Minstrelsy and White Expectations

WP columnist Eugene Robinson is back again after his Drive Time for the 'Jena 6' still seeking a special nationalism for rich and wealthy blacks  (e.g. Bob Johnson and Oprah Winfrey) who live in the suburbs, with Which Black America? (Washington Post). It seems he seeks a special white status for them, exempt from white criticisms by leading white spokespersons, like Bill O'Reilly and Republican Party stalwarts.  That is, he wants an "honest" discussion on race from these white talking heads that does not include the majority of Black Americans whom Mr. Eugene continues to classify as "dysfunctional."

That is, instead of say a marxist class analysis now we have Mr. Eugene recommending a pseudo medical, pseudo social science analysis of his "black americas"--(one) that is healthy and wealthy and damn near white with its success ethics and (two) those that are ill and poor and still just don't get it. Moreover, these two social zones have two different cultures: (one) that which comes from below vibrant and funky and often raging and (two) that which the near-whites absorb from their white peers much of which is a white version of that which comes from below.

Eugene seems insanely sincere in wanting to distance himself from those dusty blacks fixed down low by his corporate social buddies who have a tendency to pat him on the head and arse as one of the boys they condescend to allow on the golf course.

But pray tell how can Mr. Eugene be "honest" while a little corporate elite sits on his shoulder whispering in his ear, "Nigger, don't forget how you get paid."

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Hattie McDaniel, one of her famous quips was: I'd rather play a maid than be one." She had been either a washerwoman or was the daughter of one before receiving her Oscar. 

One should consider as well Eugene Robinson, columnist of the Washington Post (WP), and his Drive Time for the 'Jena 6'. He seems to write with a little white man on his shoulder, that is, with his own particular white fears, like Louie, like Hattie. His column emphasizes briefly the mechanics of how 60,000 blacks come to appear in the isolated white community of Jena, Louisiana; that is, he focuses on the "how" rather than the "why." Yet he places significant suggestive facts on the table.

1) "It's fair to say that without black radio, the case of the Jena 6 probably never would have become a significant national story."

It was not only a national story; it was an international story. The BBC online covered the story long before for the WP—Race Hate in Louisiana. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4120415818465787991&

Isn't that an oddity? One may also ask, Where was  the NAACP? They dragged in last and initially began collecting money that was not going directly for the defense of the black boys. Where was Eugene and his column?

Michael Baisden and Tom Joyner came late. They indeed gave it a boost. They saw that there was a commercial appeal to the story.

2)  "Why is this interesting? Because black America is increasingly complicated and diverse, riven by fault lines that didn't exist back when the great civil rights heroes were marching in Selma." 

How is that important for the Jena 6? He attempts to clarify but still only suggests the reality that exists.

3)  "There are black families that have had multigenerational middle-class success, and black families trapped in multigenerational poverty and dysfunction."

How is that  important, this "success"? At bottom the Jena 6 situation is about economics, the nooses only symbolical of those economic frustrations, and that which doesn't arouse the "successful" there is silence, he seems to suggest, except from the masses who feel the nooses tightening in numerous ways, for instance, longer hours and decreasing wages; job discrimination without any mechanism which to challenge it; joblessness;  underemployment;  police repression; and other repressive laws and attitudes.

4)  "'the black community' is, for most purposes, best thought of as plural."

Now we get to the grist of Eugene's tale, his perspective from on high. What does that mean in the real life of the different communities? There will be no second civil rights movement because the superficial elements of Jim Crow are dead, ostensibly? The economic issues are too extensive and would require much more than a civil rights movement; one would have to begin where M.L. King left off.

The so-called civil rights leaders are reserving their energies, however, for more important game: a get out the vote to install a Democratic president, some of whose candidates spoke briefly in similar tones as Eugene, that is, how regrettable the Jena situation, but little else. So did Bush, for that matter. But a different party in the White House makes no assurances about working class issues and "racial" or police repression. But all these facts receive no analysis from Eugene.

He concludes all is well except in Jena, Louisiana: "We don't see that many instances of overt, unapologetic, separate-and-unequal racial discrimination these days, thank goodness" (my emphasis).

Here he speaks with that little white man on his shoulder. I wonder who is the "We" in this instance when we have "plural" communities.  Is that conclusion really true? Is it true for you?

There's a greater healthiness in Armstrong's antics or in those of Hattie McDaniel, for you know they are playing a role to appease white expectations. With writers like Eugene, only a few can see he's also playing his role for his white bosses and audience, who read to find out what a certain segment of the black community thinks. Certainly, the few "instances" are not true for the 60,000 that converged on Jena from all over the country, nor the bloggers and websites that have been carrying the story for months. The repression of the Jena 6 (Black teenagers) is a repression felt nationally. It's not an isolated situation as Eugene suggests. They were marching for themselves as well as the six black boys, who are not too unlike the Scottsboro Boys of the 1930s. But I'm sure I'm speaking to the choir.—Rudy

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Black power is taking control of your destiny—Black political power has grown significantly in the past four decades, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. In 1970, there were only 469 black elected officials. That number has grown to more than 10,000 in 2007. Sociologist Art Evans of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton said the nation has changed and black people have made progress in just about every aspect of society. "There's been tremendous growth in the black middle class," Evans said. "In the 1960s less than 3 percent of blacks were middle-class; today, 37 percent of blacks are middle-class. . . . [Yet] "We still don't have the control over our lives," [Kwame] Afoh said. Gregory Lewis. “Some see lack of progress, others strides since 1960s.” Sun-Sentinel

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posted 11 October 2007 / updated 28 March 2008