‘Black-ish’ and blue
29th September 2014 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
So there’s this new show on TV called “Black-ish” which pokes fun at the issue of racial identity. The sitcom, which premiered last week, stars Anthony Anderson, Laurence Fishburne and Tracee Ellis Ross and delves deeply into the question of what constitutes Blackness.
While dialogue about race is a commendable goal, it is one fraught with peril.
Contrary to what some people might believe, a sitcom isn’t always the best place to educate people about complex social and cultural issues. However good your intentions, 23 minutes a week about gender discrimination, classism or bias against Jewish Americans is inadequate.
Producers of the critically acclaimed “Cosby Show” were savvy enough to understand that the best way to break down racial stereotypes was to show the world college-educated successful Black people who worked hard and embraced their history and culture.
The Huxtables didn’t force their kids to choose between success and racial pride. They could be doctors, lawyers, college students and educators who were proud to be Black and cognizant of those who paved the way for them.
Something about “Black-ish” comes off as a little bit disingenuous, like something created by someone else for us. Kind of like “Good Times” for the new millennium.
Y’all have no idea how much I hope and pray that I am wrong because if I am not, “Black-ish” could pave the way for even more confusion about racial identity among young Black and mixed-race Americans.
We should bear in mind that among conscious Blacks it is generally understood that three “Cs” constitute Blackness — color, culture and consciousness.
Nobody has the power or the authority to determine who is Black or who isn’t but it’s generally understood that these three elements are essential to being a well-adjusted Black man, woman or child in a society as racially polarized as the United States.
There’s a great deal of confusion out there, as is evident among our Black and Brown Latino brothers and sisters who have been taught for generations that they are Hispanic or Spanish. They insist they are not Black even though their ancestors were brought to South and Central America by slave-trading vessels that carried them from Africa as human chattel. A lion cub stolen and brought to Cuba would grow up to be a lion no matter where it is raised and regardless of what it knows about itself.
Like that displaced lion cub, many of us are confused about who we are because we were stolen from our ancestral homeland, forced to toil in a strange land and robbed of our belief systems, languages and culture.
The whitewashing of our minds and our dehumanization at the hands of our oppressors was a blatant, systematic effort to strip us of our humanity and make us easier to control and exploit. It is a practice that continues to this very day, with various “Willie Lynch” tactics passed down from one generation to the next, ensuring that we remain at the mercy of the great-grandsons of our former slavemasters.
Many of us spend our entire lives trying to regain a sense of who we are and were as a people, while others focus simply on the acquisition of material wealth and social status.
Which group are you a part of?
As an indication of how expansive and pervasive white global domination has been, please bear in mind that the entire African continent is named after Leo Africanus, a 10th-century “explorer”; that some ministers still teach their followers that Black people are descendants of either Ham or Cain, cursed to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water”; and that the Western world still wants Black people and other people of color to believe that Egypt is not in Africa.
The mental enslavement of Black people continues in 2014, with our oppressors trying to prevent Black people from effectively rising up and throwing off the yoke of oppression by creating superficial divisions among people of color. Kind of like the French did when they created a 32-part racial classification system based on the amount of Black blood a person has. “Quadroon,” “octoroon,” “mulatto” and “griffe” are all categories from that classification system.
Those are the same freedom-loving French who gave America the Statue of Liberty and the same French who magnanimously forgave Haiti after it suffered a major earthquake several years ago for the massive debt France insisted the Black republic owed it for daring to wage a successful revolution led by Toussaint L’Ouverture.
Divide and conquer is the order of the day in the U.S. today, just as it was in apartheid-era South Africa where a rift was created between Black and colored South Africans by granting colored South Africans certain freedoms and privileges that Black South Africans couldn’t enjoy.
So now it’s mixed-race and biracial Americans against Black Americans.
This is my thing: Why do so many biracial people blame Black folks for the racial divide that complicates their lives even though Black people did not construct the system of racism/white supremacy that pressures them to choose between Black and white loved ones?
And why is so much of the anger in biracial Americans pointed at Black America, even though Black America has a much longer history of embracing diverse races and cultures than White America?
For as long as anyone can remember, Black people have been taught that everything Black is inferior. That includes Black hair, Black skin, and Black lips.
But as some Blacks fall for the okeydoke and do whatever is necessary to make themselves look more European. A sizable percentage of white Americans have signed up for plastic surgery, tanning salons, collagen injections and hair perms to more closely resemble their darker brothers and sisters.
One of the more interesting facets of life in America is the notion of nonwhite Americans having to give up something to be accepted.
That may involve giving up one’s belief system, one’s native tongue, one’s mode of dress or one’s total mindset. Or it may very well involve a total whitewashing of one’s culture and sense of self in order to fit in and gain access to the American Dream.
Is it worth it?
That depends on who you ask.
Actress Vivica Fox said in a number of recent interviews that she received some very useful advice about how to achieve longevity in show business from rapper-turned-actor Will Smith, who told her to “be colorless.”
Colorless? Seriously?
What hasn’t been explained, explored or even considered is why anyone would need to be colorless in post-racial America.
Why would a nation that historians say was founded on egalitarian ideals require anyone to deny who he or she is or forfeit their racial and cultural identity in order to be accepted into the so-called Great American Melting Pot?
Perhaps even more intriguing is the way Blacks are often pressured to tone down (pun intended) their Blackness in order to make it in Corporate America, the halls of academia or show business while white entertainers like Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake are idolized by Blacks.
If Venus Hottentot (aka Sara “Saartjie” Baartman) was such a freak of nature and an abomination in the eyes of the so-called civilized world, why are European-American women like Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears are getting paid boatload of cash for parading around with larger-than-life derrieres? Why did white actress Bo Derek — and not Cicely Tyson — get credit for rocking corn rolls and Miley Cyrus get credit for inventing “twerking”? Why are so many of hip-hop and R&B’s rising white stars getting major acclaim for embracing Black culture while Black recording artists are constantly being pressured by record label execs to cross over into mainstream” music?
In short, why is it profitable and downright fun for everybody but people of African descent living in America to be Black? Why indeed.
While some white Americans complain about Black History Month, Kwanzaa, and African-American television networks and publications. Many of our white brothers and sisters often see nothing wrong with German Americans celebrating Oktoberfest, Jewish Americans celebrating Hanukkah and Italian Americans celebrating St. Joseph’s Day.
The painful lesson that needs to be learned is that people of color cannot make white supremacists like, love or accept them.
What we can do is amass and harness the kind of economic and political power that compels other groups to tread lightly in their dealings with us.
Tragically, people in other parts of the world can recognize our beauty, majesty and power more than we can.
Because science has proven that Africa is the birthplace of mankind and civilization, we can rest assured that Blackness is a blessing and not the curse some folks want us to believe it is.
Blackness is a blessing, but it is a blessing that comes with many responsibilities, challenges and perils. Blackness requires that we maintain our sense of self and purpose even in the most trying of times and that we embrace the beautiful struggle to fulfill our divine missions because that is the Creator’s gift to us.
Who am I to reject a gift from the Most High?
This article originally published in the September 29, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
