[lbo-talk] Acting White

bitch at pulpculture.org bitch at pulpculture.org
Sat Nov 17 01:51:18 PST 2007


At 06:11 PM 11/16/2007, Dwayne Monroe wrote:


>This is a strange question.
>
>
>Strange, because you surely already know that many African Americans are
>tirelessly working to address the relevant issues: some in underfunded,
>municipal social services agencies, others via secular and church
>organized volunteer groups.
>
>Considering the many African American professionals in your life, it's not
>likely you're unaware of groups such as the Phila. founded Concerned Black Men.
>
>
>So, I doubt you're asking a general question about the community-related
>activities of AA professionals.
>
>You must, therefore, be asking a more personal question: what are you
>[Charles and Dwayne] doing to help troubled young people?
>
>Frankly, I don't think you merit an answer.
>
>
>Your own tireless efforts - to argue in bad faith - have put me in an
>equally relentless bad mood.
>
>
>About you.

look, man, you gotta repreSENT. that's the life of black folk, especially black men. all eyes are on you, cause everything you do represents your race. Not just your family, not just you -- but you will always be asked to repreSENT, because you can't just be you in all your uniqueness. You got a people man, and it's up to you to make sure they're repreSENTing too. Y'hear?

Never forget that, Dwayne, never forget.

You didn't forget, didja?

Anyway, sarcasm aside, this is one of the bizarrities of contemporary covert racism: the insistence that you have a race that you have to represent. You 'make it' and go to college, the first in your family, and it's not about you and your family, but about how your represent. You fail, and you're the failure of an entire people. You succeed, and you become the model for your people.

One drop, man, one drop -- and you gotta represent. I read Patricia Rose's study of black women's sexuality a few months ago. It was an astonishingly depressing book in so far as the black women in that book largely have sad, turmoil filled sexual lives and long for intimacy that they often don't get -- which may well also be the life of most women in the US, whatever their race. It was just shudderingly, unspeakably depressing to me to see how unhappy most women were, straight, lesbian, bi. Didn't matter: sex wasn't a joy in their life, not for most of 'em. And I'd say about half of them were from the black white collar, professional managerial strata, so it has little to do with income or social status. Anyway, what stuck out was how many, even the young women from well to do backgrounds, said things like, "I'm not going to become a statistic." or "Look at me, I shoulda been a statistic. But I'm not, I made it without getting pregnant."

For every one, the burden of race in this country was to never be allowed to be a black woman without always and forever more being a black woman representing her people to the world.

I picked this up from my son's best friend and b-ball mentor from back in the 'hood. John is married, with another baby on the way. He's landed a steady job with the city, after years of aspiring to something more -- finish college in environmental design, before that get to college at all, before that b-ball star, etc. He's sees fatherhood, and now working to support his family so his wife doesn't have to work (they tried it for awhile, leaving the kids with family and enduring long commutes as a result).

To him, this is representing. You don't just get a job, have a family, buy a house. Every move you make is measured in terms of representing. He was filled with a real joy at this success, of course: a very proud poppa, very proud that he could do this without having his wife to go to work. White feminist wring their hands over this behavior -- they're throwbacks and her housewifery will be the end of feminism! But what they don't understand is that the decision John, his wife, and his parents and hers are making isn't just one about an individual or family succeeding in life: their success is not their own, but always measured in terms of whether they are moving "the race" forward.

What gets me about the professor's ideas, aside from the usual, is that in order to believe it, you have to hold a less than lefty analysis about the capitalist economic system. Shit, conservatives have a far more realistic understanding of capitalist economics. There aren't decent paying jobs for everyone, so precisely what is going to happen when all the hoodlums turn themselves around and start living white? hmmm? that gonna get them an office job downtown making 65k? Who exactly IS going to do the dishes? Flip the burger? Mop the floor? Trim the hedges? eh?

So Dwayne, keeping on Acting Black, man, keeping Acting Black. Because, no matter how white you act, you're always representing.

"You know how it is, come for the animal porn, stay for the cultural analysis." -- Michael Berube

Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)



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