Subconscious Racism

Subconscious Racism

            In the movie “A Time to Kill”, a black man named Carl Lee Hailey is on trial in a small town in Mississippi for the murder of the two white men who raped his ten year old daughter. A white attorney named Jake Brigance represents him. At one point Hailey explains why he chose Brigance as his attorney.

            “Well you are white and I am black. See Jake, you think just like them, that’s why I picked you; you are one of them don’t you see?...The fact is, you are just like the rest of them. When you look at me, you don’t see a man, you see a black man… It’s how you was raised. Nigger, negro, black, African American, no matter how you see me, you see me different.”

Perhaps that is the essence of race relations today: subconscious racism. Obviously it is not accurate to say that racism doesn’t exist or even to say that voluntary conscious racism does not exist, but the United States has taken strides in the past few decades. The form of racism has dramatically changed but it is not entirely gone. Perhaps it is something as simple and profound as qualifying a person’s being with “black” or “white”. We see each other as different based on nothing more than race. Even if a person does not have a particular bias against black people or think poorly of people of a different race, isn’t just the mire concept of finding a person of color different from us a type of subtle racism? As if being black puts a person in a different category, an impermeable cast. Likewise, does identifying oneself by race only serve to perpetuate this divide or does it create a sense of uniqueness and belonging as if race is one group from which a person could never be expelled.

Is it actually racism to see a person as not just a man but a black man? Why is it that in 2011, this is still a common “problem”? Even just when telling stories, often times people of opposing race are described as that race rather than by their other qualities. (i.e. A white person might say, “I saw Oscar, that tall, black guy in our class, at the Middle Ground today.” But they are unlikely to say, “… James, that tall white boy.”)  Why do we feel the need to qualify a person by their race instead of just seeing them as  a fellow human being?

Made It In America

On the new album Watch the Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye have a song called Made it in America. The song starts off with:

Sweet King Martin

Sweet Queen Coretta

Sweet Brother Malcolm

Sweet Queen Betty

Sweet Mother Mary

Sweet Father Joseph, Sweet Jesus

It is talking about Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta Scott King. Then it is talking about Malcolm X and his wife, Betty Shabazz. The last pair, Mary and Joseph, are obvious icons. These are the ones that helped them make it in America. King And Malcolm represent different aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm being the more extreme of the two. In King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he says that he stands “in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community.” One side includes the black nationalists like Malcolm that have given up on Christianity as an escape. The other side, with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, represents those who still have hope in religion and are more compliant to segregation.

The second verse goes on to say:

I pledge allegiance, uh, to my Grandma

For that banana pudding, our piece of Americana

Our apple pie was supplied through Arm & Hammer

Straight out the kitchen, shh don’t wake Nana!

Built a republic, that still stands

I’m trying to lead a nation, to leave to my little man’s

Or my daughter, so I’m boiling this water

The scales was lopsided, I’m just restoring order

Hold up, here comes grandma, what’s up YaYa?

What’s that smell? Oh I’m just boiling some aqua

No papa, bad Santa

The streets raised me, pardon my bad manners

I got my liberty, chopping grams up

Street justice, I pray God understand us

I pledge allegiance to all the scramblers

This is the Star Spangled Banner

The Grandma reference takes me back to our discussion of Professor McKinney’s gangsta grandmother in class one day. This woman is one of the many grandmothers who would try to keep her kids in check, but there is an obvious drug reference here. Jay-Z is rapping about making crack cocaine in his grandmother’s kitchen in order to “lead a nation” to leave to his children. This piece of America he is obtaining is founded through the drug economy, but he was raised by the streets. The American apple pie is funded by crack cocaine made with Arm & Hammer. He talks about lopsided scales working against him, which is the racial scales of society working against him. The streets have made him into a kind of person that he hopes God understands. This is the America, the Star Spangled Banner, that he is trying to expose that kids on the streets are dealing with. Granted Jay-Z and Kanye have “made it,” so to speak, this verse is clearly a sarcastic criticism of what people turn to for their own American Dream.

I was working in the RAB office one day, and I was looking at the posters we have in there for all the artists we have had play at Rhodes. There is a big poster on the wall for James Cotton, a Grammy award-winning blues artist. The name not only struck me, but also what he is wearing in the picture: a simple shirt, overalls, and a hat. The dress definitely seemed to play into the name Cotton. It made me start thinking about black stereotyping and why musical artists play into them. I just wrote a research paper for my English class on a book called Darktown Strutters by Wesley Brown. It is about a man named Jim Crow who joins a traveling acting group that performs in blackface. While Jim refuses to perform in blackface, one of the actors justifies it by saying that he is able to do it as long as he knows what he is doing. I took that as to mean that as long as he can have control over the way he is acting he can behave that way. I started to think about whether or not this applied to hip hop artists trying to act like a “gangsta.” Do a majority of hip hop artists and rappers actually condone the way they are portrayed, or are they just putting on a face like African Americans who did blackface?

After doing some research on James Cotton, I found out that Cotton is just a nickname from his friends. Cotton was born in 1935, and the nickname is more understandable now that we have studied the kind of era he grew up in. People of Cotton’s generation grew up with Southern names like Cotton and Sonny Boy, who took him in after the death of his parents. People of color in my generation are growing up in a time where they have their own stereotypical nicknames, but it has changed to names like thug and G. Now the way to insult someone is to call him a degrading and offensive name for a woman.

Blues was an outlet for expression of hardship, but what is being made into songs has drastically changed as well. Cotton dealt with the death of his parents and being abandoned by Sonny Boy. Hip hop has become an expression for surviving shootings, drug deals gone wrong, and raunchy times with women. Even if the tough facade of hip hop artists is artificial, there is so much encouragement from white consumers and the industry that I do not seeing it changing any time soon.

Kentucky Church Bans Interracial Marriages

Something that has been a recent topic of conversation and debate is the small church in Kentucky (Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church) that has voted to ban interracial couples from virtually all church activities, except for funerals. I read a few of the articles that covered the story, and I was completely shocked by what I was reading. I was even more surprised to read that it was the church’s pastor who first brought the “issue” to the attention of the parents of the young, white woman who brought her black fiancé to a Sunday morning worship service. Pastors are supposed to be religious leaders to whom church members can turn to for support, encouragement, and teaching – categories in which blatant racial discrimination does not fall. We can hear and see frequently about how far society has come from the days of Jim Crow and segregation, but this situation seems to take a number of steps back to square one.

While the Bible commands Christians to “love one another” on a number of occasions, it seems as though the congregation of this Baptist church are doing just the opposite. While there were only 42 church members that made up the congregation at that time, very few decided to vote when the matter was brought up at what was supposed to be a church-wide congregational meeting. This, to me, was unbelievable – choosing not to vote in something like a presidential election (just for example) is one thing, but choosing not to vote on such a local, personal issue is another game all together. Personally, I find it just as offensive that so many members chose not to vote. In this case, it seems that choosing not to vote simply means that you don’t want to get involved. By not voting against the motion, in effect they voted in favor of the motion, which is just as offensive. Part of the motion stated that the church “does not condone interracial marriage” and that interracial couples “will not be received as members” of the church. However, a portion of the official motion tried to remove the burden of responsibility for discrimination: “The recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but indicated to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve.” I find it laughable that a group of people, especially a group that identifies themselves as good Christians, would try to write off such a motion for racial discrimination as an effort to “promote greater unity among the church body and the community” when, in reality, this sort of regulation ultimately does the opposite.

Fortunately, I found a story on cbsnews.com that reports that the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, after being asked to convene on the issue by the new pastor of Gulnare Free Will Baptist, has declared the ban invalid: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57336390/ky-churchs-ban-on-interracial-couples-voided/

Although it’s been highlighted on a number of news websites, here’s a link to the article I used and quoted from on ABC news: http://abcnews.go.com/US/kentucky-church-bans-interracial-couples/story?id=15065204#.Ttk6YGOBqU8

Firestone Memphis: A Local Example of 1950's Resistance to the Status-Quo

For my final research paper in my Civil Rights in Memphis class, I decided to look at segregation and employee discrimination based on race. A lot of what I found was in line with our Remembering Jim Crow book that we read in class. For my research, I looked at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company that was brought to Memphis in 1937 and left in the 1980’s due to the changing tire industry. When Memphis was the city chosen for the Firestone plant in the 1930’s, city officials proclaimed it as a great hope for the future of Memphis. Headlines and articles in the Commercial Appeal and Memphis Press-Scimitar praised Firestone for bettering the city and surrounding community economically and with the cordial relationships seen among Firestone employees. While the media portrayed Firestone Memphis as a great example of racial harmony and as a community builder, oral interviews and grievances filed by African American workers at the plant presented a different history. In my paper, I went into further detail about racial discrimination seen in the plant, specifically the use of a “dual system of seniority” where black workers were only hired for designated “black jobs”, exclusively being jobs of lower pay and the worst working environments in the factory. This system kept the African American employees perpetually at the bottom and maintained the status-quo. The company interestingly argued after multiple grievances were filed, that they were just following the traditions set by the locality of Memphis and that segregation and discrimination were ok as long as everyone accepted it and it was not a secret system. The year of this case was 1956, 2 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. This resistance of African American workers serves as a local groundswell and implementation of national legislation that was locally disregarded. Eventually, the group of around 30 African American employees at Firestone were able to secretly collecting money among themselves in order to eventually hire a lawyer to sue both the United Rubber Workers and the local and national Firestone Company for maintaining segregation in civil court. The suit filed in the chancery court of Shelby County charged the URW and the Company with conspiring to follow “practice, customs, and arrangements…to deprive them of their rights, job assignments, and employments, which their seniority entitled them to solely because of race and color.” The case was eventually settled out of court and oral interviews of workers note some changes in the Firestone plant beginning in 1957, yet these changes were few and met with great resistance.

This case is especially relevant to our class because of the area where Firestone Memphis was located. The abandoned building is still there at the location that is about a 5 minute drive from Rhodes. The neighborhood referred to as New Chicago surrounds the old Firestone Plant. Since the plant’s departure, the neighborhood, a predominantly African American community, has faced increased crime and poverty. In this case, Firestone served as a symbol of hope, yet within its own walls, practiced a system of segregation and discrimination against its African American workers. Local efforts like the one seen at Firestone often go unnoticed by the master narrative of the Civil Rights Movement.

A great book on this topic is Professor Michael Honey's Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, And The Freedom Struggle.

Interracial Relationships

Recently, one of my close female friends was approached by a fellow male student who bluntly inquired about her involvement in an interracial relationship. I do not want to directly quote, because I was not involved in the situation, though I do want to give you an idea of how it came about. My friend, who is white, was at social event, and she had just talked with the other student for the first time, which is somewhat comical seeing how small Rhodes is. As he offered to make her a drink, he said something along the lines of, ‘So I hear you like black guys.’

Upon hearing this, it initially startled me that someone would be so comfortable in posing such a question. Then I realized how it was personally affecting me, even though I was not involved, because I became angry. But why was I angry? I have never been in an interracial relationship. Was I upset because I felt the statement was racially charged? Possibly, because knowing the male student was also white, it would be likely that I could easily make that assumption.

Having been raised in the Deep South, I have definitely been surrounded by this issue before, and I am aware of a lot of the connotations that come with an interracial relationship, both good and bad. I’ve had the grandparents who still hold their values close with the antebellum period. I also admit to having a ‘mammy’ like figure in my life, who once told me with all the love in the world, ‘Blue birds mate with blue birds, and red birds mate with red birds.’ On the other hand, I am a product of the millennium. The social norms for my generation are completely different, and appropriately, my personal views are too.

Before writing this blog, I decided to do a little research on interracial relationships. I found a lot of information on interracial relationships between not just black and white individuals, but also mixed couples involving Middle Eastern, Asian, and Hispanic descent. However, most of the information was directed towards mixed race relationships involving defined African Americans and Caucasians. As expected, I found interracial relationships were on the rise. According to a study done in 2010 by Pew Research Center, one out of every seven marriages in the U.S. is interracial. Apparently, it is becoming more commonplace and socially acceptable to date outside your own race. The same study did also note that according to their findings, education and location were key variables. [You can find an article summarizing the study here.]

In class we’ve touched on educational disparity between races, both in the past and currently, and I find this variable quite intriguing. From a personal standing, it makes sense that education plays such a big role in interracial relationships. Relationships typically evolve from peer interaction. Thus if a school is predominately one race, it would be understandable that the peer group would be limited in interracial relationships. Similarly, if a school is very racially diverse, the peer group would offer more opportunity for interracial relationships.

In connecting my initial observation to this latter one, the research makes me take Rhodes into consideration. After reading some other blog posts that touch on racial diversity at our school, especially this one, I wondered how much of a role does Rhodes’ diversity play in interracial relationships here. My previously mentioned friend was indeed in a relationship with another black student for quite some time. But, I cannot say that I know of too many other similar relationships on campus. Now this might simply be a fault of my own for not knowing enough of the student body, but it is just an observation.

Still, if my observation is somewhat accurate, what does that say about our school? If I was to apply the research to our campus, would it simply suggest that our lack of diversity contributes to the lack of interracial relationships? Or are there other factors that must be taken into consideration with looking at Rhodes in this perspective? I considered our location, not just the South in general, but Memphis, a city known for its high population of African Americans. To me, it then just seems kind of ironic that Rhodes would have diversity issues.

Lastly, (and I’m sorry this is so long) if the male individual I mentioned initially had any racially charged initiative in his inquiry which is how he came off, what does that mean? What does that say about relationships socially? I know I would not be comfortable in asking people such seemingly personal questions as he did, but I usually shy away from confrontation. Even more so, is it inappropriate to ask a question that clearly is racially driven? Playing devils advocate, if he is just an extremely curious person and is comfortable with approaching people so frankly, should his question be taken more on a pragmatic level? That is, should we be more readily open to discuss topics involving race if we are to eliminate the tension that can accompany those topics?

Thoughts would be much appreciated!

Bloody Sunday-Local Groundswell in Selma, Alabama Remembered

On Wednesday, Civil Rights Leader Bob Mants, who lead the march from Selma to Montgomery protesting for equal voting rights, died of a severe heart attack at age 68. Mants, a member of SNCC, lead the 1965 march across Alabama with U.S. Representative John Lewis of Atlanta, and two members of the SCLC. The four men led an estimated 600 African Americans in a non-violent march where they were faced with the violence of Alabama state troopers who were waiting for the marchers on the other side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Described by Lewis as, “committed and dedicated, a real fighter for civil rights and social justice,” Mants, along with the other marchers courageously marched directly into Alabama state troopers and county sheriff’s deputies, “who brandished clubs, tear gas and cattle prods.” This day would become known as Bloody Sunday due to the great violence faced by the 600 African American marchers on the other side of the bridge.

(http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201112080400/NEWS02/112080324)

As discussed in class, the philosophy of non-violence was so much more than deciding not to use violence when confronted with violence. In the local example of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers faced horrific brutality and maintained the non-violent strategy, “to redeem the soul of America.” Moving away from IàIt to IàThou, these marchers, along with all other practicers of non-violence, were in no way cowards and had the great strength to maintain their philosophy in the face of violence. While the master narrative of Civil Rights tends to downplay the level of violence seen throughout the United States, local examples serve to emphasis that this violence did not elevate out of nowhere—the violence was ever-present. By entering the Deep South, the marchers were bringing down the floor of the status-quo and asserting their voting rights. The marchers were able to use the image portrayed by non-violence, juxtaposing their respectable and dignified behavior to the violent Alabama state troopers with their tear gas and clubs. Five months after this march, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would be passed.

Bob Mants was originally hesitant to give an interview about his experiences throughout the Civil Rights Movement, specifically the Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Eventually he would give a few details, however, most of the account comes from other participants in the march. With the sudden death of 68 year old Mants, a great amount of history dies with him. While the memories of Civil Rights struggles are almost always painful, without recording them, history is lost, especially when the history fills in the holes of the master narrative. Luckily, other marchers, specifically John Lewis have been able to fill us in to the legacy of Bob Mants and how their locally organized groundswell contributed to national opinions and legislation.