Don Lemon recently commented about pathologies in the black community, typified by out of wedlock births (growing up fatherless is an express train to prison for black boys, he said), speaking Ebonics instead of the kind of English needed to successfully navigate the educational system and labor market in this country, wearing "saggy pants" two sizes to big, their underwear visible, and black parents calling their kids--their own kids--the "N" word in public. For his insight, he was villified by African Americans and labled an Uncle Tom. What he complains about is a dimension of culture, but only among a small slice of the black community, the slice seemingly locked in to the shit end of the stick. Excuse me while I get this off my chest below the curly corn bread.
Black comedians like Richard Pryor and Chris Rock have said what most black folks understand: there's black people and there's niggers. It's not that simple, and I don't normally believe in using such a baseless and ridiculous word, but it paints a picture that most African Americans, from shoe shine men to Wall Streeters, understand, which is why we laughed so hard when they said it. Basically, Don Lemon picked up on that distinction without using the words by putting the blame squarely where it belongs: on the folks in the black community messing up. White people are generally ashamed of other whites who specialize in criminality, especially the violent kind. Middle class whites want nothing to do with "white trash." Why then do so many brothers and sisters want to make excuses for black trash?
I'm fully aware of the traps racist whites have been setting for black folks since the US of A was founded. Only idiots and liars will deny the "War on Drugs" isn't a transparent attempt at removing black men from competition in the labor market, from the company of white women, and from Democratic Party voting rolls. It's also about the mythical land of opportunity (for whites). Like the slave traders and slave owners who needed free labor, aka black African slaves, to make the cotton industry "turn a profit," the criminal justice system also thrives on the backs of black folks. Through the phony War on Drugs, some enterprising white men came up with a way to keep a "strong customer base." They had to figure out a way to keep prison cells fully stocked, even bursting at the seams in some cases, and they did.
But seriously, folks. We have to stop blaming white people for "keeping us down." No white man, no matter how racist he might be, can force one black individual to shoot another over perceived disrespect, the product of nothing more than a fleeting glance. No white man, no matter how racist he might be, can force, goad, or hypnotize black men into fathering seven or eight kids by five or six women. One fool was in the news recently for fathering more than 20 children by more than a dozen different women. And, I might add, no racist white man can force a black woman to actually lay down and grind with some ne'er-do-well from the hood who already has umpteen babies by umpteen baby mommas. No white person can force a black person to speak ghetto English, call each other the N word in public (I've witnessed this on NYC subways at rush hour), steal, assault, rob, murder, sell or do drugs. I'm sorry but I personally know black men and women who grew up in the slums and became model citizens, successful people. They did it themselves by starting with this: there is right and wrong in our society. When it comes to life decisions, there is stupid and there is smart. You choose. Yes, there is rampant racial prejudice in this country. Yes, the criminal justice system ain't set up to give black folks fair play. Yes, we get profiled and stereotyped until we just want to SCREAM. But we still have a choice.
I grew up in the hood, born and raised in Newark, baby. I never got arrested, but lots of my buddies did. I didn't get addicted to drugs, or use them, but plenty of folks on the block did. I played on my high school sports teams. And while half the guys were snorting in the back of the team bus and in the locker room, I refused to do it. Yeah, I got called names for not "getting down" but I did't give a damn. I thought using drugs, stealing, and generally acting the fool in public was stupid and a road to nowhere. And I was right. At 17, I went to funerals to look at the embalmed bodies of guys I'd known since kindergarten, young black and Hispanic men dead of gunshot wounds, laying inside open coffins. The white man didn't kill a single one. Their killers looked just like them. I watched close personal friends -- guys who shared my dream of playing in the major leagues one day -- get incarcerated in Rahway State Penitentiary, a hellhole from which no one can possibly emerge without serious mental and physical trauma, if you make it out at all. I watched some of my buddies become fathers, usually for the second or third time, before they were old enough to get a drivers license. I chose not to mess up. Everybody chooses. No excuses.
Uncle Tom my ass. I applaud Don Lemon. The brother came correct, and y'all know it.