Pour A Libation On The Ground Today (The Day That W.E.B. Du Bois Was Born)

"High in the tower, where I sit above the loud complaining of the human sea, I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk. Of them, I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their language...I see these souls undressed and from the back and side. I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts, and they know I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious! They deny me my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word to them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach and strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at rags and facts and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my tired eyes and I see them every one stripped --ugly, human." (1903)

"It is a peculiar sensation...this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." (1903)

"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." (1903)

"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression." (1909)

"By the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight the forces of hell in our own land." (1919)

"And what of Black women?...I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought it's fineness up through so devilish a fire." (1924)

"Drunk with power, we (the U.S.) are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human slavery, which once ruined us, to a third world war, which will ruin the world." (1949)

"Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life." (1957)

"In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but a nigger." (1959, in China, before moving in exile to Ghana and accepting Ghanian citizenship)

--William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
sociologist, writer, activist for social change
(2/23/1868 - 8/27/1963)

Rest in peace.
We hear.
We fight.

You Want To Destroy A Black Person?

"You've heard the joke," she said to me after wiping the tears from her cheeks. "If you want to destroy a Black person, just leave him in a room with another Black person."

I hadn't heard that particular "joke," but I have often heard an African-American person speak of crabs in a barrel and how when one has almost broken free, the others will pull it back inside.

She had gotten the second highest grade in the class--what ended up amounting to even more than a perfect score once the extra credit points were added in--and then she admitted it when someone in the class cracked a joke about who it could be.

When a person has been out of school for a while and comes back, they very often find that suddenly (and somewhat unexpectedly) they are at the top of their academic game. No matter how well they did--or did not do--before, now, they fairly dazzle themselves with their own performance. It's quite a moment, really. I know, because I had the experience. One minute, I was paralyzed with terror over the whole prospect of "going back to school," my best friend holding my shaking hand and pledging to help me in any way I needed her to so that I could make it. And the next minute, I was already in grad school, having cleared my Bachelor's degree in a calendar year! Who knew?

Anyway, it's very exciting. And reassuring. Damn! Here I thought maybe I was too dumb to walk and chew gum simultaneously and, then, in what felt like a heartbeat, I realized that I hadn't begun to understand what was just waiting patiently to be unleashed. It's like the sun coming up and suddenly, all those shadows disappear and we're dancing for sheer joy. And it most definitely is not about anything or anybody but us.

So we might blurt out in a moment of celebration, "I'm the one! I killed the curve! Is that the bomb or what?" Not unlike how we might feel if our kid wins a race or our mutt dog does a particularly clever stunt we didn't teach it. We're so amazed ourselves that we can't immediately conceive of it having anything to do with effort or even ego. We're simply delighted.

But drawing this type of attention, of course, is like going out in hunting season wearing a deer suit, joy notwithstanding. It'll only ever happen to an individual once, I assure you.

In this case, however, the Curve-Killer was an African-American and the one she apparently most offended was, as well. Thus, the telling of the "joke." And the beginning, for me, of a week of thinking about it. Because even though this exact same thing could have happened to any returning student--male or female, Black or White, rich or poor--when it happened to this particular student, it became about "race." That's how it is in the United States: one way or the other, if you're African-American, everything is about race.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that it's perceived as being about race. I'm saying it's about race. Because White people can have a whole list of other characteristics as individuals, but African-Americans are first, foremost, and even with each other, primarily "Black." That's the way the European-American power structure set it up back in the 1700's to reduce Africans to one big amorphous body of labor. Cut them off from their respective traditions, from their languages and their religions, from their names and their peoples, and eventually even from each other. So that two hundred years later, two students of color--both bright, both unquestionably capable of being anything they have an opportunity to be--will find themselves unable to be allies. Now, whose best interest is that in?

Movin' On Up

It amazes me that African-American people, particularly African-American young people will have anything to do with a person that looks like me at all. That people of color honor me with candid observations about the socially-constructed political notion of "race" leaves me humbled (under the circumstances of life in an institutionally oppressive society) beyond anything I could adequately express. But they do. Knowing that I'm going to tell all. And maybe that's partly why they do it. Sort of like leaking secrets to a trusted member of the media because the public, after all, needs to know.

European-Americans, typically, don't really want to know the answers to the questions they wave in the faces of African-Americans. I say "wave in the faces" because the White folks in question aren't really asking anything. They're just setting up what they imagine is going to be the slam-dunk. "Now, I know things aren't the way they should be in America racially, but aren't things really getting better?" they'll challenge, ready to follow up with an account of their personal experience with having once lost out on a job for which they are absolutely certain they were the best qualified.

Sometimes, they don't even ask a question. They just make a flat statement like, "The problem in the Black community..." (because every White person has a canned answer for this at the ready at all times--especially when around Black folks. One can only imagine what one would learn if one went around asking people of color to expound on the problem in the White community.) "The problem in the Black community," Whitey will continue, "is the absence of the father-figure in the home." Completely ignoring the fact that African-American men in the U.S. are four times more likely to be unemployed at every educational level than European-American men. Which then parlays into them being seven times more likely to go to jail, having retreated into crime or drug use in desperation, assuming that they actually had to do anything to get arrested.

Anyway, I was recently involved in one of these discussions I get to be a part of where I am allowed to ask real questions because I am seeking real answers and they know I wouldn't ask if I thought I knew.

"Why do some of the Black guys on campus," I asked on this particular occasion, "wear their pants hanging low on their hips as if they were on a street corner in the hood or rap stars or something?" It seemed to me, I went on, that this has to be uncomfortable on some level. I mean, I've observed guys who walk funny because they're trying to hold up their pants without grabbing them ("Look, Ma, no hands"?). I've seen them surreptiously holding onto the slipping garments with their wrist or the side of their hand without actually using a firm grip. And I've seen them needing to run and being forced to just go ahead and take hold so they don't wind up stepping out of them or, worse, having them fall down and trip the usually otherwise infinitely "cool" wearer. "It's got to be a nuisance," I said without judgment since they're not by a long shot making the most outside-the-box fashion statement on the campus on any given day, given the punk rockers, for one example.

"They're obviously upwardly mobile," I concluded. "They're on the campus. They're committed to the process of education as an opportunity to move into different circles. And they're making it. So what's the deal? Why are they still hanging onto their pants...er...their past?"

"Because they know this is it," came the reply from a young African-American male student who's already started his own business in the music entertainment industry and whose pants do not hang low, at least on this occasion. "Because they know that soon enough they will not be allowed to express their Blackness in public, so they're taking this last opportunity to do it now."

Word.

And The Winner Is...

When I was first asked to be one of the judges for an African-American beauty pageant on my campus by a Black woman student I greatly respect and who, apparently, greatly respects me, I felt so honored that, for a minute, I thought maybe I could do it. I started tripping on what I could wear that would be special enough for such an important occasion and then, right in the middle of my fun, I realized that I had to tell her no. And this is why:

Historically, African-American women's physical beauty has been judged and found wanting by a European-American standard, power structure, socialization system, entertainment industry (including pageants, etc.), and mass public. Even to this moment, the socially-constructed, political notion of race is routinely combined with a designation of womanhood to summarily slam-dunk every fine, capable, and attractive woman of color through the hoop of U.S. culture. Halle Berry and a number of other stunning and talented Black women have won in the face of all odds--as individuals--but the standard against which they have been forced to compete has not changed.

Consequently, African-American women have always been left to deal with taking up the slack for the rest of the culture by "sucking it up"--pretending that it doesn't matter, pretending that they don't notice or care, trying to rise above it all anyway no matter how bad it feels, being so affected by internalized oppression that even when they feel beautiful, the negative, painful past and present still nags at them continually, especially since the society just keeps doing what it has always done, in any case.

Because of this context, despite the fact that we would hope eventually to see this change (soon, please let it be soon), I had to say no to the request, though I would have loved to have gotten to be a part of the festivities.

History doesn't prevent me from doing it. It just compels me to believe that until more water passes under the bridge, that seat should be held by a beautiful African-American woman. While I may be beautiful (I'm smiling here), and while I may have some heritage to which I could point (so many of those who look like me do), my heart, out of respect for the suffering of African-American women since the first boat hit the shore, won't let me judge them.

Coretta's Work

Coretta Scott King died this week, and I guess I feel the need to say a few words over the body. To pay my respects, as it were. To nod in the direction of a fallen warrior. To pour a libation on the ground of a country soaked in her husband's blood.

Articles have sprouted up like mushrooms after a heavy rain, but they mostly talk about how she rose stalwart from the blow of 'his' death and how she carried on 'his' work. Little about how a pretty young Alabama native got talked into marriage by a glib-tongued young minister that she saw as too young and too short at their first meeting in Boston when they were both students in 1952. Two years younger than she was, he was only 5' 6-1/2", after all, but she was (pretty or not) already twenty-five years old, and having picked cotton and worked as a waitress before, Coretta Scott wasn't looking to die an old maid. Nor to live on peanut butter and crackers the way she had during her first year at Boston Conservatory of Music after she earned her B.A. at Antioch, following her sister, the first African-American full-time student at that institution.

Besides, once he had made his decision, he must have been something, making his case. He was a helluva case-maker, as we all came to know eventually. She was the one, he told her. And she listened.

I doubt that, at that point, he was thinking about being a hero. Or going to India. Or leading a movement. Or being shot to death at 39 and winding up with his own holiday and his face on a stamp. I doubt that at that point either one of them could imagine the struggles they would face--both political and personal. Though, if every man in the U.S. who ever cheated on his wife--or for that matter, if every minister who cheated on his wife, was investigated by the F.B.I. and the results published in the national news, there wouldn't be enough newsprint in the country to hold it all. And then, of course, there was the matter of how 'he' incorporated others' writing into his work, being so much more widely read than the average person that, sometimes, he may not even have remembered he was doing it. 'He' didn't have to deal with that, but she did.

And she did. Carrying herself with resolution and great dignity to play a historical role she could not possibly have wanted, but having it thrust upon her, simply rising to the challenge and accepting it. Like she had accepted the sack to hold the cotton. Like she had accepted having to student teach on the Antioch campus because the parents at the local schools didn't want a Black woman in contact with their children. Like she had accepted having her first real home bombed when she was only 29 with a year-old baby. Like she had accepted the request to lead a crowd of 50,000 people through the streets of Memphis four days after her husband--and the father of her four children--had been shot in the head.

'He'--Martin Luther King, Jr.--was, for all his human frailty, one of a handful of leaders who have walked to their death to illumine the path to freedom. But 'she'--Coretta Scott King--was the one who, like women in history have often been left to do, fulfilled her work quietly, bravely, and even doggedly at times, but with the finesse that only the great--and the pure at heart--are able to exhibit.

Is "Almost White" And "Not Really White" The Same?

The other day, I was discussing the socially-constructed, political notion of "race" with a couple of African-American friends and one of them was talking about how he used to play with a little White boy who came from a very racist family that lived nearby. Now, there were apparently lots of kids in the neighborhood and lots of the kids were Black, but this little White boy would only play with my friend (I'll call him "K"). K tried to get the boy to play with some other kids, too, but he refused, finally explaining to K that he "wasn't like the others," that K was "almost White." I asked K what he had thought of that at the time and he said that he was so young, he wasn't sure what the boy meant.

Then, this morning, I heard a story about an African-American dentist back in the day who, because he practiced dentistry in a correctional institution, actually wound up with KKK members coming to him for his services in his private practice. I guess the "good ole boys" got used to him while they were locked up or something and just continued to see him when they got out. But what fascinated me was the thought of these rabidly racist guys--KKK members not being the kind of folks that are wishy-wishy on the topic of race--letting a Black man put his fingers in their mouths. Even to fix their teeth.

Eventually, the way the story went, the KKK members finally came to their senses and took the dentist out in the country for one of those beatings the Klan is so famous for. Now, that, I understood. It was the part about them choosing to go to his office and lay back in the chair, completely vulnerable, while an African-American with his face about six or eight inches from theirs reached into their mouths and pushed their tongue aside that I couldn't get my brain around. I mean, come on now, people of the Klan mentality still think Black folks ought to go back to Africa, stay at home after dark, or even step off the sidewalk when a White person passes.

When I expressed my amazement, I didn't get the feeling that the young man who had told me the story fully understood why the matter intrigued me so much. I mused aloud a few moments on how the dentist's White patients (at least before they tried to fix it so that he couldn't practice any more) probably told each other that he was "okay" or that he wasn't "like the others." In short, that he was "almost White." As it were.

As I reconsider these two separate tales, I'm reminded of the time in my mid-twenties when I was first introduced as being "not really White." It was a peculiar moment. It was in an old rooming house in a Black neighborhood in San Francisco, where I'd gone to visit a European-American artist I'd met who couldn't afford to live anywhere else, I imagine, and besides was known for sending strong messages about race with his work.

Anyway, we were in the middle of a conversation when a couple of Black guys burst into the room and then stopped short in consternation, obviously unsettled by my presence. The artist introduced me to them by name, but they were unconvinced that I should be accepted. This was back when the Black Panthers had a store-front in Oakland, you must remember, and White people were suspect, no matter who they were with.

Finally, with a laugh, he said, "She's not really White." And for some reason, I felt good about him saying that, though I didn't begin to understand yet fully what it meant.

Decades later, these stories are all filed in the same folder in my head under the term "racial identity." Racial identity--the single most important characteristic in U.S. culture--is supposed to be biological. Still, Black people can "pass for" White. White people, if they don't know everything about their family backgrounds, can be Black and not know it. But depending on who's talking and what the context is, a Black kid can be "almost White." Or a woman who looks like me can be "not really White." Or a Black dentist can be paid to get close enough to a Klansman to kiss him--without, at least immediately, repercussions. Which is why I call it "the socially-constructed, political notion of 'race'." And why--though I can be fascinated--I'm never surprised.

At What Point Does The Perpetrator Have To Stop Doing Things For Which They Will Need To Be Forgiven?

I got a reminder this morning that Bishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel Peace Prize winner will speak (for free) at the university tonight. His topic: "No Future Without Forgiveness." Now, I'm sure that there's probably a way to spin that ball to include how European-Americans will need to "forgive" people of color for reminding them of how brutal and unapologetic they and their culture has been historically and today--or something.

And I know that the cold fact is that no matter how pain-wracked one's past may be, one must at some point find a way to release the rage or one cannot move on, whether the tormentor ever gets it or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I can't help but wonder how come we can afford to bring someone of the good Bishop's magnitude to deliver his message, but we wouldn't see, say, Andrew Sung Park, the Korean who wrote The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and The Christian Doctrine of Sin. Sung suggests (quite eloquently) that there can be no complete healing on either side until the one that did the damage not only admits it and apologizes and ceases the "sin", but--oh-my-gosh!--does some things to make up for the wrongs they committed.

But then, I don't guess too many would show up to hear what Sung had to say, huh? So we shell out the money and bring Desmond Tutu and tell ourselves we're doing something about oppression against people of color (I mean, he's Black, for goodness' sake--doesn't that prove something?!) And we keep that focus on what African-Americans must do to make things better--just like we always have. Even back when it was Mammy comforting the Missus or little slave whipping boys giving Massuh a way to deal with his uncomfortable feelings. Why am I not surprised?

Movie Night (or How African-American Basketball Players Got Their Size Thirteens In The Door)

I know zip about sports. And, what's harder for some people to understand: I really couldn't care less. I mean, overall, I don't know who's playing. And, for the most part, I don't know which teams play which sports. I don't even know exactly when Super Bowl Sunday is, in spite of the fact that I know it's right around the corner...sometime.

But there are crystal moments in sports history you just gotta love. Like when the two African-American track stars bowed their heads and raised their fists after they won the Olympics that time--while the national anthem played, for goodness' sake. And the time last year when the woman soccer player lost her head after an amazing triumph of some kind and whipped off her shirt in athletic jubilation, to the delighted shock of the fans and a whole bunch of other viewers who got to see it later (over and over and over).

A movie released last week-end tells the story of another one of those moments--the night back in 1966 when a European-American basketball coach from Texas Western (a school nobody had ever heard of) started five Black players in the NCAA national championship play-offs against University of Kentucky, a team touted as four-time champions under the legendary Adolph Rupp. This was just not done. And when Texas Western left the floor victorious, basketball in the United States had been changed for all time.

Now, you know I had to see this movie. Fast pace, great music, underdogs winning against all odds, and let's not ignore that I hurried out immediately to watch "Hustle and Flow" and saw "Crash" twice the week it came out. So, of course, I knew from the preview that I'd be there the opening week-end. And, yeah--I loved it. Walked out smiling. Glad I'd spent the money. Glad to know the story. (I sure didn't know it before I saw the movie.)

But it intrigued me enough to make me check it out a little more after the fact. One thing I learned was that Texas Western (which became University of Texas at El Paso the year after the historic win) was the first college in a southern state to racially integrate its athletic teams and that was before the arrival of Coach Don Haskins. So there were already three African-American players on the team when he got there, though he rapidly added more. And today, the student population at UTEP is 70% Chicano, which is probably a function of their location, but it still makes a point, I think.

Another thing I found interesting was that Haskins cut his basketball teeth playing one-on-one with an African-American friend, Herman Carr. Apparently, Haskins was disappointed when some scenes depicting their relationship wound up on the cutting room floor because Carr was at the movie's premiere.

The bottom line for me, I guess, is that this story portrays a truth I like to consider: European-Americans who learn to respect people of color can be instrumental in pushing the envelope when it comes to social change related to the socially-constructed political notion of "race." Additionally, social institutions (like schools) that are even a little less committed to White privilege than the average quickly become fertile ground for that social change to occur. And people of color are always, repeat, always, repeat, always ready at a moment's notice to rise to that occasion when given half a chance--no matter what kind of nightmare they have to walk through to do it.

Despite the fact that Haskins only had four losing seasons in his 38 years coaching at UTEP and wound up ultimately in the basketball hall of fame, he was never able to repeat what happened back there in 1966. But that's because the first time can only happen once.

The Curtain Rises And A Solitary Figure Walks To The Front Of The Stage

When I wrote the end of last September that I was going to start blogging only on the topic of what I call the "socially-constructed, political notion of 'race'," I really thought I meant a few days later. Apparently, I meant three months later. Regardless, I hope to have a book on race (the story of my life, actually) published this year. Then, I'd like to travel around and tell people what I've got on my mind. But in the meantime, while I work on a couple more books and teach and live my life and all, I'll do this, too.

I did my first piece of research on race in 1963 (I was sixteen) on racial discrimination in the area in which I lived with my college-educated, white-bred (pun intended) parents and four younger brothers and sisters. Years in the prison abolition movement, years on welfare, and years in college and grad school later, I am still learning about "race." And talking about it. Loudly. And writing about it. Passionately.

I hope you're not horrified. I'm pretty straight-forward, in general, and absolutely shocking to some folks when I'm communicating about institutionalized oppression against people of color and, most particularly, African-Americans. Most bloggers write: if you don't like what I write, don't read it. But you're not gonna read that here. I hope you're not horrified because I hope you have a clue and you'll be willing to admit it and maybe we can finally make some progress before it's too late. (Yeah. I think there's every possibility that we're already on the downhill slope with our brakes locked as a society and that race is the oil on the pavement.)

But, if you are horrified, don't freak out. Just read it. Then ask yourself, "What if she's right?" Because, dear reader, I am. I'm not here to bury you with statistics. I could, but I won't because people that do that much better than me are already doing it and too many people that need to aren't listening anyway.

No, I'm here to just point out the sights as we careen through our national evolution. I know you can't wake up somebody who's pretending to be asleep. So those of you who choose to snore may continue to do so. But I'm not alone in what I know. So don't think my perspectives are a "personal problem." If you're scared, holler "red rock." And if you believe that there's still hope for us as a nation, then clap your hands. But if you still want to ignore reality, just remember that the ball's still the ball, no matter what kind of spin somebody tries to put on it. And that'll be me you hear in the background, mumbling to myself, "Why am I not surprised?"

Old Stuff in the New Year

So somebody has been vandalizing cars in the driveway of an African-American family across the bay from where I live for four months now. Eggs thrown, sugar in the gas tank, paint thrown, and now--as if the message had somehow been missed--spray-painting "KKK" and "nigger" down the side of a late model car in front of the home of the only Black family in this "upscale" neighborhood. And the next door neighbor still says she "can't imagine someone doing this." Really.

The television newscaster called it the "N-word." We're SO sensitive about not saying the term out loud (me included). But the behavior still continues and some European-Americans can't imagine why. I've finally started asking myself and other people--especially "White" people--why maintain a pretense of respect by not saying the word if we're not going to adequately attack the underlying values that produce such behavior as writing the word on a car? Just because European-Americans don't all vandalize cars doesn't mean that institutionalized racism hasn't remained an inherent part of our socialization from the past right into the present.

African-Americans (and other people of color, as a matter of fact) don't need their cars spray-painted with ugly words to experience the manifestations of White-held power and White privilege and White disrespect in their daily lives. Ask them. And then believe what they tell you for a change. Until we change our world view in the United States and the value system based on it, delicately using language isn't going to fix anything. How about getting real for a hot minute?

Can we say the O-word? (You know: "Oppression".)