What We Teach Children

"Imprisonment... now creates far more crime than it prevents, by rippling apart fragile social networks, destroying families, and creating a permanent class of unemployables." -Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (P. 236-237) 

One night, after hearing the news of yet another young black man being killed by cops on the Vietnamese American Evening News, I expressed to my father how weak President Obama is on his stance for racial justice. My father says that if Obama were a white man, he could say something or do something about racial injustice and have it respected, but because he isn't, he, as a Black man, could not chastise or educate White Folks without harsh and immediate backlash.

To that, I wonder if Obama cares more about his legacy than he cares about sticking his neck out for those who have been wronged. The news about racial discrimination in Ferguson is hardly surprising to anyone who has looked at race in America. The news of ol' boy fraternities caught acting racist was just a matter of time. The news of young black men being beaten up by cops for things white boys do everyday is unsurprising, the news of a man being shot while running away... and so on and so forth has no element of surprise... if you look at the fabric and history of this country, even if you look at how different people are treated in the same community. Everything has its roots.

I was flabbergasted when I read Michelle Alexander's book about drug laws and prisons in America. I always knew that we locked up too many people and spend much too much on prisons and not enough on schools and jobs in poor neighborhoods. I've always understood the school-to-prison pipeline. What I didn't know was how easy it was for young black men to be branded felons for life on minor drug charges, drug charges that anyone else could get if only cops surveyed middle class neighborhoods or college campuses. Once they're branded with that label, well, where would they as young black men, go from there?

What I didn't know was how racialized sentencing policies not only were but continue to be. While most drunk drivers are white men, they'll get a few days in jail for their first offense, a crime that could kill. Whereas, most people targeted for drug offenses are Black, and the first offense carries a minimum sentence of years. Crack cocaine used to carry a prison sentence 100 times longer than powdered cocaine, whites used powdered cocaine in the 80s and early 90s, Blacks used crack cocaine. When marijuana wasn't as popular in white circles, sentencing was much harsher. We need to ask "why?"

There's little mention of how profitable arrests are in poor communities to police departments.
There's little mention of prisons and biased drug policies in general. We focus on when a cop kills a child, which we SHOULD, because it is a tearful, disappointing, and heart-wrenching ordeal each time. But yet we turn an eye when men or boys are torn apart from their families and put into prisons, with their future snatched away from them for doing much of the same things suburban kids do daily.

Modernization and globalization snatched away so many jobs for working class black men, and instead of training them to be prepared for other 21st century jobs, which would strengthen our economy, we instead choose to dispose of our citizens.

The book is heartbreaking.

But it also makes me think over and over again about the politics of respectability, whether or not it works, who it benefits, and whether it actually creates more oppression for people of color who are stuck. Malcolm X was right when he said that the politics were hypocritical over 50 years ago. He spoke of how people even in the early 1900s were striving to have the hair and speech and conduct of white folks in order to feel normal and accepted and valuable, and, to feel above the other black and brown people who did not have those things. But black and brown and Asian and Native American people should be full citizens with equal rights and our own cultural intricacies and values without having to do that.

I work with white children every day who have no idea what race is. Because they are the norm, they have not a clue. They never have to think about how their race will affect them, or how children of color want to have their hair, have their complexion, or just have the privilege of feeling normal without ever having to be more careful (politically correct) in the way they dress, or the way they speak in public because of their race. But I can guarantee that every young child of color KNOWS that they are "different," and for some, the politics of respectability, the subconscious concessions begin there.

Chris Rock and Isaiah Washington showcased the complexity of this earlier this month. Chris Rock has been pulled over multiple times for driving a fancy car while being a Black male and Isaiah Washington suggests than maybe he should "adapt" the way Washington has after facing many of the same ordeals. Washington is wrong, of course, because Chris Rock is a full citizen of this country who should be able to drive whatever car he likes and express himself however he pleases. But that's not to say that Washington doesn't have a point. Chris Rock, by celebrating his celebrity, rather than "humbling" himself to "what black men should drive to abide by the politics that makes society feel comfortable when it imagines Black men" is putting himself in danger. For if Chris Rock didn't have the clout and power that Chris Rock did, he might well be in trouble.

I wonder often if abiding by the politics of respectability divides and weakens oppressed communities rather than strengthens them because it places blame solely on people who can't abide by it, rather than the system that puts them there.
Then again, it may be much more foolish for people of color who could abide by the politics of respectability to choose not to. That would be utter nonsense. From dress-code, to the ability to code-switch, to appealing to different demographics; if you could, you would, and you probably should. There is a huge and divisive debate in the Asian American community about Whitewashing. I've observed some rift between the African American and African communities about the same issue. But like Michelle Alexander notes, one individual's ability to assimilate does nothing for the greater good of racial justice. Having exceptional(ly successful) Black people doesn't make the plight of the entire community better. It doesn't make the fact that the government spends more money on building prisons and maintaining prisons, (hence stereotypes) rather than strengthening schools in primarily Black and Brown cities any better. Obama and a few actors here and there, a few athletes here and there, a few politicians here and there, are exceptions, not the rule, and there may be pride but there certainly isn't any trickle down effect from the President

Things ultimately change with education, job creation, exposure, and policies. Young people need to be exposed to a more complete and honest history about deliberate actions like Jim Crow, red-lining, and the creation of ghettos so that more may feel compelled to be better human beings who think beyond stereotypes or media appropriations of entire groups, and who know how their nation's history actively affects their fellow citizens today.

Racism today, is not so much the N-Word. Prejudice today stems more from teaching children and people that simply because they have a few friends from a different race, that they are open-minded. Tokenism teaches people to be proud of themselves without holding them responsible for learning the history, uniqueness, suffering (levied from one group onto another), and contributions of others, which in essence keeps them blind to how others are affected by their actions. People who encounter me and other people of color don't understand that simply because they have a Black friend... because they have an Asian friend... because they eat Chinese food... doesn't mean we "get" one another, doesn't mean we were born on the same playing field.

"All my black friends have a bunch of white friends, and all of my white friends have one black friend." - Chris Rock

The problem with the United States is that it is a capitalist nation created on the principle of greed, and the problem with fight for justice for people of color, particularly black families, is that there is no leverage. There is no reason to change the policy, to transfer power, to provide reparations, or honestly, for the people who have all of those thing to lose capital. There is actually incentive for them to sustain and increase what they have, hence, why young Republicans even exist. There would only be more competition and challenge if the playing field were fair. And no one is willing to call out the ref or the league because they can't win if the rules remain the way they are. We can't win like this until we find the heart of the nation, or at least a moral compass, and sometimes I think, it's not there.

When we send our children to school in this country they learn nothing about us other than that we used to be cotton pickers. Every little child going to school thinks his grandfather was a cotton picker. Why, your grandfather was Nat Turner; your grandfather was Toussaint L'Ouverture; your grandfather was Hannibal. Your grandfather was some of the greatest black people who walked on this earth. It was your grandfather's hands who forged civilization and it was your grandmother's hands who rocked the cradle of civilization. But the textbooks tell our children nothing about the great contributions of Afro Americans to the growth and development of this country. - See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity#sthash.wVxFtb51.dpuf

When we send our children to school in this country they learn nothing about us other than that we used to be cotton pickers. Every little child going to school thinks his grandfather was a cotton picker. Why, your grandfather was Nat Turner; your grandfather was Toussaint L'Ouverture; your grandfather was Hannibal. Your grandfather was some of the greatest black people who walked on this earth. It was your grandfather's hands who forged civilization and it was your grandmother's hands who rocked the cradle of civilization. But the textbooks tell our children nothing about the great contributions of Afro Americans to the growth and development of this country. - See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity#sthash.wVxFtb51.dpuf

''When we send our children to school in this country they learn nothing about us other than that we used to be cotton pickers. Every little child going to school thinks his grandfather was a cotton picker. Why, your grandfather was Nat Turner; your grandfather was Toussaint L'Ouverture; your grandfather was Hannibal. Your grandfather was some of the greatest black people who walked on this earth. It was your grandfather's hands who forged civilization and it was your grandmother's hands who rocked the cradle of civilization. But the textbooks tell our children nothing about the great contributions of Afro Americans to the growth and development of this country.'' - Malcolm X, 1964

Kendrick Lamar's "The Blacker the Berry"