Powerful, powerful post. Check it out.

Daddy Dialectic: A Day at the Park

Share

Movies, Schools and Homes

 If white people don't see themselves in movies, they don't want to go. So says Salon.

White people also don't like to go to schools where they are the minority. They don't like to buy homes in neighborhoods where they will be the minority for the foreseeable future. They don't like to go to churches that are more than 20 percent "colored" either. Pretty much any time the demographics take a trend towards "colored" and the power dynamic shifts with that change, white folks want out.

That really isn't unusual. Most people like things they can relate to, and most people relate better to groups they are familiar with. In turn, most people are familiar with groups that look like them. Simple really.

But, there are troubling side effect that result from those simple facts of life. Since white people are the default target demographic for most things in America, anything that doesn't target white people will likely be marginalized. That marginalization can impact profitability, which of course is the Holy Grail in a capitalist society. In addition, if white people don't like something, there is a distinct possibility that it will be labeled as inferior. Furthermore, due to their position at the top of the power hierarchy in the world, white people get to create reality.

I guess it's not so simple.

For example, white flight is typically used to describe the way white homeowners fled cities from 1950 to 1990 with the exodus gaining particular fervor in the 1970s and 1980s. Often, this phenomenon is presented as an understandable and unavoidable reaction to growing inner city crime, rather than as a racist reaction to integration and the gradual reduction of government sanctioned discrimination. That's what happens when history is your story.

But, what is rarely discussed today is that white flight was not confined to preserving neighborhood composition. Nor do people tend to acknowledge that the practice never stopped. Simply put, white people were not interested in being minorities back then and they still aren't now.
In fact, in a world where white people are actually minorities compared to non-white people it is no accident that white folks have banded together to form enclaves of power through which they attempt to rule the largely colored world. This isn't just because of the innate human vice of greed, but also because white folks took a look around at reality and decided they wanted something different.

Therefore, it doesn't really matter if a movie is really good, if a school is awesome, or if a neighborhood is to die for. If those things aren't also "white" then white people aren't interested. Things are only worthwhile if they are white, have been verified and approved by white people, and openly solicit the involvement of white people.

These are important concepts to remember. Not only do they temper expectations, they provide much needed context for the actions of white people that seem asinine and hypocritical..

If you understand that many white people are not interested in sacrificing their position of dominance and preference, you will understand their persistent resistance to change. If you understand that white people believe the current state affairs is not only God-ordained, but the result of their own ingenuity and hardwork (instead of avarice and cruelty) you will understand why they get so angry about accusations of bias and impropriety.

Those accusations challenge the existence of the realities many of them have invested blood, sweat and tears into creating, and who among us would be willing to sacrifice our realities without resistance?

It's quite simple actually.




Share

Role Playing for Coloreds

“White people have this instinct that is really important: to give off the impression that they’re only going to do the really important work. You’re a quarterback."

Sometimes when people say stuff all you can do is give a single head nod. A succinct affirmation of the undeniable realness of the words they just uttered.

I gave that nod as I perused many of the high points in this story linked to over at Racialicious. The above quote perfectly captures a feeling that many, many minorities, even the model ones, seem to share. On the football team of life, it's quite obvious who the Golden Boy is, and who is the role player.

We all use stereotypes. We all love to lump people into easily identifiable groups that make it easier for our minds to process their existence. Stereotyping is human. But, and this is important, that doesn't make it an optimum behavior. See, the group with a hand in creating many of the dominant stereotypes in this country also is the group hell bent on maintaining its favored position in this country and the world.
And, thus, our stereotypes serve a deeper and darker purpose than just making the world easy to understand. They affirm and reinforce the power of white folks, even when they appear complimentary or inconsequential.

The linked article is about growing up Asian in America, but it speaks to the lives of most non-whites. Few of use ever transcend our non-white status and the stereotypes that accompany it. In small and large ways we deal with the consequences of not making the cut. For Asians, they may reap the benefits of being a "model minority" but they must steal deal with being labeled as largely asexual, or subservient, which diminishes their ability to succeed in America's vaunted and mythical meritocracy.

As the article notes, if academic achievement is supposed to be valued, why do so many Asians see themselves shunted into subordinate positions despite their academic achievements? Why does their success lead to the latest form of white flight, where white people are not fleeing the real and imagined pathologies of the black and brown, but the increased competition of the yellow?

Many of us know the answer. The game is rigged. There is no path designed by white folks that leads to non-white folks usurping their favored position. The path to that goal is something non-white people must find for themselves, or face a life filled with small and large frustrations.

We know the roles that have been set aside for us and we know the casting director. The choice should be simple.

Share

Talking about Thugs Again

Some folks believe that when you pay attention to racists, you only give them power.

I don't know if this is true, but it sounds like it could be. But those folks who espouse this belief need to explain to me how they control the anger that bubbles up within them when confronted with the most obvious forms of racism and hypocrisy. And if their answer is that they don't have those feelings anymore, then we really don't need to speak anymore.

Really.

I say all that because even though I know Fox News is a bastion of racism and hypocrisy that draws its inspiration from the good old days of America, those bastards still have the power to make me angry. Even when I tell myself to expect the worst, I can still be surprised at how low they will stoop to advance their memes.

Take the recent controversy surrounding rapper Common. I know a little something about Common because he's my best friend's favorite artist. I know a little about his story, and I've listened to most of his albums. And I can say one thing for certain, Common Sense hasn't been a "thug" for quite some time.

But, don't tell that to Fox News. They are convinced he's your typical violent rapper hell bent on overthrowing the police and every other aspect of respectable society. And they believe it figures that President Obama would invite a thug like that to speak about poetry at the White House.

It doesn't matter that Fox has praised Common in the past. It doesn't matter that they have praised artists like Kid Rock an Ted Nugent. What matters is that Common is a nigger who raps and he's easy prey to advance the meme that Obama is a white-hating bastard who should be rubbed out at the first opportunity. That's all that matters.

And while I know it's simplistic and false and will be forgotten in a week, it still eats at me. It eats at me that a man with some complex thoughts could be distilled into such a false image, and then have to watch that false image blasted out to the world. It hurts because I can see how it could happen to me and any other black man so easily. It's so easy to turn us into monsters.

Common talks about burning a bush in a poem spoken in Jamaican patois, and nobody even considers that maybe he's not talking about the president? Nobody thinks that maybe he was saying something else, because what type of Negro would have the mind power to think that creatively, right? It makes me sick

Hell, for many white folks, that's the default setting anyway.



Share