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Son of Baldwin on America after Ferguson
LinkSomething that confounds me in conversations about racism is some white people's insistence that anti-Blackness and anti-Whiteness are comparable; that there is a moral or social equivalence between the two. They seem to be coming from the perspective that being white is just like being black. There is never any analyses about power dynamics or racial hierarchies or how Whiteness, itself, functions as an inherently oppressive state of existence defining itself as supreme and necessitating Blackness being defined as inherently inferior. None of that. Just your average, everyday, dictionary definition of racism (written by white people), devoid of context, nuance, and lived-reality.
Another thing that confounds me is black people who cling to Respectability Politics as a viable means to end anti-black racism.
They believe racism is black people's fault because some black people don't "live up" to a middle-class, European, Western, bourgeois standard.
They talk about "black-on-black crime" as though it's an exceptional, blacks-only pathology (when white-on-white crime is just as prevalent but because white supremacy rules the day, white crimes are never framed in that way).
They hold black people to an impossible moral standard that they wouldn't dare, and don't, hold white people to.
They believe that by being perfect, or as close to perfect as a human being can get--and by ignoring the historic and contemporary socioeconomic disparities that undergird this situation--white people will see the value of black lives and stop being racist.
It doesn't matter how many examples there are that prove that theory a complete and utter misunderstanding of how racism actually works. For example, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are likely the two most respectable Negroes in America right now. They also prescribe to respectability politics. Has that protected them from racism? No the **** it has not.
Respectable Negroes cling to this idea because they wish to avoid the notion that they are powerless. Blaming the victims of racism for racism is easier than confronting and dismantling white supremacy. Confronting white supremacy involves risks to life and property that black people who want to be White are unwilling to take. The blaming allows them a false sense of power and control while maintaining the collective delusion that the strategy will actually work.
White people love Respectable Negroes (even if they'd sooner shoot them down in the street at the drop of a dime, too) because they give Whiteness an alibi. Respectable Negroes indict Blackness and advocate for Whiteness to remain uncharged, unexamined, and inculpable. As long as black people are blaming other black people for anti-black racism, Whiteness is absolved and can remain invisible and empowered. So many white people ride shotgun (figuratively and literally) on the Respectable Negro wagon. Zip-a-dee-doo-da.
Thank goodness Brittney C Cooper, Ph.D., Phillip Agnew of the Dream Defenders, rapper Tef Poe, Anna Deveare Smith, Jelani Cobb and others, participated in this town hall to disavow fools of their tomfoolery and gathered their pieces to put back in the correct order.
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