Again and again Americans are proving that the term “melting pot” is indeed a myth. There is an ongoing struggle to keep America white. From white fear of becoming a minority in their own country to a denial that racism still exists in this country to outrage that a United States president would dare speak out on behalf of the black populace, there is an unspoken sentiment that a large percentage of white Americans are becoming more and more fearful of losing the privilege that they are reluctant to admit they have.
Again and again Americans are proving that the term “melting pot” is indeed a myth. There is an ongoing struggle to keep America white. From white fear of becoming a minority in their own country [1] to a denial that racism still exists in this country [2] [3] to outrage that a United States president would dare speak out on behalf of the black populace, [4] [5] there is an unspoken sentiment that a large percentage of white Americans are becoming more and more fearful of losing the privilege that they are reluctant to admit they have. [6] [7]
It is incomprehensible to white America that their president would openly identify with black people, despite the fact that he himself is black. Some of the tweets sent out after his monumental, improvised speech on the nation’s reaction to the outcome of Trayvon Martin’s murderer’s verdict show an unwillingness to see clearly or acknowledge that there are others in this country who don’t see the world through their bleached colored lenses. From The Huffington Post’s White Conservative Male Pundits To Nation: Racism Is Over, Stop Talking About It: [8]
“If you ever had any doubts, Obama is the first Racist in Chief.” Dan Riehl.
“President Obama is making this all about race. All. About. Race.” Joe Walsh
“Obama's comments today justify what I said on Hannity earlier this week. He truly is trying to tear our country apart.” Todd Starnes
Starnes, a regular contributor on FOX, went on a derogatory tweeting spree in which he referred to President Obama as the
Race Baiter in Chief. [9] Bill O’Reilly, host of The O’Reilly Factor, when addressing the discerned comments of Tavis Smiley in which he used the words
incontrovertible contempt to describe his view on the perception of black treatment in America, stated: [10]
American society is contemptuous of black men. That's false... [The statement by Smiley] was wrong, it was fallacious, it was irresponsible of him to say it. I think when people start to say these things, that you and me and all these other people who have responsibility to run our programs in a fair matter have to say, “Hold it. I don't see it that way.”…. My responsibility is not just as a commentator. It’s basically to stop propaganda, and that’s what I consider it to be, cold.
And that’s the way this large segment of white America views the concerns of blacks in America – as
propaganda – and an opportunity to play the race card. There can be no truth or validity to the concerns blacks have in regard to their place in this country. They’ve been given the opportunity to succeed and they have failed – miserably. And it’s their own fault. Based on all the outrage over Presidents Obama’s speech, that’s what I assume white America thinks.
Whites are totally oblivious to the fact that from the perspective of black America, the concerns that President Obama expressed are real. For this segment of white America, every attempt is made to debunk every charge of racism and discredit any person who acknowledges any and all racial, prejudicial, and/or discriminatory evidence.
And what’s more disheartening is that these white Americans have such a problem with President Obama acknowledging the fact that he himself is, indeed, black. It’s as if he should renounce his blackness and ignore the fact that he can understand the plight of blacks in America for no other reason than that he is himself, black in America. It’s as if, as an American, he is supposed to recognize only the majority group of Americans and to speak only from their perspective. It is as if he should ignore blacks and their feelings as Americans and for the people themselves, it’s as if they should be happy with the limited enforcement (and intrusion) of their rights as Americans. If the president would have made an impromptu speech on how blacks need to get over racism, and that America doesn’t want to hear and is tired of their whining, he would have finally gained a very small measure of approval from his detractors (I really doubt that he would. I said that because it sounded good).
As it was, the president accepted the verdict and the process of the Trayvon Martin murder case, and he never attempted to make-believe that blacks do not have a hand in their own adverse conditions, especially when it comes to crime. However, the president conveyed the reality of racial discrimination and prejudices that blacks experience in everyday life – prejudiced experiences that whites perpetuate onto blacks. And while President Obama’s description of such treatment was shocking for whites that may or may not have ever been involved in such prejudiced incidents, blacks were overwhelmingly understanding of his words because it is their reality and it was almost unbelievable for them to actually witness the day that someone of President Obama’s stature would not only not shy away from the responsibility of bringing it up, but that he volunteered on his own to speak about it. [11]
In 1993, the late Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., professor of Law at Harvard University, in his book Faces At The Bottom Of The Well: The Permanence Of Racism, included a chapter in which he described The Five Rules of Racial Standing. In regard to the first, second, and third rule, Bell stated: [12]
No matter what their experience or expertise, blacks' statements involving race are deemed 'special pleading' and thus not entitled to serious consideration… Not only are blacks' complaints discounted, but black victims of racism are less effective witnesses than are whites, who are members of the oppressor class. This phenomenon reflects a widespread assumption that blacks, unlike whites, cannot be objective on racial issues and will favor their own no matter what… Few blacks avoid diminishment of racial standing, most of their statements about racial conditions being diluted and their recommendations of other blacks taken with a grain of salt. The usual exception to this rule is the black person who publicly disparages or criticizes other blacks who are speaking or acting in ways that upset whites. Instantly, such statements are granted 'enhanced standing' even when the speaker has no special expertise or experience in the subject he or she is criticizing.'
And this is exactly what President Obama faced when addressing the issue. In essence, whites are the only people who can define racism, even though it's not usually their experience to be discriminated against. So if the N-word isn't blatantly used, it's not racism, prejudiced, discrimination or bigotry. And they know this, because the world is how they say it it is. And so it is.
And though he was the first president to speak from such a perspective, being that he is, in fact, first and foremost, a black man, president Obama isn’t the first President to speak wholeheartedly – though to his dismay – about America’s role in the predicament of blacks. In his 1965 commencement speech to Howard University, one of the nation’s premiere HBCU’s (Historical Black Colleges and Universities), U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson made statements about America and its role in sustaining the overall impoverishment of black society that did not sit well with the majority of Americans. [13] Some of his remarks are as follows: [14]
In far too many ways American Negroes have been another nation: deprived of freedom, crippled by hatred, the doors of opportunity closed to hope.
Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society--to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others. But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.
Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in--by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.
But for the great majority of Negro Americans-the poor, the unemployed, the uprooted, and the dispossessed--there is a much grimmer story. They still, as we meet here tonight, are another nation. Despite the court orders and the laws, despite the legislative victories and the speeches, for them the walls are rising and the gulf is widening.
We have pursued it [American justice] faithfully to the edge of our imperfections, and we have failed to find it for the American Negro.
President Johnson's Commencement Speech at Howard University, "To Fulfill These Rights." June 4, 1966. [37]
These were the words of President Johnson, who by enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing – Civil Rights Act of 1968, [15] did more for the black populace in America than any other president before or since, with the one exception of the enactment of the Reconstruction (13th, 14th, and 15th) Amendments by the Radical (not the GOP) Republicans of the post Civil War era. [16] Yet in 1967, when responding to questions about the political, economic, and social problems of the United States, an exasperated President Johnson replied: [17]
How is it possible that all these people could be so ungrateful to me after I had given them so much? I tried to make it possible for every child of every color to grow up in a nice house, to eat a solid breakfast, to attend a decent school, and to get a good and lasting job. I asked so little in return. Just a little thanks. Just a little appreciation. That's all.
President Obama surely must feel the same way. I’m pretty sure he feels frustrated, but we may never know. Regardless, he should be commended for his candor and courage to stand up. And we as a nation should be proud. There was nothing in his speech that did not carry weight. I personally found resonation with a particular segment of the president’s speech: [18]
[W]e need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African American boys. And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?
When I heard him say that, everything stopped. I found it
that profound. It’s what I have always wanted to say, but could never find the proper words of expression for. And not just in terms of black boys, but black girls and black people in general. Too many times, black Americans are presented with negative images of themselves. As I have said before, especially in regard to black youth, almost every mainstream media outlet presents blacks as dead beat, low life, low budget, criminal, uneducated, unemployed, oversexed, irresponsible, and more importantly, deserving of their environments [19] [20] [21] and there is growing sentiment that this is being done on purpose for the sake of discrediting anyone who would stand up to confront the defense of continued black oppression. [22]
But where can blacks turn to for positive reinforcements? Many say: the parents. But where do the parents turn for their positive reinforcements? They have been influenced by the same media as their children from the time they were younger. I was raised in the 1970’s and 80’s, and I saw the changes in the media imagery of blacks, especially in the 1990’s. Because of the “artistic” freedom and leniency of the media sources (news, radio, television, movies, books, magazines, etc.) and the bombardment of negative images, and by the time of the new millennium, it seemed that all hope was lost. And while there are a few black personalities that have made a lot of money through exploitation (i.e. hip hop, sports, reality tv, news media, etc.), they have greatly damaged black America and that damage goes even deeper when white America refuses to acknowledge what’s going on.
In some ways, this type of exploitation reminds me of the story of Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, better known as Stepin Fetchit. From the early 1900’s to the late 1940’s, the black press which included such publications as The California Eagle and The Chicago Defender [23] and black Americans like Oscar Devereaux Micheaux were doing all they could to legitimize the image of black life and black Americans through film [24] at a time when white media was pervaded with the destructive images of Sambos, coons, pickanninies, mammies, and bucks. [25] From television shows for children like Our Gang [26] to movies staring child stars like Shirley Temple [27] to blockbuster films like Birth of a Nation [24] and Gone with the Wind, [28] blacks were used as either comic relief, or as the villain to be subdued by the power of whiteness. No matter the role, they were shown to be inferior to whites. In the opening introduction of Gone with the Wind, in particular, the credits roll to beautiful triumphant orchestration, while the following words scroll slowly down the screen: [29]
There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...
These are the images that blacks like Micheaux were trying to overcome by making what were called,
race movies. Though shown to mostly black audiences, these movies gave positive reinforcements to people of color, by portraying blacks from positions of influence, ability, morality and respectability. The black press and film makers like Micheaux also dealt with racial issues, such as the assumption of black raping of white women and lynching. [24] [31] Meanwhile, the white press and Hollywood film makers continued to perpetuate the image of blacks stereotypically as idle, senseless, foolish, spineless, compliant, irresponsible, childish, violent, subhuman, and animal like. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]
It was in these Hollywood films that Stepin Fetchit became a star, acting out the wild fantasies about blacks that white propagandists wanted to project to the majority white audiences of America. To his credit, Fetchit became one of the few black millionaires of his day, but it came at the cost of exploiting his own people. [32] [33] The following description depicts a typical character played by Fetchit and black actors of the same mold (when not played by the whites, themselves, in blackface): [30]
In the film [Hearts in Dixie], the audience is introduced to the faithful black plantation workers, toiling hard in the fields all day and relaxing at night by singing and dancing. Stepin Fetchit typifies the lazy, but goodnatured slave, unwilling to work, but forgiven for his errant ways. When the white boss playfully" kicks Fetchit in the rear-end, Fetchit grins broadly and winks slyly at the audience. This is an example of the typical screen "darkie." Fetchit, a "black clown," is a "good nigger," lazy and shiftless, yet "all right at heart. Most importantly, he "knows his place." (Noble 1969 [1948]; 50) Fetchit's depiction of blacks is extremely degrading and demeaning. Blacks across the country were presumed to fit Fetchit's stereotype of being lazy, stupid, foolish, and yet well intentioned.
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, better known as Stepin Fetchit. [38]
The difference between the image of blacks in Fetchit’s time and those of blacks today is that in Fetchit’s time the negative reinforcement of his image didn’t transpire to the black populace. Blacks knew who they were and it wasn’t dependent on white acceptance. Today’s depiction and definition of blackness, though not stereotyped in the same manner as in Fetchit’s time, have become mainstream, and is seemingly accepted by not only the white community, but the black community as well. This is mainly the result of comparably little to no multiple positive forces in black media as opposed to media that seeks to reach multicultural audiences. [34] For the sake of a positive black identity, multiculturalism, as seen in many of today’s advertisements, is nothing more than the pandering of the safe presentation of the adaptable, submissive, and passive black image to whites. The few exceptions in black media are not widespread or readily attainable by the mass of American blacks.
But the positive reinforcements that President Obama spoke of involve so much more than media. It includes strong educational resources that include the history of blacks from the perspective of blacks, the rewriting of legislation that would include blacks in the fight for social justice, and employment for blacks that would permit not just the having of a job that pays minimum wages, but living wages. After all, this is how the majority of middle class white America has survived. [35] And if we can't "give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them," then how can we as a nation complain when black Americans en masse fail to become what we all hope they can be?
But that's a question that can't possibly be honestly answered today. It's a question that really doesn’t matter in the eyes of white America. It simply is not their reality and their reality is typically the only reality that counts for the whole of the “other” America. Every generation of whites, from the reconstruction era (1865- 1877) to today (2013) and every year in between, have always believed that blacks were just fine and that they were afforded the same opportunities, justices and rights and have had the same standing in America as they do. [36] When the statistical facts ring out, they are condemned as a play on numbers by sociologists who are only race baiting. And so it is.
When the President of the United States speaks for Americans it is expected that he speak from the perspective of white Americans. When he doesn’t, it is simply unacceptable. When the President of the United States is black, he can’t speak from a white perspective, because although he has European ancestry, he is in fact, black. And for many Americans, that is simply unacceptable. And... so it is.
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6:11 PM PT: Video footage has been added along with updated content.