NOTE: CROSS-POSTED AT THEBLACKCRITIC.COM
Let's Ban The R-Word: Rethinking Our Strategy Against Racism
The first time I heard the axiom "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," I had no idea it was a quote from Albert Einstein. When I heard it, I was almost twelve years old. I was eavesdropping on a conversation between my mother and her sister, Tammy. The subject was relationships. My mother felt like Tammy was, frankly, insane for continuing to date the same type men, yet expecting different emotional outcomes. It wasn’t often I got to hear my mother curse, so I paid close attention to her argument. At some point, she explained, you have to reassess your dating strategy. At some point you have to rethink the process by which you select potential partners. After ten years of dating one "no good" man after another, you forfeit your right to blame men. There’s something you are doing wrong; so accept responsibility and fix the problem.
Over a dozen years have passed since overhearing that conversation but I am still impressed by the logical foundation of my mother’s argument. At some point, we have to accept responsibility for our failures. The hopeless tradition of looking for outside entities to blame when things go wrong seems both flawed and outdated. Growing up in the hood is difficult. The pressure to join a gang is immense. The path to success is oftentimes narrow and lonely, filled with countless hurdles and obstacles that cripple your spirit along the way. Giving up sometimes seems like a more viable option than fighting forward. At other times, giving up seems like the only sane option available. Yet, at some point, pointing accusatory fingers at the environment we grew up in becomes nothing more than an excuse that prevents us from accepting responsibility for our personal failures.
Every now and again, any strategy–militarily or political or personal–has to be reassessed and reconsidered. This doesn’t mean we change our strategy, but it does mean we must take the time to rethink what works and what doesn’t. When we refuse to reanalyze a particular course of action in life–during success and during failure–we become more prone to repeat careless mistakes that hinder our progress. This process allows us to better recognize which tactics improve our situation and which tactics don’t. We don’t always have to change or redefine our overall strategy in order to fine-tune or reform certain tactics that don’t work.
With the election of our first African-American as President of the United States, it seems like an appropriate time to rethink our strategy in the fight against racism. It appears we now have the perfect opportunity to re-examine what works and what doesn’t work in the ultimate goal for racial justice and equality in America. This also means recognizing that the racial environment in America isn’t a static one; the racism we faced in past generations isn’t the same brand of racism we must confront today. Using 20th Century strategies to battle 21st Century racial problems seems naive and counterproductive. We should seriously consider the pros and cons of shouting "You’re Racist!" every other week from assorted rooftops. Every racist accusation isn’t an equal complaint. Every racial confrontation doesn’t achieve equal results. Throwing rocks at an F/A-18 Hornet attack aircraft may make angry protesters feel better once the rock soars into the air, but at some point practical leaders have to pause, consider the facts, and determine how effective their tactics actually are.
This won’t be an easy task, regardless how logical and sound this argument may seem to some. In a recent discussion with a fellow blogger, I discovered we are sometimes so glued to the traditional ways of fighting racism in America, we fail to adjust for the fact that society has gradually changed over time. When circumstances on the ground change, be it in Iraq or Virginia, various tactics within our overall strategy must also change, or at least adjust accordingly. This requires honest brokers to revisit the Don Imus fiasco as well as other situations, from the LA Riots to the Jena Six, and determine which tactics inched us closer toward our goals, and which were tactically a dud. But this has to be done without emotional slants, wishful thinking, and the tendency to justify overreactions without facts. The problem with the latest defense of outing Don Imus is that it doesn’t rely on evidence, or even reality:
Going after Imus may very well have impacted teen pregnancy; by raising consciousness about the constant disrespect shown to black women both within and without the black community, I tend to believe that a few more black parents realized they need to arm their daughters against this; a few more young black girls realized that entire industries have been built on their humiliation; a few more young black men realized that every "video ho" is somebody’s daughter, and that tossing around the n-word hurts us all.
By contrast, with a few exceptions, I tend to believe things only after I have evidence or data or compelling logical reasons to believe them. Pretending something is true, doesn’t make it true. I just haven’t seen the evidence show that protesting Don Imus had a positive impact on teen pregnancy. It may make us feel better to imagine such things, it may give us reasons to pat ourselves on the back after Church service, but creating an imaginary universe where making Don Imus pack his bags also made young Black girls comprehend the horrors of institutionalized racism in America is ridiculous. I haven’t discovered any data to support the claim that calling out Don Imus led to Black men cleaning up hip-hop videos and kicking the N-word to the curb. I guess 50-Cent and Nas missed that memo. If there was evidence that handing out "You’re racist" stickers actually solved problems in the Black community, I’d be outside Rush Limbaugh’s studio everyday with a sticker the size of Bill O’Reilly’s ego.
In the mid-1990s, after welfare reform had sparked a national debate, teen pregnancy fell dramatically in the Black community. The writer, June Carbone, searched for answers. He spoke with a woman who headed an organization that worked intimately with Black churches and community leaders to combat teenage pregnancy. He explained how these leaders mapped out their strategy to tackle an issue they considered to be singularly important. He considered their results impressive:
The good news is that they have had remarkable success. A decade of hard work by countless volunteers, pastors and community organizers has moved the statistical picture in a big way. Teen birth rates are now near historic lows. The overall rate fell 26 percent in the 1990s, according to U.S. Census figures. The far more dramatic figure for African-Americans was 37 percent.
...(SNIP)...
Politicians and the mainstream press have decried the ’90s lack of moral exemplars: Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson had publicized affairs, gansta rappers seized the spotlight. In the meantime, a host of non-famous leaders were making a real difference. It is time we acknowledged their existence.
We have to be able and willing to objectively measure our progress on a host of issues. We have a lot of data available that can let us know what worked in the past ten years and what didn’t. It’s clear to me that grassroots organizing work. It’s obvious to me that engaging religious leaders of all faiths to band together and fight a common problem produce results. We can measure how well specific programs and organizations combat problems with polls and surveys and research. What’s not so clear to me is how sitting on the sofa calling Michael Richards and Don Imus racists moves the struggle for racial equality forward in any real way. Who got hired when Imus left anyway?
Maybe we should have taken Patrice O’Neal a bit more seriously when he argued for White people to be able to publicly say anything they wanted to say, even the N-word. Many Black people have pushed segments of society into an interesting catch-22. People who may harbor latent racist feelings are encouraged to be open and honest when they discuss race. Yet the moment their comments are perceived as racist by hypersensitive revolutionists–who probably harbor racist views themselves–these people are publicly ridiculed and threatened. Let me be clear: this situation, by itself, isn’t the problem. The problem arises when Black people and the media and society punishes honesty and rewards dishonesty. Instead of dealing with the reality of racist views, they only deal with the unlucky few who slip and expose those racist views in the spotlight. There are consequences when we are overly trigger happy to call others racists. We create an environment where racist people simply adapt, calling Black people "Niggers" in private, but never in public. We end up working everyday with a boss who tells African monkey jokes behind our backs, but smiles and compliments us on our wonderful work to our face. Michael Richards wasn’t an anomaly; the over twenty-four percent of people in Texas who believed Obama was a Muslim during the general election wasn’t a coincident. We are only deluding ourselves if we believe the idea that racism only exists when we catch it.
Tagging people racist is a tactic that hasn’t lived up to it’s billing. The Ku Klux Klan and the assorted bigoted Whites in power didn’t magically disappear after the Civil Rights Movement. Many adapted over time; call it "Social Evolution" if you will, survival of the fittest. As decades passed by, it became more profitable to deny racist views in public, even if they seriously harbored them in private. Car dealers had to sell to the emerging Black middle class as persistently as they did Whites to remain competitive. This didn’t change some of their views, it merely changed how these views were expressed in public. Nowadays, you have no clue who the racist crowd is until they slip–out of anger or otherwise. This leads many Black people to question the motives behind possibly innocent comments made by Whites, even those who have a respectable record of supporting the Struggle. As much as I hate to quote the ultra-conservative Armstrong Williams, his words provides context to my argument:
Bill Clinton’s comments about the role of race in gender in this election were hurtful, disgraceful, disgusting, and downright racist.
When a person can be considered the "first" Black President one year, and considered racists by some Blacks another year, I submit that we have over-reached a little with our name-calling tactic. Nowadays, any Black person with a tongue or a blogger with internet access can charge racism and be taken partially serious. I’m assuming a few too many Black folks passed on The Boy Who Cried Wolf tale growing up. This is why I spoke out against the charges of racism in the gay and lesbian community recently. When you ask yourself "What tangible results will I accomplish by calling such-and-such a racist" and your answer doesn’t have anything to do with improving teen pregnancy rates, Black on Black crime, HIV/AIDS, etc., then it’s quite possible you are doing it more for yourself than the struggle for equality. It’s personal. Your feelings got hurt and you’re merely seeking a place to vent. Personal grievances aren’t a part of the strategy for equality, as far as I know.
It’s fair to ask, considering my previous stance, what I believe when it comes to fighting institutionalized racism in America. Simple: Hand me my marching orders and I’ll be out there picketing alongside everyone else. When banks practice discriminatory lending, collectively we can make a difference. When a White comic calls an audience member the N-Word, we can...well...do nothing substantive really–except, maybe, forget how many times we have ranted onstage. (To be frank, for all the White people who claim it’s hypocritical for Blacks to be able to use the N-word, while they can’t, I sympathize, sort of. I want to know how many of my White friends are secretly awaiting their chance to openly call me a Nigger. I would rather know where they stand out the gate than let them spend decades by my side before the truth slips out in a chance angry tirade.)
I think we have a lot of tactics within our overall strategy for justice and equality that are outdated and don’t produce tangible, effective results. I also think it’s our responsibility to comb through these tactics and see which work and which don’t. Calling someone new a racist every five days in America doesn’t seem to fit the description of the progress we seek. We have been calling random folks racists for the past ten years, yet our high school dropout rate is still embarrassingly low. When we continue to do something, over and over again, somehow expecting different results, it’s no longer a genuine tactic, it’s no longer a viable strategy, it’s simply insanity. Show me the data that proves it makes a measurable difference in the Black community, and I’ll be on the front lines chasing after a long list of radio talk show hosts and television personalities who deserve the "racists" title. But until then, can we please ban the R-word–or at lease PAUSE before using it?
(As a footnote, for all the African-Americans who think the R-word isn't overused in exaggerated cases, try this unscientific experiment: Find the most progressive White friends you know. Now ask them if they have ever been accused of racism by a Black person who didn't know them. You might be surprised by the results.)