Friday, September 26, 2008
ID cards for "Non-Europeans"
The British government has just launched a plan to begin this fall that would require "non-Europeans" to have an ID card that would as the Independent in London writes, open certain groups of people up to undue harassment and discrimination. While the program is meant to combat illegal immigration, I cannot help but wonder how one determines what a non-European is? Legally, it would be someone from another country or region, like India, the Middle East or the United States of America. But colloquially (as in, regular-guy-on-the-street methods), I wonder how much people might rely on physical characteristics to determine someone's "European status" and how it would affect those who don't "look" British or "sound" British enough.
I wonder how this might compare, if at all, to the Yellow Stars Jewish people were corced to wear during Hitler's reign or the US government's decision to place Japanese-Americans in internment camps, identifying them by numbers instead of last names.
I wonder how, if at all, this will impact civil rights and ethnic relations in the UK. You can read more about the story HERE.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Rise of the White Mammy
If have one more white liberal tell me that as a black person, the system is rigged against me, I am going to lose my mind and join the Republican Party.
(I say white liberal, mainly because white liberals seem to be the only ones who insist on reminding that I am black every effing day of my life, but also because when it is a Latino/black/Asian liberal, people take great pains to say (color) liberal. While some see it as an acknowledgment of one’s ethnic background (although when it is so bland as to say Hispanic voter rather than Mexican/Puerto Rican/Bolivian voter, it doesn’t seem like an acknowledgment so much as a tool to label), I find it to be a qualifier. As if to say, that is not a normal voter. It is a Chinese voter. That said, I am going to use white as a qualifier when it is needed. The minority will be normalized, and the white made alien. It’s only fair.)
In this particular instance, I was chided by my seeming ignorance in believing that it is possible to become something in this country if one actually works at it. Do I think that it is easier for some than others, from the start? Of course. That goes without saying. This country is severely uneven in how minorities, and especially black people start out in this world. Blacks are less likely to have significant generational family wealth than whites. Blacks, though increasing numbers are in university, are more likely to be in low-wage jobs and live in lower income communities. A black middle-class family is more likely to make several thousand dollars less than a white middle class family. But is it impossible for a black person to become a success? No. It’s just a lot harder.
I grew up with two parents, I grew up in a nice neighborhood. I went to good schools. I also paid for my own college education and now have more loans than Limbaugh with his Oxycontin dealer. I also have had my life threatened, I’ve been ridiculed, called racial slurs, been the subject of overt discrimination by professors, by colleagues at work (For all you who think calling the second in command “black girl” or using the n-word makes you cooler, think again. The only reason I didn’t report my boss is because I needed the money to pay back Uncle Sam. And she knew it.). Don’t think that because a person grows up middle class that he/she hasn’t had to go through the same terrible shit as someone with less money. We still are the victims of violence, we still worry that we’ll lose our homes, we still deal with the injustice of being a marked body every day of our lives. You can’t escape being black in America, no matter how much better you are in terms of economics, intelligence or social position. At the end of the day, someone is going to call you “that black guy at my office…” as if it is the only thing about you that matters. So before someone dismisses me because I don’t have the street cred to claim black “authenticity” (as if being poor automatically makes you an authentic black person), you need to remember that just because someone in the black middle class has a relatively good middle class life, it doesn’t mean they exist outside or alongside their color or that they don’t drag along the burden of proof every day they leave for the office.
Today’s main irritation comes from a discussion when someone guffawed (really. Head back, uvula swinging) at the idea that blacks could succeed in “the system.” Rather than nod my head in agreement, I shrank back in horror. For what this person was doing, was refusing to believe that blacks have any agency at all in changing their fate and becoming exceptional, like an Obama, a Condoleeza (doesn’t matter it you like her, that woman is smart and talented.), an Oprah, a Whoopi, a Colin, a Bill. This person was repeating a white liberal bias that in my mind is crippling America (remember now, black is the new white in this essay…): it is the White Mammy syndrome
Just as Mammies took care of slavemaster’s children, now it seems like white liberals have taken the helm, refusing to let blacks believe anything but what the system is telling them. Just as the system told little white children they were better than black people because of their skin color, White Mammies tell blacks that because of the system they are incapable of succeeding, of being smart as everyone else, of having a nice place to live. And they protect us blacks, sheltering us, loving us, caring for us as if we were their own.
But here’s the glitch. As Long as the White Mammy survives, they do own blacks. For blacks will have allowed white liberals to tell them what they cannot do. I do not believe that the road to prosperity is easy for blacks. But I also don’t believe that it is impossible. And having some white liberal tell me that I can’t do it, that I may as well give up and let them provide for me instead of teaching me how to provide for myself, is just as crippling as when the Republicans feel it prudent to cut services and education programs that directly affect blacks’ well being. Let’s stop talking about what the system won’t do in order to protect a people who have been strong enough to weather the worst societal, political, racial storms in this country. Let’s instead start giving people the credit they damn well deserve.
(I say white liberal, mainly because white liberals seem to be the only ones who insist on reminding that I am black every effing day of my life, but also because when it is a Latino/black/Asian liberal, people take great pains to say (color) liberal. While some see it as an acknowledgment of one’s ethnic background (although when it is so bland as to say Hispanic voter rather than Mexican/Puerto Rican/Bolivian voter, it doesn’t seem like an acknowledgment so much as a tool to label), I find it to be a qualifier. As if to say, that is not a normal voter. It is a Chinese voter. That said, I am going to use white as a qualifier when it is needed. The minority will be normalized, and the white made alien. It’s only fair.)
In this particular instance, I was chided by my seeming ignorance in believing that it is possible to become something in this country if one actually works at it. Do I think that it is easier for some than others, from the start? Of course. That goes without saying. This country is severely uneven in how minorities, and especially black people start out in this world. Blacks are less likely to have significant generational family wealth than whites. Blacks, though increasing numbers are in university, are more likely to be in low-wage jobs and live in lower income communities. A black middle-class family is more likely to make several thousand dollars less than a white middle class family. But is it impossible for a black person to become a success? No. It’s just a lot harder.
I grew up with two parents, I grew up in a nice neighborhood. I went to good schools. I also paid for my own college education and now have more loans than Limbaugh with his Oxycontin dealer. I also have had my life threatened, I’ve been ridiculed, called racial slurs, been the subject of overt discrimination by professors, by colleagues at work (For all you who think calling the second in command “black girl” or using the n-word makes you cooler, think again. The only reason I didn’t report my boss is because I needed the money to pay back Uncle Sam. And she knew it.). Don’t think that because a person grows up middle class that he/she hasn’t had to go through the same terrible shit as someone with less money. We still are the victims of violence, we still worry that we’ll lose our homes, we still deal with the injustice of being a marked body every day of our lives. You can’t escape being black in America, no matter how much better you are in terms of economics, intelligence or social position. At the end of the day, someone is going to call you “that black guy at my office…” as if it is the only thing about you that matters. So before someone dismisses me because I don’t have the street cred to claim black “authenticity” (as if being poor automatically makes you an authentic black person), you need to remember that just because someone in the black middle class has a relatively good middle class life, it doesn’t mean they exist outside or alongside their color or that they don’t drag along the burden of proof every day they leave for the office.
Today’s main irritation comes from a discussion when someone guffawed (really. Head back, uvula swinging) at the idea that blacks could succeed in “the system.” Rather than nod my head in agreement, I shrank back in horror. For what this person was doing, was refusing to believe that blacks have any agency at all in changing their fate and becoming exceptional, like an Obama, a Condoleeza (doesn’t matter it you like her, that woman is smart and talented.), an Oprah, a Whoopi, a Colin, a Bill. This person was repeating a white liberal bias that in my mind is crippling America (remember now, black is the new white in this essay…): it is the White Mammy syndrome
Just as Mammies took care of slavemaster’s children, now it seems like white liberals have taken the helm, refusing to let blacks believe anything but what the system is telling them. Just as the system told little white children they were better than black people because of their skin color, White Mammies tell blacks that because of the system they are incapable of succeeding, of being smart as everyone else, of having a nice place to live. And they protect us blacks, sheltering us, loving us, caring for us as if we were their own.
But here’s the glitch. As Long as the White Mammy survives, they do own blacks. For blacks will have allowed white liberals to tell them what they cannot do. I do not believe that the road to prosperity is easy for blacks. But I also don’t believe that it is impossible. And having some white liberal tell me that I can’t do it, that I may as well give up and let them provide for me instead of teaching me how to provide for myself, is just as crippling as when the Republicans feel it prudent to cut services and education programs that directly affect blacks’ well being. Let’s stop talking about what the system won’t do in order to protect a people who have been strong enough to weather the worst societal, political, racial storms in this country. Let’s instead start giving people the credit they damn well deserve.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Do Khat stains come out with baking soda?
So I thought I’d start this blog like all on the ground and running (to riff off of Hillary and Barack) but I got a little waylaid. My grand plans (you know, those ones where you accept an award for best blog EVER from journalists like Dan Rather who never, ever before considered the possibility of a blog being real journalism until they read mine) were totally thrown asunder like Scarlett O’Hara’s quaint notion that the antebellum South was a glorious place to live for black folks when I got a wedding invite.For real? On the weekend of Valentine’s, when there are some of us who are seriously contemplating taking their mother’s advice and just going on the damn colonic retreat ”where you might meet a nice man…” (I’m sorry, any man trying to get a colonic is not a man I am trying to date. What do you bond over? Your mutual affinity for Neosporin plus pain relief?), after yet another year dealing with the same ridiculous men who think that “psst! Yo baby!” Is a passable pick up line and that yes, this time, you might just turn around take them in the alley and pleasure them before the opening hymnal at church.
Forgive me, I am infected with the bitter vitriol of the spinster. Not every single gal is a spinster, but you know one when you see one. It’s the girl who you think is more concerned with focusing on that girl’s boyfriend (b/c no one deserves to be happy when she's not), when she says she’s focusing on her career. The girl who says she just like to spend a night with a good book rather than go out on the town, but you suspect she is more into Harlequin than Bronte. It’s the girl who is so angry at the school mixer that you wonder if maybe she lost her part-time job and got dumped for Tina Turner or Kerri Washington.
I am not one of those girls. But I’m on my way. The sad, acid taste of being left behind once again even though you have real hair (sometimes)/a college degree (or two)/an apartment not in the red light district (depending on which way you’re facing) is overwhelming at times. Like when you realize it’s the 4th night in a row that you’re spending playing scrabble online with strangers. Hell, I may as well stop washing and stop day trading.
But when I am not reeling with the news that yet another of my once-best-friends are getting married, that my mother told my brother that if he knew of a good guy for me even if the guy doesn’t have a job, own anything not related to the Madden video game series or whose teeth is stained by years of khat chewing, to give him my number, I hope this space will be used for something more productive. Like complaining about other people. Only time will tell.
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