black men

Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur

alicia — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Before I begin reviewing Ron Christie’s Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur I want to acknowledge my identity politics as they are crucial in my take on this book. First off I will never know what it’s like to be accused of acting white because I am white. Moreover, I am an anti-racist feminist who believes that institutional racism and structural inequalities exist and are held in place by those in power.

Understanding one’s subjectivity is crucial when reading Acting White, given that Christie, a Republican from an affluent family, interweaves his personal reflections into the book alongside a historical analysis of the slur. Furthermore, Christie’s impetus for writing the book stems from his own experiences as an outcast within Black communities and his need to unpack his own perceived marginalization. He opens Acting White with one such example, an anecdote involving Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California who reportedly chastised Christie, then serving as a junior legislative assistant to Craig T. James, a Republican from Florida, for selling out his race and being “nothing but an Uncle Tom!”

Christie traces the implications of the slur of acting white back to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, arguing that a link exists between black men denigrated as Uncle Toms and the notion of acting white. He examines the ideological conflicts between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois as well as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and the election of Barack Obama through the lens of what it means when Black men are accused of acting white or betraying their race. It’s important to note that Christie fails to discuss how being seen as acting white affects women of color and LGBTQ people of color—for what it’s worth, two groups who are also generally absent from or marginalized within the Republican Party and platform.

Overall, Christie blames Black communities for their own socioeconomic marginalization, asserting that Blacks underperform academically because they are afraid to be viewed as acting white—never mind issues of a lack of resources for teachers and/or underfunding within the public school system. In Christie’s opinion, if this racial slur could be dismantled then young working-class Black men and women would feel free to excel in school and would be able to pull themselves up out of their impoverished communities. Acting White makes it sound that simple as Christie repeatedly touts the importance of education, dressing well, and speaking well.

What hinders this goal, according to Christie, is a myriad of factors including Black leaders (he is particularly vocal about his dislike for Jesse Jackson) who point out institutional racism, which he argues sets up African Americans as victims with no agency or self empowerment. Christie also finds fault with legislation such as affirmative action arguing that these policies taint the achievements of African Americans whose hard work and dedication will be viewed with skepticism by racist whites.

Christie even goes as far as to castigate parents who give their children “black-sounding” names, as studies have shown that employers are less likely to hire applicants who do not have white mainstream names on their applications. Rather than calling for an overhaul of the racist system that ignores discrimination, Christie asks why such parents would set their children up for failure in the first place.

Ultimately, Christie preaches respectability in which Black youth (preferably those given white mainstream names) need to ditch hip-hop, dress nice, abandon slang, and hit the books without a fear of being called out for acting white. However, I cannot accept Christie’s arguments that sheer will and determination (alongside a certain dress code) separate the haves from the have-nots. As Melissa Harris Lacewell noted in her keynote address at the 2010 Facing Race Conference, referring to when Henry Louis Gates Jr. (whom Christie admires) was arrested for breaking and entering his own home, “your respectability will not save you when the issue is structural inequality.”

In the end, Acting White should be viewed more as a memoir and less as a treaty on the racial slur given that Christie’s subjectivity and politics color every word on the page—from which historical figures he discusses (why Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois but not Ida B. Wells?) to the rugged individualism he touts as the solution.

Written by: Kristen Lambert, January 10th 2011

The Black Body

admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Edited by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah

Seven Stories Press

Danquah’s literary libation to the Black body consists of a collaboration of folks—Black, White, and both—all of whom seek to convey what it’s like to live in one, be a part of one, and be affected by one. Before opening The Black Body, I already had preconceived notions of how I thought it would read, considering the fact that I have a Black body, myself. I should have known better. It wasn’t necessarily the topics covered that surprised me, but the way in which they were interpreted and the eloquence with which some of the authors conveyed the subject.

Nzingha Clarke’s passage about hands, her father’s in particular, captured the luxury we, as a generation, have in being able to take our hands for granted. The generations of our parents and grandparents were primarily laborers, and only a few were privileged enough to be able to use their hands to write or teach. Their hands were used to pick, wash, and cook. Ours, however, have inherited the choices most of them never got to make. Clarke’s nonchalance for the appearance of her hands is also a luxury in which our grandmothers and great grandmothers took much care, through the use of lotions and oils, to disguise the obligations of their hands. The hands of Clarke’s father finally got to rest when he was put to rest, and Clarke was able to read the book of his life through his hands.

Another passage that came to be one of my favorites was that of Joel Lipman. I may have been wholly offended with anyone else’s attempts to identify with the Black plight. For some reason, Lipman’s poetic account of his youth through sports was creative, witty, and real. In his essay, Lipman states, “Society and race are a fucked up set of twins,” and in reading his contribution is it no clearer. My reason for taking slight offense is Lipman’s use of the term Black Moses to describe Roosevelt Taylor, and in equating him to an animal in some ways. Perhaps I was offended because I am so used to hearing White people equate Black athletes to machines or animals, and this was simply a flashback. Nevertheless, Lipman seemed to be identifying more than describing, and I appreciated that much.

What I took from Danquah’s The Black Body was a subject that touches, creates, and affects the lives that it contacts.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, January 3rd 2010

Black Male Outsider: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:16:00 +0000

By Gary L. Lemons

SUNY Press

In this compelling, readable volume that is part memoir, part classroom case study Dr. Gary L. Lemons employs the theme of moving from silence to voice, and what this means for anti-racist, feminist pedagogy. He eloquently writes about his experiences teaching and learning in majority white classrooms as a pro-feminist, African American man.

Filled with the citations from work that has inspired and supported his pedagogy—such as bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Marlon Riggs, and Patricia Hill Collins, as well as quotes from the many critical autobiographical writings Lemons assigned to his students—Black Male Outsider is a powerful memoir and teaching tool. He offers educators at all levels effective strategies they can adapt to their own classrooms to teach and learn across difference and is one of the most compelling books on this subject to come out in some time.

For thirteen years Lemons was a professor at a small, progressive, liberal arts college in New York City. His book highlights his classroom strategies to challenge students to confront the interrelated forces of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, often through teaching black, feminist literature. He also highlights how he worked to encourage students to come to a deeper understanding of the ways white supremacy has shaped American culture. To further illuminate his path to being a pro-feminist educator, Lemons also delves deeply into his own personal history of growing up in Arkansas and surviving domestic violence perpetrated by his father.

Lemons, whose doctorate is in English literature, is adept with language, and he plays with it throughout the book. Unfortunately, his many italics, parentheses, and quotation marks—while making a strong point about how institutionalized power inhabits the very language we speak—become a distraction from his otherwise clear prose. They threaten to become too cutesy for the depth with which he addresses his subjects.

Fortunately, Lemons and the students whose work he quotes provide powerful examples and testimony of the possibilities teaching across difference offers. He demonstrates how one can find strength in difference that resists a banal, depoliticized celebration of multiculturalism. He also powerfully makes the case that men can and must be feminist advocates and allies.

As Lemons writes in the conclusion, his book "promotes black feminist memoir-writing pedagogy that opposes all forms of domination, and it promotes the critical necessity of one’s movement from silence to voice about the effects of its dehumanization—personally and politically." Lemons bravery in confronting the violence social injustices wreak on society in his teaching and in his writing will serve his readers alike and equip them with knowledge a theoretical framework in which they can formulate their own ideas of how to heal from the wounds of white supremacy in their own lives.

Written by: Eleanor Whitney, April 10th 2009

Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South – An Oral History

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:50:00 +0000

By E. Patrick Johnson

University of North Carolina Press

The African-American community and the gay community have come under scrutiny since the passing of Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in California. Black voters reportedly came out in unprecedented numbers to support the ban, furthering the stereotype of rampant homophobia among the black community.

Northwestern University professor E. Patrick Johnson has compiled an excellent collection of stories and interviews with gay black men from the South in Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. A strength of this book lies in its ability to highlight the relationship between the gay community and the black community as well as the relationship between the gay community and the South.

Johnson has chosen to keep the interviews in the original transcribed versions. This ensures that each narrative is distinctive. The conversations are often lyrical and musical, particularly with the older subjects.

The stories inspire a varied set of emotions and responses—many are heartbreaking, some are infuriating, and there are a few that will leave smiles and chuckles. This text is extremely readable because Johnson steps back and allows for the narrators’ voices to shine through. For the uninitiated, a helpfully glossary of Southern or gay phrases is included.

Oral histories are important in the African-American community. During the days of slavery when it was illegal to teach black people to read, narratives were handed down to generations through oral histories. Johnson links his stories to that tradition by using idiosyncratic voices of his subjects.

The book is organized into different topics, which creates some confusion because the reader has to remember interview subjects who make appearances throughout the book. Topics range from growing up in the South, the "down low", and AIDS/HIV. Most laudable is Johnson’s inclusion of transsexuals and transvestites—a population that often is ignored.

This is an important book because Johnson provides a forum for a topic that is often shrouded in misinformation, cliché, and prejudice. Black gay men have the unfortunate burden of straddling two subcultures that are sometimes at odds with each other. After reading this book, readers will also learn that the South’s reaction to the gay community is more complicated than just "Southerners hate gay people."

Written by: Peter Piatkowski, January 22nd 2009