The End of Black Respectability Politics

[Capt. Obvious]

....

“Black respectability politics” describes African-Americans’ self-policing morality and propriety in order to better reflect themselves to the white mainstream. I would be lying if I said I didn’t benefit from the cultural gymnastics of learning and adapting to mainstream etiquette, values, dress codes, hairstyles and preferred media. This is how most people, regardless of race and class, try to live. There is nothing wrong with self-improvement, dressing well and speaking proper English.

But black respectability politics is more than self-help and discipline. It’s like living your life as a job interview. Forever. It is a state of always striving to impress and never arriving at the promised land of equality. It’s a mindfuck, because in order to be “equal” to whiteness, I have to take it upon myself to do more, to counteract the feeling that I am less.

Black respectability politics is like living your life as a job interview. Forever.
When some of us fail at this task, we chastise our own as “bringing down the race.” NBA analyst and Hall of Fame Basketball player Charles Barkley said as much in October amid protests against police murders: “It’s a dirty dark secret in the black community, one of the reasons we’re never going to be successful as a whole is because of other black people.”

These statements have been a long-held Black Respectability Political party line among African-American community leaders, politicians and media barons. But hip hop, the black community’s widening generational gap, and now Cosby’s very public demise may have killed BRP for good.

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More. Good read.

[ieoeja]

1. For the usual suspects who say, "Whites have to do that to be successful too," I have two letters:

GW

Bush succeeded in part by purposefully exaggerating his "good ol' boy" routine which included using improper grammar, etc. And he is far from the only politician to succeed in that fashion.

[Egnever]

2. So regressing to a society that no longer values education is a good thing?

[MrScorpio]

3. And I say, good riddance. nt

[haele]

5. That's the problem with anecdotes. I don't have that same problem.

And I'm a white female.
I went to several different schools across the country growing up, and the community expectations play a large part in how the peer group of children view educational success.

In at least two that I remember, the school peer leadership - the "Queen Bees" and "Kewl Kings" (i.e., children who either came from money and or had enough personality that the majority of the student population "looked up" to them or strives to emulate.) either hated school or didn't see the need for it.
Kids who got their grades naturally were generally left alone, but if you tried to change your initial peer clique or improve yourself at all, you were immediately ostracized and bullied for trying to "be better" than you should be. Actual learning meant you were either a loser trying to catch up or a snob. "New Kids" had it just as bad, until they got settled in the group they were supposed to be in.
In these two schools, the social pecking order became more important than learning, no matter what your parents said when you got home, because when school became hell - well, it took a stronger child than the average to overcome that sort of pressure. I had problems myself, because I was a new kid, an outsider - pariah - the two and a half years we were living there.
This was a suburb, with kids that came from a mix of working class and professionals, where one would expect that education would be more valued by the families than in more "poor" or disadvantaged communities. I would hear my father, a high school history teacher and GED facilitator, would constantly complain about the lack of influence that other parents and school administrators had on the children who had taken a leadership role within the schools to bully other students and enforce social class lines. Especially after some "sweet precious snowflake" got her parents involved when he tried to counsel her on the affect of her bullying another student between classes - and he got a warning from the principal because he was embarrassing her.
We experienced the same clique structures when my stepdaughter was going to school - once she hit seventh grade, there was very little we could do to affect her attitudes towards learning - because it was how strong the influences of her peer group's attitude and expectations that dictated how she was going to act from there on.

I've heard from other minorities (racial, religious, or economic) who grew up in communities where "acting white" or "being a nerd/studying like a girl instead of playing with the boys" was basically a peer code for "you're acting above your station". I've also experienced and heard from other minorities where no matter how hard they worked or how well they did, it was never "good enough" - because the community at large had pretty much already determined the criteria for who was going to be eligible the valedictorians, or go into honors, or get the internships over the summer - and a good half the criteria one was being judged under had nothing to do with hard work, good grades, or talent.

In my experience, the problem with the social influences that determine an older child's graduation potential and educational success really isn't the low expectations of parents and other adults (especially teachers) towards their children once they hit fifth or sixth grade.
The problem is the low expectations of the peer group of the child, which is reinforced by the community leadership involvement in the school and educational system.

Haele

[Number23]

7. This is a very thought provoking read.

Despite the brilliant speeches, the painstaking compromises, foreign policy successes, legislative achievements and, to some, being one of the most objectively successful presidents in America’s history, he is still unpopular with vast sections of white America. If a black man like Obama is still hated by almost half the population, then what hope is there for the average middle class family, a single mother, the teenage kid with a hoodie, the creative artist who likes to provoke, or the philosopher who proposes change? What hope is there for me?

Which is why there are probably boat loads of black people that are kicking their heels that BRP is dead or dying. Although no one I know is even remotely surprised by the way this president has been treated -- by his opponents and his "supporters" -- it is very telling that if a man with his gifts and his achievements is so despised, then why fucking bother trying to please the unpleasable? Why waste your time? Your life?

Might be a good thing for this to die.