In America, Whose Black, Who Gets to Decide and Why do We Care?

Everyone seems to be talking about this Rachel Dolezal woman and I have to admit, I have not been following this story, as I hate all things sensational, this is not news. But since a few people have asked me what I think, I have looked into it, and I have found some commentary related to this story that actually interests me. Like I told my dad, tongue squarely placed in cheek, "I love that America is a place where you can constantly reinvent yourself; be anything you want, even black".

Later I told a friend, who has been accused of thinking he's black, though he is a Frenchman who learned English by watching Spike Lee movies (if I am remembering correctly) and really admires black American culture which I have always respected, "I am of the opinion that race is a social construct and has no basis in anything biological and if someone wants to identify as black I don't really care. I think it just reveals that race and the particular boxes our race puts us in really is really a fraud".

What I like about this article, by Kalli Holloway, is that instead of focusing on one woman, she deconstructs the ways that white privilege, racial theories, purity, respectability politics and history collide in this seemingly bizarre story of a woman transforming herself in a way that defies logic in America: changing her privileged whiteness to maligned blackness. Because as "race-blind" as many white people claim to be, America has very rigid rules about race and who is what and what that means. So that was my question, whose black, who gets to decide, and why do we care so much.

When I was a kid there was a boy who had moved down from DC who frequently told me I was "trying" to be white, as if it was something you could strive for and if you just reached a little bit more. And this year a young white girl of means told me she was blacker than me because I had never heard of the rapper she had mentioned. Racecraft puts us in boxes and when you are the oppressed that box can feel very small, almost suffocating; creating the illusion that race is real. When I was younger, I frequently felt like I wasn't doing black right, which conflicted with the person I was trying and wanted to be.

I have written before that there is, in my opinion, this erroneous idea that black people don't value education. Perhaps kids made fun of me for being a nerd, which happens in most communities, but not a single black adult ever chastised me for doing well in school, I cannot think of a single time. Even amongst the black boys, there was one or two. And I find it hard to imagine that kid's parents would be encouraging me and giving a different message to their own kids, "you better not come through this door with B's, ooh and if I even see one A I'ma tear up that behind". I'm just not buying it. There are far too many other structural factors that do a far better job of explaining educational attainment. In short, black kids are not failing school, school is failing black kids, period.

But it comforts a lot of Americans to believe this stereotype, and black people are not immune to these racist messages, some will come to believe them, and will vigorously reject those who disprove the stereotypes as I would have, and if I am being honest, still eschew those who fit them. And for the majority culture it is a convenient tool to reinforce racialized thinking. Place all the blame on an oppressed minority, and relieve society of any responsibility to tackle the issues that plague these communities. Though it is no surprise that many would get it wrong, many white people do not understand the black people in their midst (their one black friend), let alone black people quarantined in America's ghettos.  

In the end, however, race is an identity, one of many, which happens to be of the utmost importance in America; the lines are clearly drawn and must be maintained. No other category has been so legislated, debated, at once overly examined and ignored. It is not that I have darker skin, I have the same skin no matter where I am in the world, but that in America there are any number of assumptions and expectations that are attached. Because I have learned, after a decade abroad, race needs water to thrive, and that water is racism. If you have no intention of treating people differently, bestowing privileges on one and injustices on another, then you do not need race. If there is no societal need to justify why some groups are at the bottom and another at the top, then you do not need race.

When I was living in Senegal, though I was still aware of my blackness, I did grow up in America, it was less acute. It was refreshing to just blend in, no one gives you a second glance in the street, no one notices you standing in line at the bank, no one doubts your intelligence, or your right to be in privileged spaces. I definitely noticed the difference in treatment when I was with white friends and the attention, sometimes negative, they would attract. Though it is substantially different to what black people in America experience, it could be very unsettling, and they no doubt truly discovered their whiteness. There are also accounts of Africans who discovered their blackness once they arrive in America. For many Americans this would be a strange concept but an interesting perspective which Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains best here.  

Because the reality is, when everyone you see is black, then no one is black. When the worst student is black and the best student is black, when the police officer is black and the thief is black, when the beggar is black and the president is black, then black loses its meaning. When race is not the way by which a society decides who gets heavy policing and who gets respect, who gets crammed into ghettos and who gets spacious suburbs, or whose drug crimes result in prison sentences and whose result in rehab, then you do not need race.

There was a time in United States when to be Polish, Italian, Irish or Jewish meant you suffered horrible discrimination, these were distinct groups and the United States kept special crime statistics on these groups. They were refused employment, were trapped in tenements and disproportionately undereducated and involved in crime, and with varying degree of English proficiency. The results are predictable, this is what happens when you marginalize any group. But when the US stopped discriminating against these groups, built them suburbs and great schools, offered free and subsidized higher education, allowed them to be white, these ethnic origins became interesting historical footnotes and not an oppressive identity that one is forced to assume and that results in diminished opportunities. At the same time that these groups were coalescing into one identity the continent their grandparents had come from were still fighting through their ethnic and religious hatreds through two World Wars.     

Yet, we cannot make any progress in ridding ourselves of the idea of race as we were able to do with national origins and ethnicity. Most black people will tell you that no matter how educated you are or how high you rise, you will experience racism, you can never graduate from black. Class privilege can go a long way in shielding us from the worst effects of racism, but never all of them. It takes one cop acting stupidly and arresting a man in his own home, or driving too nice of a car, or forgetting to wear your suit and tie when you go out for a run, to remind you of this fact. Black is still imbued with so many stereotypes that are so hard to shake that not fulfilling them does not negate them, it almost in a way negates you. It makes you not really black, or not like other black people, or apparently invisible typified by the line "I don't see or think of you as black". But since I highly doubt these people see me as white, I must then be invisible. All these mental gymnastics that people perform to maintain their belief that race is real and natural. But all these contradictions makes sense, because in America our notions surrounding race have different origins and therefore consequences than any notion we have of ethnicity.

The modern white/black dichotomy only came into existence in the 1600s with the rise of the Atlantic slave trade and a need to determine who could and could not be enslaved; whose bodies could and could not reproduce slavery. Ideas surrounding inherent intelligence, strength and virtue based on race was necessary to justify the inhumane institution that was slavery, and this thinking is so entrenched that to this very day many white people honestly believe that black people have a higher threshold for pain than white people and that we are less intelligent and more prone to violence; this is the master's justification for slavery and whippings. The disparities between the two groups, which are a result of racism, only serves to reinforce these ideas and convince us all that race is real and natural. 

Another reason race is so powerful is that as groups assimilate in America they inevitably adopt the majority cultures racist attitudes and insist on maintaining the racial hierarchies they are now benefiting from. Bill O'Reilly is the personification of this type of behavior. Descendent from Irish immigrants who probably suffered horrible mistreatment when they arrived in America, however, he grew up in an all-white suburb built after the war for the children of these immigrants, and grew up to have a popular TV show where he dedicates a lot of airtime to disparaging and peddling the worst stereotypes about black people. The same stereotypes that were staples in America and Britain about the Irish. Rich.  

But the last reasons I believe race is so hard to undo in America is that troubled societies need scapegoats and black America serves this purpose well. There are a lot of issues that plague America that frequently get recast as issues in the black community, that then conveniently do not require any coordinated action and does a disservice to all Americans. Anything that is considered bad can be squarely placed on the shoulders of black people. America has a teen pregnancy problem, a drug problem, an obesity problem, a criminality problem, a gun violence problem, a failing schools problem, a poverty problem but these issues tend to be labeled black problems in America, whereas outside the US they are more soberly viewed as American problems. This has gone so far that now that most people consider racism to be a bad thing, many white people surveyed think that black people are more racist than white people and that white people are the biggest victims of racism in America. You can learn more here.

My fear is that this whole debacle will be another sideshow and America will not take the time to question its assumptions, to question the deeper whys of this and other stories on race. America will do what is always does and talk about race and not about racism. Whatever Rachel's reasons for wanting to be black, black people have known for a long time that people who would have been considered black but had lighter skin would pass for white, some people, in my own family refused to do so, even though people told them they could. Because as this article states, "a key part of our history of passing for white is that it could get you killed; it was a very high-risk, high-yield investment. Playing at being white, gaming the system to take advantage of privilege that was meant to be off limits to you, was tremendously dangerous".  

The fact is, as dangerous as it was, in a racist country it makes sense to try and game the system, the perception of being white pays off big time. The fact that Rachel seems crazy to most people is because we cannot conceive of the benefits of playing at being black, there is no significant return. Therein lies the real issue, her performance gave lie to post-racial America and that is what we should be talking about. She seems crazy for wanting to be black in America because we all intuitively and for some of us obviously, know that it is better to be white than black in America, that is true to this day even if some want to pretend that is not the reality. So knowing what we know now, or should have known already, about race and how destructive and fictional racialized thinking is, why is race still so important to us, who gets to police the color line and why do we insist that people stay in their lane. Who benefits from all this maneuvering?

http://www.alternet.org/why-it-was-so-easy-rachel-dolezal-slip-black-skin