Black ain't Nothin' But a Color

Note: I have been trying for weeks to figure out a way to write this idea down in a way that won’t offend too many folks.  Of course I am going to offend some, that’s the nature of raising some of the issues raised on this blog.  However, I seriously want to parse this issue carefully, not to save face or maintain allies in certain places, but rather because I want to treat the issue with the temerity and seriousness it deserves, while also being honest.

With that said…

It has come to my attention that many people (more than I ever knew) are mired in the race based philosophies of an earlier era.  It is not just those in the streets (see Occupy and radicals), but it has unfortunately shown its ugly head in the ivory towers of academic institutions, as well as the public sphere of intellectual conversation/discourse.  What I explicitly mean is too many folk rest on the notion that since the history of America, as this camp so eloquently articulates, was built on the backs of Black and Brown folk that we – those of us who are Black and Brown, must somehow hold this country forever responsible for whatever societal ills which happen to us.  In short, structural, institutional and societal racism has and will always hold us back from achieving the “American dream.” 

            What many who adhere to this belief insist upon is that simple isolated advancements/achievements, from being able to sit/eat/shop/walk anywhere in this country without being legally harassed, not to mention the current (and future) occupant in the White House, do nothing to change the singular insistence that “things have not gotten better, nor will they ever.” 

            I’m sorry, but as I sit here, in Los Angeles, a true melting pot or stew (which, of course has its boiling points and warts) I look out on the block and see a sea of humanity, or as Prince, expanding upon Jesse Jackson, put it, a sea of “rainbow children.”  I know there are undercurrents of anger, resentment and yes racism, but walk into the shops along this block, or enter the place where I just got my hair cut.  See who owns these shops, not just who patronizes them.  If you don’t think change (financial, social and otherwise) has come to many of these entrepreneurs, you are doing a disservice to their hard work, perseverance and dedication.

            As I think about my experiences in my current residence on the other side of the country, I can only think of a few instances and individuals which truly represent the “rainbow children” mentality.  And let me be clear, I am not so much speaking so much to those who have traditionally been in power or were the perpetrators of racism in this country (i.e. white folk), I’m talking to you, my brothas and sistas.

            Since when did it become socially and culturally acceptable in too many places to see race through a singular lens?  If I’m not mistaken, the history teacher in me can examine as far back as DuBois and Washington, or Malcolm and Martin the dichotomy which has existed in the our community.  In short, there are too many examples of what it means to live, act, socialize and thrive as a Black/Brown person to conclude that only one way should be socially acceptable.  What is hurtful for those of us without a home (not fully embraced in either the dominant society or their “home” culture) is that as we advance the ladder – whether it be in business, academia or simply by living in a mixed community, we are further and further excommunicated by our own.          

If those of us who try to present a third way to Black/Brown folk, or actually see the dream King envisioned becoming a reality (albeit not as fast as it should, but no one is drinking out of a segregated water fountain) ever challenge the “norm,” we become pariahs, traitors or liars.  Yet in the dominant world, we are seen as “angry” “dangerous” and “threatening” if we challenge not how far we’ve come, but how much further we still need to go.  In some circles, we are increasingly held to a different standard even if we have the same credentials, same education, live in the same neighborhoods and frequent/enjoy the same cultural artifacts.

            So what is a 21^st century brotha/sista to do?  While I personally am not afraid to challenge anyone or, in the same vein, learn and grow from others, I see fear emanating from both sides.  Fear of change.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of failure.  If we, as Black/Brown folk acknowledge, yes, things have changed since the 1960s, or even the 1980s, we run the risk being dismissed and reduced to an inaccurate conclusion that change has produced a “post racial world.”  If we challenge white folk in the same manner and approach their peers/colleagues do, on an intellectually level playing field, we run the risk of being dismissed as “dangerous” or “threatening.”

            In short, in this day and age, the younger generation doesn’t see race as we once did (or some still do).  What that means is that for them it is OK to like both Drake and Taylor Swift, to eat sushi, tacos and grits all in the same week, or participate in any other culturally hybrid phenomena which exist today.  Maybe we can learn from their hybridity, and maybe they can learn the historical constructs of the past from us.  We have the puzzle pieces in place, now the difficult part of putting them together must take place.  It starts with what the late Rodney King said so famously 20 years ago during civil unrest in LA “Can’t we all just get along?”  Getting along doesn’t mean forgetting the past, it means understanding, acknowledging and as Mandela and the Apartheid Movement has taught us, Ubuntu – “I am what I am because of who we all are.” 

Fear of a Black Planet

In the wake of the Trayvon Martin murder, the reelection campaign of President Obama and the general state of racial affairs in this country, many people have been repeating the phrase “we do not live in a post-racial society.”  They’ve said it in print, on the air, in the blogosphere, and in countless discussions on social media.  The one question I’ve been thinking is – who “invented” the term post-racial in the first place?

Well of course in this day and age, I took to Google to do a perfunctory search of the term.  I came across several interesting links.  The first one was a definition from the Urban Dictionary which read:

“A term used to describe a society or time period in which discussions around race and racism have been deemed no longer relevant to current social dynamics.  Popularized after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States of America in 2009.” (www.urbandictonary.com)

Of course there are many books on the subject of race in general and the concept of post-racial, including Racism without Racists by Edward Bonilla-Silva.  In the book’s latest edition, Bonilla-Silva devotes the entire last chapter to the election of President Obama and what it means for race relations in this country. 

Another example is a book entitled The Myth of Post-Racial America: Searching for Equality in the Age of Materialism by Roy Kaplan.  What is problematic from the title of this book is that there is a presupposition that the discussion about post-racial America has already taken place, and we all agree that it is a myth that we do indeed live in a post-racial world.  I  have never seen this discussion take place on the nightly cable talking head shows, or the Sunday morning shows.  When did we actually have this discussion and reach the conclusion that it is unanimously preposterous to think that we live in a post-racial world?

Presently, the reelection campaign of Barack Obama has given us an opportunity to reflect on the past three and a half years and examine whether or not we live in a world which, as Ronald Reagan when running for the Presidency said, is “better off” that it was four years ago.  In terms of race, of course that is a complicated question.   

For those who naively thought that the election of President Obama would all of a sudden make a black and white world Technicolor (as in the Wizard of Oz, or the park scene in She's Gotta Have It) maybe their glasses were rose colored from the beginning.  For most of us, the reality of the complexities of race has always been a shade of grey.  In a recent article in the Washington Post (http://tinyurl.com/7psmtxr) Reniqua Allen articulates the current difficulties in bringing up race in a mixed setting.  She brilliantly highlights the same sentiments I feel, that after the latest tragedy (fill in the blank... Trayvon, Oscar, Sean, Troy Davis, Rodney King, etc…) “we have big debates over racial prejudice and disparities in this country, and then nothing happens.”   Her premise is that due to Obama’s election, it has made it hard to talk openly about race; I contend that we never had these conversations in the public square in mixed company in the first place.  Normally these conversations, if they take place at all, take place exclusively in single race, or occasionally singularly oppressed group (i.e. Blacks and Latinos) company.

In perhaps the most interesting and honest discussion available about the idea of a post-racial America,  NPR held a discussion nearly one year after the election of President Obama entitled “The Post-Racial Conversation, One Year In.”  In this discussion, two scholars discussed race and the term post-racial.  The first, Ralph Eubanks (author of House at the End of the Road) defined post-racial in two ways; first – race is no longer an issue or an impediment in American society and two – a colorblind society where race is not an issue, we’re all Americans (http://tinyurl.com/yamtnfa).  The other participant in the discussion Mark Anthony Neil (http://newblackman.blogspot.com/) articulated an interesting premise.  He contends that there is a difference between post-racial and post-racists in which the latter is perhaps a time in the future where slights no longer exist.  He also contends that many want to jump into a post-racial society not because the discussions on race have already taken place, but so that those conversations disappear, in other words conversation fatigue. 

Both authors highlight two critical points which are profoundly meaningful to my work; one, that hip-hop has served as an influential conduit or bridge in helping to advance even the possibility of a post-racial society upon at least one if not two generations of young people and two, that those same young folk have what I call historical amnesia.

Perhaps...ok we do not currently live in a post-racial world.  But that day is coming – how long, not long…What is problematic to achieving this lofty ideal is that those of us with direct links to the 60s era Civil Rights Movement (either as the daughters/sons of those who lived through that era, or lived through that era ourselves) want to impose our racial standards and constructs on what we deem, “naïve” children or young adults.  Perhaps the current transformational shift through which the younger generations view race in this country is another example (like the aforementioned Civil Rights Movement itself) of older folks sitting back and allowing younger folk to lead us into a better society.  Not through the absence of a deep and profound historical understanding of what has transpired throughout the tumultuous history of America, but because of that understanding. 

Coming to terms with our own racial history and the painful, oftentimes deadly history of race in this country does not mean we have to keep reliving that pain.

My Adidas...

Back in the early 1980s hip-hop icons Run DMC came out with a famous song highlighting their love for Adidas:

I wore my sneakers but I'm not a sneak
My Adidas cuts the sand of a foreign land
with mic in hand I cold took command
my Adidas and me both askin P
we make a good team my Adidas and me
we get around together, rhyme forever
and we won't be mad when worn in bad weather

Run DMC was one of the first hip-hop groups to talk about their love for a particular brand.  Now of course the idea has morphed into larger more expansive discussion or commercialization of consumer culture (or “bling bling”) which includes beverages, watches, cars, etc…Run DMC didn’t intend to, but they helped perpetuate the whole idea of clothes being an integral part of identity, in this case hip-hop identity.  They also helped foster in an era in which hip-hop was seen as not just a musical genre but a lifestyle – one which was quickly coming to a suburb near you.

Fast forward to this Century.  As we know, hip-hop identity has now been incorporated, commoditified and globalized.  Hip-hop culture has become, if not the quintessential American youth culture, then at least one of the dominant ingredients of Black youth culture.  This includes the ever present use of hooded sweatshirts – more colloquially known as “hoodies.”

On Gloria Ladson-Billing’s Facebook page, she posted a link (http://tinyurl.com/cb4fxjd) which highlighted (or perhaps lamented) Geraldo Rivera’s comments about Travyon Martin and his hoodie being as responsible for his death as Zimmerman.  I don’t want to rehash the entire discussion which ensued, but the range of comments went from “disgusting” to “a village is missing it’s idiot” to “blaming the victim” to questions of race and clothing. 

In American society, as Melissa Perry-Harris noted on her show this past weekend (http://tinyurl.com/cvgurpt) , there is an unofficial dress code for Black boys – No colors (especially red (Bloods) or blue (Crips)), no sagging pants (in some cities it is actually “against the law” to do so), and no hoodies – especially up.

Pictured in this blog, are two images of Travyon Martin.  Take a real good look at them.  Are the clothes he is wearing indicative of “typical” young Black culture?  In perhaps the most widely shown photo of Travyon, he’s wearing a “Hollister” t-shirt.  How many brothas in the hood do you know who wear that brand?  In a different photo, Travyon is at a ski resort with his snowboard and goggles.  How many brothas do you know who snowboard?

The answer to those two rhetorical questions, as Touré articulates in his excellent book Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness is that there are thousands of Black folk, young and old who wear Hollister, American Apparel, Abercromie & Fitch, Lands End or any other brand of clothing.  What is problematic is that we as a culture in our minds eye create stereotypes based on certain types of clothing being worn by particular groups.  And when this happens, we create a sometime deadly equation – perception/stereotype + fashion + race = fear.

One is left to wonder, if Travyon was wearing his Hollister shirt would he still be alive?

**On a personal note, I concur with the President.  Not only IS my son Travyon Martin, so was (am) I.  This is a deeply personal situation, but one which is not even remotely new.  What I see as extremely problematic is that we highlight the injustices whenever cases such as this arise and partake in the usual street theater and feigned surprise at the injustice, but, after a period of time (say when the news cameras and Roland Martin’s of the world leave) we move on back to our normal daily lives until the next time, and the next time.

Emmet Till, Amadou Dialou, Shawn Bell, Oscar Grant, Travyon Martin….