This posting is motivated by Marion Wright Edelman's
recent article in the online HuffingtonPost (August 7, 2015), "
Helping Black Boys Survive: What a Difference a Smile Makes." Although Pericles21 sees merit in Ms. Edelman's 'Smile Fix' ('wear a smile, save your life'), it is actually a 'quick fix', a patch-job' of 'The Problem' (the too-frequent police shootings of unarmed African-Americans). Pericles21 sees 'The Problem' of police shootings as one of the faces of endemic, cultural racism against African-Americans and especially African-American males. Going further, Pericles21 sees a dangerous, longer term negative value of teaching this survival device to African-American youth (without 'Fixing' the larger scope cultural Problem of racism) because 'The Smile' fix, as it has always been, is an artifice, a deliberately self-disguising mask that 'pretends'... and interferes with 'normal' maturing.
The 'Smile Fix' has always been in the survival-repertoire of African-Americans and it has not solved The Problem' of endemic societal racism.
The 'Smile Fix' regresses African-American progress (especially for males) back 90 years to the era of an iconic (though negative image) early movie role of 'Step'n Fetchit' (acted by William Perry), of which it is said:
Perry's typical film persona and stage name have long been controversial, and seen as illustrative of negative stereotypes of African-Americans. Seen through a modern lens, Perry's character [Step'n Fetchit] has been described as "painfully racist" but also "subversive".[4][Wikepedia]
Pericles21 suggests a question:
Has 'Trayvon', 'Ferguson', 'Charleston', 'Sandra Bland', et al forced African-Americans to regress and once again seek to disguise themselves behind the mask of the'Step-n-Fetchit'smile to help in the literal life-and-death daily survival gauntlet for a minority in America? Has the smile once again become a solution to the recent years' police shootings of unarmed minorities, especially of African-Americans? And, is there in current America a 'dangling', incomplete social contract in play that is a barrier to America becoming 'post-racial, i.e., achieving a democratic goal of harmonious race relations?
Pericles21 has a broader view of 'The Problem' that led Ms. Edeleman to propose the 'Smile Fix'. This is not a rejection of Ms. Edelman's 'Smile Fix' but an expansion of her analysis. In this broader view, Pericles21 proposes that Ms. Edelman and others who have endorsed the 'Smile Fix' have overlooked an essential perspective on 'The Problem' (the appearance of disregard for the law agents by African-American males who are shot by police: 'The Problem' as defined does not recognize that the American Social Contract, the
quid pro quo contained in the Bill of Rights that are assured to all of us by the American Constitution, is not fully extended in real life to African-American males. Instead full coverage of the American Social Contract has been excused away by endemic social stereotyping of the African-American and replaced by endemic negative attitudes towards African Americans.
This undercurrent of hate and negative attitudes towards African-Americans, and in turn the revealing of the unbalanced American Social Contract, was underscored for Greater America by the recent Charleston (South Carolina) Church shootings committed by Dylan Roof (
June 17, 2015) that re-awakened America to the scary significance of the Confederate flag, i.e., the Confederate flag is not a harmless heritage icon but a frightening reminder that the American Civil War has not ended.
For African-Americans especially, the Civil War has never ended as they, unlike the rest of America, have never been allowed to sleep peacefully because that flag has continuously and deliberately been thrust in their faces as a symbol of intimidation. On the contrary, African-Americans have always been aware of the threatening significance of that flag as a symbol of preserving slavery status because they have never been permitted to live in peace from the physical and psychological threats carried out under that flag.
Although the South 'lost' the Civil War and lost the legal right to hold slaves, the South has fought a 150 year post-war insurgency against the former slave themselves, designed to keep the African-American in slave status by impeding open voting through gerrymandering voting districts, imposing poll taxes and poll exams, and by outright intimidation (lynching, rape, church-burning, etc). To this end, the South and its allies have relied on some sectors of the media to bombard the public with negative stereotypes and used legislative leverage to enact 'False Flag' operations like the War on Drugs that imposed unduly large sentences in privatized (self-aggrandizing) prisons on un-balancedly African-american and other males of color.
For this reason, Pericles21 has defended Dylan Roof as a sacrificial lamb (June 25, 2015, '
The Charleston SC Shootings:... About the Shooter at the Emanuel AME Church, About America's Abandonment of It's Children and of the Common Weal'). Pericles21 cautions Americans not to buy into the demonizing of Dylan Roof as if he and his hate appeared out of a vacuum because Dylan's young mind was captured, warped and guided by extremist, racist media to murder the 9 African-Americans who had invited him into their church to pray with them. To repeat that post, Pericles21 asks that the media voices who motivated Dylan be put on trial with him... or asked to defend his thoughts, beliefs, prejudices and actions...because they made Dylan.
African-Americans are too often made general fault-bearers for a disappointed and frustrated society at large. This 'legacy' of being the 'blame bearer' describes a social 'unbalance' that has existed since the end of the Civil War - through the wrecking of Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the dilution of the Voting Rights Act and now the flood of shootings of unarmed african-Americans. The American Social Contract, guaranteed by the Constitution, was long ago broken and is still 'dangling':
Pericles21:
The Problem is really one of a 'dangling, incomplete, social contract' between a citizen group (African-American)(assumed fully vested in rights as well as obligations) and society. Especially for African-American males, the social contract of reciprocated rewards has been abrogated with the total focus on, and excuse given as justification of breaking the contract, 'impropriety' of tone of voice, dress, music, skin color, etc (all superficial labeling of physical and behavioral APPEARANCES which have been used as excuses to disenfranchise and to shoot
And what is the American Social Contract that is not complete (broken)?
The broken American Social Contract is the failure by America to uphold its end of the social 'deal' to minorities, and specifically to African-Americans, and more specifically to African-American males. The Deal is that 'good' behavior as marked by complete conformity to standards of behavior and appearance that make White-America comfortable with the presence of minorities of color, will be reciprocated by full and fair acceptance and treatment of the buying-in minorities as first class citizens. The dangling contract clause not present for minorities and especially for African-American males translates to equal access to the common good, to uncomplicated/unimpeded voting rights, housing, education, social movement and relationships, legal and law enforcement respect, etc., ...all those 'equalities' that make for a life of ease with the social environment so casually and automatically assumed by White Americans.
A central part of the dangling social contract is the 'fix' that one frequently hears these days in the haze of too-frequent police shootings of unarmed African-American males whose '
threat countenance' seems nothing more than 'improper' attire (hoodies), and especially a 'improper' countenance (no smile and no soft voice). The 'Fix'is to emphasize to African-American males not to wear hoodies and to always keep a smile.
This 'Fix' can be equated to a modern lynching of the psychological sort.
Teaching an African-American male youth to show a smile during his day will, in brutal reality, help save his life even if he doesn't change his normal, legal behavior.
But while the smile'Fix' will ease his way and help assure he will not be shot by an offended or pathologically xenophobic policeman, there might be a longer term disadvantage that in later, adult, life this smiling face will still be regarded as a 'boy' even at 25, 35 or 55 years old, and he will not be regarded as worthy of adult status, i.e., he will not merit serious consideration for job advancement, positions of significance and adult responsibility. Focusing on always smiling, the youthful boy will not have 'allowed' himself to mature into a serious-minded adult. In society's eyes (majority, white society) his darkness of skin may be compensated for by the smile but the person underneath will remain stamped down and insignificant, just a pleasant-faced boy, a superficial background 'extra'. The boy will not have gained full self-esteem and respect as an adult.
Teaching 'The Smile' is the new 'Talk' that African-American parents (and no doubt, many other minority parents) are asked to give to their sons (like The Talk given to them by their own parents and in generations-to-generations before) in the current era of police shootings of unarmed African-American youth.
Sure, this should remove the impetus by police to shoot but we have learned, and are relearning, The Talk and The Smile aren't as effective as much as we think it should be. Is this ongoing tradition of 'The Talk', even in post-civil rights, really become now 'The New Lynching'?
Is 'The New Lynching' a psychological lynching of the spirit and the soul: the almost daily psychological castration-and-lynching of the African-American male to mold (lion train him) him to voluntarily take to the guilt-created, guilt-projected harnessing needs of white America?
White America has a guilt stemming from their own acknowledgement that they themselves would be very angry if they were in the position of African-Americans without knowing the barriers that they (white) know are erected and maintained to rope in minorities and African-American males in particular.
The need of White America to escape the burden of shared accountability for the 'Dangling American Social Contract', White America projects onto the minority target both White instigation and minority confusion (and conformity failures) about how to assimilate to the majority culture.
Only in this current 'lynching' era, White America doesn't have to bloody their hands:
Pericles21: the African-American male is persuaded to bring his own rope, loop it over the tree limb and string himself up. Plus, he must feel bad about it all by accepting the irrational fear of White America of his skin color. White America goes on discriminating, hating, shoot-first-by-police and is now totally guilt-free because of this new 'framing'. The African-American male who, in the erms of the new, popularized psychology, has become convinced to own and administer his self-oppression and lynching.
The African-American male must 'own' unfair treatment by others and thereby take ownership of White America's continuing prejudice, discrimination, guilt and hate. What a good deal for White America. What a social failure in working because what kind of thinking human could long keep all that rationalizing and self-delusion intact without succumbing to extreme fear, confusion, self-submerging and in cases 'acting out'on self, family and society?
The cultural disparity of race and appearance still remains - Black women are still trying to disguise their natural healthy hair by pressing it into 'unnatural', greased shapes - and it is unfair to African-American males: a concentrated face on a white male is a positive , i.e., praised as 'manly', 'warrior like', 'leadership focus', 'a Thinker', 'protective father' ...while the same countenance on an African-American male is labeled automatically as 'angry and threatening' and something to be afraid of, to nip-in-the-bud (shoot) before it gets out of control.
This too-quick labeling of anything on a Black male face, except a smile, as negative and a sign of potential, though not-explicitly-showing, anger to fear is another projection from white society of its guilt about knowlingly benefitting almost every day from some privilege, great or small, that comes with having white skin. In slavery times, the great fear (and anger) was slave rebellion...attributed to a 'negative' tendency of the slave (blackmale) to have a naturally rebellious, angry soul. White sinfulness was thereby 'whitewashed' away and the sin of slavery placed on the slave. The clock keeps going round, the tune keeps repeating.
Posts
