Debunking the Post-Racial Myth

If it was one thing that made my teeth grate during the 2008 Presidential campaign, it was the notion that Barack Obama was signaling a "post-racial" era in America. Political pundits--conservative or moderate or even liberal--deemed our times the "post-Civil Rights" era. The popular idea was that if white America can vote for a black man as president, this would somehow negate the last few hundred years of American racism. Of course, it was utter rubbish.



Conservative commentator George Will early in the Democratic primaries crooned that Barack Obama's win would "bring down the curtain on the long running and intensely boring melodrama 'Forever Selma,' staring Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton." Chris Matthews of MSNBC marveled that with candidate Obama there was, "No history of Jim Crow, no history of anger, no history of slavery....All the bad stuff in our history ain't there with this guy." Somehow all these pundits seemed to find a post-racial America despite the race-baiting of the Clinton campaign, the bizarre P.U.M.A. movement and Geraldine Ferraro's attempts to racialize feminism, white America's freak out meltdown over Jeremiah Wright and the full blown ugliness that was the McCain-Palin hate-fest.

Hoping for their post-racial dreamland, they failed to notice that to become the first black president, Barack Obama had to twist, shape and perform near acrobatic feats to keep white America (who in the end did not give him the majority of their votes) placated and at ease. Somehow the very pundits that could gloat about a post-racial society from one side of their mouths, could still worry endlessly about Obama's ability to connect with regular white voters. That his chances even among the more "enlightened white voters" were greatly influened by the fact that he was "black enough" to still be African-American in their eyes but was also not "too black" as someone of multi-racial heritage, is one of those taboo topics we're still not supposed to politely discuss in public conversation. As I once heard a black DJ joke to a colleague over the radio, it was unlikely white America would elect someone of a different demeanor than Obama or even a different complexion. This was followed by nervous laughter and the topic shifted--quickly.

Speed up to month four of 2009 and the election of a black president has seen everything from a rampant rise in white supremaicst hate-groups to incitations of violent government overthrow, secession and fake-populist, corporate-sponsored anti-tax protests with names that make them easy to mock.

Don't let me even start on the lack of post-racial awareness in American foreign policy, which seems to repeatedly find itself as odds with the darker, poorer masses of the world.

And of course, those are just the more overt issues. Rarely discussed are the varied forms of domestic institutional racism that do not disappear under an Obama presidency--from an unfair prison system to racial wealth inequality gaps. These are race-based systems that will negatively impact the lives of millions of people of color far beyond any hate-group or FOX News. And it should put the lie to any claim of some post-racial society that will magically appear because black and white kids can now identify with a bi-racial African-American in the White House. As Henry Giroux writes in a recent article, "the idea that we have moved into a post-racial period in American history is not merely premature - it is an act of willful denial and ignorance."

Giroux's article below:

Youth and the Myth of Post-Racial Society Under Barack Obama

Monday 27 April 2009

Henry A. Giroux t r u t h o u t Perspective

With the election of Barack Obama, it has been argued that not only will the social state be renewed in the spirit and legacy of the New Deal, but that the punishing racial state and its vast complex of disciplinary institutions will, if not come to an end, at least be significantly reformed. From this perspective, Obama's presidency not only represents a post-racial victory, but also signals a new space of post-racial harmony. In assessing the Obama victory, Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote, "It is a place where the primacy of racial identity - and this includes the old Jesse Jackson version of black racial identity - has been replaced by the celebration of pluralism, of cross-racial synergy."

Obama won the 2008 election because he was able to mobilize 95 percent of African-Americans, two-thirds of all Latinos and a large proportion of young people under the age of 30. At the same time, what is generally forgotten in the exuberance of this assessment is that the majority of white Americans voted for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket. While "post-racial" may mean less overt racism, the idea that we have moved into a post-racial period in American history is not merely premature - it is an act of willful denial and ignorance.

read full article here.

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Obama, Slavery & the White House- "Bottom Rail on Top"

Artist rendering of a shackled slave coffle being driven by the US Capitol

Slaves helped build the White House, both when it was built and later after it was burned down by the British during the War of 1812. Slaves helped build the US Capitol. One slave, Philip Reid, helped in the creation of the 12,000 lb bronze statue that now adorns the dome of the legislative building--the ironically enough named, Statue of Freedom. Slaves were sold and labored all throughout Washington DC. Some 12 American presidents owned slaves. Slavery was not abolished in Washington DC until 1862. And at one time, the mere inviting of a black man to the White House--from fiery abolitionists like Frederick Douglas to accomadationists like Booker T. Washington--was a source of controversy. President Woodrow Wilson not only had a private screening of D.W. Griffith's infamous Birth of a Nation in the White House--which depicted blacks as bestial rapists and the Ku Klux Klan as gallant heroes--but declared the film to be "like writing history with lightning....And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

Now, in just over a month, a black family is set to call the White House home. Even a cynic like me has to admit, that's probably a bit more than just symbolic. That's historic.



It was one of the first thoughts I had when I dwelt on the many meanings behind the triumph of Barack Obama. I first heard it mentioned publicly by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano in a Democracy Now! interview the day following the election. "The White House will be his house in the time coming," said. "But this White House was built by black slaves. And I’d like, I hope, that he never, never forgets this." And it wasn't the only symbolic meaning that could be gleaned from history. Bill Moyers that Friday after the election pointed to a St. Louis rally Obama had held weeks earlier, that had drew a record 100,000 people. Lost in all of the election coverage, was that the rally was held on the steps of an old building that was once a courthouse--where slaves were auctioned and sold. In 1846, a slave named Dred Scott and his wife Harriett would appear on those courthouse steps to appeal their bondage. And though they would lose, their later Supreme Court appeal--Dred Scott decision--would become a part of history, fueling abolitionist sentiment towards a looming Civil War, eventual Emancipation, a century more of Jim Crow repression and the many acts of resistance that would shape the meaning of liberty, equality and democracy in America.

Barack Obama is interesting in that the only part of his lineage that experienced this drama was white. The other part, while dealing with the repression of British colonialism, can't point to a long history of American bondage, lynching, Jim Crow segregation and the dark sufferings of the Black Atlantic. Yet Obama chose to identify with that culture at an early age: partly by choice, and possibly partly by necessity--as America tends to baptize everyone into its racial landscape. And he chose to marry into that legacy through Michelle Obama, and consequently gave birth to children who are descended from it. And it is this complex drama of blackness that will call the White House home on Jan. 20th.

There's a memorable incident during the Civil War, where a black runaway slave who joined up with the Union army, catches sight of his former master--now a captured Confederate soldier. The slave saunters up to his previous owner, who sits stunned at this seeming reversal of fortune. "Hello massa," the ex-slave greets cheerfully, "Bottom rail on top this time."

Full article on topic below:

Slaves helped build White House, U.S. Capitol

By Susan Roesgen and Aaron Cooper

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/12/02/slaves.white.house/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In January, President-elect Barack Obama and his family will make history, becoming the first African-American first family to move into the White House -- a house with a history of slavery. In fact, the legacy of American presidents owning slaves goes all the way back to George Washington.

Twelve American presidents owned slaves and eight of them, starting with Washington, owned slaves while in office. Almost from the very start, slaves were a common sight in the executive mansion. A list of construction workers building the White House in 1795 includes five slaves - named Tom, Peter, Ben, Harry and Daniel -- all put to work as carpenters. Other slaves worked as masons in the government quarries, cutting the stone for early government buildings, including the White House and U.S. Capitol. According to records kept by the White House Historical Association, slaves often worked seven days a week -- even in the hot and humid Washington summers.

In 1800, John Adams was the first president to live in the White House, moving in before it was finished. Adams was a staunch opponent of slavery, and kept no slaves. Future presidents, however, didn't follow his lead. Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded Adams, wrote that slavery was an "assemblage of horrors" and yet he brought his slaves with him. Early presidents were expected to pay their household expenses themselves, and many who came from the so-called "slave states" simply brought their slaves with them.

Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant all owned slaves but not during their time in office. James Madison, Jefferson's successor, held slaves all of his life including while he was in office. During the war of 1812 Madison's slaves helped remove material from the White House shortly before the British burned the building. Michelle Obama uncovers slaves in her family .

In 1865 one of Madison's former slaves, Paul Jennings, wrote the first White House memoir: "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of Life in the White House." In the book, Jennings called Madison "one of the best men that ever lived" and said Madison "never would strike a slave, although he had over one hundred; neither would he allow an overseer to do it."

There were other presidents who treated their slaves less kindly.

James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor all owned slaves while they were in office. The last of these, President Taylor, said owning slaves was a Constitutional right and he said slave-owners like himself would "appeal to the sword if necessary" to keep them. The Civil War, of course, put that opinion to the test.

Now, the Obamas are moving into the White House.

"The apple cart has been turned over here when you have the Obamas -- the first African-American couple -- now actually management and you are having in some cases white Americans serving them," says presidential historian Doug Brinkley.

Michelle Obama learned this year that one of her great-great grandfathers was a slave who worked on a rice plantation in South Carolina. She says finding that part of her past uncovered both shame and pride and what she calls the tangled history of this country.

For many, the historic election on November 4 marked a new beginning.

Though Michelle Obama's ancestors had to come through the ordeal of slavery, "Her children are sleeping in the room of presidents," said Brinkley. "It's a very great and hopeful sign."

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Prop 8- Blame the Black Folks ?

A black heterosexual's musings...

So much for that racial harmony everyone was going on about in the wake of the Obama election. On Nov. 4th, while Obama won handily, several initiatives were passed throughout the nation that discriminate against the gay community. Key among them, in California Prop 8 won by a narrow margin of 52% to 48%--banning gay marriage in the state. The reaction from much of the gay community--specifically the white gay community--has been an eye opener for those of us of color on the progressive left.

It seems, according to an exit poll conducted by McClatchy newspapers, that a whopping 70% of black voters in California voted for Prop 8. And armed with those numbers, some have gone on the offensive. The mostly white-faced LGBT community accused blacks of "betrayal." Who even knew we had a treaty? Blacks were declared "bigots," en masse. Because what happens in California speaks for black people everywhere it seems. The news media pushed the narrative: an oppressed group after gaining power (allegedly through one man) had turned into the oppressor. Even the normally sensible types like John Stewart, Bill Mahrer, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann didn't deviate far from the storyline, though some cautioned about playing the blame-game. Once racially harmonious liberal blogs turned vicious, as white gays bitterly complained they had just done blacks a "favor" by electing Obama. Seems the gay white community wasn't choosing the right guy for the job, or someone that better suited their own interests, but just being charitable to ungrateful black folks. Black people, the black community, black puppies and anything generally black were dissected for their blind religiously based homophobia. Log-cabin-Republicans (that' a political identity problem for another post) who had crossed over to Obama like Andrew Sullivan, brazenly attacked black America and was cheered on by white gays in an almost lynch mob type atmosphere. Things became so out-of-control that a white gay blogger proudly claimed he had informed his father he was no longer a "nigger lover."

It seems that some have decided that though they don't like people scapegoating gays in California--it is okay to scapegoat an entire race of people when things don't go your way. And in the midst of all the finger-pointing, very little sensible discussion has taken place. What follows below are a few thoughts I have been pondering on...


Exit Polls are Always Right?

Funny. Just before the elections, the word on a lot of liberal blogsites was, "don't trust exit polls." What, after the infamous 2004 "Kerry wins by exit polls but loses the election" fiasco, it was decided this method of data collecting was extremely faulty. After all, no one records their race when they vote. The Diebold machines are faulty, but, so far, they aren't seeking your ethnic/racial identity. When you hear how any demographic group votes, you're relying on an exit poll--where questions are asked of a sample of exiting voters and then extrapolated. So when McClatchy released their exit polls, one would think there would have been someone cautioning these polls accuracy just as they had done the day previously right? Uhh... wrong. It seems that in this case exit polls are divine in their accuracy. No one needs question them. Not a single of those pointing fingers bothered to even ask how a similar anti-gay measure passed in Arkansas, but only garnered 50+% of the black vote. It seems black voters in Bible-thumping religious Arkansas are much more liberally minded about homosexuality than blacks in California. And everyone seems fine with that. Do I know for certain the exit polls were wrong? No, of course not. Could the exit polls be right? Certainly. But in light of all the doubt heaped upoon those same polls only one day prior, it's amazing that that same polling methodology is now adopted without hesitation. It seems that when it comes to black folks, as is usually the case, we aren't afforded the benefit of the doubt.


The Black Population in California Must be Massive!"

Given the way so many were willing to toss the carcass of gay-marriage in California at the feet of black people, one would expect blacks must make up a majority of the state. Uhh...no, again. Blacks make up just close to 7% of California's overall population; and a magnificent 10% of all California voters. So that means Prop 8 could not possibly be passed by black people alone--but was propelled by the votes of millions of whites, Latinos and Asians. But the finger-pointers demand, what about those holy exit polls? 70% they scream! 70%! Well if you believe in those things.... 49% of Asians voted for Prop 8; Asians account for almost 13% of California's population, and 12% of the state's eligible votgers. 53% of Hispanic voters helped pass Prop 8; Hispanics account for over 36% of California's population, and 14% of voters overall. And for the really big number, just under 50% of white voters helped pass Prop 8--a group that makes up 43% of all Californians, and accounts for a staggering 63% of all voters. So this means, even if all black people in California had voted against Prop 8, it would have *still* passed. The numbers just aren't in our favor--even if the blame seems to fall there.


Race Tells Us Everything!

I realize we are a race-obsessed culture--all pretenses of "transcending" race and living in a "post-racial" society aside. But why did everyone find it necessary to break down this entire vote by race? Why not regions people live in? Why not by people who attend certain churches or belong to certain religious denominations? How about strictly by gender? Heck, why not by bald men vs. men with long hair? The break down could have gone any way. But the media and many in the white community decided that race was the way to go. And as is typical with white America (gay or straight it seems) when a black scapegoat is found close to the crime, the case is closed. Just get a rope. The fact that race was the chosen factor to be highlighted, and that so many seized on it so eagerly says quite alot.


The White Gay Community and Black Community are Friends...Right?

Yeah? Tell me who exactly decided that? White gays lamented about being betrayed by black people. When exactly was the last time white gay leaders came into the black community and did outreach? Is there some long history of Civil Rights struggle by an LBGT community often led by white faces and the black community? When did that happen? Which arrogant white gay guy woke up and assumed that black people were just "on the side" of the gay community, without any attempt to build bridges between us. In the case of the activism against Prop 8, even the outreach to the black community was lackluster. Gays of color had to warn and plead with a mostly white led LBGT activist community to pour monies into advertising in black, Latino and Asian communities. And when it came, it was too little too late--unable to compete with the right wing Mormons who had slickly couched gay marriage in sensitive issues of family for many minority communities where families are decimated by societal neglect. A mostly white led LBGT community can't just come along and appropriate the black struggle, and claim it as their own, without first making inroads with the black community. That won't be done by putting a few black faces in token roles, or hiding behind blacks to hurl vitrol. It will mean black led LBGT organizations will have to take the lead, and white gays will have to take the back seat, and follow.


The Gay Community is One Happy Colorblind Bunch...Right?

Racism permeates our society--at every level. Yet white gays, especially white gay males, have succeeded in deluding themselves into thinking they their community is free from racism. Enough members of the black LBGT community have written, protested and talked openly about the hostitlity, neglect and racism they experience from their white peers. And there have been clashes before between white and black communities over matters like gentrification as seen in the documentary Flag Wars. The fact remains that white gay males, despite what discrimination they face, are still very much white. As such, they benefit from and utilize their whiteness in this society as much as the next whit person. That is not erased by which gender they chose to be emotionally, contractually and/or physically intimate with. Witness the incident of the n-word being hurled at a Say No on Prop rally in California. What needs to be made perfectly clear is that when white males start pointing fingers at black people and hurling racial slurs, the black community doesn't see a white gay male--they just see a *white male.* And white gays can't just come along and appropriate the black struggle, and claim it as their own, without first making inroads with the black community. That won't be done by putting a few black faces in token roles. It will mean black led LBGT organizations will have to take the lead, and white gays will have to take the back seat, and follow.


The Black Community is Homophobic...Period!

I won't lie and say there's no homophobia in the black community. Homophobia like other forms of discrimination certainly exists in the black community as it does everywhere else. And even we heteros who may consider ourselves "enlightened," to struggle against it within ourselves--as every male does with sexism, or all of us do with racism. We are products of our socialization. It is a bit simplistic to insinuate these forms of bias are all exactly the same; but it is a bit disingenous to ignore shared commonalities. Yet black homophobia is complex and has to be understood in the circumstances of the black community. There are indeed black people who are anti-gay because of religion. For some, homosexuality is another attack on their notion of the black family--part of a long line of attacks that produces too many single mothers, absentee fathers and general mayhem. Gays marrying to them isn't a mere religious or cultural threat, but another blow to a black family already reeling from issues that range from poverty to purposeful societal neglect. There are black people who are anti-gay and are distinctly secular. Their homophobia might be based on a belief that being gay is part of white cultural colonialism, and relate it to other aspects of white hegemony. Others, striving towards masculinity in a white patriarchal dominated world, may view homosexuality (and any perceived aspects of deemed "effeminancy") as a part of white society's wish to stifle black masculinity and manhood. Still others are homophobic because they see a rampant HIV/AIDS presence in the community, and in fear lash out and blame closeted black males (the so-called "down-low" phenom), for what they see as men engaging in high-risk sexual behavior that endangers the lives of black women. Now, it just so happens, that nearly every one of these reasons on the face of it is ludicrous. Defining black masculinity by white definitions is a zero-sum game. The black family has always been complex in its dynamics. Homosexuality existed in black culture long before white cultural colonialism. And the down-low phenom is more urban legend than reality. Yet, how people feel, especially people who see themselves under constant attack, or suffer from neglect, by a white hegemonic system, must be taken into account. And it will take black leadership and members of the LBGT to state that things like gay marriage matter to them too, and discriminating against gays is also discriminating against one's family, friends and people in the black community.

But, enough of my ranting. In the wake of the dust storm kicked up by Prop 8, many others have addressed this better than I have. Some of their articles are posted below. Will update periodically.


Blogger Shannika single-handedly deconstructs the polling figures on Prop 8, and took the full (often racist) fury of white gays bent on the "black-blame-game."

Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8

Writer and gay activist Jasmyne A. Cannick speaks on the divergent views and inerests of the black and white gay communities,.

No-on-8's white bias

A black hetero male who voted against Prop 8 speaks out:

Stop Blaming California's Black Voters for Prop 8

Jack and Jill Politics blog debunks the heavily racist talking points of the white gay right --Andrew Sullivan and sex columnist Dan Savage.

Stop Scapegoating Black Folk on Proposition 8

Rod McCullom at the Daily Voice documents the many articles by the black community--gay and straight--who were vocally outraged at the white gay community's scapegoating and blatant acts of racism.

Not one black LGBT couple in "No on Prop 8" Ads. Why?

Update from Nov. 25th

Political analyst David Binder has compiled yet-to-be-released statistics on the vote for Proposition 8 based on ethnicity and found that the percentage of black voters who approved the amendment is smaller than originally thought, Minter said. A CNN exit poll indicated that about 69 percent of black California voters marked “yes” on Proposition 8, but the new data indicates that about 57 percent of black voters approved the amendment, he said. The revised statistic would be similar to what exit polls showed for voting patterns for other ethnicities, such as white and Latino voters.

source: http://www.washingtonblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=22632

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CNN's "Black in America"- A Review by Dr. Boyce Watkins

On July 23rd and 24th, CNN presented its documentary “Black in America” a six-hour look at the role race plays in the lives of many black Americans. Hosted by Soledad O'Brien, it came in two parts, Black in America: The Black Man and Black in America: Black Women & Family.

In full disclosure, I didn't watch it. I was told about it repeatedly. I saw the advertisments. I got the emails. There were even people here in the city handing out free backpacks and other paraphernalia. But, much like Professor Watkins (whose article I post below), I just wasn't interested. I couldn't conceive that the network that has been trending towards FAUX News for ratings since the late 90s, that sent us sensationalist drivel like that of Nancy Grace, that beams out conservative racist noise boxes like Glenn Beck and allows Lou "I Hate Mexicans" Dobbs to spin himself off as a "populist," was going to give black America anything worthy and ultimately redeeming of previous media portrayals. Whatever respect I had for CNN went out the window a long time ago.

Sure I know, folks will say it was wrong of me to pre-judge something I hadn't seen, that I should have watched it first and then given it a chance. Maybe they're right. But when it comes to the corporate television media, I kind of have an idea who I'm dealing with. Ain't like they don't have a track record. So I'll leave the following perspective by Dr. Boyce Watkins, because it speaks to the inherent flaws in expecting anything out of such a documentary, and much more.


CNN's Black in America: Exactly What it was Meant to Be

by Dr. Boyce Watkins
http://www.blogger.com/www.BoyceWatkins.net

When I received the email about CNN's recent series "Black in America", I wasn't happy, I wasn't sad: I was indifferent. I saw it for what it was: an attempt to use viral marketing to achieve a ratings hit against Fox News. But after seeing the same damn email forwarded to me over and over and over again, I knew one thing: many black people were excited….really excited, as if CNN were the Union Army and this were a modern-day Juneteenth. The email was forwarded as a "must see", save-the-date, tell ya mama, grandmamma, baby's mama event that was going to change the world. Finally, the predominantly white media was going to give us a fair shake and truly tell our story. They were going to help White America understand what we go through and why we are not the animals some think we are. They were going to present hurdles and solutions that will help us come together as a nation. Call me a skeptic, but if the media has never told our story accurately in the past, what in the hell made us think they were going to do it right this time?

Given that some label me a "haterologist" for daring to question the religious figure known as Barack Obama (I am cautiously, yet strongly supportive and protective of Barack, but I insist that anyone who gets my vote communicates an effective urban agenda) I chose to let the liquor keep flowing at the "We Shall Overcome via CNN" Happy Hour in Black America. In other words, I remained silent, since it's not fun to bring bad news (academics are trained to be skeptical, even if we think something is good). All of us were ready to pull out the popcorn and kool-aid, to stare down the TV set like we were watching Beyonce give birth in outer space. The CNN event was truly the Black middle class version of the BET Video Music Awards, without all the gold teeth and stuff.

I watched the show the same way I normally watch CNN: between flights in random airports. I don't even watch CNN when I appear on the network, since I stay pretty busy. I won't say how I felt after the special; I'll just let you read my facial expression through these words. Imagine a modest-looking, youngish-oldish, blackish/brownish bald man with a twisted frown-like scowl, a twitching, squinted left eye, a curled up bottom lip and gritted teeth, viewing a TV screen between his two middle fingers. Sort of like the face you make when watching an Olympic gymnast fall crotch-first onto the balance beam right before breaking his leg.

"Black in America" was the socio-political lovefest between CNN and Black people that just wasn't going to materialize. It was the day when we in middle class Black America truly thought we were going to be vindicated, and the world would finally learn to love us. Black America became Jeremiah Wright at The National Press Club, thinking that the same media that destroyed his image was going to be the source of image repair. But like Jeremiah Wright (whom I respect tremendously) , we marched away angrily, kicking the cracks in the sidewalk, shocked that we'd all been bamboozled. We were finally invited into the game, but only so they could use our ball and make us the mascot.

I don't hate CNN, I've done a lot of work with them. I do, however, hate Fox News….well, just Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity (great job this week Nas – even though you should stop marketing yourself as a replacement for Jesse Jackson). I don't question the motives of the producers, including Soledad O'Brien, a woman I truly believe to care about black people. I also felt that Paula Zahn (a former host) really wanted to dig to the root of racial inequality in an honest way. I did not, however, feel that CNN could pull off an honest conversation on race, and I don't believe they wanted to. They were, to me, like American Generals thinking they could muscle their way to peace in Iraq. They felt that if they spent enough money, engaged in enough viral marketing and got enough black people excited, they could create a ratings monster.

CNN achieved its goal. What made me feel bad for black people is that many of us actually thought that their goals were the same as our own. Here are some quick thoughts:

1) Black people were not the target audience of this series. CNN was not talking TO black people, they were talking ABOUT black people. Understand, there is a difference between telling white America how horrible black people can be vs. telling White people things they may not want to hear. Sure, CNN was glad to have Black viewers, but they are designed to cater to the other 87% of the population, not the 13% who serve as stars of the show. Black people have always made good entertainment for the corporate news monster, which feeds itself from the number of eyeballs it gets on the screen.

2) Most of the content for a TV news show, guest selection, and everything else, comes from the mind of the producer(s). Most producers of cable news shows, and all of the hosts, are non-black. Their viewpoints, structured in a racist society, are going to manifest themselves in the content of the show. Our media school here at Syracuse is one of the top 3 in the world and we have a lot of students who go on to become producers at CNN, FOX, NBC, etc. During a highly racist show created on our campus news network a couple of years ago (it led to the studio being shut down and students being harshly and unfairly disciplined) , I noted that it was not the fault of the students that they see the world the way they do. It's the fault of their parents and educators who refuse to teach them what they need to understand about race. America must face the truth about racism in order to properly educate news producers to provide a more enlightened perspective. As I began working with international news organizations this year, the contrast became quite clear: I enjoy appearing on international networks like Al Jazeera much more than CNN, Fox and MSNBC. The difference is like comparing a gourmet meal of knowledge to crackers from a sound bite vending machine. That's why I only watch cable news in airports.

3) The Black in America series was done for one reason: to take away Fox News' Black viewers (Black people hate Fox, and I am glad they do) and to defeat O'Reilly at the ratings game. While Black in America did very well in the ratings, it was still second to The O'Reilly Factor. The idea that there are 2.5 million people in America who watch O'Reilly every night says something about where we stand in America as it pertains to race. If CNN is trying to steal these viewers, then an honest reflection on racism is not going to achieve that goal.

4) The way this show was done underscores the need to finance and secure more black-owned media (I shared this with Rev. Jackson this week, since I was disappointed that his mishap with the microphone occurred on Fox – whether you like Jesse or not, our most respected and cherished leaders should not have to lean toward racist venues like Fox News to get a message to their people). No one else will ever tell our story the way we would tell it. This underscores the importance of supporting black media outlets and even going to the Internet to get your news if necessary. This does not imply that CNN can't be a valid source of news, but I encourage their network to get more black hosts and producers so they can tell the story right next time.

5) Personally, I was a bit offended by the "Black in America" series, primarily because it gave me exactly what I expected: a series of shallow statistics and vignettes, featuring the most dramatically negative aspects of our existence, all provided without context to an audience that sits back and says "What's wrong with those people?" I can't help but wonder if a show called "White in America" would be produced, showing many negative realities of the White community. What is most ironic is that such a series would never be acceptable.

Only Black people feel the pressure to answer for every little thing that happens in all corners of our community. We will even say that we are "embarrassed" by something we saw on TV. I've never seen a White man get embarrassed by the behavior of someone in a trailer park, so I don't get embarrassed by Flavor Flav. It is the lack of image diversity in mainstream media that makes us angry at Flavor Flav for simply being who he is. The truth is that we should wonder why it is ONLY Flavor Flav on the network, and not another Black image to balance him out.

Self-reflection is necessary. But I don't believe in self-hatred. To LIFT yourself, you must learn to LOVE yourself. CNN's "Black in America" didn't give us much to love. But looking for love externally doesn't usually work anyway, so why were we trying so hard? The next time CNN offers us a media Juneteenth, this slave will already have left the plantation, I'll be educating my God kids instead.


Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and author of "What if George Bush were a Black Man?" For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins. net

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White & Black & Obama

"Poll Finds Obama Isn’t Closing Divide on Race." So read today's NY Times headline. In the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, it was found that while there is excitement over the prospects of America's first black president, its meaning is viewed quite differently depending on one's "racial" lens. While whites polled believed this historic event would signal a watershed in race relations, blacks polled--while enthusiastic about Sen. Obama--shared no delusions that an Obama presidency would herald a new age of racial harmony. In fact, many believed things to be the same or worse today than just four years or a decade prior. As the Times put it, "Black and white Americans agree that America is ready to elect a black president, but disagree on almost every other question about race in the poll."

Yeah, tell me something I don't know...



According to the poll:

Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites. Four in 10 blacks say that there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination; fewer than 2 in 10 whites say the same thing. And about one-quarter of white respondents said they thought that too much had been made of racial barriers facing black people, while one-half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial impediments faced by blacks.

Hardly a surprise here. The notion that things are not as bad as black people think, that racism and oppression are more so figments of our minds than reality, has been a common mantra among white America as far back as the end of the Civil War. Then, as now, whites claimed blacks had achieved all they desired or needed to succeed and declared the project of ensuring equality over. Deciding 100 years later, after a history of Jim Crow repression, disfranchisement and white terrorism, that perhaps they were wrong, white America--pushed and cajoled by black protest and agitation--decided to once again "level the playing field." Within a few years, white America decided things were much better and blacks had never had it so good--and immediately set about dismantling every facet of the Civil Rights Bill they could, helping in part to fuel the growing Conservative movement. With a black candidate poised to perhaps take the White House, white America is more certain than ever that blacks have "overcome." From pundits like George Will and Chris Matthews, the Obama candidacy is hailed as the virtual "end of racism"--or at least the end of black people whining about it.

The NY Times article noted the following:

In this latest poll, over 40 percent of blacks said they believed they had been stopped by the police because of their race, the same figure as eight years ago; 7 percent of whites said the same thing. Nearly 70 percent of blacks said they had encountered a specific instance of discrimination based on their race, compared with 62 percent in 2000; 26 percent of whites said they had been the victim of racial discrimination. (Over 50 percent of Hispanics said they had been the victim of racial discrimination.)

If anything, experience is one heck of a teacher--provided it doesn't kill you first. Living while black or brown is not something whites have to contend with. Thus acts considered to show subtle or even blatant racism to those who experience it daily, may be lost on others who do not have to live that reality. What many people of color may be well aware of is that while an Obama presidency might be phenomenal, and quite symbolic, it won't solve the everyday problems of race in their lives. Having Obama as president isn't going to lessen unwarranted stops and searches by police. It won't eliminate racial profiling (although the Illinois Senator has admirably worked towards this). And it won't stop the innate concern that getting stopped by law enforcement could inexplicably escalate to a deadly confrontation, even if you're wholly innocent of any crime.

More from the article:

And when asked whether blacks or whites had a better chance of getting ahead in today’s society, 64 percent of black respondents said that whites did. That figure was slightly higher even than the 57 percent of blacks who said so in a 2000 poll by The Times.

That white America so joyously thinks things are getting better with each passing minute is amazing--given the fact that most of them aren't working to end white privilege, that invisible force that permeates institutions, systems, culture and more of our society. You'd think with such rosy outlooks, masses of white America were working daily steeped in studies on whiteness and reading Tim Wise articles by the bulk. If anyone is puzzled at how black people can be so pessimistic about opportunities and race, take the following Mar 2008 report by United for a Fair Economy into account.

*Due to the subprime lending catastrophe, the greatest loss of black wealth is unfolding. People of color have collectively lost between $164 billion to $213 billion over the past eight years.

*Given historic unfair discriminatory practices regarding homeownership, white wealth had been allowed to accumulate while blacks were left behind. Even though blacks began closing these gaps in the 1970s, even at such a steady pace it was estimated that it would still take 594 years-more than half a millennium-for blacks to catch up with whites in household wealth.

*Worse yet, that number was *before* the subprime lending catastrophe struck. Taking the loss of wealth into account, at current rates it would take a staggering 5,000 years before blacks achieve homeowner parity with whites.

We could go on discussing everything from a prison industrial complex, poor healthcare, enviromental racism, unfair drug laws, impoverished communities and more. Add in numerous studies that show continued acts of discrimination--even white felons have a better chance of landing a job than blacks with no criminal record--and we could question just whose view of reality is more accurate.

And the number of blacks who described racial conditions as generally bad in this survey was almost identical to poll responses in 2000 and 1990.

So how is it many are puzzling, that with things as bad as black people claim, we may possibly see an emerging black presidency? The problem here is thinking that Obama the man somehow translates into all of black America. While I never entertained silly notions cooked up by the likes of Stanley Crouch and Deborah Dickerson--who are aptly called the eternal black contrarians--as to whether Obama was "black enough," at the same time I knew that how whites viewed his race had alot to do with his success. Let's be blunt. Obama is just black enough in white eyes without being too black. What is "too black?" Think Jesse Jackson, or Rahim on the block--that is, anyone who might file a grievance against American racism. It's not only that Obama fits middle class American norms, or that he is bi-racial, it's that white America has decided to project on him their idea of what they would like black people to be. Were he anything else, anything that threatened to make them uncomfortable in their whiteness, they'd skittishly run to the hills and steer clear of his candidacy--like many of the more xenophobic members of the right. We almost saw just that, when the white world (liberal, moderate and conservative alike) were shocked to hear his former pastor Rev. Wright utter sentiments commonly heard (even if not wholly believed) in the black community, but utterly alien to white ears. Of course, Obama's appeal as the "friendly black candidate" remade to fit white expectations isn't his fault. But I'm more than certain he is as aware of it, and probably uses it to his benefit--as much as we *all* do in our everday lives.

So it looks like the good news is we may have a black president. The bad news is, we can't substitue a symbolic victory for the real racial and social equality. That is work in which both sides of the Hegelian power relationship will have to engage.

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Black Thoughts on Jeremiah Wright & the Audacity of Whiteness

One Email Forum Reacts to the Furor Over Pastor Jeremiah Wright

"...there is a tradition in the black church for pastors to use colorful analogy and hyperbole when giving sermons. But that only works when folks are being logical, and we all know logic flys out the window when we think about white people and their perception of us. This can kill him, [Obama] if not against Hillary, in the general election. This is race-baiting, and it's going to work."--KK, member of a black email group reacting to the breaking news of the Pastor Jeremiah Wright video.



It has been over a week now that videos of Pastor Jeremiah Wright began circulating around the internet like a virus, finding its way onto national media outlets and setting off one of the biggest firestorms of what has been billed as an historic presidential campaign season. The grainy images of the popular black minister, one-time mentor topresidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, shows him railing against the racial injustice of America--and pulling no punches.

In assessing the rise of Barack Obama against opponent Hillary Clinton, Wright said his former mentee "knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people — Hillary would never know that, Hillary ain't never been called a n@gger."

In a speech given after 2001, Wright is seen recounting US foreign and domestic policy blunders as a pretext to 9/11. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

In another sermon that quickly became the most widely quoted, Wright says the US government wants blacks "to sing God Bless America" despite enduring years of continued abuse and oppression. "No, no, no," declares Wright forcefully, "God damn America!"

After a weekend of making the rounds on talk shows to explain and denounce the words of the man who married him and baptised his children, Sen. Barack Obama gave a much anicipated speech to address the issue. As before, Obama stated that he equivocally denounced his pastor for "views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike."

Yet at the same time, he refused to disown his pastor, and seemed to be giving America--white America anyway--a brief history of black existence in this country. Obama pointed out that the Constitution "was stained by... [America's]...original sin of slavery." He went on in stark terms to recount issues of legalized discrimination, Jim Crow, disfranchisement, racial wealth inequality and more that have frustrated and restricted black existence. "For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years," he said. "That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table."

Media reaction to the speech varied. Mainstream outlets generally praised it as a good speech. Political pundits gave it high marks, especially for Obama's bravery to "elevate the discussion" about race. Yet most wondered if it would hit home with much of white America, particularly rural whites in places like Pennsylvania. Conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, in typical fashion, denounced the speech and has since gone on a full on Obama-smear campaign. FOX's Sean Hannity--in similar form--went as far as to call Obama a racist and an anti-Semite, though for reasons not at all clear. Recent polls have shown that the entire racially charged event has diminished Obama's lead over Clinton, but not nearly as bad as many predicted. The question remains, was his speech enough? Did it soothe white fears? Can he recover from the fallout and backlash?

Much like Pastor Wright's commentary was tucked away from whites--who at times seem blissfully unaware of the goings-on in black America--so has much of black reaction to the entire furor been missed. While television news broadcasts tend to feature black news pundits who must choose their words carefully and never stray too far from the accepted narrative, a flurry of activity on the topic in the black virtual community offers a wider insight. On message boards, blogs and within black-created email groups, articles and editorials are passed back and forth as the issue of Wright, Obama and America--particularly white America--are discussed and debated.

The following account follows the writings on one black email forum. Made up of about at most 18 or more members, they hail from careers as varied as computer engineering to public school administration. Some come from higher learning, others from the corporate business world. They are from different regions of the US, with some tracing recent ancestry from across the black Diaspora. They are single or married, in both intra and inter racial relationships, of varied religious perspectives and sharing differing politics. Most do not know each other personally outside the virtual community, and there is usually as much heated debate between them as their is agreement. There is no distinct purpose for the forum, other than to talk, vent, share stories, jokes or news articles. Topics can range from politics to science fiction to Hip Hop to child rearing. Many were notinitial supporters of Sen. Barack Obama, with some previously backing Sen. John Edwards, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Hillary Clinton or no candidate at all. Most have never voiced any party affiliation, and more than a few might probably call themselves Independents. As an interesting cross-section, they shed insight into some of the discussions in the black community over the past week.

*In disclosure, the architect of this blog space is a member of the email group and his posts are included within

For many blacks who paid attention to politics, such as those on the forum, at first sighting of the Pastor Wright video, there was a sense of brewing trouble.

"This is huge," KK warned the forum as the story broke. "Because if I know anything aboutwhite people, I know they cannot digest the pastor's message without fear...When I watched the Good Morning America show, I felt something in my chest hurting. Not so much because I support Obama , but, because I knew this is the kind of smear, this is an attack on being black and having a conscious black perspective on America. This is the kind of divisive attack that is going to create a greater divide between white people and black people."

Fellow member VJ agreed, expressing a growing sense of frustration over what she saw as censorship of black emotions and political perspectives.

"It's sad that in this day and age, we continue to be the only group that is not ALLOWED to speak of our experiences in the sense that critically analyzes the power dynamics that continue to oppress us," she noted. "We know Obama is running for President but somehow, because he is, we all are not allowed to mention the conditions that leave us disempowered. Wright's message that Obama is not white is true. Obama is not rich is true. And Obama is not privileged is true. Isn't that what drew a lot of folks to him in the first place?"

For many on the forum, the issue itself was not so much about Wright or Obama, but rather what was seen as the hypocritical media news lens through which the story was being viewed. Online articles like that of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) showing media bias in the treatment of controversial religious figures aligned with GOP hopeful Sen. John McCain, like the Christian Zionist Rev. JohnHagee , made their way to the forum as evidence. The title of one popular black news blog was noted approvingly for its cynicism about sensationalist race-baiting journalism: "Media’s New Attacks: Focus on Obama Pastor, FAUX News Leads the Charge."

Not all media coverage however was condemned. Articles and news stories that seemed
to show more objective coverage like a Newsweek piece on Pastor Wright's Trinity Church, was given the benefit of the doubt with only a few criticisms. More typical however for the forum were articles and comments fromprogressive news sites and blogs that equally lambasted the negative media coverage. The Nation magazine's Christopher Haye's piece "Obama, Politics and the Pulpit," that decried the hypocritical "media staged collective freakout" over Pastor Wright hit the forum to praises of "Amen!"

Anger was not levelled only at the news media and the white mainstream, but what some saw as inaction on the part of black leaders, activists and the general community, towards the continued smearing campaign of Pastor Wright.

"I’m extremely disappointed that Black Leadership around the country has allowed the media to smear this brother without uttering a word in his defense," lamented SB as he forwarded an article from The New York Times. "Have we become so brainwashed, afraid for our jobs, or comfortable that we have forgotten where we come from? Does hearing the truth bring back too many painful memories because we believe we have risen above all of that? ...if I had been in Brother Wright’s congregation listening to those sermons, I would have been giving him a standing ovation too! We all know that Sen. Obama is being forced to condemn a man that he loves and respects. And if he could do so without torpedoing his campaign, he would tell America the truth. I’m sorry America is shocked by Rev. Wright’s words but if the shoe fits...?"

To that end, there was a great deal of wrestling over what many knew Senator Barack Obama would have to do, and what he should do. While there seemed to be an understanding that some denouncing would have to be made, for political expediency, there seemed to also be a countering notion that Pastor Wright should not be hung out to dry for expressing thoughts to which so much of black America could relate.

"To his credit, the new pastor of Wrights church did not back down nor apologize," AF pointed out in an email. "I also saw this brother on a FOX channel on a Hanna and something program that was also defending Wright... But if you listen carefully,Obama did not really put wright down very much. He was coy about it and said he was not at the church when Rev Wright made the statements..."

Disagreements broke out among forum members over terminology used to describe Wright.

"I think it is inappropriate for us to call wright AN ANGRY BLACK PREACHER," AF stated in response to a comment by KK. "That kind of language only helps to legitimize the obama bashing."

"Just for clarity," KK answered back. "I do not think he is [an] angry black preacher. He didn't say anything that I disagreed with. He was preaching and not giving a political speech which is why the things he says have a theatrical flare and are entertaining to his congregation..."

"Our people just got the universal right to vote a little over 40 years ago," KK recounted further. "The cops were active participants in the drug trade in our communities. That means the govt actively contributed to the destruction of our families and communities. My aunt was a dope fiend whose life and murder can be connected to that proactive destruction, my father grew up in a form of defacto slavery as the oldest son of a sharecropper in North Carolina, my childhood friends did long stretches in prison for the central park jogger rape which they never committed, on someScottsboro boys type stuff. The mere mention of these facts would have white folks calling for my arrest, because it makes me appear angry and that makes them uncomfortable and afraid. But I'm not angry, I'm aware, and I'm not gonna rewrite history, or pretend to not know what happened and is happening just to make white folks comfortable. I believe that is more or less the position that Pastor Wright takes and he was in a position to speak his mind because he was only asking for things from people who saw it the same way."

Obama's pivotal and historic speech on Tuesday was examined by the forum not only for what was stated, but the reaction it received.

"It ain't the speech I'd give," member DG stated, "but I ain't runnin for president. It is however, the most *real* speech (even with my frownin at some parts) on race and such, I've ever heard from a presidential candidate...he even sends a barb at the media. I think the white folks who ate him up before, will eat up this speech... strategically wise. His enemies however, I suspect will do what they always do."

"If whites can't accept that speech well he would not have been president anyway," another forum member CB said.

Member KJ worried over how much compromising Sen. Obama would be forced to do, in order to appease white fears:

"The other day I made a comment, 'How much 'Black' Obama will be left by the time he gets to the White House if he starts compromising more and more?' Distancing himself from Wright, not calling Ferraro a racist, I get. But one always worries about the tipping point from prudent and careful to compromised. But this morning, I was saying, 'He needs to just get defiant, say I disagree with Wright, many other candidates and officials (white) have trucked with worse people than me, and I won't reject him. Let's move on.' And if America can deal with that, fine. If not, then it's not time for a BlackPrez and I'd rather his candidacy die than his character be sold out. You can't be Black in America without having some lingering anger over racism, or speaking bluntly sometimes about the unfairness of this country. And you shouldn't have to squash all that just to get elected."

KJ's initial judgment of Obama's speech included a mixture of approval and criticisms:

"Thought he meandered and danced just a bit when explaining why Blacks feel that way. A bit of an apologist tone when he kept putting Wright and others in "that old generation" that he seemed to want to leave in the past.... I think that characterization was a bit simplistic. Political, perhaps, but too simplistic. It's way more complex than than, as NPRs Michelle Norris noted when she said people need to examine why *so many* Blacks in churches across the country feel that way.... BIG POINTS for him saying he could no more reject and dismiss Wright than he could reject his own Blackness. *That's* more of the speech I would have given, but as you say, I ain'trunnin' for Prez."

"I *hope* this will die," KJ said, "the same way all those white candidates for Prez--in both parties--have gone to Bob Jones University to speak, have belonged to racist golf clubs, etc. But as OJ showed, it's still like a boogey man for them and the thought of Blacks carrying the smallest bit of anger or outrage at four centuries of racism just seems to make them cringe."

That afternoon, member TM forwarded an article by political science Professor Michael Dawson titled, Was It Too Little Too Late: Why Obama's Brilliant Speech May Not Help Him. In it, Dawson applauded Obama's speech, but pointed out that "while addressing race it equated white racial resentment (which scholars know is really just a more polite label for white racism) with the black anger and skepticism that comes out of past and current racial discrimination." Dawson however concluded, "those comments will not satisfy those large segments of white America that harbor racial resentment....even though he strongly and correctly argued that today's racial disadvantage is based on the white supremacy of the past, we know that many, many whites do not connect the black situation today to either the injustices of the past or the present."

This article set off a series of comments on the forum, that would span several days.

"To be frank," member DG said in response to the article, "we all know Obama's speech was meant mostly for white America. He has risen to his position because he has tried to transcend (at times to a fault) the issue of race in the US. For white America, his appeal came because he could be perceived (in their eyes) as "quasi-black"--or, as Chris Matthews of MSNBC put it so bluntly, he didn't carry all the sordid history of America's past that offends tender white sensibilities by telling them truths that make them uncomfortable (slavery,jim crow, etc). It means never taking whites out of their relative "comfort zone" by making them feel any bit of guilt or responsibility. Nothing Rev. Wright said shocked many in black America (except perhaps the *way* it was said), because we are long used to the Duboisian idea of the black double consciousness. Cynicism and patriotism go as hand in hand with us as Tuskegee syphilis's experiments and Tuskegee Airmen. The effectiveness of his speech is going to be gauged on how white America reacted to it...revealing at once the ugly reality of power and race in this country."

As the week wore on, and the Pastor Wright story became the favorite of both conservative and mainstream press, frustration gave way to anger and disgust. This was probably best captured in a lengthy post by KJ late Wednesday night.

"I have spent my whole life around whites, at school and on the job, and I can tell you, I have heard *way* worse stuff out of the mouths of Christians and humanitarians and my "friends" than what Wright said. I've had people make hateful, racist jokes (sexist too) and say "it's all in fun". I've been subjected to tirades of how Blacks are ruining America from people who grew up in homes three times the size of mine, yet who see nothing hypocritical in their whining while simultaneously telling me to quit blaming the world for my problems. I've had white friends say to my face that blacks dating whites was wrong. I've had dear friends literally recoil from me in confused anger if I've dared broach the subjects of racism, my dad's battles back in the day, or how America still ain't quite right. It's as if I were trying to make them drink gasoline or something."

"But if America still can't have that conversation, if they still don't have the ability to shut up and let us really *talk* for a change and *listen* to us, then so be it. If they can't look in the mirror and see that ugly reflection, finally *face* that pain and responsibility and yes, guilt, and take some of this crap off our shoulders, then it's their loss. I don't want to have a President of color who can't have that conversation with the people. And if Barak loses because of this, then America really is, still, sadly, damned. Maybe it ain't "God damn America", maybe it's just "America damn America". They're doing it to themselves."

By the time AF forwarded an article to the forum by Roy Exum called The Angry White Man, recounting the importance of white male resentment in American politics, members were just about fed up. KK posted a lengthy retort to the article and the entire idea of "justifiable white anger."

"That angry white article was the biggest load of crap I've heard in a while. These white men are angry because they are ignorant, they have no comprehension of capitalism and therefore hate mexicans and blacks who 'take' their jobs; and mention nothing of the corporate bosses who closed the factories and moved them to Mexico. They aren't sophisticated, though they may be college educated. They are coddled, spoiled men, who have never been spoken to bluntly before. When they are criticized they become angry. They have no conception of history or US's role in shaping the world of the last 100-200 years, so when they hear anything negative about the country they love, they call it unpatriotic."

"They think and express their political thoughts in platitudes, and they are easily manipulated by the news media. They gather much of their info from Fox news. They were duped by dubya in the last 2 elections, and this is how you know they aren't sharp. Yeah, they're angry, but so is my daughter when i snatch a pair of scissors out of her hand. Their anger is misplaced, and I am disgusted everytime i hear about an angry white male. These are white men who only perceive their anger as legitimate."

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Acting White? Myths & Realities on Black Anti-Intellectualism

Since we're on Cosby... one of the key tenets of his argument, and those used by the "black apologetics" is the "acting white hypothesis." Chances are, all of us have heard some semblance of it before, which asserts that black school children do poorly because they undervalue education and perceive those who achieve academically as "acting white." Thus the argument is made: black kids equate "intelligence" with being "white." This idea was first floated by two researchers, Fordham and Ogbu, who in their study of black school children claimed to find an "oppositional culture" that emerged as a backlash to white societal oppression. Hence if dominant white society claimed scholastics was positive, black kids would deem it negative. Since the Cosby rant especially, the "acting white hypothesis" put forth by Fordham and Ogbu has been cited repeatedly, becoming a popular American catch-phrase, uttered by conservatives and liberals alike. Media pundits take it matter-of-factly as accurate, and some educators--seeking to cash in--have written entire tropes on it. Even presidential hopeful Barak Obama has joined in the chorus, denouncing "acting white" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention--to much applause, from black and white delegates alike. The problem however is that Fordham and Ogbu's thesis, which came out in 1986, has been deconstructed and critiqued for almost two decades. It turned out that Fordham and Ogbu had wrongly interpreted their data and there were much more complex understandings that numerous other researchers have pointed out. Even their basic facts were wrong, making absolutely false assertions that the oppositional culture had its rise during slavery, in which blacks shunned education. Any historian worth his or her degree will tell you that not only did slaves and freed blacks value education and intellect, but risked their lives--literally--to get it. But you wouldn't know that, given the reckless way in which the "acting white thesis" is bantered about. It's as if merely repeating it over and over again has given it legitimacy it never really earned, even among those who should know better. Fordham and Ogbu's misguided thesis has become an easy "blame-the-victim" route that posits black academic failings not on an under-funded public school system, but back on the children themselves. The following is by a school administrator who for several years has critiqued the "acting white" argument, using prior studies and his own hands-on observations. As he points out, the notion of some distinct culture of anti-intellectualism among black children is more myth than reality.

Acting White? Deconstructing the Myth of Anti-Intellectualism in Black Youth

By Cleo Wadley

Tues. Oct 9th 2007

http://www.houstonministryofculture.com/

As we observe the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock 9, predictably, a discussion of Black student achievement rises to the surface.

Now, we all have heard the dire statements of how poorly Black children perform on standardized tests or their poor completion rate from high school. The expert and layman alike won’t hesitate to dispense their take on the issue. However, I thought it might be interesting to separate myth from reality in regards to Black student achievement.

One common belief is that Black students are not successful in school because they equate high achievement with being White. This dangerous and insidious thought didn’t just materialize in our consciousness; its roots are deep in American history.

It’s curious to me how we often hear of Black children being labeled as anti-intellectual. I would argue that Black children are no more or no less anti-intellectual than any other segment of American society. In fact, anti-intellectualism is an American characteristic that goes back almost two centuries. Just take a look at the 1828 presidential election in which Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams. Presidential historians often tout this election as one of the first mud slinging elections. Jackson framed the election by setting up Adams as an elitist intellectual with loose morals and values who could not relate to the conservative values of the “common man.” He also instilled a distrust of intellectuals as tricksters who use language and rhetoric to deceive ordinary people. At the same time, Jackson framed himself as “the people’s candidate.”

Jackson’s tactic worked well in 1828, just as it served George Bush well in the 2000 election against Al Gore. Gore was portrayed as a boring, monotonous intellectual who jabbered to such a point that he couldn’t be understood or trusted. He was a classic stereotype of an arrogant intellectual out of touch with the “common man.”

But anti-intellectualism doesn’t stop with politics in American society. Just think of all the icons in popular culture that America adores. Forrest Gump, Homer Simpson, Jessica Simpson, and even the current president typify the stereotype of the dim witted rube with a heart of gold.

Just look at a few of the current television programs in prime time. Such shows as “Beauty and the Geek” and “The Big Bang Theory” display buxom blondes with “common” sense outwitting brainiacs who are dysfunctional in social arenas tinged with sexual tension.

This is no accident. Corporate America has worked diligently to keep us enamored by these classic stereotypes. PBS’s Frontline did a special several years ago titled “Merchants of Cool” detailing how much effort is put in place to create an anti-intellectual, commodity obsessed generation of consumers through advertising.

The average American spends about 50 minutes a day just watching commercials; that is equivalent to 1 ½ years in a lifetime. And of course this has an effect on children, particularly Black children who watch an average of 7 hours a day of television compared to their White counterparts who watch 4 ½ hours a day of television.

So once we accept that anti-intellectualism is not just a problem plaguing Black children, we can delve deeper into this folk theory that Black children equate high academic achievement with whiteness.

This folk theory got a huge push from a much touted 1986 paper by John Ogbu and Signithia Fordham that asserts that Black children function out of an oppositional culture model. That is, after years of oppression in society, Black children have adopted opposition to anything they identify as part of White culture, including education.

Nevertheless, there have been numerous studies to debunk the findings of Ogbu and Fordham. In 2005, Ericka Fisher, the author of “Black Student Achievement and the Oppositional Cultural Model,” concluded that the experience in success or failure of Black students who are high achievers and Black students who are low achievers has nothing to do with the oppositional culture model.

As a matter of fact, high achievers and low achievers function out of different paradigms. According to Fisher, high achievers are successful due to the following factors:

Solid time management skills
High self-concepts
Parental support
A desire to prove negative stereotypes wrong
A sense of personal responsibility
A need to control one’s own destiny

This was different from low achievers who:

See themselves as smart but lazy
Resent treatment and stereotypes by White teachers
Receive little or no individual support or encouragement
Lack support or connection to the school
Experience an acceptance of mediocre grades at home

Many students in this study, which included the high and low achievers, stated, “It’s cool to be Black and smart.”

In another study titled “Beyond Acting White: Reframing the Debate on Black Student Achievement,” researcher and author Erin McNamara Horvat stated that the reiterance of the oppositional culture model “…reifies folk theories about black inferiority and invites discussion about what is fundamentally an absurd question.”

In 1998, educational researchers James Ainsworth-Darnell and Douglas B. Downey lambasted Ogbu and concluded that Black students perceive education as key to getting employment at a higher percentage than Whites. They also condemned Ogbu by saying that it is more of a teacher perception that Black students put forth less effort than White students.

Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey also see a positive correlation between being Black and being a good student. Both high achievers and low achievers in their study reported that education can be an important tool for success.

These powerful studies then beg the question of what is the real cause of a very real and evident achievement gap between Black students and their White counterparts. It is stated and implied by these studies that Black students lack resources due to inequalities, and this in turn hinders their success in school. School districts need to work harder to differentiate instruction and adapt the learning environments to fit the individual needs and interests of students. Many underachieving students in these studies claim that they are motivated in other areas, and that schools don’t cater to their interests. Furthermore, schools need to work more on fostering better relationships between students and teachers, parents and the school, and the school and the community. Finally, Black parents and educators need to stop buying into folk theories about Black inferiority and look deeper into the true causes of low student achievement among Black students, and then we must collaboratively come up with real solutions.

Hopefully, when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Little Rock 9 in 2057, we still won’t be distracted by absurd questions that cloud our minds and keep Black children intellectually segregated. Only then will no child be left behind.



Cleo Wadley is an educator and tireless advocate for urban youth in the southwest Houston area. Cleo is currently an assistant principal at Hastings High School in Alief Independent School District and works as an adjunct instructor of English for Houston Community College.

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Let's Do it Again- The Cos is Back!

It's been a while since America's favorite father turned "denouncer of black morality" has been in the headlines. But have no fear the Cos is back, touting a new book called Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors. The work marks a new salvo in the one-time comedian's bitter old man routine, in which he chastises the black poor, single black mothers and black youth killed while allegedly stealing pastries. When Cosby first made his tirade a few years back, there were a few of us who found his hate speech distasteful. Many other black people however seemed to give in. Deciding that Cosby's "blame-the-victim" classist rant was spot on, they applauded his Colbert type "truthiness." Thankfully to sane minds everywhere, the past few years have seen a debunking of the "Cosby Thesis." Historians like Jelani Cobb would point out the fallacies in Cosby's claims, and others like Michael Eric Dyson questioned his sanity. Even academic studies have deconstructed Cosby's claims. But this didn't stop white America--and the mass media--from applauding the former comedian and philanthropist, that seemed to say everything they'd always believed and wanted to hear. Not surprisingly, with the release of this new book, Cosby is getting alot of airtime to explain why the black poor and black people in general are to blame for their own problems. Thankfully, once again, saner black minds are speaking out in criticism. A few of their articles are posted here.


In this article at the Black Agenda Report, Glen Ford gives both review and criticism of Cosby's new book. According to Ford, the book's co-author, noted psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Pouissant, helps soften the Cosby thesis by offering much needed caveats. I'm a bit suspect about that claim, as the Dr. Pouissant I am used to hearing from--long-time friend of Cosby and advisor to his television show--seems to uphold much of the ideologies of the Afro-stocracy. In any case, Ford still pulls no punches, and points out that in the end--even with Pouissant's assistance--the book itself remains misguided.

Black Psychiatrist's ‘Intervention' Calms Cosby
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

"When presented as a substitute for political action, books like Come On People are great diversions from the tasks at hand, and weapons to bludgeon Black people."

Bill Cosby is sounding (almost) calm and reasonable, these days, under the influence of Dr. Alvin Poussaint, respected Harvard psychiatrist and co-author with Cosby in a new book. Despite his improved demeanor, Cosby's blame-the-victim worldview remains compatible with the most rightwing foes of African Americans. The no-longer-funny comedian's hectoring and "burnished anecdotes of times past are near-useless as a guide to either personal behavior in the present, or organized community action." But the corporate media gorges itself on the red-meat of Cosby's Black-bashing - and that's all that matters for book sales. Dr. Poussaint can only do so much to fix a 70-year meanness.

full article:

Black Psychiatrist's 'Intervention' Calms Cosby"

In this article, Earl Ofari Hutchinson takes on the Cosby Thesis and his new book. Given what has been Hutchinson's seeming tilt to black conservatism in the past few years (see my own criticism of his articles during the Don Imus affair), I was pleasantly surprised to see that on this issue we are in general agreement. Hutchinson points out that Cosby's book serves as little more than a way to attack black people without giving due consideration to the 800 lb gorilla of white supremacy racism.

Bill Cosby's New Book Full of Racial Stereotypes

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet.

Posted October 15, 2007

Cosby's new book continues to tar black communities and the black poor as dysfunctional, chronic whiners, and eternally searching for a government hand-out.

Comedian Bill Cosby is the walking and now writing proof of the ancient adage that good intentions can go terribly awry. That's never been more painfully true than in Cosby's latest tome, Come on People.

Cosby and his publisher boast that the book is a big, brash, and provocative challenge to black folk to get their act together. That's got him ga ga raves, and an unprecedented one hour spin job on Meet the Press.

In the book, Cosby harangues and lectures, cobbles together a mesh of his trademark anecdotes, homilies, and personal tales of woe and success, juggles and massages facts to bolster his self-designated black morals crusade. Stripped away it's the same stock claim that blacks can't read, write or speak coherent English, and are social and educational cripples and failures.

full article:

Bill Cosby's New Book Full of Racial Stereotypes

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Clarence Thomas- The Anti-Black

I was young in my political years when the drama erupted over Clarence Thomas. Back then I was scrambling to figure out what was meant by terms like "high tech lynching" and why anyone would so wantonly abuse a coca cola can. Years later I would see Thomas depicted on the cover of the now defunct Emerge magazine, in one instance wearing an Aunt Jemima "hanker-chief" on his head, and on another refashioned as a modern-day Lawn Jockey. Clarence Thomas was and remains what one writer called "the most despised black man in black America." After years of watching Thomas in action as a Supreme Court Justice, I am no longer remotely confused by the resentment he garners in the black community.


Not only does Thomas seem to find a contrarian view to everything that hints at black progressive thought, but his voting record shows him to be antithetical to *any* form of progressive politics. Sadly, the days of Emerge are gone now (the sham-mockery that destroyed one of the best political black magazines is for another blog), but there are enough independent e-zines that have risen to the challenge in the virtual world. Probably one of the most outspoken is the Black Agenda Report, edited by Glen Ford. Described as the "Journal of African-American Political Thought and Action," the Black Agenda--and Glen Ford in particular--pulls no punches in their analysis. The following is a partial repost of Ford's review of Clarence Thomas' recently released autobiography/political polemic, My Grandfather's Son. Click the link provided to access BAR and the full article.

Clarence Thomas, the 'Anti-Black'

October 10, 2007

By BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford


The most blatant and unashamed African American-hater on the U.S. Supreme Court - and probably on the national scene - is Clarence Thomas, a psychologically damaged ally of the worst sections of the white ruling class. Thomas is often described as a "complicated" personality, but that's just a euphemism for a crazy self-loathing that he projects on the rest of Black America. Dirt-poor Pin Point, Georgia, the peers of his youth who called him "America's Blackest Child," and an overbearing grandfather who wanted more than young Clarence was willing to give, made Thomas useful to no one but Black people's most implacable foes, for whom he has become a deranged pit bull. Viewers of 60 Minutes were permitted to learn none of that, as CBS circled its protective wagons around the Most Despised Black Man in Black America.

Clarence Thomas is a deeply troubled man - a grotesquely twisted, "Down Home"-grown Black personality at war with the demons of his dark-skinned, dirt poor youth. Although Thomas has accumulated many "enemies" - earned and imagined - since his entrance to the white world in the 10th grade in Savannah, Georgia, his core pathology is Black-directed - a trait so obvious it was immediately perceived by a succession of white Republican racists who rocketed him to the U.S. Supreme Court with obscene haste to become a hit-man against his own people.

Thomas is a perverse right-wing joke played on Blacks and, being of above average intelligence despite his mental illness, he knows it. But it is a knowledge he cannot endure, a burden that has made him a pathological liar, who blurts out contradictions so antithetical to each other that they cannot possibly coexist in the same brain without a constant roiling and crashing that puts him at flight from himself and all those who remind him of his now hopelessly entangled torments and tormentors.

If African Americans had our own insane asylum, Thomas would be welcomed in and cared for, with proper compassion for the sorely afflicted. But there are no such facilities available to treat a man who forgives whites for Jim Crow and every other aspect of past and present discrimination - indeed, embraces the most racist among them - but can never forgive Blacks for the way they treated him in Savannah, Georgia and the outlying shanty town of Pin Point.

for full article:

Clarence Thomas- The Anti-Black

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Black Snake Oil- Hot Negro Foolishness

A few years back I received several photos via email depicting black men and women in gaudy outfits and over-the-top hairstyles. I first thought I was the unintended recipient of white co-workers inner pranks. But it turned out instead that I was being invited onto the front lines of an old bit of intra-racial class warfare. In this case, blacks who considered themselves more "cultured" in the mainstream sought to degrade and humiliate blacks who often came from poor, urban or rural backgrounds. Many of the photos in this spectator sport came from a site aptly named "Hot Ghetto Mess" owned by Jamila Donaldson, a 34-year-old black lawyer.



This phenomenon is not new in our history. Stereotypes and caricatures of the black have-nots--their language, dress, habits, dance, etc.--were often mimicked by whites in black face, giving rise to the all-American entertainment of Vaudevillian Minstrel Shows. They can be traced back to older depictions of blacks, Native Americans and Asians as the freakish, exotic "other"--separate from regular humanity. Before seizing onto their whiteness, it was a depiction endured by Jews, Irish and Italians as well. Black America has also engaged in this, as in the Harlem Renaissance "New Negro" who shunned his Southern roots, probably best depicted by Adolph Caesar's hateful Sgt. Waters in the 1984 movie A Soldier's Story. What is ironic today is that Donaldson is attempting to pass off her modern exploitation as Cosby-esque "tough love." Much like Bill Cosby's anti-black/anti-poor rants, she claims her mean-spirited exhibits seek to challenge and inspire "viewers to improve themselves and their communities." Viacom owned Black Entertainment Network (BET) seems to agree, and has planned an upcoming television show. Thankfully, not everyone is buying Donaldson's well-packaged brand of snake oil, which seeks to cash in on the all-American desire for celebrity fame--even to the point of humiliating self-mockery. The blog What About Our Daughters has taken up the gauntlet to derail Donaldson's BET premiere. Hard work has caused several top sponsors to pull out, but more needs to be done...

Sponsors drop BET's 'Hot Ghetto Mess'

The Associated Press
07/11/2007

LOS ANGELES—At least two companies have pulled ads from the debut of BET's "Hot Ghetto Mess," a series that critics say puts black stereotypes on display but the channel calls "a blend of tough love and social commentary."
State Farm Insurance Cos. and Home Depot asked BET to drop their ads from the series debuting July 25, trade paper The Hollywood Reporter said Tuesday.

Viacom Corp.-owned BET confirmed that sponsors asked to be removed from the show but declined to specify the companies involved.

Other advertisers remain in place and there are no plans to change the series at this point, the channel said Tuesday.

full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/tv/ci_6347991


Hot Ghetto Mess = BET’s Hottentot Venus 2007

This is a long post, but if you don’t read anything else, Read the portion about the story of Hottentot Venus and the sordid history of human displays of Black people for entertainment. Hot Ghetto Mess, Flava of Love, I Love New York and Charm School are not new.

BET executives and the creator of the site Hot Ghetto Mess, have offered numerous justifications for why it is okay for them to air an African American freak show called “ Hot Ghetto Mess.”

Reginald Hudlin says that Hot Ghetto Mess is a parenting tool ."There is a generation of people who don't know how to talk to their kids in a way that doesn't turn them off," Hudlin said. "Now they're complaining because we want to successfully engage them.” Move over Dr. Spock, Reggie Hudlin is handing out parenting advice.

full article: http://whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com/2007/07/hot-ghetto-mess-bets-hottentot-venus.html

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http://whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com/

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Patriotism Revisited

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.

So reads an excerpt from Francis Scott Key's poem, inspired by the British bombardment of Baltimore in 1814, which would be set to song and become known as "The Star Spangled Banner." By the time it was made the national anthem of the United States of America, the poem had undergone numerous revisions and the above lines from the third verse were removed. And no wonder. Those words were an uncomfortable reminder of a troublesome past. Key had been a slave holder. And when British forces during the War of 1812 enticed slaves to fight for their side in exchange for freedom, Key and other slaveholders were outraged--not seeming to understand that those held in bondage were patriotic not to flags, forefathers or nation-states, but to the liberty denied them. This dichotomous existence has been part of what it means to be black in America, and why Frederick Douglas would ask "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" Back in 2002 I wrote an article exploring these dilemmas. I repost it here today, mostly unedited as I want it to reflect my thinking of that time, for consumption once again.


Patriotism: Red, White, Black & Blue

“What to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? ... To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, and unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass- fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings; with all your religious parades and solemnity, are to him, mere bombasts, deceptions, and pious and hypocrisy--a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

Such were the words uttered by Frederick Douglas on the eve of the Civil War. They were the sentiments of a black man, escaped from slavery, who dedicated his life to championing the cause of his fellow race yet held in bondage. They are a stinging critique and seeming rebuke of America, denouncing it for its contradictions and falsehoods. Douglas words were militant. They were fiery. They speak with righteous indignation.

And yet, Douglas was a patriot. He openly denounced ideas, led mostly by whites, to colonize freed slaves in foreign lands. Douglas backed Abraham Lincoln in his bid for presidency, openly involving himself in the American political system. Douglas heartily welcomed and backed the Civil War, which to him represented a battle against slavery. He would strongly lobby and fight for black troops to be allowed into the Union ranks, to carry the red, white and blue. In newspapers he called "men of color to arms", urging blacks to "end in a day the bondage of centuries:" to fight for their equality, show their patriotism and take on the Union cause. His sons Lewis and Charles were among the first to enlist for the cause of freedom.

(a.) Odd contradiction? (b.) A seeming dichotomy? (c.) Patriotic yet cynical? Yes to all of the above. To be red, white, blue, & black. It has been a recurring theme since the founding of the United States.

Revolutionary Patriots

It began in 1733 with the Molasses Act. Passed by England upon its American colonies, the law imposed high taxes on imported Spanish and French molasses and sugar. The colonists needed molasses from England's competitors, chiefly for making rum to be used in exchange for slaves on the West African coast. The colonies were heavily dependent on the Caribbean islands' slave-based sugar plantations for sustenance and economic prosperity. These industries were themselves dependent on the colonies to supply the ammunition and staples needed to feed themselves and to control the slave labor used to work the sugar plantations. The effects of the Molasses Act were felt from chief slave-ports like Providence and Medford to as far away as Charleston.

The colonies grew prosperous by using rum as a barter for slaves, ivory, gold and other products and were now a rival with England, who also depended on the trade of black bodies. Malachi Postlethway, an 18th century mercantilist theoretician, stated: “The African trade is the first principle and foundation of all the rest. The African trade is so very beneficial to Great Britain, so essentially necessary to the very being of her colonies, that without it neither could we flourish nor they long subsist ...”

Envious of the prosperity its colonies reaped (directly or indirectly) from the slave trade, England prohibited settlements west of the Appalachians and passed the Stamp Act. Whereas the Molasses and Sugar Acts directly involved the slave merchants and their commercial interests, the general colonial population of about 2 million had little or no concern for it. However, measures such as the Stamp Act of 1765 affected nearly everyone. Through skillful manipulation, slave traders, plantation owners and other slave-based interests used these laws to create discontent among the general populace.

These slave-mongers and/or ministers of propaganda were men like John Adams, who himself stated, "Molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence"; Thomas Jefferson, who believed black men were "void of mental endowment" and once stated “... that the orangutan preferred black women to those of his own species,” (an odd statement coming from a man who had children by his adolescent female slave); and George Washington, who once traded his slave for a barrel of rum.

This all culminated in the SECOND shot heard around the world and the start of the American Revolution. The FIRST shot lay buried in the chest of a runaway slave named Crispus Attucks. What could better typify the glaring contradiction of black American life, than a runaway slave becoming the first martyr of a nation that declared it was fighting for "freedom?" Perhaps it could be said that when it comes to black America, and its dichotomous existence, Crispus Attacks is a "founding father".

There were many blacks that fought for the 13 colonies, proudly waving the new flag. When the Revolutionary war erupted numerous blacks joined the ranks of the Continental Army. Free blacks like Cuff Smith and Cesar Prince enlisted to fight the British. The founder of African American freemasonry Prince Hall is listed in military records of the Revolution. And it is said he fought at Bunker Hill. Pictures also show free black infantrymen in the first Rhode Island Regiment or speak of them among various troops. And yet even many of these blacks were not blind to the seeming contradiction they lived. A great deal of free blacks enlisted in the Continental army hoping their service would help the newly forming nation live up to its creed of freedom, and grant the same to their black brethren held in bondage. Like Douglas would do near a century later, they understood the hypocrisy of the US yet put their hope in its grand ideals.

Many enslaved blacks also attempted to join the Continental army, some of them successful and others returned to their masters. Quite a few offered to fight for the colonists, if they would be ensured freedom for themselves and their family in return. Blacks probably figured the greatest in the Continental forces within the navy, where sailors were not always restricted by color or race. The Continental Navy openly recruited both free and enslaved blacks, mostly sought after for their prior experiences on merchant and British military vessels. Numerous blacks, many of them slaves seeking escape and freedom, sought refuge in the navy where they served in battles against the British. A common practice among some white American slave owners was to in fact substitute a slave for military service rather than enlisting themselves. Thus even those blacks that may not have been feeling a patriotic fervor, were MADE patriots - for white draft dodgers. Taking on tasks such as pilots, laborers and more these blacks earned an impressive reputation for their invaluable skills. One of the most famous black seamen was James Forten, who enlisted on the privateer Royal Louis. Altogether, it is believed some 5,000 free black patriots served in the armies and navies of the Continental forces. The amount of slaves who served within is unknown. And one of the reasons this number is unknown is because of who they sided with. The black American dichotomy was in full swing.

Revolutionary Loyalists

While there were black patriots, many of them free, the majority of enslaved blacks who fought in the Revolutionary War did not side with the 13 colonies - they fought for and cheered on the British. These black Loyalists, as those who remained faithful to the British were called in the colonies, were quite numerous. Often promising freedom, the British eagerly enticed black slaves to join their side. Many of these blacks weighed their option between their masters and their masters' enemies, and quickly chose the latter. And here we have the other side of the looking glass. This is where the complex tangle of conflicting realities that is black American patriotism begins to unravel. For if the majority of blacks in the US during the American Revolution had gotten their way, the 13 rebellious colonies would have been crushed by the British; Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Henry and the rest would have been placed on trial for treason against the royal crown; and all would have been hung by the neck until they were declared dead.

One of the key methods of disrupting the Continental army that many enslaved blacks chose, was simply running away. During the Revolution an estimated 100,000 took advantage of the disruption caused by the war and escaped, many of them heading directly to join British forces - and asking to fight. Others fled to Canada, Florida, or Native American lands. Thomas Jefferson estimated that Virginia lost 30,000 slaves in just one year. Fugitive slave Boston King was one of these individuals, risking punishment or death to flee from bondage. He endured numerous harrowing adventures during his escape, finally making it to the British forces stationed in New York where most black runaways were gathered.

Many of these runaways joined the British armies and navies outright, becoming fighters who wreaked havoc on American forces. One of the most well known of these was Colonel Tye, an escaped slave who joined the British as a guerrilla fighter. In 1778 at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey Tye captured a captain of the American militia, earning a reputation and name among the British. Comprised of enslaved blacks and lower class white loyalists, Colonel Tye's rag-tag band became known as "cow-boys". They carried out daring militia attacks throughout New Jersey, often attacking military outposts, former masters' plantations and other Americans in rebellion against the British. During the brutal winter of 1779, Tye was among an elite group of twenty-four black Loyalists, known as the Black Brigade, who joined with the Queen's Rangers: a British guerrilla unit charged with protecting British held New York City and carrying out raids for supplies. By 1780 Tye and his band were feared by white American forces: capturing and killing Continental militia members, destroying their military equipment and more. As news of Colonel Tye's feats reached an excited slave community, the American governor of NJ in a desperate move invoked martial law - fearing many more slaves would eagerly go over to the British and pick up arms against the 13 colonies.

And not only the enslaved joined the British forces. Many free blacks, believing a win by the British would bring about the end of enslavement, urged blacks (slave and free) to join the redcoats as well. In 1775, Jeremiah Thomas, a pilot, fisherman, "and Free Negroe of considerable property", was hanged and burned in Charleston in an insurrection plot in which he enticed free and enslaved blacks to join the Royal British navy.

Of course at war's end, many black Loyalists would find the British only partially honorable to their word. Of the 100,000+ slaves who looked to the British as saviors, a minuscule 3,000+ would be allowed to evacuate with them - the rest returned to their American masters or left to fend for themselves. And in further betrayal, the British sold many of the slaves who served them right back into slavery in the Caribbean. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. Yet the role of blacks in the American Revolution illustrates well the dilemma that has faced the race with regards to patriotism, Americanism and love for a country that has not always returned the sentiment.

Double Consciousness

Long after Colonel Tye and Prince Hall and some decades after the Civil War and Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois pondered the dichotomy of black American existence. And he would deem it the double-consciousness. DuBois asserted that blacks were of America, yet not so--living in two worlds that could complement or be at war with each other. And like many before him, DuBois showed how this dichotomy could affect black American life so profoundly.

DuBois was born into a new and promising America. It was a land where blacks were now declared free by the 13th Amendment, and supposedly would get to share in the American pie they had helped create. DuBois understood well that the America that existed did not erupt sui genesis, and that it owed much to blacks. After all, if there were no slave trade to help create cash crops to help generate capital and commerce -there would have been no founding fathers to declare "independence" or carry out a revolution against the British. DuBois understood that slave money did not merely disappear. Profits from the slave trade had been invested to help found everything from Brown University to the Steam Engine, a key element in the Industrial Revolution. He knew that it was the black agitators for freedom during the era of slavery that had forced America to follow through with its ideals, thus becoming a freer place for all of its citizens. DuBois understood that America was as much his as anyone else's. And yet DuBois' patriotism was tempered by the reality of the world about him - the continued dichotomy of black existence.

A White Man's Government or a Negro's Cemetery

The end of the Civil War marked a new era for black America. Recently freed slaves tested the limits of freedom by daring to reach for what only a few years prior had been beyond imagination. Blanche Kelso Bruce, an ex-slave, was representing Mississippi in the United States Senate. In Louisiana a black man, P.B.S. Pinchback sat in the governor's mansion. A black face occupied a seat on the state supreme court in South Carolina. Blacks were superintendents of education, judges, state treasurers, solicitors and major generals of militia. Blacks and whites attended the same schools while an interracial board ran the University of South Carolina. But what seemed like a dream to blacks was a bitter nightmare to white southerners. They had lost everything. Once opulent plantations lay in ruins. The wealth of the South seemed depleted. And in their minds, the fault lay at the doorsteps of their former slaves - ironically the same ones who had helped them gain such wealth in the first place. Their coveted throne of white superiority was being eroded by what they saw as "ungrateful wretches" who desired the unfathomable - the American ideal of promised equality.

To maintain their dominance whites rallied together to strip blacks from any offices of power and prevent others from gaining such positions. They first declared black politicians either ignorant or corrupt, sweeping many from power. They next went after any whites, Radical Republicans at the time, who aided blacks. But in the end it was the power base of black politicians that had to be neutralized. This lay in the black masses and the black vote. Polling places were purposefully set up far away from black communities. Those who attempted to reach them found roads conveniently blocked or ferries out of repair. Sometimes the polling places were changed without warning or notice. Stuffing of ballots was so common that one smug Democrat stated, "black Republicans may outvote us, but we can out count them". Whites established laws that discriminated against illiterate blacks or those who had been slaves at one time. Every southern state had its own method. And when these did not work, violence became a type of "final solution".

It was called "whitecapping", the use of violence to remove blacks from political posts, drive them off their land and out of their businesses. North Carolina governor Daniel Russell would proclaim that for a black man "to get above his ordained station in life is to invite assassination". Democrat General John McEnery of Louisiana stated, “We shall carry the next election if we have to ride saddle-deep in blood to do it”. A South Carolinian newspaper declared, "We must render this a white man's government or convert the land into a Negro's cemetery". It was state sponsored terrorism, plain and simple. And it went on not in some far off land, but in the very one that declared itself the land of the brave and the free.

Blacks like DuBois held onto their patriotism while in Memphis white policemen, firemen and laborers rioted against black soldiers. Forty-six blacks were killed, some 80 wounded and five black women were raped; 12 black schools and 4 black churches were burned. Blacks clutched onto Old Glory as in Lake City, South Carolina a black postmaster, his wife and infant were shot and burned to death by an angry white mob. In Wilmington, North Carolina, Reverend Charles S. Morris recalled the carnage of an anti-black riot: “Nine Negroes massacred outright; one man ... was given the privilege of running the gauntlet up a broad street ... while crowds of men lined the sidewalks and riddled him with a pint of bullets ... thousands of men and women and children fleeing in terror from their humble homes in the darkness of night ... All this happened not in Turkey, nor in Russia ... but within three hundred miles of the White House”.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma a white mob began a riot resulting in the destruction of the city's prosperous black business and residential district. In Paducah, Kentucky, a black rape suspect was lynched by a mob which then murdered a black onlooker for "expressing sympathy" for the first. In Texas, a father and his three sons were lynched for the grand crime of harvesting the first cotton in the county that year. In Waco, a mob pulled a retarded black youth from a courtroom, burned him alive, and then sold his teeth as souvenirs. In Brooks County, Georgia a mob stormed the countryside for a week killing more than 10 blacks. This included a pregnant black woman, Mary Turner, who was hung by her ankles, doused with gasoline and set afire, but not before her unborn child was cut from her stomach and trampled to death.

And the terrorism of these white Christian extremists was not confined to the South. As early as 1829 a white Cincinnati mob drove more than half of the black population from the city. From 1832 to 1849 there were no less than five anti-black riots in Philadelphia. The most infamous of the day were the anti-draft riots of New York in 1863 during the Civil War. Enraged white citizenry, fearing the competition they were certain would come with a free skilled black work force, rioted for four days. Blacks were lynched from lampposts, raped, mutilated and shot in the streets of NY. Not even a black orphanage was spared the terrorism, being burned to the ground. In 1908 for six days a white mob rioted in Springfield, Illinois lynching, shooting, raping and mutilating scores of blacks and driving hundreds more from the city. The climax of these acts of terrorism occurred in the Red Summer of 1919, as 26 anti-black riots left an unknown number dead from Chicago to Omaha. It was an "Axis of Evil", a seeming alignment by terrorist thugs that made black life a daily nightmare and trampled on America's claimed ideals.

And where were the political parties, that today jockey for the black vote? Well it would seem that "freeing slaves" and extending equality to blacks were two separate matters entirely. The Democrats of our times may now be the self-proclaimed bastions of tolerance and racial justice, but back then they were the party of the South, Jim Crow and terrorism against blacks. Frederick Douglas himself would state, “The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea”. But that affair proved short-lived, as even the claimed allies of blacks turned a blind eye.

Where were the champions of the pledge that asked for "liberty and justice for all? Well the author of the pledge himself, white Baptist minister Francis Bellamy, actually sympathized with the black plight, wanting to add the word "equality" to it---but his idea was dismissed. Where were the American government and its executive in chief? President Woodrow Wilson was busy watching a private screening of Birth of a Nation, a movie depicting blacks as rapist savages and the KKK as gallant heroes, at none other than the "peoples" building - the White House. He is reported to have exclaimed of the movie that is still used as a recruitment film for the Klan, "It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true". The enemies of American freedom were both small and powerful, not needing to hide in a cave or conceal their actions. No crusades of justice or wars of enduring freedom were ever massed against them. In fact the vast majority were never brought to justice.

This was the America that blacks endured, as the words upon the Constitution they held seemed to grow dull and fade, while the double consciousness within them raged. Yet many continued to put forth their patriotism in the face of terrorism. They continued like Ida B. Wells to appeal to the moral conscience of the land to end lynching. Like Jesse Owens some ran against the claimed Aryan "supermen of the Third Reich for their country, delivering a shattering blow against German Nazism. Others became airmen at Tuskegee even as their government unknowingly used their brethren as guinea pigs. They held onto their patriotism, believing not in the America that daily terrorists tried to create, but rather the America that promised it could be so much more.

DuBois himself would exemplify the two feuding sides of this double consciousness, extolling America's ideals of freedom and justice yet breaking down in anger and emotion at seeing the severed knuckles of a black lynch victim displayed proudly on ice in a butcher shop window. DuBois would urge blacks to fight in America's great wars, and yet work hard to build a Pan-African political ideology. In the end DuBois patriotism was stretched to its limits, and the cynic won out. While in Peking in 1959 he told a large audience-"In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but a NIGGER". By the time the U.S. press published the account, DuBois was residing in Ghana, West Africa: an expatriate in self-exile from the country of his birth. Even men of steel rust.

America or AmeriKKKa?

July 4th symbolizes an odd time for black America. It is the birthday of the US, red-white-and blue, apple pie, baseball and mom. Yet it is also the birthday of the black double consciousness: a ceaseless dichotomy that never seems to rest. It was there during the 1950s and 60s, as blacks marched holding flags to fight for rights promised to them a century prior. The terrorists responded to their patriotism with dogs, high-powered water hoses and bombs that killed little girls. In one instance angry whites, opposed to bussing, held a black man down and beat him with the US flag itself. None of this went unnoticed by the youths of the movement. They watched as Civil Rights leaders like Fanni Lou Hamer and D.U. Pullium were severely beaten. They watched as Herbert Lee and Louis Allen were beaten and eventually killed. As with DuBois, the cynicism over the hypocrisy finally burst forth and gave birth to the Black Power Movement.

Patriotism took a backseat to pent-up frustration at a nation that refused to live up to its lofty ideals. Malcolm X would tell the world that he and other blacks did not live the "American dream", but the "American nightmare". He declared to America that it had two choices: live up to its ideals and grant blacks equality by way of the ballot and freedom, or suffer the consequences of the bullet. The proclamation of Patrick Henry, one time slave owner turned minor abolitionist, against his own oppressor of near two centuries prior had been hardly very different: "Give me liberty or give me death".

In his intricate knowledge of the law and his battles against capitalism, exploitation and police brutality, Huey P. Newton in his own way was declaring his double consciousness - threatening to take by force what he viewed as his right as a citizen and a human being. The Civil Rights Movement may have wanted to work within the system while many in the Black Power Movement wanted to do away with it completely, but both used the grand ideals America touted to call out her hypocrisy and demanded she live up to them or suffer the consequence.

Objection to the title or not, blacks in the US are Americans. If you pay taxes you are an American. If you expect certain rights and benefits from the country you pay taxes to, you are an American. If you support or fight against politicians and policies, you are an American. If you use the school systems, numerous public services and such, you are an American. If you go off to enlist in a war or would rather get thrown in jail as a conscientious objector during draft time, you're an American. If you vote for a candidate or write in "HANDS OFF ASSATA" on the ballot, you're still an American.

Whether you stand up and proudly say the pledge or sit and turn your back at its seeming hypocrisy, you are an American. In fact the America that exists today, the one that questions itself about freedom and liberty, would not have existed if not for the constant struggles of black Americans who condemned the country for its glaring contradictions and challenged it to live up to its ideals. What would the America of today look like if not for the Frederick Douglass', Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther Kings, etc. of its history?

How many different peoples who enter its borders owe any success they gain in part to black bodies that have fought wars not only against foreign governments abroad, but pitched battles in the streets or courthouses against their own government right here at home? Would the word freedom, equality, liberty and such mean much of anything if not for black America? Even those blacks that only recently come to the country within the last few decades become black Americans, with all the hard fought privileges or lack-there-of that exists within. I know the philosophical argument about not being American. It speaks to powerful truths. Yet with all due respect to brother Malcolm's statement about kittens and ovens, the definition of an American still stands - full diner or not; love or disgust for the country or not. And when he challenged America to choose the ballot or the bullet, he understood that part of the double consciousness that made him an American as well.

Yet the other side of that consciousness exists, often turning the patriotic into cynical criticism. For when it comes to black America's history and Old Glory, there is a hypocrisy that cannot be swept away with one hundred tragic 9-11s. It makes it difficult or downright impossible for many to dress up in red-white-and-blue, get teary eyed at hearing the national anthem or slap hands over hearts and chant "with, liberty and justice for all" - "under God" or NOT "under God". Someone should take a poll of how many black parents yet tell their children to protest the pledge by omitting words they find hypocritical, clamping mouths shut during its recital or sitting down altogether.

One side of that double consciousness may admire Thomas Jefferson for his democratic ideals of liberty and freedom. Yet like his black contemporary Benjamin Banneker, the cynical side sees him as nothing more than an oppressive, slave holding tyrant who openly expressed ideas of black inferiority - with pedophilic predilections towards young black girls he called property. And even when many manage to lock much of the cynicism away through selective amnesia and revel in America anyway, a little bitterness lingers in the background - a small but violent storm created by what seems like an endless struggle.

It's why the likes of Baldwin and DuBois left to go elsewhere, why black America has had such a flirtatious affair with Castro's Cuba, and why we still smile in glee when somebody "sticks it to da' man". It's why we are apt to believe rumors about losing Voting Rights in 2000-something (it IS a HOAX folks!). It's why we are often some of the first to criticize American foreign policy or domestic limits upon freedom, having well seen what happens when government power goes unchecked (i.e., COINTELPRO and the CIA). We're the ones who will not allow crooked cops to hide behind badges of authority and threaten to burn it all down when they get off. We're the consciousness of America, the ones that always remind her she may have come a long way - but still got quite a few miles to go.

The Greatest Patriotism

The America on paper, the one with grand ideals and virtues of liberty and freedom, is not a bad idea. In fact black America has supported that paper ideal since America's inception. So it's not that black America's double consciousness is anti-democracy, anti-freedom, or anti-liberty. Rather it's often anti-exploitation, anti-hypocrisy and anti-oppression. The dichotomy that lay buried with the bullet in Crispus Attucks' chest created patriotism beyond anything most of white America has ever known. It does not shed tears because of the color of any flag or any founding father or cracked bell in Philadelphia. Men like Jefferson and Washington are conflicted figures moreso than idols.

Instead black patriotism stands up for the greatest ideals written into the American idea. Black patriotism is loyal to freedom and justice, not jingoism and the power of might. Black patriotism calls for America to follow democracy and fairness, not only in this land but also in its dealings abroad. And black patriotism does this not to glorify any nation it may or may not pledge allegiance to, but because these noble ideals exemplify what is moral, right and just. And that is the greatest patriotism anyone can have: not to some country in time and space destined to rise and fall as all nations do, but to a set of ideas that transcend fireworks and founding fathers and speaks to the essence of the human spirit.

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