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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780910030250 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | African American Images |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 200 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Last in Line
An American Destiny Deferred
By Jamal Mtshali
The History Press
Copyright © 2016 Jamal MtshaliAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-910030-25-0
CHAPTER 1
"Get Over It"
"Pound Cake" forever altered Cliff Huxtable's palatable image. Its recipe called for one pungent, heaping tablespoon of indignation. Bill Cosby had not been known for stridence — or any significant political or social commentary, really. Jell-O? Cardigans? Sexual assault? Sure. Each of these things figured in the schema associated with Cosby. (In all fairness, the third only became a synonym for "Cosby" a decade later.) But Cosby's "Pound Cake" speech was a different jingle — less gelatinous yet more appetizing to America's insulin-resistant masses. America devoured. Cosby's criticisms of the black community's gross imperfections and shortcomings were lauded by many, perhaps effusively so by mainstream America.
Cosby arraigned the usual suspects: negligent and absent black fathers; insolent, truant, rambunctious, gang-banging adolescent black males; and irresponsible, ever-pregnant teenage black women. In a harangue of the black "lower" and "lower middle" income brackets that elicited scarce smiles from the stone-cold faces of Middle America, Cosby cast stones in a paternalistic back-in-my-day fashion that left much of the nation nodding (albeit in starkly different ways). Cosby didn't even spare rod-shy single black mothers, inquiring of their orange jumpsuit-donning sons, "Where were you when he was two ... twelve ... eighteen? Why didn't you know he had a pistol?"
Of course, all this was before Cosby again reintroduced himself to the American public as a prolific dispenser of Quaaludes — and probable rapist, to boot. But few stars are even twice-born and Cosby was one of those stars, spit shining his way to the endearment of a large, right-wing swath of the American public. Cosby came to the NAACP's 50 anniversary celebration of the 1954 Brown v. Board ruling equipped with statistics, attesting to the "50 percent [high school] dropout rate" among black students as well as a similarly credible claim of the commonality of black women having babies by "five or six different men." Cosby also bore anecdotal testimony of young black males getting "shot in the head over ... pound cake!" by police officers whose lethal judgment we shouldn't dare question. Why? "What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?" His thoughtful analysis assumed an interestingly xenophobic slant, insisting that in its misguided, ignorant, linguistically inept African American youth, America was breeding its own "ingrown immigrants" who like to "shoot ... and do stupid things" for kicks.
Cosby's diatribe continued as he shared the story of another hapless black youth who murders someone over pizza, as well as stories of the myriad women with "eight" or maybe "ten" husbands (forgive him — he didn't make note of this particular statistic) and multimillionaire athletes who "can't read a paragraph" (or playbook, presumably). In spite of such perspicacity, Cosby's remarks were not without detractors. Many in the black community rebuked Cosby for his hyperbolic, extended lamentation, accusing him of spewing fabricated anecdotes in the vein of Ronald Reagan's "welfare queen" fables and neglecting systemic racism's role in engendering many of the ills to which he colorfully alluded. To them, Cosby did nothing productive except add to the black stereotype repertoire — that of the hungry black male who risks his life and those of others for to-die-for — literally — cakes and pizzas. Perhaps killing over fruits and salads would, to Mr. Cosby, be a more salubrious, forgivable pathology (not to mention something we could never conceive of Fat Albert doing).
Scholar Michael Eric Dyson issued a pointed rebuttal to Cosby's comments entitled Is Bill Cosby Right? Dyson argued that Cosby's deprecations were shortsighted and accused Cosby of shifting the blame too far from the problem of institutional racism, insisting, "All the right behavior in the world won't create better jobs with more pay," and adding, " ... if the rigidly segregated educational system continues to miserably fail poor blacks by failing to prepare their children for the world of work, then admonitions to 'stay in school' may ring hollow." Reverend Al Sharpton's appraisal of Cosby's remarks was reserved; he agreed with most of Cosby's points, but cautioned, "We also must be careful not to relieve the general community of what they've done to our community." Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings added more critically, "It gives a society which may have racist tendencies at times ... a pass, an excuse, while so many African Americans are working very, very hard." Contrarily, conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly commended Cosby, stating that he was preaching "self-reliance" and that those in contention with Cosby were making "excuses."
Cosby's cognitive dissonance with regard to racism — a more direct and explicit problem during his youth — is rather stunning. His nostalgia over the seeming cultural coherence of his era is unbridled. He adds that African Americans back in his day, "[Knew it was] important to speak English," at least when not hanging out on the street corner. Cosby evokes shame in lackadaisical and imprudent black youth, reminding them of the stalwart blacks of his day who were showered in "rocks" and "firehoses" for such opportunities which their posterity now squandered. Cosby's statements corroborated what much of America wanted to proclaim but was often afraid to.
Black America's dysfunction is often said to result from its imprudent use of a broken moral compass. This explains the misdirection of irresponsible, marijuana-smoking, baby-making, school-quitting (and, according to Bill, pound cake-stealing) black teenagers, as well as criminal, sex-crazed, malingering adult black men (not to mention the tax dollar-embezzling black women for whom conception is a fiscal matter). Antiracist author Tim Wise cites several statistics corroborating the ubiquity of belief in such stereotypes, one documenting that 70 percent of white Americans admit to believing at least one erroneous stereotype about African Americans. But Cosby's publicized corroboration of such attitudes lent an enlivening air of legitimacy. It's one thing for someone white to proclaim such beliefs. But for a famous, respected black man to qualify sentiments ubiquitous in white America was vindicating. White America sighed, praising Cosby — "Finally, one of them's got it figured out!"
Where does mainstream America's perception of a black America in dire need of calibration come from? Is it procured from nightly newscasts? Reality series on VH1 or Black Entertainment Television? Are Americans confusing the subject matter of fictional television shows and movies with real life? Perhaps there is a sounder, empirical basis. Perhaps researchers are bivouacking in housing projects, recording observations of the rough and wild African American habitat. Clearly, there is some sort of intimacy that gives mainstream America license to profess certain and legitimate understanding of just what black America is really like. Whatever the method of research, white America is quite confident in the conclusions it draws from it.
A national survey measuring the prevalence of beliefs in racial stereotypes about African Americans found such attitudes pervasive. The survey asked respondents to assess the degree to which blacks exhibited attributes such as laziness, determination, dependability, work ethic, and discipline. Thirty-one percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that blacks were lazy, 20 percent concurred that they were irresponsible, 50 percent said they were aggressive, and 60 percent believed that blacks were lacking in discipline. Tim Wise's Colorblind cites further statistics attesting to the congruence between Cosby's beliefs and those of Middle America. Believing applicants with black-sounding names (e.g., Shamiqua, Jontavious — Jamal, even) to be less fit for certain jobs, they were less likely to be called back for interviews, qualifications notwithstanding. Additionally, employers were more likely to question the legitimacy of black applicants' qualifications. White homeowners agree with these employers that the presence of impulsive, hell-raising African Americans is undesirable. One in four say that the ideal neighborhood would have none at all.
During the time in which Cosby says black Americans had better-calibrated moral compasses, they underwent some of the most brutal and open forms of racial violence witnessed in history. In 1955, the year Cosby (himself a high school dropout)turned 18, Emmett Till's murderers were infamously acquitted. In the ensuing decade, race riots swept major metropolitan centers all across America, the furious national inferno inspiring burning and bombing in some cities. Governor and perennial presidential candidate George Wallace of Alabama famously declared his intent to eternalize the institution of segregation. Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, decried the Civil Rights Act as an impractical attempt to "legislate morality." All the while, white Americans were unaware anything was wrong in the black community. Despite turbulence and frustration coming to a head in the black community, two-thirds of whites felt blacks were "pushing too hard, too fast" for civil rights.
Gallup polls from 1962 and 1963 indicate that between 66 and 90 percent of whites thought that blacks received equal treatment with regard to opportunities for jobs, schooling, and housing. Needless to say, these sentiments were contradicted by the national conflagration that erupted in response to the question of whether blacks deserved equal rights in America. That such attitudes were pervasive in the early '60s seems preposterous. As for today, we feel we have arrived. We boast of equal opportunity not as an unrealized ideal, but a social norm, and hold any further agitation for rights as unnecessary, perhaps even threatening to the ideal of equality. This time we got it right. Racial prejudice has been erased, a black president has been elected, and Dr. King's dream has at last come to fruition. Racism is a documentary, a history term paper, a museum exhibit. But to speak of racism in a modern context? That's beating a beast slayed long ago.
Except that beast has not been slayed; we know this by our reflection. Racism is not a tired topic — racism is itself tired. The ability to grasp this distinction separates Americans like Bill Cosby (and the millions who, in the wake of his sexual assault scandal, retain the message but not the messenger) from Americans who get that race is a neglected blight on America's moral legacy. The sound research conducted by the Cosby crowd has convinced them that racism lives only in imagination, an extinct Easter Bunny poached by a suddenly race-blind America in the 1960s only to be resurrected by a modern, attention-seeking, race-baiting element.
Americans still look forward to the day when racism exhales its last breath, living only in retrospective contexts. Considering institutional racism's capacious respiration, that day seems far off. In the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, ISIS, oil prices, debt-free college, gun control, and other salient issues found no shortage of room in the books, speeches, and debates of candidates. Institutionalized racism garnered more mention than in previous cycles (thanks largely to Black Lives Matter), but the topic remains, at best, an afterthought and, at worst, a sideshow rather than a national priority. Even during the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, the most mention the subject of race received was in regard to President Obama's ties to controversial pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Incendiary barks again seized media headlines in 2016 as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump eschewed antiquated, Nixon-era dog whistle technology for direct incitement to hatred and violence. Although Obama's path to the White House depended on retreat from fiery rhetoric, Trump's demagoguery may raze that road en route to the rebirth of a nation.
American think tanks, foundations, and NGOs deem conflicts and crises in the Middle East more troubling than the state-sanctioned institutional race war carrying on within our borders, despite the thousands upon thousands of casualties piling up each year. They are not victims of mortar shells, suicide bombings, or the AK-47s of ISIS insurgents, but a negligent health care system, a justice system with no regard for just cause, and a society that is, at best, unmindful of and, at worst, supportive of such disparate trends.
In The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, Professor Glenn C. Loury posits why racism receives little acknowledgment from American policymakers. He writes, "A racial group is stigmatized when it can experience an alarming disparity in some social indicators, and yet that disparity occasion no societal reflection upon the extent to which that circumstance signals something having gone awry in our structures rather than something having gone wrong in theirs." The normality with which society regards black incarceration, indigence, and illness is, to say the least of Loury, evidence of the existence of an intricate, largely unrecognized stigma that afflicts black Americans.
Without a thought, we witness the local newscast starring yet another black criminal and emit a derisive remark and a mere yawn before retiring for the night. While tending to our daily errands, we ride past a line of indigents, speckled white but mostly black, emanating from a downtown soup kitchen, granting a thoughtless glance. Whether viewed on our flat screens, commutes, social media feeds, or even in our imaginations, the black image is the static face of failure. Society has come to regard many of the stereotypes associated with blacks with frightening expectation. Criminality, unemployment, poverty, and mortality form just a few elements of the sociopathological constellation that captures what it means to be black in America today.
"Get Over" What?
Few dispute that chattel slavery was reprehensible. For most, the notion of trafficking humans in the manner of cattle or sheep is unfathomable. Not only do we agree that slavery is objectionable — we regard it as America's greatest sin. President John Adams summed up the sentiments which the provident abolitionists of his day sermoned. Adams said, "Consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness." Like Adams, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that slavery is evil. But it was "back then," part of a shameful past to be remembered, learned from, and never again tolerated upon our soil or anywhere else in the world. This consensus on the evil of America's "peculiar institution" is accompanied by the idea that just as the system is trapped in time — a relic accessible only through diaries and daguerreotypes — so are its symptoms and effects.
Still, somehow a farsightedness exists. Alongside the brutal narratives woven into screenplays for Django Unchained and 12 Years A Slave exists a somehow innocuous, somewhat fanciful Gone with the Wind recollection. Sure — slaves were sometimes beaten when they got out of line or when they attempted to steal themselves in fleeing. Of course it was heartbreaking when families were broken up and separated by frugal and calculating masters, never to see their beloved again. But, still — it's hard to look at Butterfly McQueen's smiling visage and imagine that anything could have been that bad.
Don't we all endure tragedy of some sort? Slavery perhaps doesn't look so bad in comparison to the sort of want and suffering Scarlett and her family endured in the wake of Dixie's defeat. After all, Sherman's March reduced their station to that not so unlike those they held in bondage not long before. Close enough to equality, right? Slavery was unfortunate. But is it truly of the magnitude that African Americans can't get over it? No one today has a "massa" for whom they must suckle children, fiddle, pick cotton, or suffer any other similar indignities. What is there to complain about?
This is the "get over it" argument in a nutshell. Blacks today aren't slaves. Their parents weren't slaves. Their parents' parents weren't slaves. Their parents' parents' parents weren't, either. So what's the big deal?
Though this argument declares itself the progeny of sincere rationality, its lineage can be traced only to utter lunacy. If America had fulfilled the promises of Reconstruction and the country saw rebirth as the egalitarian society abolitionists and freedmen alike envisioned, a euphonic tune would be in order. Instead, a cacophonous, deafening medley blares. There were certain activists — progressive, radical Republicans of the North — who spearheaded efforts to ensure black equality. In Congress, they passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments, promoted the Freedmen's Bureau, and championed the establishment of educational institutions for blacks of all ages. They agitated for black enfranchisement, ushering 17 African Americans into both houses of the United States Congress between 1868 and 1880. With such efforts came the radical implication that blacks might indeed be humans, of character and mettle, among the "men" the U.S. Constitution deemed unalienably equal to one another. This was the original Civil Rights Movement, arriving a century before the one with which we are more familiar.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Last in Line by Jamal Mtshali. Copyright © 2016 Jamal Mtshali. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface,Introduction,
1 "Get Over It",
2 A Model Myth,
3 The Injustice System,
4 Affirmative Inaction,
5 The Miseducation of the ... African American?,
6 The Plexiglas Ceiling,
7 Hooked on Ebonics,
8 Failure to Thrive,
9 A National Salvation,
Conclusion,
Endnotes,