No picture to go with this post. There's no picture I want to display to illustrate this pernicious belief (though there are many out there)
This is probably the thing that hurts the most.
It's the deepest cut.
It's the one that hardest to talk about and the one that under girds so much of racist thinking. It is extremely prevalent, extremely damaging, and almost always unspoken, only implied. For a such a damaging and pervasive belief, it is the one that almost no one will cop to. But it pops up all the time. A lot of what I will write about in this blog series will end up circling back to this poisonous idea.
It's simply this: that there is something wrong with black people.
Not individual black people. Not your neighbors, your co-workers, your boss (well, maybe your boss), not your relatives, not the people you know and love. It's the Other black people. The ones you are thinking about when you use the phrase "the black community" (more on that later). It's the mass of African-Americans as a whole that live together in a not-so-great part of the city--the angry ones. It's this group that you feel there is something "wrong" with. It's the belief in black pathology.
"Now hold", on you say, "That's not true at all. I believe that all people are equal."
Really? Sure about that?
When you talk about "black on black crime" what are you really saying? That there's something wrong with black people. They're killing each other all the time. They need to focus on getting their own house in order, before complaining about a few bad apples on the police force. The pathology is that black people are violent. That's what's implied here.
When you talk about how "the liberal abortionists" target the black community, placing their death clinics in those communities to cull the black population, the bad guys are the leftist baby killers right? Maybe. But there's also the implication that there's something wrong with black women. That they are maybe too eager to get rid of their unwanted babies, and easily manipulated by white liberal politicians; there's a need a for stricter laws to stop them. (I find it interesting that many white anti-abortion supporters also tend to dismiss as "Big Government handouts" the type of programs that would provide support for babies born in these impoverished communities. I'm sorry, but providing just enough support to get the baby safely out of the womb doesn't cut it). The pathology is that black people lack both personal responsibility and the intelligence to recognize when they are being played.
When you bemoan the lack of black fathers as the reason for so many of the behavioral ills among black young people, you are implying that there is something wrong with black men (and black kids for that matter). That black men are irresponsible and unreliable, baby daddies spreading their seed far and wide and leaving a trail of single mothers and fatherless children in their wake. And as a result, black kids are ruffians and behavior problems. A white neighbor of mine was expounding on this to me late last year, sincerely explaining to me how young black boys were adrift because of the lack of father figures. I thought of the many solid, faithful black men I knew (myself included) who had been married for years and had been great fathers to their kids. I didn't even know how to begin to correct him. The pathology is that black people (men and women) are irresponsible, sexually, and otherwise.
When you argue that systemic racism is a myth and black folk need to calm down, look at the facts, and don't be so emotional, you are implying that something is wrong with black people. This is a kind of racial gas lighting that I find infuriating. The response to the expression of pain from black people in this country is "You're crazy. There's no racism here. You're imagining things." This is the language of an abusive relationship. The language of oppression. The implication is that there is something wrong with black people. The pathology is that black people are unstable, unable to see past their emotions and be rational.
And it's even more devastating to me as a black person, when you find a black spokesperson to speak these racist ideas and advocate for the notion of black pathology. You should note that the vast majority of people chiming in to cheer on your Candace Owens and Brandon Tatums are other white people who share your beliefs. These black folk aren't speaking to other black people or white liberals. They are talking to you, reassuring you that what you've believed about black people is true. After all you heard it from the horse's mouth.
For many of my white friends (and even those few black ones) who have made these arguments, I would challenge you to ask yourself, if you disagree with the implications I've suggested. If you're response is "hey now, I didn't say all that"--ask yourself, what are you saying then? What are the implications of these shopworn arguments.
Because here's the thing--they are shopworn. These beliefs are not new. The belief in black pathology has under girded racism for hundreds of years. These beliefs--that black people are violent, irresponsible, oversexed, overly emotional, and childish--have long been a part of the fabric of American society. It's considered blunt and politically incorrect to state them plainly anymore, so we imply them instead.
"So wait," you ask, "Are you seriously trying to say that none of the issues you've mentioned are problems in the black community?" (There's that phrase again, "the black community". I got a whole blog post on that one coming, I promise). My answer is that yes, these are problems in particular predominantly African-American communities. They are not problems that are endemic to all black people (other than the few exceptions you know) just by virtue of their blackness. The problem is that we are taking specific problems in certain segments of society and attaching them to the race of those dealing with those challenges. We make these issues failures of racial character rather than recognizing that there are perhaps other factors such as socioeconomic status that might be the real drivers of these problems. Have you ever thought to check to see what crime rates, abortion rates, unwed pregnancies, look like in economically depressed white communities? Has it ever occurred to you that it's a little odd that the "exceptions" to those implicit rules about black pathology all happen to share your same socioeconomic status and educational level? Have you wondered if all those assumptions about the "black community" hold true among middle and upper class black people? And even beyond that, is it so unreasonable to consider that at least some of these issues might be tied directly to long-standing patterns of systemic racism?
My challenge to you, my white friends, is to detach the problems within specific communities from the racial makeup of those communities. There may be a lot wrong in predominantly black communities, but there is nothing wrong with black people. When you spend a lot of time in what we call "black spaces" where you are the minority, you will see up close the very real challenges that people in many of our communities are dealing with. You will see the deep passion that black people have for helping their own. And you will see so many black people that don't "fit the profile" that you will find it much harder to unthinkingly subscribe to ideas of black pathology.
You're jammin' me, you're jammin' me
Quit jammin' me
Baby, you can keep me painted in a corner
You can walk away, but it's not over"
Quit jammin' me
Baby, you can keep me painted in a corner
You can walk away, but it's not over"
--Tom Petty "Jammin' Me"
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