The greatest impediment to black people in 2014 is the idea that there is an authentic “black-ness”. Barack Obama would never be president if he believed that.
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I was born with certain advantages that other people don’t have. This is what we call privilege now. I just so happen to be black on both sides of my family. So, the current idea is that my skin color is not a privileged position. I can’t argue with that. However, I was never taught this. There’s a point in a black person’s life when he/she is apparently supposed to be taught about the winners and losers in the life game. Some people start on first base or second base. A black person starts outside the fence and the game is already into the sixth inning.
I was probably somewhere in middle school before I realized that I was supposed to be disadvantaged. You see, my parents never told me. They didn’t lie to me and pretend that the world was a colorblind land of equal pay and equal opportunity—nothing like that. My grandmother told me all sorts of stories about being a black woman in Alabama in the 1940s. She told me about being seeing her first ever ice cube; learning that milk came in liquid form as well as the powdered form she knew; her brother going to WWII at age 16 just so his family could afford food. She never told me that she had it easy because she didn’t. She also told me about going to college as a black woman in Alabama in 1945.
She passed that on to my mother who holds a Ph.D. At no point was I allowed to blame anyone for a lack of opportunity. From my grandparents to my parents to me, there have been fewer and fewer hurdles to jump through for black people. However, it seems to me that the number of excuses isn’t declining at a fast enough rate.
Poor grammar is the fastest way for an employer to eliminate an interviewee. By “poor grammar”, I mean grammar that doesn’t adhere to standard American English (I have been informed many times that this is also known as ‘talking white’). Well-meaning linguists and rhetoricians oftentimes call the language of the inner-city “black english”. (Imagine what this says to a black guy who doesn’t speak that way). So, if interviewers prefer candidates who speak standard American English, what is the only sensical response? If you said, “speak standard American English”, then we’re on the same page. If you said “your manner of speaking shouldn’t matter”, then I would like to move from the real world to your marshmallow equality land.
If the gatekeepers to success demand you speak a certain code, then damn it, learn that code.
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So, what is my privilege? I grew up speaking standard American English; that fact has lead to 20+ years of ridicule from black people. I don’t have to code-switch in a classroom or a job interview; the language of power is my native language.
Barack Obama came to be president because black is his skin color and not an action. He talks like a politician, thinks like a politician, shakes hands and kisses babies like a politician.
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Barack Obama, in Dreams From My Father, talks about a particular kind of “survivor’s guilt” that hangs with him as he passes throngs of jobless or underprivileged black men on his way to his law office. I’ve felt the same feelings. It would seem that my middle-class upbringing by educated parents has trumped, in large part, the detriments that black men face. That upbringing has also led me to what many people consider an inauthentic blackness. I’ve been told, mostly by other black people, that I don’t “act black” or “sound black” or that I’m not “black enough”. That’s from people who have bought into a power structure designed to keep me uneducated and unemployed. The power structure is something like “white is power so everything powerful is white.” Therefore, everything that runs counter to that power is black. Standard American English is the language of politicians and CEOs; therefore, it is white English. This pretty much applies to most things.
Barack Obama came to be president because black is his skin color and not an action. He talks like a politician, thinks like a politician, shakes hands and kisses babies like a politician. He didn’t have the insulated luxury of living his life as a color. As a black kid at a predominately white school in Alabama, neither did I. Black isn’t a speech pattern, a vocabulary, a belief structure, a fashion, or even a culture (tons of people will disagree with me on that last point).
What I’m trying to say is that prejudice against black people holds us back even in 2014, in no small part, because we’ve internalized that prejudice. You just have to decide if you’re going to throw your hands up because someone won’t let you in the front or if you’re going to go in through the side. If you want to play the game, you have to learn the rules and wear the uniform.
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Photo—Flickr/ Beth Rankin
One aspect that many people do not regard as privilege is having parents that give a damn. After socioeconomic class, this is probably the most influential privilege, and undoubtedly has the greatest influence on the behavior. I was also the kid whose parents gave a damn, living among a bunch of other kids whose parents didn’t. It’s nauseating to think that so many people (of all demographics) have unfit parents, but that’s the reality. Residing in neighborhoods of pervasive, historical despair certainly doesn’t help with a parent or child’s image or beliefs about one’s capabilities. In such situations, mentorship is… Read more »
As a high school teacher, I can’t agree with you enough. Thank you for saying this.
I agree, good parents convey huge privilege, but mainly because they foster a personal sense of entitlement and self worth that enables a person to act in healthy ways. These things can be created by anyone who dedicates themselves to that end, even if they do not come from privilege. This is the unfortunate part of the post modern ‘privilege’ argument. It generally condemns people to their past by giving them something to blame, instead of helping them construct a better future by giving them something to do.
It’s the old ‘crab bucket’ problem. The reason that you can put crabs in a shallow bucket and they will not escapes is because the minute one of them starts climbing the walls out, the others try to climb over him and pull him back down. The same with people in society. The minute one starts getting above the other members of his group, the others try to pull him/her down. Succeeding from a place of humble origins usually means having to risk being socially excluded by your peers, colleagues and family.
White people don’t use proper english because they are white. In fact many white people don’t use proper english at all, and suffer the same consequences, exclusion from the upper levels of employment and society. Like the black people you are talking about they like to complain about prejudice and oppression, but the truth is that it is more important to them to fit into their social group than it is to get a better job. Also like the black people you are talking about, as well as some people from minority groups, some women, some gay people etc, they… Read more »
First, I would like to commend you on your post, good job!!!. Now I would like to address the “speaking white” issue. I grew up in Harlem, N.Y., and I was raised by a mother who was a bank manager and a father whom worked for the MTA. My brothers, sister and I all attended private schools and we all spoke proper English. We were accused of “speaking white” not because of the proper English but because of the “white accent” we spoke with. We were guilty of it and I didn’t realize the offense until I n a We… Read more »
Not that proper of English, apparently.
Well if you are going to define yourself by the colour of your skin I guess you can’t complain if other people do so too.
I believe it’s largely a class issue. Even in Aust I think it exists, “country” folk here speak with more peculiar accent traits and more slang, and are seen as lower class. Boganism is the extreme of it. Add in swearing and it lowers your percieved class even more.
i agree archy, a class issue. there’s also the notion of ‘school being for sissies’. one reason i think being studious, speaking properly can come to be viewed as sissyish, is when young people venerate coarse-toughness eg 1950s rocknrolling juvenile-delinquent movies,instead of refined-toughness eg the 1960s james bond. 5 july 1952 the argus: American slang had got such a hold on his boys they now regarded correct English as “sissy,” Mr. R. B. Mad- dock, school master, said today. He had taken steps to counteract the influence of American comics and American airmen stationed at a base two miles from… Read more »
I think I love you. This was fantastic.