog") and others a negative one ("a famously false marker who will point on a rabbit as quick as a quail").
Some people will tell you they value a hard dog, but in my experience these folks tend to be chicken hawks who rarely hunt, or else they are hard hearts who give too little weight to broken dogs and disabled veterans. There are old warriors and bold warriors, but not too many old bold ones.
Some will tell you that the terrier with the smashed face that still wants to go in teeth-on in every situation is a brave dog. I think it is only a slow-learner and a quick forgetter.
And then you have the dog that has spent a lot of time in the field, but has never brought home the quarry. It may have a respected kennel name, but "the right stuff" does not get passed along by osmosis or breathing the same air, does it?
If someone waves a kennel name and shows you a lot of "bushing" photos but seems to have no quarry pictures, you are being told something, and it is not necessarily good. Caveat emptor!
And then, of course, you have the young dog of the wrong color. It hunted hard and well at 10 months and made a name for itself before it's second birthday.
But it's a young dog of the wrong color!
Well yes, it is. And for about half of the population it's in the wrong registry too.
But damn that dog can hunt!
The subtext is that some people define "Black" as a set of meaningful cultural values, while others define "Black," as meaningless skin color.
What's odd here, as I have noted in an earlier piece entitled "Black and White and Redneck All Over," is that "Black" culture is not restricted to Blacks any more than "White" culture is restricted to Whites.
Some years back, the Congressional Black Caucus honored Bill Clinton as "America's first black President."
The writer Toni Morrison echoed that sentiment, noting that Bill Clinton, "displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas." Unsaid was the other "elephant in the living room" -- Bill Clinton's rather casual interpretation of marital fidelity.
While some Black Americans have made Bill Clinton an honorary Black man, some white folks have taken a page from the same playbook, and decided to make culturally mainstream folks like Tiger Woods, Condoleeza Rice and Bill Cosby honorary White men and women.
And Barack Obama, it seems, has fallen into that folder.
Yet, to deny a Black man or woman their blackness is an insult. The reason for this is simple: It denies the reality of what it is to be Black in America. Race and racial discrimination may play a diminishing role in the decision-making process, but it is still a major factor in how we evaluate people.
A White man embraces Black culture by choice. A Black man's skin color is not a choice. And though one can be proud of one's Black heritage and culture, there is no denying that racism still runs riot in America.
And so, the fact that Barack Obama was elected as the first Black President of The Harvard Law Review is a big damn deal. It means a long-standing bigotry was, in this one case, not a life-limiting obstacle ... no doubt because of extraordinary and obvious talent.
To make an analogy, it is as if a black Patterdale Terrier won the blue ribbon at a working terrier show in the south of England (where they prefer white Jack Russell Terriers) after 104-years of discrimination.
To celebrate the black dog's win is not to attack the unity of working terriers -- it is to celebrate the fact that finally a dog was judged for what matters, rather than what does not.
Of course, this time around no matter who wins the Presidential race, it will be a big deal. If Hillary is successful, she will be the first woman. If Huckabee wins, he will be the first Evangelical. If Romney is successful, he will be the first Mormon. If Giuliani wins, he will be the first Italian-American.
Let us be clear: Members of these groups have not been excluded from the Presidency because they are universally stupid and incompetent. They have been excluded because the office of President has always been reserved for a White-Christian-Heterosexual-Man-of-Wealth.
In this sense, the Presidency has worked like a closed-registry system, with all the intellectual inbreeding, twisted ethics, and stunted perspective you would expect.
And, as is so often true in a close-registry show dog system, we have found that not too many of our dogs hunt. Look at Congress. Look at your State Legislature. Nice to look at, but not much use in the field.
But if race, religion and political party should not be our primary, secondary or tertiary concern, what should be?
That's a question people are struggling with. It's a bit like asking how you should judge a hunting dog in the show ring. Perhaps it can't be done, but damn if folks still aren't going to try!
And so, one of the new things folks are looking at is the issue of "culture."
Barack Obama, it seems, is racially black, but culturally mainstream. As a result, White folks are voting for Obama at a greater percentage than Black Americans.
Read that last statement again. A greater percentage of White people are voting for Barack than Blacks are.
Why is that? The refreshing answer is that White folks are voting for a candidate with cultural values they understand and respect.
Color of skin is not as important as content of character and culture.
A lot of Blacks, on the other hand, are a bit confused about Obama. Where is the hip coolness? Where is the easy laughter? How come this brother looks like he needs a meal? What's with the stiff suits and the picture-perfect family group? Not even Cosby was this white!
And so Black Americans, up to now, have been suiting up for Hillary in larger numbers than they have for Barack.
At least with Hillary Clinton you get an Honorary Black Man as First Gentleman.
At some level, all of this is tremendously refreshing.
You see, both Black Americans and White Americans (to differing degrees, perhaps) seem to be voting on "content of character" rather than skin color.
To be sure, a lot of older and poorly-educated Whites are going to have a harder time crossing the race line than Blacks will have crossing the culture line, but movement is occurring on both sides.
Which is not to say everyone values the same culture, any more than people value the same things in a working dog.
Nor is it to give a nod of respect or reverence to the twisted selection process itself. Truth be told, you cannot judge a working dog in the ring.
And perhaps we all know that, which is why we look so hard at past field performance.
Some look at the flip flopper and count that as a positive quality (a "versatile hunting dog") and others a negative one ("a famously false marker who will point on a rabbit as quick as a quail").
Some people will tell you they value a hard dog, but in my experience these folks tend to be chicken hawks who rarely hunt, or else they are hard hearts who give too little weight to broken dogs and disabled veterans. There are old warriors and bold warriors, but not too many old bold ones.
Some will tell you that the terrier with the smashed face that still wants to go in teeth-on in every situation is a brave dog. I think it is only a slow-learner and a quick forgetter.
And then you have the dog that has spent a lot of time in the field, but has never brought home the quarry. It may have a respected kennel name, but "the right stuff" does not get passed along by osmosis or breathing the same air, does it?
If someone waves a kennel name and shows you a lot of "bushing" photos but seems to have no quarry pictures, you are being told something, and it is not necessarily good. Caveat emptor!
And then, of course, you have the young dog of the wrong color. It hunted hard and well at 10 months and made a name for itself before it's second birthday.
But it's a young dog of the wrong color!
Well yes, it is. And for about half of the population it's in the wrong registry too.
But damn that dog can hunt!
.
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