Sunday, April 29, 2012

Are Africans and Black Caribbeans the Latest “Model Minorities?”

Since African Americans have not addressed the psychological chains that bind us, it is easy for the dominant culture to keep playing collective mind games on African Americans and other minorities. Let me explain what I mean. Briefly after slavery in the New World –North and South America and the Caribbean archipelago –many governments encouraged emigration from East India and other Asian countries like China, Vietnam, and Japan. In some places, especially in the Caribbean islands, these new immigrants were given contracts for their work whereas freed Black slaves were not. The new immigrants were given pieces of land and were allowed to open businesses that served mostly Black communities. These things were denied to most newly-freed slaves. In the Mississippi Delta, many Asian people were also allowed to vote and send their children to majority white schools –two things denied to Delta's large Black population.

In exchange for their privileged minority status, many Asians and Indians were told simply to work, earn money, get a good education for your children, shut up, and above all, don't mix with Black people socially. And in many places, this worked. However, it often created tense situations in these communities: Indians and Asians stayed away from Black people socially. Newspapers like the Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tennessee dangled images of industrious Asian populations before African Americans as if to say, "Why can't you be more like these people? They know how to work for peanuts and shut up" (I'm not sanctioning this. I've always said that instead of punishing immigrants, we should craft policies that would go after and punish those businesses who routinely hire, abuse, and underpay them).

Meanwhile, especially in the United States, Africans were not allowed. African Americans and other Black populations could not travel to Africa, either (especially during the Cold War). Once the immigrants got here, however, Black Caribbeans and African Americans did not experience much tension. As a matter of fact, many of the people who we think of as African American activists had West Indian backgrounds: for example, W.E.B. DuBois, Stokely Carmichael, and Marcus Garvey (DuBois's and Carmichael's parents were from the West Indies and Garvey was from Jamaica). During Jim Crow and segregation ALL Black people in the United States experienced the same oppression. Those people from Africa and the Caribbean, many of them living under colonialism, experienced direct white racism for the first time in the United States. Black Caribbean writers like George Lamming and C.L.R. James wrote about it. They began to make connections between the situation in the United States and their colonial states at home. They eagerly joined their African and African American brothers and sisters in the fight for equality for Black people the world over.

That was BEFORE the Civil Rights Movement. Post-Civil Rights Movement…what in the Hell happened? It seems that African Americans hear a type of condescension coming from our African brothers and sisters that quite frankly chaps my ass. I get so tired of hearing about how we African Americans waste our opportunities and how we are lazy, dumb, and ignorant. What is even more insulting is they don't even seem to know anything about us our struggles. Nor do they want to. Most of the Africans and Black Caribbeans who come here arrive with their eyes wide shut, and make no effort to talk with African Americans on a more intimate or academic level. They let it be known that we're not their brothers and sisters. I once went into a braiding shop where I tried to speak to the young lady who was braiding my hair, and she ignored me. I have never been back and for now, I refuse to patronize any African or Dominican shop. They don't respect me so why should I hand them my damn money?

For our part, we shun our Africanness and can be really rude to African and Black Caribbean brothers and sisters. We often make fun of Africans, talk about how they smell, and ask them silly questions about wrestling tigers and running around Africa naked. Most of us thank God we're not African and we proudly say that we're not African. Often, we don't understand that our Caribbean brothers and sisters have color issues. Period. It's nothing personal against African Americans. Most of us have never heard of the Parsley Massacre, and we certainly don't know of Puerto Rico's long and twisted history concerning Black people. And when African Americans think of slavery and suffering, we want to be unique. We ignore the brutality of slavery in Panama or Jamaica, and are completely unaware that slavery lasted in Brazil until 1889. We suffer from American exceptionalism and refuse to hear anybody else's story.

Now, I'm not writing this to start anything. ALL SIDES ARE WRONG! There's a divide and conquer strategy at work here, and after centuries of enslavement and second-class citizenship, we can't see it. Sadly, many of these tensions begin with ignorance. What do most African Americans know about Africa? Years after the end of the Civil Rights Movement proper, we know less about Africa than our parents. And where do Africans and West Indians see stereotypes of African Americans? The same place other folk learn them from: tv. On television, America is shown as the land of opportunity. If African Americans are not rich, it's our own fault. For some reason, tv fails to mention poverty in America or its long history of discrimination.

Before many African and Caribbean groups come here, they are often required to take an orientation class. Various organizations offer these classes and material is available at websites such as http://www.cal.org/co/index.html. These videos and classes teach groups, before they enter the United States, how to be good American citizens: make money, work hard for less money than your African American counterpart, get a good education for your children, stay away from American politics, and shut up. They also show them the types of citizens they don't want to be. Take a wild guess at what ethnic group is shown as undesirable for imitation.

Sadly, divide and conquer is very effective. Instead of Black beauticians learning the blow-out technique from the Dominicans, they say we shouldn't patronize their shops. Instead of many African braiders and Caribbean beauticians actually getting to know more about the African American clients they serve, they don't say anything to us. Even in my personal life, when I tried to explain some African American history to an African from the Ivory Coast, she said I was being negative. So, here we are in the 21st century divided. And as long as we're divided, we'll always be conquered. Will I ever patronize African or Caribbean businesses or beauty shops again? Maybe. But right now, I'm just nursing my hurt and wondering why Black people can't do something as simple as talk to one another and share our expertise.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Watch Your Mouth


 

When I was little, and someone would insult me, I was taught to say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Well, if that wasn't the biggest lie. Words do hurt. And long after the bones heal up and the bruises disappear, the hurt and pain inflicted upon me by words linger. As a matter of fact, I still feel the pain from certain things that have been spoken to me, no matter how much I try to "get over it" and move on. The fact is, words do hurt us as individuals, and as a collective body.

In my African American literature class, somebody always makes the statement, "Man, I couldn't be no slave. It was more of us than them. How could folk just let themselves be slaves?" First, I tell my students that it is very dangerous to judge the past based on present-day standards. Second, while African Americans have done a wonderful job of attacking the external injustices of slavery and racism, we have NEVER attacked the psychological. Not only have we failed to addressed the psychological, we don't even mention it. The chains that bound slaves were not that strong, but certain slave narratives describe the psychological horrors and traumas which kept them enslaved.

If we recall, the case Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was won on a psychological test case. Lawyers presented little Black girls with two dolls: one white and one Black. The little girls overwhelmingly responded that the little white doll was prettier and just all-around better than the Black boy. Though this evidence was used to win the case, actual work to reverse this type of thinking was never done. So, we had the 1970s where we said it out loud, "I'm Black and I'm proud." We had bell-bottoms, Afros, dashikis, and African-inspired names. But, there was no real work behind all of that, and all of it boiled down to nothing but a few catchy phrases, a new Hollywood movie industry, and fashion fads.

Fast-forward to the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and we're right back where we started from psychologically. Every day, young, Black people say things to indicate that we're still shackled mentally by the chains of slavery. For instance, I went to an all-Black elementary and high school, and the children teased me about my "soup-cooling" lips from kindergarten to senior year. And looking back, I can't help but wonder where these Black children learned so much self-hatred. Even when I'm teaching at the community college, I still hear statements like, "She's pretty cute for a dark-skinned girl." Well, that's what the mouth says. What the world's ears hear is, "By default, all dark-skinned people are ugly, but since this girl looks good, she's an exception to the rule."

One of my students even "testified" in class that she had to go to court because another girl vandalized her car. The girl painstakingly etched in the words, "Pretty Bitch," "White girl," and "Bitch" into my student's car. According to my student, once inside the courtroom, the judge asked this girl what would possess her to do such things. The girl replied, "She think she better than us. She's trying to be white." If I had a quarter for every time I've heard that, I'd be a millionaire. When African Americans try to change our lives, or to better our economic situation, we get charged with being "bourgeoisie" or "acting white." So, that's what the mouth say. What the world's ears hear is, "By default, white people are better than us, so when we try to better ourselves, we aspire to whiteness." Or, "Acting a like a low-class trollop signifies Blackness, so when I act as if I have some home-training with common manners, that signifies whiteness."

The last two and the ones which chap my ass the most are "good hair," and the way we use the word, "Black." When we say "good hair," many of us mean that our hair resembles that of Europeans. But in order for something to be "good," another thing must be "bad," and the "bad" in this case is African-textured hair. Just because the hair is not straight or is more like yarn than silk, we label it as "bad." As a consequence, African Americans are the only people in the world who have a label for the hair God gave us. The chemically altered hair has become our default. To wear our hair the way God intended is considered out of the norm, so we have a label called "natural." We are the only ethnicity who have labeled hair products for "natural" hair. We are the only people in the world who use our skin color as an insult. We all grew up hearing stuff like "Get your Black ass in here." One common insult in my hometown is, "Black bastard," or "Black dog." I have never heard Asian Americans tell their children to get their yellow asses somewhere or call someone a yellow bastard. Just us.

Because America does not value the lives of Black men, neither do we. Yes, the Trayvon Martin case is a tragedy, but I'm upset any time a young, Black man is shot in the street. Why does the color of the finger pulling the trigger have to be white for us to care and get upset? Last week, Chicago had 40 homicides, most of them Black men. If we don't care about our lives, why should anybody else value them?

How could I make such a broad assessment? I've already demonstrated to you. The language that we use speaks volume. And it says to me and all who listen with the mind's ear that African Americans are psychologically stuck on the plantation. When I hear such insults and read such stories as the one in Chicago, I think it's safe to say that we never left…at least that's what our mouths say. And the sad part is, my students tell me all the time, "You thinking on it too deep. We don't think about it that deep." I always respond, "Maybe that's the problem. We're not thinking before we speak."


 

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Republican Political Strategy Hinges upon the Ignorance of Their Voters


 

What is Socialism? What is a social conservative? What is a fiscal conservative? Are social liberals and economic liberals one and the same? What is Fascism? What is regulation/deregulation? Are tax policies and a budget one and the same? What are entitlements? What is discretionary spending? What is Dodd-Frank?

To the five people who read my posts, I know those questions sound a bit elementary. What's even more elementary is that I can't tell you what any of it means in a simple sentence. I'd have to sit down, have a few drinks, give a brief history lesson, complete with examples, and hash out paragraph-long dictionary definitions as well as political science ones. In short, there is no way we could understand these concepts without an in-depth discussion. We darn sure wouldn't learn these things from a five-minute campaign speech.

That's okay, because what I'm seeing in this very long, excruciating Republican primary is that Republican candidates really depend upon our ignorance. They often conflate entitlements with socialism, and social conservatism with fiscal discipline. Actually, these are false relations, and nothing is further from the truth. The people who are the most socially conservative are actually the most economically liberal. They believe in social conservatism, but want a laissez-fare economy. So, it is actually okay to regulate what kinds of birth control women get, but not a Republican policy to regulate the companies which make the birth control pills. Sounds crazy? Even hypocritical? That may be true, but it's one of the many examples of how conflated the political rhetoric actually is, and how confusing it can be to disentangle it.

Fiscal conservatives, however, believe in regulating the markets, and not letting them run free. We must regulate for the safety of our citizens. These people are also more than likely support freedom for individual's personal choices, and stay away from social issues like women's birth control pills. Again, sounds confusing? These are the tenets of the Democratic Party.

I heard a Romney supporter say this morning that they're going to have to appeal to more social and fiscal conservatives. Does she mean they need to appeal to more Tea Party members and liberal Democrats? Republican rhetoric is so confusing, that sometimes even they get crossed up. For instance, Republicans speak of taxes as a way to stimulate the economy. What they give us is a tax plan. This is not an economic platform, but they conflate the two so much that even their base does not know the difference. Trust me, I've painfully sat through Fox and Friends.

Here's my concern: where are the smart Republicans who will ask them to clarify themselves? Who will ask the Republican Party to stop treating their voters like idiots? I'm guessing that no one would risk the challenge to Rush Limbaugh, first. And second, it just wouldn't be good tv.