My life in a “Post-Racial” World

It’s been a while since I last posted. It’s not because I haven’t wanted to. So much has happened that I wanted to comment on. However, I was working through my response to a number of racist-sexist emails and tweets I received in response to the Trayvon Martin Social Justice Award I organized.

I will not post the correspondences I received. What I will tell you is that some went so far as to wish death to my family and I. Some felt inclined to tell me that I was racist, ignorant…. I’m at the point where I actually feel sad for these individuals. Sad that they cannot see how what they “condemn” they actually perpetuate.

There were a few issues that I address before I speak to my experiences as a Black woman living in a so-called post-racial world.  My sister-colleague, Professor Janni Aragon, and I will blog about post-racialism around claims such as “We have a Black President” in the near future.

Silence Perpetuates Racism

I was asked why not name the award in honor of Martin Luther King. I smiled; it was clear to me that this individual seemed to have embraced a rather deracialized understanding of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. In the 1960s he was not a “hero” in the eyes of a few. Oh, but in this so-called post-racial society some seem to have forgotten this. In the whitening of Martin Luther King (whitening in the sense that his image is often used to assuage White guilt) some have forgotten that his message involved a form of radical racial justice. 

In deed I decided on Trayvon Martin because his death, in part, embodies the radical racial justice calls of Dr. Martin Luther King—not the sanitized recitation we engage in every January. For many of the young individuals I encounter, Trayvon Martin’s murder resonated with them. But some would never know that because like the White liberals Martin Luther took to task in his “Letter from Brigham Jail” they refuse to listen. They refuse to allow minoritized and marginalized individuals to speak. And when we speak they often work to discredit our claims.

As Martin Luther King Jr. articulated in his letter “I am in [all states and cities] because injustice is here.” Yet, some deny it’s existence because they want to believe that we are existing in a post-racial state, where racism in a thing of the past. Those of us who dare speak of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression are told that we are simply agitators who need to stop engaging in “destructive” and “divisive” efforts. This is part of a muting/silencing project that must be resisted in the same way that Jim Crow laws were resisted.

Everyday I encounter stories of racism from the young people I serve. I see first hand how others go out of their way to tell them that they don’t belong. Black men are stopped and frisked, no not in NY, but on college campuses. They are treated as criminals because of the color of their skin. Students of color are called “nigger” and told to “go home” and that they "don’t belong.” Faculty members of color are treated with suspicion. If this is not racism, then clearly I don’t know what is.

Yet, their and my experiences are met with silence. We are told that while some individuals might be “bias” that life is better for us. I guess that we should be happy that we are no longer working on the plantation. However, I ask, when one is the recipient of such hate, when we are being terrorized on a daily basis, what exactly is better? And who is it better for?

Some are so caught up with defining racism by focusing on specific acts or at individual level behavior that they have lost sight of the fundamentals of racism. Racialized bodies might not be hanging from Southern trees. But that is not an indicator of a post-racial state. Racism may be direct, indirect, individual and/or institutional. Indeed as Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva argues we don’ need racist actors to have racist outcomes.

Racism is not a simple bias neither is it simply prejudice. Yet, some continue to conflate racism with these concepts. Racism involves the transformation of prejudice and bias, at an individual and/or institutional level, passively or actively, through the exercise of POWER against racialized groups deemed as inferior.

Racism, in the words of, Carmichael and Hamilton is "the predication of decisions and policies on considerations of race for the purpose of SUBORDINATING a racial group and maintaining control over that group." (Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, pg. 3)

Many, in an attempt to put the legacy of slavery behind them in hopes of achieving the utopian post-racial state, ignore everyday racialized-gendered practices that terrorize some of us.

As I live through my current experiences with gendered-racism I find myself fighting to have my voice and the voices of those who experience systematic racism on an everyday basis heard. I cannot pretend that these past few weeks have been easy. I’ve had a range of emotions. However at the end of the day I’ve decided to speak—to break the silence that is complicit with notions of post-racialism

Post-racialism is designed to render us silent or to mute our claims. It is because it requires silence that indeed post-racialism perpetuates racism.  Here are just a few examples of how post-racialism perpetuates racism via silence:

• Silence does not allow us to challenge the deracialization of Martin Luther King’s dream. Consequently we accept for example “A Day of Service” often with little thought to issues of equality, justice, and peace.
• Silence allows us to ignore issues of joblessness, HIV/AIDS, food insecurity and their relationship to race. We become silent when we use universal terms for fear of offending.
• Silence harms us when we deploy terms, such as “colored” and “nigger” that are steeped in historical a legacy of racial harm and crime and then claim “innocence” or “ignorance” when we are asked why.
• Silence harms us when we allow racialized actions to take place on a consistent basis and then simply say “sorry” and engage in no actions designed to implement institutional change.

Silence is sometimes the best response. However silence can also be an act of racism. When we claim at an individual and/or institutional level that we are committed to anti-racism and we remain silent in the face of racism our actions beg the question: Who or what does our silence protect?

Audre Lorde poignantly wrote, “Your silence will not protect you.” None of us are protected when we remain silent in the face of racism. So how do we respond to the silences that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned us against? Those of us who experience racism, overt and covert, must speak. Yes, we are at times intimidated, but our silence does not promote change. It is only when we consciously work to unmask the often hidden structures of power, of which silence is one, can we begin to challenge power structures. Those in the majority, who benefit at various levels from privilege, directly and indirectly, must also break their silence. The pleas of ignorance or that it’s not my problem, or the claim that I’m not racist, are inadequate and are not enough! The onus of fighting racism must not be placed on the laps of marginalized and minoritized communities. It is a problem that we must all raise our voices against. We cannot lament on how our speech will be responded to and/or interpreted.

There is No Girlhood Here: Reading the Reading of Quvenzhane Wallis

"If you White you alright/ If you Black Step Back" the lyrics of this 1967 folk song captures the story line of Black and White girlhood. Some in society espouse the notion of multiculturalism to promote an ideal of post feminism and post racism. Post racialism and post feminism are ideologies that function to suggest that racial differences and gender discrimination are no longer salient (see McRobbie 2004). However, the discursive practices deployed actually work to reinscribe racalized and gender tropes and hierarchies. The recent tweet concerning the young actress Quvenzhane Wallis is by ONE incident that makes evident how the construction of Black girlhood embodies racalized and gendered tropes that strips them of their girlhood and by default their innocence even in a "post" racial and "post" gender society.

The underlying societal assumptions about Black girls and the women they become are particularly evident in the recent construction of this young girl. The construction of girlhood is not monolithic and is indeed shaped by various social processes and ideologies (see Jiwani, Steenbergen & Mitchell 2006). However, Black girlhood tends to be overlaid with the stereotypical construction of Black womanhood. From girlhood, the Black body is marked along racialized gender boundaries for a particular functioning in society. The dominant discursive practices tend to represent Black girls in a rather monolithic manner and portrays them as failing to conform to the ideals of virtue, piety and hard work—the antithesis of White girlhood and womanhood. Consequently, the construction of Black girlhood produces and reproduces a narrative that is familiar in terms of our understandings of race, class and gender.

When, and if, Black girls/teens are part of our public conversations, they are typically constructed as “pathological.” Consider that much of what appears in the public domain focuses on issues of teen pregnancy, poverty and welfare use, juvenile delinquency and (poor) school performance, for example. These conversations work to negativize black girls’ behavior.

The often-negative images imposed on Black women’s bodies are mapped onto the bodies of Black girls. Thus, there are really no "black girls," there are only "black women." Often, Black girls are thought of as: uncontrollable and womanish; poverty-stricken, living in violent and unstable homes, and as unredeemable. In essence, the Black girl is a failure in the making—a long-term potential societal problem. Construction of Black girlhood hints at anxieties in this new-so-called social and economic order. This manner of “seeing” Black girls is then used to justify her surveillance, both by the state and by private individuals. The now (in)famous tweet does just that. It says to Miss Wallis and other Black girls, no matter what you do, "we" have the power to define you regardless of your age. And since we have the right to exercise such power, "we" will keep you in your place, primarily by stripping you of the one political/cultural asset we give to children--innocence. 

Betty and Coretta: A Story of Black Gender Politics

Lifetime Network

This time of the year, Black History Month, usually finds me running through my cable guide. I’m not an avid consumer of this form of media. However, I make an annual trek to TV land during Black History Month because this is the time when I’m apt to find shows on the Black “experience”. So imagine my excitement when I learned about “Betty and Coretta”, to be aired on Lifetime Network. The icing on the cake for me was that it starred Angela Bassett (one of favorite actresses). In anticipation, and to ensure that I didn’t miss what I was sure would be the highlight of my TV viewing experience of the year, I asked my daughter to DVR the show.

Eight p.m. found me on the couch with my peppermint tea. I was curled up and ready. The opening captivated me.  This was my super bowl.  Mid way through the “documentary” saw my interest waning. By the end I felt betrayed. This was not a story of Betty and Coretta. 

In my anticipation I was looking forward to learning about the friendship between these women and their activism. Instead, I got a story that did not center their agency and one that told me of their activism only as an outgrowth of their husbands’ activism.  Some have critiqued "Betty and Coretta" in terms of  embellishment and the fact that the families might not have been consulted. Consequently, some have questioned the authenticity of the production. Maybe this is all true. However, I’m more concerned with the narratives deployed in the telling of the story.

“Betty and Coretta” seemed to be a story of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was presented with a narrative of Black gender politics where the narratives of Black men are often privileged.

I understand that much of who these women are, real and imagined, is linked to the men they married. But must we not wonder who these women were prior to their marriages? Did they only understand politics and freedom via the lens of their husbands or might they have had their own conceptualizations? Did these women not have families, sisters, brothers, aunts, and uncles who might also have informed their activism? Did they not have political views on race, class, and gender prior to this? Where did these women come from? What were their childhoods like and how might this help to explain the friendship they forged? Did they have any correspondences with others outside of their families that might have helped us to understand how they made decisions?  These were the questions I pondered as the show progressed.

The narrative presented to us suggests that these women only found their voice after the untimely deaths of their husbands. In deed this was how I imagined the “Real Housewives of XX” to be and not a show on Dr. Shabazz and Mrs. Coretta Scott King.

While a number of narratives were deployed in the telling of the story of "Betty and Coretta", I focus on one narrative—that of the “strong” Black woman.There are two manifestations of this “strong” Black woman narrative that ran throughout the production. 

For one, the narrative speaks to the sacrificial Black woman. These women, via the notion of strength become the racial mothers for (Black) America. The normalization of the functioning of the Black woman as mother (biological and/or cultural) leads to the expectation that she will sacrifice so that others can make progress while simultaneously denying her needs and dreams.

Second, there is the narrative of  spiritual/supernatural strength. On the one hand, the story “denied” these women any connection to their Islamic or Christian faith. While allowing the men such a connection. This in indeed an interesting caveat, as we do not see how their beliefs influenced (or not) their activism. On the other hand, the women were constructed as supernaturally and spiritually strong. The spiritually/supernaturally strong Black woman is used to transcend worlds—present and past. The presentation of the women's stories allowed us to transcend Martin and Malcolm post-death. They allowed for the continuation of the dreams of these men. At times, the women who transcend spiritually become gods/icons themselves and serve as an affirmation of feminine power, and as a source of feminine solidarity. This is the narrative used to suggest the basis of the friendship between Betty and Coretta. While this notion of strength is used to construct the story of friendship, it does not permit these women a full display of their humanity.

Relying on these two scripts of the “strong” Black woman, while appearing to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Shabazz and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, show the continuation of the ideology of Black male privileging. Implicit, and often explicit, these strong Black women were depicted as protecting their men primarily because they are able to transcend all forms of punishment/harm/pain. They sacrifice themselves for the community and racial families, so that the dreams of their men might be manifest;  therein lies their value. Their story becomes valuable only in relation to the men some in the Black community hold as national heroes. 

There was a moment in the show when “Betty” said that Malcolm had left a series of problems that no matter what she did, she could not change. This I think could have been such a critical opening for us to understand her thinking. Instead, this thread was not weaved into the story in a substantive manner.

The construction of Betty and Coretta suggest that these women lacked activism/consciousness until after the deaths of their husbands. But we would never know because we were not afforded an opportunity to see these women. Consequently, I walked away frustrated. I had not learned anything about these women, but more about the construction of raced-gendered politics and practices.  

Born free and looking for justice: What “justice” means to me

 Won't you help to sing

This songs of freedom-

'Cause all I ever have:

Redemption songs;

Redemption songs;

Redemption songs.

Bob Marley

I wish I knew how

It would feel to be free

I wish that I could break

All the chains holding me

I wish I could say

All the things that I'd like to say

Say 'em loud say 'em clear

For the whole round world to hear

Nina Simone

Here I am, born after the so-called modern Civil Rights Movement. Here I am, a part of a generation that is close (in time) to this movement for justice; but most of my living “in” the Movement is done via readings and watching documentaries. Here I am a so-called beneficiary of the Civil Rights Movement. I stand in front of a college classroom, me a Black woman, an immigrant Black woman, a Black woman only a few generations past slavery and indentured servitude, as a college professor. Here I am the mother of a teen daughter who lives in a world that tells her that there is no racism. She is told this “lie” of post-racalism because for example, she does not see the possibility of herself in older Black women as there are no Black female teachers (or males for that matter) at her school. How then do I understand justice? How does my social identity and the context within which I reside shape my understandings of justice and freedom?

March on Washington

As a child, growing up in Barbados, I was fed a steady diet of Bob Marley. To this day, my mother owns every Bob Marley record. I can fondly remember me singing along to “Get up Stand up”, and “No woman, No Cry”. I am the point where I simply hear a few opening bars of a Marley song and I can start singing. I didn’t know that Marley’s music was about social justice. As a child, I didn’t know of or fully appreciate my mother’s commitment to justice. Marley’s music was simply something that was a part of our lives. Here commitment to social justice was simply a part of our lives. Then at the age of 16 I migrated to the US to attend college. At the age of 21, while in graduate school, I had an experience that reminded me of my so-called space in society. I was walking one morning and out ran a lady yelling “Nigger, Nigger.” She was clutching her robe and dressed in her house slippers. The anger I felt after this experience, coupled with the isolation I felt in higher education in general, left me wondering if there was ever a space for me in society. My experiences in higher education exposed me to racism and injustices in a way that I had not experienced before.

The injustices I experienced challenged my understanding of freedom. However, those songs my mother poured into me and that sense of self my parents cultivated served as the foundation for my response to the injustices I experienced. I didn’t always know how to name my experiences and how I wanted to respond to them. But the lyrics of Bob Marley, among others, and the teachings of my parents helped me to see my experiences as part of what I eventually learned was structural and institutional racism, sexism, and classism.

The words of my teachers and of random strangers caused anger; but they also prompted me to dig deeper into understanding intersectionality and justice.

The legacy of Black women, known and un-known to me, served as my “drinking gourd”. What is it that Black women sing about when they sing spirituals, the blues…? What is that yearning in their voice? It is a yearning to be free.

My digging led me to the likes of Nina Simone, to the works of Audre Lorde, Zora Neal Hurston, and Langston Hughes among others. I found the writings of Black women such as the Combahee River Collective, Dorothy Roberts, Nikol Alexander-Floyd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. These women gave me a home for my raced-gendered-classed experiences. Through these various voices I have come to define a notion of justice.

Justice involves critically analyzing how the intersection of race, class, gender and sexuality work to constrain access, life choices, and understandings of self. Justice is not only about critical assessment of these intersecting oppressive structures; it is also about defining “my” reality. Although I use the term “my” I recognize that “my” incorporates all members of my larger community—those who are not free.

My struggle for justice is an on-going process. At this stage of my life I am confronted with teaching my teen daughter about justice—social, economic, cultural and political. My challenge stems from, in part that unlike me she is being raised in a majority environment—one that espouses a notion of color-blindness. She is one of two Black girls in her class. The irony of this color-blind ideology is that racism and the racial order is often hidden in plain sight. Injustice remains unchallenged as a result of silence. There is no community available for me to ground my daughter in—a community that reaffirms her Blackness in the way that I had as a child growing up in Barbados. That is just a part of the problem. Culturally she’s inundated with notions of beauty that often render her invisible. My attempts to counter the dominant narratives she confronts is often met with silence, mis-understanding, or a type of sympathy but very little action to actually change the environment in a critically manner. 

Often I’m left singing the words of Nina Simone, “I wish I knew how to be free”. I wish that I knew how it is for my daughters, biological and non-biological, to be free. Until then there is no justice. 

113rd Congress: Should I get excited?

 

January 3, 2013 and the “freshman” class of the 113^th Congress has been sworn in. A few days prior a dear friend of mine sent me the above picture with the statement “I'm sure you can do something with this imagery!” I looked at the picture, shrugged my shoulders and continued contemplating life (mine) in the New Year. Then I watched Dianne Sawyer’s interview (1/3/2013) with a number of these women and I became intrigued. I listened to how the women conceptualize themselves as law makers. One said that women are not filled with testosterone and that makes them different from their male counterparts. They talked about abortion and women’s rights and other issues one has come to expect such panels to deal with. I almost ignored the segment on ABC Nightly News as it started (at least the start for me) on how many children were shared between the women. My thought was please, not this again. Nevertheless, I set aside my bias and listened. But I came away with more thoughts than could be answered in the two-minute segment (or however long it was).  

 

 

I taught Women and Politics last semester—perfect timing. Leading up to the election and after the election my students and I discussed not only why women run for elective office, but also the barriers they face and how women of various social locations confront these barriers. We discussed how women confront the masculinist structure that is Congress. After the election we talked about whether or not the newly elected cohort will be able to change how Congress functions or will they be confined to working within the structure as is.

Many tout this as the most diverse Congress to date. This diversity covers a wide spectrum including:

1.      The House Democrat Caucus-it is projected that the majority now comprises of women and non-white individuals. The Republican counterpart remains heavily White and male.

2.      Religious & Racial Diversity—the House of Representatives now has its first Hindu member and the senate has its first Asian-American woman (the second woman of color to serve in the Senate). Twenty-eight Latinos are now serving in the House and three in the Senate.

3.      Sexuality—the Senate now has its first openly gay member.

4.      Gender-- The Senate now has 20 women (of 100 members) and there are 81 women in the House of Representatives (of 441 members of which 435 are voting members and 6 are non-voting members).

 
In the face of it all, this is indeed something to celebrate. But… I do wander what does this all mean for Black women? Between 1917 and 2012   

“A total of 31 African American or black women have served in Congress (1 in the Senate, 30 in the House), including the 15 serving in the 112th Congress. Eight Hispanic women have been elected to the House; seven serve in the 112th Congress. Six Asian American women have served in the House, including four in the 112th Congress.”

Of the 43 current African American Congresspersons (a drop from 44), a total of 17 are women (these includes two non-voting members). So, there are 17 (out of 435 members) Black women in the House of Representatives and zero (out of 100 members) in the Senate, but why should we care?

Symbolic vs. Substantive Representation: Why we should care

 

Who will represent Black women? This is a question of substantive versus symbolic representation. While both are valuable, I’m inclined to advocate for substantive representation which would result in policy changes—positive changes-- that would enhance the lived realities of Black women. There are so many issues that Black women need to pay attention to; depending on how Congress acts on these issues will show how and if Black women matter, in a substantive manner, to this most diverse Congress. Below I explore only a few of the issues that I think we ought to pay attention to.

 

1.      Violence Against Women Act (VAW). The 112^th House, as it came to its end, failed to act on the VAW Act. The GOP leadership refused to introduce the Act for re-authorization. The bill passed in the Senate would have extended domestic violence protections to approximately 30 million LGBT individuals, First American women and undocumented immigrants. Black women need this legislation. Consider the following:  

 

“Various groups experience domestic violence at disproportionate rates. The NVAWS found that African-American and Native American/Alaskan Indian women and men reported higher rates of domestic violence than did women and men from other communities of color(Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), while Asian/Pacific Islander women and men tended to report lower rates of intimate partner violence than did women and men from other minority backgrounds(Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). It also found that 23.4% of Hispanic/Latina women had been domestic violence victims in their lifetime(Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that African-American women experienced domestic violence at a rate 35% higher than Caucasian women(Rennison & Welchans, 2000).

An important consideration with respect to race and domestic violence is the impact of economic class. A National Institute of Justice (NIJ) publication suggests that "African-Americans and whites with the same economic characteristics have similar rates of intimate violence, but African-Americans have a higher overall rate of intimate violence due in part to higher levels of economic distress and location in disadvantaged neighborhoods"(Benson & Fox, 2004).”

 

2.      HIV/AIDS: Simply put we need a comprehensive, well-funded, national HIV/AIDS policy. Having said this, I recognize that this might not occur in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, there are a few policy issues that Black women need to press Congress on. For one, we need to pres them on funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. We also need to advocate for funding (increased) for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which provides care to low income people with the disease and Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA).

 

3.      The Economy. There are so many issues to discuss related to the economy including the high rates of unemployment among African Americans—regardless of gender and/or age. We also need to advocate, in the coming months, on how the “fiscal cliff” will be addressed. The fiscal-cliff might have been averted, but it is not over. The 2013 Congress must now address what is referred to as the sequestration requirements. Sequestration, implemented by the Budget Control Act of 2011, is approximately $1 trillion in automatic cuts to federal government spending over the next decade. This means that this Congress must now create a deficit reduction plan designed to identify $1.2 trillion in budgetary cuts over the next decade. We need to pay attention to a number of areas that might be affected by these cuts, including for example the Affordable Health Care Act in general and the Prevention and Public Health Fund specifically. Federal employees are not off the hook, yet. A substantial number of African Americans are employed by the federal government. How they handle this economic “crisis” has implication for education parity (Head Start among other programs), access to affordable health care, and adequate and safe housing. 

Congresswoman Maxine Waters

Finally, we need to pay attention to committee assignments as this is often used to mute and silenced those who might challenge the status quo. When Shirley Chisholm, first Black woman elected to Congress, was elected she was initially appointment to a minor subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee. She challenged this appointment and the power structure changed her appointment to the Veterans Affairs Committee. She bucked the system by challenging power structures, she made many uncomfortable with her presence and her words. Hers is but one method of radical representation for substantive change. We have to wait to see if this celebrated 113^rd congress will in the words of Shirley Chisholm “breathe fire”. In the meantime, we cannot sit back and wait for our elected officials to act, we must also act. It is time for us, the voting public, to also “breathe fire” and demand substantive policy that positively affects the lived reality of Black women.