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In BC's April
6 Think Piece "Race, Place and Freedom", Professor
Paul Street recounted what he called his most depressing classroom
experience.
"It took place in
the tragic aftermath of what I sometimes call 'Tropical Storm
and Societal Failure Katrina.' Only days before, the nation
had been treated to a series of graphic televised images displaying
poor and black New Orleans residents stuck on the roofs of their
flooded homes, begging for assistance...
"As the debate proceeded, it became evident that most of
my predominantly white and suburban Chicago-area students could
grasp no compelling explanation for the terrible scenes on their
television than poor blacks' alleged laziness, stupidity, and
self-destructiveness...
"I had run head-first into a 'white discursive' force field
composed of 'dominant white cognitive patterns of structured
ignorance' that made 'the claims of people of color' seem 'absurd
and radically incongruent' with common sense."
Every now and then you run across a simple, elegant
unwrapping of a vexing social reality. Having seen facts,
common sense and morality bounce harmlessly off the "white
discursive force field" again and again, we are all profoundly
in Professor Street's debt for this apt descriptive term. Both
the phrase and Street's experience resonated with BC
reader Jerel Shaw:
Paul Street's invocation of the "white-cognitive wall
of indifference and ignorance both intentional and unintentional"
took me back some over 40 years.
I was attending a political science class at a small South
Texas college where the majority of students were white. Mind
you, these were the days where the "Black Power"
Movement as well as "Viva La Raza" had reached a
high fever pitch on college campuses across America. I
was the only Black student in that class when the instructor
raised the question of racial injustice.
Of course, I can't remember the exact response I made, but
I did declare that racial injustice was unfair and mean. After
saying that a white student reacted by saying that he was
not responsible for racial injustice, he had been taught this
by his parents and their parents. He said that he should
not be blamed for their teachings. Of course most of
the (white) class sympathized with him. My reply was
to admonish my fellow student to take personal responsibility
for what is happening today; "momma and daddy can't speak
for you now."
The point is that this cognitive wall that you speak of
is a tough cookie to break. Whites are quick to say
that it happened a long time ago. At the same time they
are unable to own up to their responsibility to try to short
circuit the systemic and structural racist cycle that his
parents and their parents instigated. Katrina is a good example
of how truth can't be hidden. Their laziness, indifference,
and false innocence will be the things that undermine what
this nation supposedly stands for. The sins of the fathers
visit.
If the occasional contributions by Professor
Street reprinted in BC aren't enough for you,
and they shouldn't be, visit his regularly updated blog.
Street's 2002 publication, the "Vicious Circle, Race,
Prison, Jobs and Community in Chicago, Illinois and the Nation"
remains an indispensable explication on the effects of racially
selective mass incarceration on family relations, the job market
and nearly every facet of black life in America.
Back in July of 2005 frequent BC
contributor Edward Rhymes began his cover article "Acting
White" thusly:
I have heard a lot of static concerning African
Americans and their supposed disregard for education. “Our black
kids look down on education' say many of the black pundits,
'they tease the black kids who are doing well school and say
they are acting white.” I've heard this repeated over
and over again by African-American personalities and celebrities
(none of which, by the way, have any extensive, classroom teaching
experience). Let me also add, that in all my years as an educator
and youth program specialist, I have never heard any student
equating scholastic achievement with whiteness....
Reader Maria Phillips took the time to write us
and disagree with Dr. Rhymes:
I suggest that Edward Rhymes read the work of
Dr. Signithia Fordham on the phenomenon of "acting white".
Her work demonstrates that this phenomenon is not mere speculation,
but the actual lived experience of a group of students in Washington
DC. In addition, Meyerhoff Scholars at the University of Maryland
Baltimore County have also articulated their academic experience
in terms of the "acting white" phenomenon. I am growing
weary of the industry that is emerging around denial of this
phenomenon from non-ethnographic sources.
This editor has no experience as an academic researcher,
classroom teacher, celebrity or ethnographer. I have been
a parent, step parent and foster parent. I recall a discussion
with my own eighth grade daughter in which I demanded an explanation
for her lack of interest in trying to excel academically.
 "I
ain't tryin' to be white" she told me.
Eight years later, in 1999 or early 2000 I was the foster parent
of another young lady. Same age, same neighborhood, same
Chicago public school, same conversation, and to my horror the
same answer, almost word for word.
"I ain't even tryin' to be white".
So we respectfully disagree with Dr. Rhymes. It appears
to us that whether we like it or not, the phenomenon does seem
to exist. We can trace its causes and consequences, we
can explore how it came to be and what we can do about it. But
like it or not, it appears to be part of life as it is being
lived by some proportion of young African Americans. So
what ARE we going to do about it?
Georgia's bold state legislators are into taking
action on those crucial issues where the feds in Washington
DC fear to tread. Trouble is, not nearly enough of them
are talking about repealing the state's anti-black voter
ID law which the Bush Justice Department has OK'd anyway.
Few have been heard on the subjects of raising the minimum
wage or restricting usury and predatory lending. And so
far, making Wal-Mart pay its fair
share of Medicaid, which picks up the health care for many
of its employees in the state remains a legislative non-starter.
Since the anti-gay marriage bullet has already been shot, the
state's Republican legislators hoped to rally their forces this
time by making the everyday activities of undocumented immigrants
in Georgia into felonies. BC recently
exposed Atlanta state senator Kasim
Reed, a demagogic attorney who practices employment discrimination
law for discriminating employers and civil rights law for the
corporations that violate civil rights for his echoing Republican
strategies with ridiculously punitive proposals of his own.
With or without Reed's help, Georgia legislators this
week did pass their own horrendous
and unenforceable immigration bill, and even produced a fire-eating
black
Republican from suburban Atlanta to address an anti-immigrant
crowd in the capital steps.
 Just
as white supremacy has engineered complex discursive "force
fields" to insulate whites and some blacks and browns too,
from reality, similar force fields of fake history, of disinforming
and misleading notions have been constructed around the issues
of so-called "free trade" and its consequent globalization
of labor markets. America experiences labor market globalization
as a massive influx of foreign workers, with and without papers.
Black America, already last hired and first fired, experiences
the sharp end of this process in ways that we will be working
out for some time.
Hence it is no surprise that BC readers are
continuing to write us about the immigration aspects of the
Kasim Reed article, on Senior Commentator Margaret Kimberley's
April
6 offering, "Immigration and America's Bad Karma,"
and the April
13 Radio BC: "Immigration Militancy,
Black Malaise."
We got this thought from BC reader Tom Hodges:
Good day Ms. Kimberly. I liked your column, “America's
Bad Karma.” I do think we should consider class warfare
vs. racism as “being the heart of the anti-immigrant backlash.”
That was where Dr. King was headed when he was assassinated.
He hit a nerve! Just a thought.
From Tokyo, Doss Thane channels Republican leaders
to tells us this:
Machiavelli that the best way to keep peace at
home is to have a war abroad. So Bill Frist and the House
Republicans – the hard-core right-wingers – have cast the immigration
debate in exactly the same terms: "We've got to build a
wall! We've got to put Them in prison! Rally around the flag
and support Us, because We've got to stop Them before it's too
late!”
The craven complicity of the Congressional Black
Caucus in smearing Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney was the subject
of last week's BC cover
story, and of a good deal of reader correspondence.
BC reader Marjorie Hammock said:
And thank you for the C. McKinney piece. I
was beginning to think that only I was understanding what was
going on with McKinney. There are very few sisters that
I know (and I am 70 years old) who would not react to some white
official hands on the person.
And we got this from Victor Pate:
Cynthia McKinney is the ONLY individual in the
United States Congress that has represented the honest aspirations
of ordinary African-american people and the majority of the
world's population. And even if many of those people are not
aware of her efforts, courage and honesty, it has not slowed
her from the pursuit of justice. But it has made Rep.
McKinney a target. The enemy doesn't fight fair, and we
should not rule out the possibility that her accusers are lying
or that there has been some kind of scripted set-up.
Alice Molloy agrees that McKinney was a target:
I can't stop thinking about what's being done
to Cynthia McKinney. In my opinion, "they" particularly
want to destroy her and I do not doubt for a minute that she
was targeted by Capitol cops. I would guess that such people
are trained from birth to see a woman like her as someone to
be arrested and sent to prison. They probably can't stand
that she's a member of Congress, and believe she needs to be
brought down a peg. Black Caucus members who are piously
chastising her ought to be ashamed of themselves, and white
members, like Nancy Pelosi, who it is said won't even talk to
her, need to take a look at where they're coming from. Thanks
for speaking up about this.
Four years ago, BC's very first
issue exposed the connections of Newark mayoral candidate Cory
Booker with elements of the hard right. The plan was to
elevate a new, corporate subservient brand of black leadership
into elected office, and use the city as a showcase for efforts
to privatize public education and what remains of Newark's public
sector. Although Booker obtained the unanimous endorsement
of every print and broadcast outlet in the tri-state area virtually
none of them except BC saw fit to mention Booker's
connections to the Walton Family Foundation, his outspoken advocacy
of vouchers and privatization, or his endorsement by the Manhattan
Institute.
Booker is back again this year for another grab
at Newark's City Hall. His right wing connections have
raised him more than $6 million for a campaign in a city with
less than 300,000 inhabitants. They have produced him
a feature length propaganda film which makes the incredible
and insulting claim that Newark rejected Booker four years ago
simply because he was fair-skinned and educated. While
Booker remains the recipient of almost universally fawning and
uncritical media praise, BC is happy to report
that a whiff of the actual issues in play may occasionally reach
the public through a most unlikely source: The New York
Times.
An April 17 Times
article breaks the establishment media embargo on one of the
campaign's real issues. "Cory Booker...supports school
vouchers", the article says. "Last time his
opponents successfully used the issue against him."
With that single sentence, the article sheds more light on the
real issues of Newark's mayoral campaign than dozens of interviews
and puff pieces. The Times piece barely touches on other
pressing concerns Newark residents have over Cory Booker, such
as his connections with the rich and Right, or the likelihood
that City Hall would be a brief stopover on the way to higher
office. And even though it repeats the bogus claim that
growing numbers of African Americans are joining the corporate
funded "voucher movement," we do have to call it progress,
in a minor sort of way.
We try to answer as much of our reader email as possible, and
we print a little of it in this space each week. Do send
us your best.
Write to Bruce Dixon at [email protected].
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