Getting Out of the Neighborhood

Mychal Denzel Smith has an interesting post up on Salon regarding Black folks who get rich chastising "bad" Blacks. Smith contends that this whole concept relies on a myth that the paradigmatic "hood" Black person doesn't want to see his friends succeed -- that Black people will do everything they can to hold other Blacks back. In reality, Smith says, these communities often rally around their rising stars and try to protect them.

I wasn't expecting to like this piece as much as I did. When I hear the Chris Rock line and others like it, I immediately think of the persistent trope from White people about how Black people don't care about themselves and the only time they rouse themselves up is when they can blame White folks for all their problems. And I've always thought that was ridiculous -- listen to the Black community and you'll find plenty of people who are quite invested in an intra-Black conversation regarding what they need to do, themselves, to better their lives and improve their standing. One need not agree with every element of this conversation to recognize that it's happening. It's amusing to me that the White folks most confident that this internal Black conversation isn't happening are usually those least plugged in to what African-Americans talk about amongst themselves. Maybe the reason you haven't heard these talks is because you're not the intended audience (that's the point, isn't it)?

Obviously, from this framework a key element is who one's audience is. There is a significant distinction between a Black speaker urging his compatriots that they need to change their behavior and a Black speaker telling eager White audiences about how shiftless, irressponsible, and diseased Black people are. It's possible that one point of difference between myself and Smith is that despite his cross-over appeal I never saw Rock's primary audience, in that bit, as White people -- I did not feel licensed to draw a distinction between Black people and [n-words].

This, in a sense, is the difference between "respectability politics" and "do for self." The former suggests that if only minorities play nice and behave themselves, prejudice will go away and they'll succeed. "Respectability politics" is oriented to the dominant group. "Do for self" might urge very similar behavioral changes, but it harbors no illusions that these practices will cure bigotry. The reason to do them is "for self" -- to simply be better. It's inward-oriented. Racism exists and will continue to exist, so what do you do in a world where racism is a constant? Perhaps how one views Chris Rock is a function of which conversation you think he's most contributing to. And given his popularity amongst White audiences, I can't deny Smith has a point.

The Ghetto Ghetto?

Ta-Nehisi Coates hits back -- hard -- at the essentialization of folks who hail from the "ghetto".

What I know about "inner city blacks," of those who "act ghetto," is the same as what I lately came to know about about suburban whites, about Puerto-Rican New Yorkers, about Ivy Leauge graduates, about gay conservatives, and Israeli-Americans. That they are all different from us all and from each other, that they deserve to be treated with the same nuance, with the same soft touch, with the same eye for complexity and dimension that you'd want for your own family in friends.

My partner Kenyatta says that one of the things that convinced her to go to Howard was a habit she observed among some of her white friends. She was a smart girl, well-spoken and kind. Sometimes when she'd gotten close to a white girl at her school, the girl would make some casually prejudice remark about black people and then say, "But you're not black." The point being that, despite Kenyatta darkness, what they saw as "black" was everything that she was not. She talks about jhow she initially took this as a compliment, and then she realized the true insidiousness within it--that had they exchanged no words, said white friend would have drawn the same conclusions about her.

In that same spirit, I think people who meet and talk to me, who read this blog don't think of me as "ghetto." But I'm not sure they'd think the same if they saw me at 8 A.M. on Lenox Ave, rocking the black hoodie and grey New Balance, on my way to the Associated. Ghetto, in its most unironic usage, is a word for people you don't know. It's word that allows you to erase individuals and create boxes. It's true that I was different than most of my friends--but most of my friends were different from my friends. All people, at their core, ultimately are.

PostBourgie weighs in as well. Two excellent posts.

Who's Responsible?

I very much like Marc Lamont Hill's post on the question of "responsibility" regarding issues facing the Black (particularly urban) community. Working off Philadelphia's new "10,000 men" program, which trains (mostly Black) young men to enter dangerous neighborhoods and act as "peacemakers", deterring illegal activity, Hill grapples with the strategic benefits and drawbacks of programs preaching such personal responsibility. Of course programs like 10,000 men are beneficial, if for no other reason than that they offer an alternative to the "police state" model of crime prevention in run-down areas -- an approach which has decimated these communities and made entire generations view the police as enemies, rather than protectors. But the rhetoric of such programs -- that with sufficient virtue and work ethic, the Black community can eliminate its problems without any broader social change, is dangerous. Hill argues:

If we’ve learned nothing from the historic Million Man March –where African American men became the first group of people to launch a protest march against themselves– we found out that the government and mainstream Americans will never stop large numbers of Negroes from confessing their collective sins in full public view. The problem is that, instead of inspiring policymakers to support our efforts, such actions reinforce the absurd notion that violence and poverty can be eliminated by embracing a gospel of individual responsibility. In this case, by agreeing to “take back our neighborhoods” we concede the point that we lost them solely due to our own personal failings.

The last time I checked, joblessness and crack had something to do with it too.

Rather than demanding higher wages, better schools, and stricter gun laws, the current plan absolves the government of its responsibility to protect our most vulnerable citizens. For example, even if we are to accept the quixotic idea that ten thousand unarmed civilians can make peace within inner-city war zones, couldn’t we expect even greater results from ten thousand trained officers? Unfortunately, the current initiative makes no such demands from the State.

The obvious solution, and the one Hill advocates, is to do both -- personally work to reduce violence and crime in our own neighborhoods, while also demanding that society at large do its part to remedy the structural forces holding back urban communities: lack of jobs, rundown and inadequate educational facilities, and economic isolation, to name a few. Certainly, personal responsibility is one plank in the bridge that will lead America to a just racial solution -- but a bridge with one plank is not very useful, no matter how solid it may be. A total solution is what's needed, and anybody who tries to look at the problem from a single angle -- be it totally structural, or totally personal, is going to come up short.

Boro Park Shudders

A few days ago, Newt Gingrich spoke out against bilingual education by saying that people should "learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto." Most people assumed he was referring to Spanish, as that is the primary case of bilingual education in America, and controversy ensued.

Now Gingrich has tried to clarify. The statement did not mention or "refer to Spanish." So, what did he mean? Gingrich goes on:

Now, I'll let you pick -- frankly, ghetto, historically had referred as a Jewish reference originally. I did not mention Hispanics, and I certainly do not want anybody who speaks Spanish to think I'm in any way less than respectful of Spanish or any other language spoken by people who come to the United States.

Ah, it's Hebrew that is the language of the ghetto! We better dispatch some red-blooded Americans to integrate Kiryas Joel, pronto. Otherwise they'll never learn the language of prosperity, and Jews will be stuck in their American ghettos for all eternity!