When Male Privilege and White Privilege Shape “Progressive” Conversations

Several years ago, I worked at an educational program for adolescents facing a plethora of socioeconomic, legal, and sociopolitical (oppression via racism, sexism, misogynoir, homophobia and classism) challenges. The staff was more diverse there than at any other job I’ve had, while still of course reflecting the usual hierarchies; White women in higher positions than Black women, White men in higher positions than White women etc.

One day after a long day of work, some of the coworkers decided to go out for wings and beer. It happened quite a bit, perhaps bi-weekly. This time, one of the Black male employees (one of the few times I’ve had a Black male coworker in my adult life) decided to come too. We sat down at a table; it was about six of us. The conversation moved from politics to Civil Rights-era specific politics and the Black male coworker asked me if I would have been a Black Panther.

Those “would have been” questions can become problematic. I don’t know what I would have done then (though I do not buy into the myth that racism is gone solely because it CHANGES appearance). I may have been killed long before I had a chance to join. Conversely, I may have been overcome with fear and tried to live my life as best as possible under the radar, knowing the price of resistance was often immediate death or elaborate COINTELPRO and other State-sponsored surveillance and terrorism meant to dis-empower and destroy Black people. Even if I didn’t feel “political” then (or now), being a Black woman means I could’ve faced the same things that those who were considered “political” faced then (or now). Black people were spread over a spectrum of political action and resistance, and not all resistance looks the same. (Check out Patricia Hill Collins’ book Black Feminist Thought for how she articulates how Black women engaged in resistance in a plethora of ways; her writing on Black domestic workers and Black blues singers is great.)

I told him that I am not sure; the sexism of the Black Panther Party was palpable and could also be seen amidst the Civil Rights Movement itself and other movements. (And to be clear, this is not an “in hindsight” response; many Black women DURING the time spoke of the sexism). It doesn’t erase their accomplishments, however. These both can exist at the same time and be embodied in the same people. However, the end of my response was ignored by my coworker. He was angry that I mentioned their sexism (and colorism and misogynoir too, actually) and said that his father was a Black Panther so my nuanced response could not be true. (He himself was quite the sexist and colorist as a Black man, so I found his paternal reference rather comical.)

Then a White female co-worker jumped in; she was about 20 years older than I am. About me she said “no way, she would have been burning bras with us.” Us? Would this be with the White women from Susan B. Anthony to the ones who fill Twitter today obscuring or straight up ignoring Black women’s experiences? Would this be the ones who will gladly acknowledge sexism while pretending that any claim of racism (or the intersectional experience of racism and sexism, with misogynoir) is an “overreaction” by Black women and other women of colour? I just laughed when she said this. I found them both painfully amusing and amusingly painful to be around. And these were theoretically “progressive” people. They couldn’t see me beyond whatever category applied to them, race or gender. Their privilege obscured their views.

I simply told them that I am not interested in any group where I would be marginalized or silenced. In fact, modern Black feminism (I say “modern” in that Black women have embraced womanism and Black feminism LONG before the terms were even common) came about because of the marginalization Black women faced in pro-Black and pro-woman progressive movements, in addition of course to what they faced in the larger society.

(Both of them got upset and then another co-worker changed the topic. Ever since that time of hanging out, it was never the same with me and those two co-workers. I eventually left that job and never saw or spoke to the White woman again; I saw the Black man again a few months later at a store and of course he was rude. I was with a friend who was surprised by his actions.)

Often times, people forget that even in “progressive” spaces, Black women’s voices are drowned out or disregarded. Worse, some Black men and White women engage in the same oppressive acts or ones that reinforce the same imperialist White supremacist capitalist hetero-patriarchy that Black women expect “outside” of “progressive” conversations and spaces.

I am not interested in the cultural reductionism that dictates that Black women be “team Black men” or “team White women.” As I’ve mentioned before, much of the interpersonal social headache that I deal with outside of feminist spaces involves street harassment by Black men and dealing with microaggressions from White women, even regarding my hair. In progressive spaces, I’ve encountered some feminist Black men that seem to want trophies for not being misogynoirist and White feminists who think I must like what they like (and who they like), and only view me as an “ally” to their feminism, as if that’s all Black women can be—distant allies.

Maya Angelou already told us when people show you who they are, believe them. I am not interested in having “allies” where my experiences talking to them or sharing progressive spaces with them mimic experiences with those who know nothing of justice and are committed to the oppression of others. What’s the difference then?

Related Posts: The Predictable Cycle of White Liberal “Humor” At Black Women’s Expense, I Am STILL HERE For Feminism

A Black Woman Does Not Have To Perform Stereotypes To Have A “Personality”

I am always highly suspicious of people when they suggest that a Black woman “doesn’t have a personality.” Everyone has a personality. Personality refers to the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character—what makes them different from someone else. Thus, while Black women share sociopolitical characteristics and have common experiences based on our social location, we each have differing personalities (even if characteristics such as MBTI also reveals overlap).

It’s rarely a matter of a particular Black woman not having a personality. It might be one that people do not like (though few know how to critique Black women without using “isms”). It might be one that people do not have enough exposure to in order to make a judgment of. Perhaps that Black woman is an introvert and these people, like most Americans, have a persistent bias towards extroverts over introverts. In fact, many people seem to define “personality” as “extroverted expressions.” Perhaps these people bring out the worst in her, either through their own bigotry or by being assholes, in general. Perhaps these people only associate ONE WORD emotions with the labyrinth of nuance that is personality. How eager are some people to label a Black woman’s entire personality as “bitter.”

Many times when I’ve heard people suggest that a certain Black woman (famous or non-famous) didn’t have a personality, it was because they felt that she did not conform to external constructions of Black womanhood (though they don’t always realize that this is what they are suggesting), either through historically racist controlling images (mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire), stereotypes shaped by White supremacy, racism, sexism and capitalism just as much as misogynoir (welfare queen, welfare mother, Black matriarch, “corporate” Black “maneater”, “evil” single Black woman, “hoochie” or “whore”), or patriarchal labels via binaries (“strong” vs. “angry” or “queen” vs. “bitch”).

I’ve encountered Black men who will literally write a Black woman off as “fake” or “phony” or “boring” or suggest that “she has no personality” if he cannot place her in one of these racist and misogynoirist categories. They reject how White supremacy in the media shapes Black manhood (though many still embrace patriarchal masculinity, which is a construction via White supremacy) but will gladly suggest that all Black women are like reality shows etc. And here’s the thing, for the ones who are argumentative like reality shows, so what? Men don’t argue? I won’t even bother citing the violence and wars that manifest from their arguments. White women don’t argue? They do the same things on their reality shows without being expected to represent “all” White women. The luxury of male privilege and White privilege allows this.

Next time a person decides that a Black woman doesn’t have a personality, I will be interested in knowing if she’s simply an introvert, disinterested in the person making the assessment or expected to be a one-dimensional stereotype and not a person.

I am interested in full human beings. Black women are full human beings. Black women do not have to perform extroversion or be 1-dimensional stereotypes to have personalities.

Black Women Were Lynched Too

In 1887, a Black woman named Gracy Blanton was lynched in Louisiana. The charge against her was theft. In 1895, a Black woman named Hannah Kearse was lynched in South Carolina. The charge against her was stealing a Bible. In 1898 a Black woman named Dora Baker was lynched in South Carolina. The charge against her was…”race prejudice?”

In 1906, a Black woman named Meta Hicks was lynched in Georgia. The charge against her…none. Her husband was charged with murder, and she was lynched by consequence. In 1911, a Black woman named Hattie Bowman was lynched in Florida. The charge against her was theft. In 1914, a Black woman named Jennie Collins was lynched in Mississippi. The charge against her was aiding in an escape. In 1918, a pregnant Black woman named Mary Turner was lynched in Georgia. The charge against her was just being “taught a lesson.” In 1923, Sarah Carrier and Lesty Gordon were lynched in Florida (Rosewood). The charge against them was “race prejudice.”

In 1946, a Black woman named Dorothy Malcolm was lynched in Georgia. The charge against her was being able to identify mob members. In 1956, a Black woman named Angenora Spencer was lynched in North Carolina. The charge against her was miscegenation, and a charge that predated the historic Loving v. Virginia ruling by barely over a decade.

Black women were lynched too. These are only some of the recorded cases. Recorded—in that not all were recorded.

In addition to all of the punishments via White supremacy and racist oppression meant specifically for Black women (i.e. rape as a tool of power, control, and capitalism), this punishment associated with Black men was also used against Black women.

While some will be quick to think of this as just “Southern racism” while the North was without racism, it would probably be best to read a NYT article, King Cotton’s Long Shadow and this quote by James Baldwin, as a start.

Related Post: Black Bodies: Objects For White Profit, Power and Pleasure

My High School Was Great…But Partly Because of Inequality

The Daily Beast (via Newsweek) has an article that ranks America’s Best High Schools. My alma mater, Suncoast High School in Florida ranks #9 of the top 2,000 schools in the country! Nine. I was proud and felt crunk for a moment. It has always ranked highly.

They also explained how they did the ranking. Though they included focus on things that I do not care about, such as standardized tests, I will say that my high school experience was exquisite, academically. In fact, I probably learned more there and in graduate school than in undergrad. I had great teachers for AP classes and honors classes (and a few pre-IB ones before I decided to be an IB dropout and instead take AP classes and dual enrollment classes at a local community college) and I always felt academically challenged. I LOVE my high school and I loved my high school years.

Because my school is a magnet, it pulls in high performing kids from extremely wealthy areas, including people who are like…neighbors with Donald Trump. Seriously. Obviously the correlations between economic and racial privilege (though the school is racially diverse, especially compared to neighboring high schools) and higher educational performance in addition to structural and institutional inequality are factors. I got to attend (despite being poor) because I attended a magnet middle school (because I had high grades in elementary school honors and gifted classes) and earned high grades. I got accepted through a process where my records were reviewed and through a lottery. Thus, the school really was diverse in terms of race and income, but intellectually, everyone performed either extremely highly or damn near genius level. (I wasn’t and am not a genius, but some kids there were.)

Thus, while I cheer for my school, I know that so much inequality is involved in what schools perform and what schools do not. I know that the school to prison pipeline is real. In other words, my happiness about this ranking is only transient and ephemeral at best.

I do like that they included a Top 25 Transformative High Schools list for schools that do not have those budgets and do not pull in students used to violin lessons and yachting on the weekends, such as some of my classmates were. (I couldn’t relate.)

I’m still happy about my school though deeply sad and disappointed about the state of education in this country, in general.

“Mellie” Can Be What “Olivia” Cannot; “Fitz” Can Be What “Mellie” Cannot

Team “Olivia” or team “Mellie?”

Whenever a Scandal fan on Twitter states that they are team “Mellie” and they aren’t bound to patriarchy, sexism, respectability politics and heteronormative rigidity regarding sexuality such that they have to be against “Olivia,” as “the other woman,” I then probe their tweets further. What I’ve found is that some seem to like that “Mellie” is “brilliant, focused and logical” as even “Fitz” himself described her. I agree. I like “Mellie” as a character and really, I like how just about every character of the show is constructed—their positive attributes and deep flaws (even when I don’t agree with a particular response/action). I’m even starting to like “Quinn” more in the last few episodes.

However, there’s something else that speaks to their liking: her rage. Every moment mentioned as a favorite “Mellie” moment by people I’ve talked to has been a moment of her rage.

Remember when she breathed the fire of a dragon at “Fitz” over his deteriorating role as a father? She read his ass! He deserved it. Her many standoffs with “Cyrus” (especially the one where she said she “made” “Fitz;” damn) seem to reach an intensity that no one else’s does with him, and not just because they have a mutual dislike of each other beyond what they themselves need from each other in relation to “Fitz.”

Her rage has become her defining trait. It’s delicious to watch because Bellamy Young is an incredible actor;  Kerry Washington, who is phenomenal herself, has said so. But there is no way that “Mellie” could be a Black character with this level of consistent rage and interpersonal manipulation, without being labeled as “an angry Black woman.” Further, the way her resume equals “Fitz’s” resume in many ways and how she speaks to him would be a source of severe criticism for “Olivia” (and the actor Kerry, I bet) whether “Fitz” remained White or were Black and that “Olivia” wouldn’t have if she were White.

People have already desperately tried to apply the “Sapphire” stereotype to “Olivia” anytime she even remotely flinches, “Jezebel” anytime she has sex and “mammy” anytime she solves a problem and “helps” a client, which I believe is a reductionist application for this particular character (not that many other Black female characters in the last several decades of television and almost a century of film haven’t been portrayed one of these ways; they have and still are).

Many die hard Scandal fans that I’ve talked to since season 1 love “Olivia’s” moments of vulnerability and “Mellie’s” moments of rage. Does this speak to the “opposite” of how Black womanhood and White womanhood are socially constructed in a White supremacist and patriarchal society? It would seem so. But the opposites aren’t solely knee-jerk constructions that render the characters flat; they still involve nuance since both characters portray a range of emotions and responses and have a level of agency that not every woman, Black or White, has in real life. Even so, White privilege allows “Mellie” to escape characterizations that “Olivia” couldn’t.

Then of course there’s “Fitz.” The epitome of White male privilege. Every attribute that “Mellie” has, he has, but is praised for it by default—within the show and as an external representation of White masculinity. His rage can be nasty but is viewed as strength. His drive can be relentless but is viewed as courage. At the same time, his push and pull ambivalence about being President, the uncertainty he has which is lead by emotion (lust, confusion, longing and love) is something definitely typed as “female” in our society. In other words, “Fitz” be in his feelings…and he’s a male character.

The interesting thing about Scandal is that Shonda Rhimes and her writers have not completely rewritten society into something not currently recognizable (even if publicly desired) and thereby fantastical. The manifestations of race, gender, sexuality and class and how they create oppression and privilege are there. The story isn’t futurist (assuming a “future” involved the eradication of oppression). At the same time, she’s challenging these constructions by making the characters posses nuances that aren’t present in characters in many other dramas and ones that defy role expectations. The show manages to constrain humanity in a way that matches what currently exists in society because of oppression yet reveals humanity as emotional and intellectual nuance for “Olivia” in a way that for a character like “Fitz” and even “Mellie” already exists on screen, because of White privilege. It’s not even so much that the latter has nuanced portraits but that “Olivia” does as well, which is profound.

(I didn’t juxtapose “Fitz” and “Olivia” in terms of White and male privilege because I addressed the power/sexual politics issue in several previous posts [scroll through my Scandal tag to see all essays and posts since the show’s inception], including the most recent post On Scandal: “Olivia Pope,” Sexual Politics and Privacy.)

I love Kerry Washington’s work as “Olivia Pope.” It’s hard to deny her social impact when her alma mater George Washington University used an “Olivia Pope” photo to announce that Kerry is giving the commencement address this spring. That’s not an accident. Further, seeing Shonda Rhimes amidst the Time 100 is exciting.

It’s not even about me being team “Mellie” or team “Olivia.” I’m team Shonda Rhimes.

On Kiera Wilmot: When Intellectual Curiosity Is A Crime

Kiera Wilmot is a 16-year-old Black female high school student in Florida who is facing the permanent destruction of her young life because of intellectual curiosity. A Black girl with a curious mind and an inclination towards science—in a country that places 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading, a place where STEM in college and the workplace still reveals very White and male spaces, ones often hostile to Black women—is someone to be punished, not nurtured?

According to Miami New Times, Kiera “got good grades and had a perfect behavior record.” Thus when the following incident occurred, it would make sense that who she is (beyond the need to overly punish Black students, including Black girls) as an individual would matter.

The 16 year-old mixed some common household chemicals in a small 8 oz water bottle on the grounds of Bartow High School in Bartow, Florida. The reaction caused a small explosion that caused the top to pop up and produced some smoke. No one was hurt and no damage was caused.

Despite the school officials, including the principal, agreeing that there was no malicious intent and that it was an accident, the reaction to the accident is incredibly extreme. She was expelled from school. With expulsion, any college plans that she had are severely altered if even still possible. Being that she was a good student, she may have had college in mind. Finishing a diploma through an expulsion program is not what most colleges want to see in an applicant’s record. However, this is the least of her worries. She faces criminal charges as well. She was “charged with possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device. She will be tried as an adult.” Expulsion. Criminal charges. Tried as an adult. Her life may never be the same.

When I first heard about the story and shared a few tweets (which I posted on Storify), the first thing that came to my mind is a scene from the film People Like Us. In the film “Frankie” has a troubled son “Josh” who creates an explosion at school and does cause serious damage. However, “Josh” escapes trouble for this (despite being a consistently problematic child) because his White mother “Frankie” lets the Black female principal know that it’s the school’s fault that he had access to chemicals and his curiosity related to things discussed in science anyway. He gets off that time. ”Josh” is eventually expelled, however, when he later physically attacks another child. He had to draw blood before facing expulsion, and even so, he never faced criminal charges. This film (a good film no less) came to mind because this kid is everything Kiera is NOT. She is a good student. She has no record of trouble. She is Black and female not White and male. Her administrators admitted one thing (understanding it was an accident and no harm was done) yet feel that extreme punishment is the only thing acceptable. One of the reasons why I liked this film is because it REVEALED White privilege (despite these characters not having class privilege until they came into some money) and I don’t even think the filmmakers intended that. That’s White privilege—not seeing how that cinematic situation reveals what occurs in real life; “getting off” and “getting by” in ways never afforded to Black students.

In the post The Case Around Fla, Teen Kiera Wilmot is Part of a Bigger, More Disturbing Pattern on Davy D’s Hip Hop Corner, the author points out the trend of criminalization and extreme reaction to Black students’ behavior. Handcuffed 5-year-olds and a Black student accused of shoplifting for “fitting the description” are among the examples provided. Story after story seems to surface where an extreme reaction is taken to a small problem when the student is Black. And while the focus is often on Black male students, Black female students face more criminalization than any other students, other than Black male students. In the post The Effects of Unchecked Criminalization: Teen Charged With Felony For Science Experiment by Sesali Bowen on Feministing, the author addresses the point of whether or not this is about the “safety” of other students:

I call bullshit. This is not about the “safety and security” of students and staff at Bartow High School. This was about setting an example, at the expense of Wilmot, and sending a message that even (mis)perceived threats will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. The unfortunate truth is that in America, those perceptions are heavily tied up in notions of race, class, and gender.

Race, gender, class and more impact everything in our society because they are inherently tied into who we are as individuals and a society. The myth that despite the evidence of Black students being criminalized, somehow race is not a factor here is ludicrous at this point, and to me, ultimately unacceptable. The question of whether or not race matters is not an IF question but a HOW question. Clearly, the reaction to school violence (notice how if a White male commits school or mass violence on a national scale, the reaction is to police more people of colour), the criminalization of Black students who will eventually feed into Prison Industrial Complex and something else less obvious but still sinister and a factor no less—the silencing of creativity and intellectual curiosity has occurred. Students at that school received a message loud and clear and it is not one about some “crazed bomber, bad student” that some who responded to this story suggest. It is a message that curiosity should be punished, not explained. Instead of detention for two weeks where Kiera could spend time with her Chemistry teacher learning more about what chemicals cause what reactions and why, and conducting experiments in controlled environments, her education and now possibly her freedom for years is over.

Who wins from this? Another Black family is harmed. Another set of classmates learned not to be intellectually inquisitive. Prison Industrial Complex may get a new slave. Who wins, indeed? The problem is I know who wins. Those who do not want Black, female or Black female bodies anywhere near science. Those who need to believe that to be Black is to be criminal and there is no nuance to be had here. Those who know deep down in their hearts that they would react completely differently (with more concern) to this story if she were White. The worst part is that people had to march, beg and plead for someone like George Zimmerman to be arrested for MURDER, and it took 45 days for that to occur. Uncanny how SWIFT and how EXTREME the reaction is to Kiera.

Why Whites Call People Of Colour “Racist”

I have been called “racist” by White people whenever I specifically reject a legislative, political, media/film/art, or cultural manifestation of White supremacy. I’ve also been called “racist” for recounting any experience that I have had with racism. The actual act of naming what I heard or experienced is deemed “racist.” The naming, deconstruction and discussion of experiences of this nature is important, however. As Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins notes:

Naming daily life by applying language to everyday experience infuses it with the new meaning of a womanist consciousness. Naming becomes a way of transcending the limitations of intersecting oppressions.

Apparently, what I actually heard or experienced is of no concern or consequence to Whites seeking to call Black people or other people of colour racist.

There’s two reasons why Whites call people of colour (especially Black people) “racist.” First of all, it comes from a lack of understanding of the term (through ignorance or willful ignorance and hatred), its history and its consequences. As long as “racism” is viewed solely as “one person being mean to another person because of their race” or basically solely as an individual and arbitrary instance of prejudice with equal social capital between the individuals, Whites can obscure or ignore the ramifications of the historical (whether implied, microaggressions or overt racism), institutional, structural and systemic manifestations of White supremacy (which does NOT require extremism to exist) and racism.

A Black person being insulted based on slurs that facilitate(d)(s) oppression and genocide for centuries and that same sentiment behind that slur facilitates the denial of a plethora of opportunities as well as supports a plethora of types of discrimination and punishment represents a different magnitude and scope of an insult versus a Black person “hurting” a White person’s feelings, even if the former is rude. Oppression is about more than hurt feelings. The latter doesn’t even begin to encapsulate what the former is. Further, individual acts of harm from a person of colour to a White person may be an insult, a tort or a crime—but it does not connect to violence (which is more than just physical) used to facilitate the oppression of an entire people. (Even so, because the criminal justice system is about punishing Blacks and “protecting” Whites, a White person wouldn’t have to have the expectation that a Black person would go unpunished for harming them. More convictions and harsher sentences are factors. Even Black adolescents face more punishment than White adolescents. In fact, Whites should fear Whites, in regards to the criminal justice system.)

Many times an insult is not occurring—it’s just a Black person adamantly rejecting White supremacy. The rejection of White supremacy and racism themselves is not “reverse racism.” Rejecting White supremacy is not then telling Whites to be “ashamed” of Whiteness, as they should be able to live and thrive without the lie that is the claim of inherent superiority. For example, I’ve had White women suggest to me that any rejection of Eurocentric beauty, including considering myself beautiful as a Black woman who looks nothing like them, and having a blog where Black women are celebrated visually, is being “racist.” By not making yet another space (since apparently, having their images dominate commercials, films, television shows, magazines, fashion blogs, print ads, books, stock photography and more is not enough), my personal space, dedicated to White women, I am then deemed ”racist” and “oppressing” White women. This is only a smidgen of the nonsense that I face when Whites choose to call me “racist.”

“Reverse racism,” as well as “misandry” and “heterophobia” are not forms of oppression. The oppressed deconstructing, rejecting and fighting oppression does not then make the privileged become oppressed. The privileged have no “right” to oppress, so losing the opportunity to oppress does not make the privileged become oppressed. If the privileged measure their freedom based on how much they can oppress or not, the know nothing of actual freedom. Nothing.

Whites ignore how White privilege protects them from racial oppression but does not for people of colour, especially Black people. They retreat to examining intersections where they may be oppressed (if they aren’t cisgender, heterosexual, White men in the socioeconomic 1% and living in the Western world)—intersections based on gender, class, sexual orientation, being trans*, weight and ability, while not realizing that despite any or all of these areas where oppression can manifest, they STILL have White privilege. Some Whites will ignore the experiences of people of colour who are women, poor, LGBTQ, considered overweight or have a challenge with a particular ability and by doing so, they can focus on how they themselves experience oppression while ignoring White privilege and matters of race. No country for nuance and intersectionality?

The second reason why Whites call people of colour “racist” is quite different. I’ve been in several graduate-level psychology classes where White students stated that being called “racist” is the absolute worse thing that could happen to them. I always wondered why saying or doing a racist thing didn’t scare them more than being called “racist.” What I realized is that some Whites will call a person of colour who called out their racism “racist” in an “I know you are but what am I” reductionist retreat. The defense mechanisms of projection and denial are to protect their egos. If there’s nothing they fear more than being called “racist,” then the best thing to do is to get that label “away” from them as soon as possible. By deciding that a person of colour rejecting racism is the “real” “racist” act, not the racist act that they or another White person was called out on, they can deflect and derail. A common derailment tactic is to assert in a whiny voice “all Whites aren’t like this.” Who said they are? Again, racism is not solely about individual to individual relationships; even when the discussion or action is between two people, it speaks to a greater experience impacted by institutional, systemic and structural factors. Further, an individual White person does not have to be racist in any way to benefit from White privilege living in a White supremacist society. As Mychal Denzel Smith writes In White People Have To Give Up Racism:

Not every white person is a racist, but the genius of racism is that you don’t have to participate to enjoy the spoils. If you’re white, you can be completely oblivious, passively accepting the status quo, and reap the rewards.

A lack of understanding regarding what racism actually is, the belief that White supremacy is “normal” in society, the inability to see the manifestations of racism because they do not experience them and are shielded by White privilege, as well as self-protection from the label that they fear most is why Whites call people of colour “racist” and from my experience, seem to take great pleasure in doing so when that person of colour is Black.

Related Essay List: On Race…

Could The Video For “Q.U.E.E.N.” Have Been More Inclusive? (Yep)

This post is in response to kiddotrue’s comment on my review of Janelle Monae’s and Erykah Badu’s video for their amazing song “Q.U.E.E.N.” She wrote:

The video is cute. I just was hoping that I’d see a body like mine in it. It was pretty much what I imagined, black girls dancing around and being awesome, a celebration of us. Just feeling a bit left out. I wanna be celebrated.

She’s totally right. Though they do have curvier (and darker complexioned) Black women in the video than in most music videos, fashion displays, films or anything else in the visual arts, the video could have included Black women beyond size 12, which is what I would guess the curviest woman in the video is. It could have been more diverse. If it was, then the video would have truly been 100% perfect, really. 

I hope that Janelle and Erykah do consider this in the future because both artists are already critical thinkers about so much in the industry. I hope they express their ability to expand their lenses in the future. (For example, I saw a photo of Beyoncé’s tour where her dancers and backup vocalists are a variety of sizes, and all female. I loved it.)

Because I am a big fan of both artists, because of my own thin privilege and because it’s still rare to see positive anything regarding Black women (especially brown skinned black women who aren’t size 6 and below), I did not notice the lack of diversity in sizes. My bad.

Can People Critique Black Women Without Resorting To “Isms?”

Do you know how utterly rare it is for someone to tell me that they do not like a specific Black woman, nonfamous or famous, without resorting to:

• racism
• White supremacist, Eurocentric constructions of beauty
• colourism
• sexism
• racialized sexism
• misogyny
• misogynoir
• classism
• the politics of respectability / theist-shaped perceptions that involve misogynoir and classism
• fatphobia
• homophobia
• transphobia

Do people realize that it is possible to dislike someone’s writing, art, music, personality, style or something else without resorting to oppression-supporting slurs/criticisms or bigotry? They should be able to articulate why they dislike the Black woman in question WITHOUT any of this.

But no…instead they resort to wanting a fictional Black female character in a film or show dead, or a Black female celebrity to be endlessly criticized while anything she does that is good is ignored, or Black women degraded for doing the same things that White women do, or Black women shamed for something that every other race and gender is applauded for—like earning a degree, and on and on and on…

Related Essay List: On Black Women…

A Fantasy About Black Moms and Their Children’s Education

I am not a mother, but I have this little fantasy about education.

There would be five Black mommies who are friends. They all have these amazing jobs where they only worked 4 of the 5 business days. On each one of the days where one of them was off from work, they would teach all 5 of their kids via homeschooling. That way, all of their kids could experience the different perspectives of each mom. In the evenings, their fathers and/or extended family (whomever is active in their lives) would review homework with them (the way millions of Black parents already do; I have flashbacks to my dad helping me ace Trigonometry in 11th grade)—whatever was assigned by the corresponding mother that day. Then on the weekends, they would have educational play time and some free time with their mothers and fathers/extended family. They could rotate which ones would manage their weekend activities so that some of the parents could have “time off” to do things of interest to them as adults.

This way, the children are not being homeschooled in isolation and still have a handful of kids around to socially interact with. Everyone would be plugged into their education together and they wouldn’t have the worries of criminalization in school for sheerly existing, for writing poetry (i.e. Courtni Webb), or for conducting a science experiment (i.e. Kiera Wilmot), or have to deal with the racism, racist sexism and classism that causes disproportionate punishment of Black students, including Black girls.

There’s so many institutional, systemic and structural factors standing in the way of this, but a woman can dream dammit. Anytime I think about this, I get happy. Sometimes I need some happy.

Did You Call Me “Fatherless” As An Insult?

Recently in a few online “debates” with Black men, their go to insult has been to question my relationship with my father or call me “fatherless.” When I mentioned this on Twitter, several Black women mentioned experiencing the same thing.

Why is this their interpretation? Well…any woman unwilling to accept male aggression (i.e. street harassment) must have issues with her father because otherwise she would realize that aggression, domineering behavior, sexually inappropriate comments and threats of violence are “manly” and something that she should be happy about of course! Flattered even! (Yeah…this conversation actually occurred a few times.) Also, being a womanist is viewed as a “reaction” to an absent father (thanks to patriarchy and hegemonic media interpretations of feminism) versus what it actually is, a commitment to survival and wholeness of entire people.

I have been called every name in the book. I am a Black woman after all and we are insulted for our race, our gender, the combination of race and gender (specifically for being Black women), as well as so many other insults that speak to sexual orientation, complexion, hair texture, weight and more. I’m insulted and verbally attacked regularly. However, until recently, I’ve not heard “fatherless” used as a direct person-to-person insult, though I’ve heard it in other negative contexts.

I have heard “fatherless” used as a pejorative in a White supremacist context—one which ignores the role of everything from the destructive result of slavery to Prison Industrial Complex to poverty in regards to some Black families not being ones with legally married heterosexual parents in the middle class. Instead, they are perceived as arbitrarily pathological (as if any family style but this one is “pathology”). The ”nuclear” families are always deemed superior to any other familial structure, no matter how the latter ones function and thrive. This familial structure being prized over others is based on a culmination of factors from the politics of respectability, to homophobia, sexism, patriarchy and White supremacy. Dysfunction in “nuclear” families tends to be ignored while dysfunction in other families (i.e. ones with single mothers, especially Black ones) are amplified. There’s social disinterest in how multi-generation families (i.e. grandparents and parents living in the same home with children), families with single mothers with kinship support or families with parents in the LGBTQ community can thrive. These families challenge patriarchal and White supremacist ideas of family. The reality of an endless series of benefits from financial ones to socio-cultural ones provided to heterosexual married couples (and not provided to anyone else), and how this impacts families, is often obscured, while those not meeting this definition are judged for not having the result of said benefits.

I’ve also heard “fatherless” used as a pejorative in intraracial contexts where respectability politics are at play. In other words, I’ve heard it used as an insult when a group of Christian theist, heterosexual, college-educated, socioeconomically middle class Black people discuss working class or poor Black people as some sort of “distant” people that have nothing to do with the former.

I grew up with my siblings in a two-parent home with heterosexual married parents (though we were NOT middle class). My father was present in my childhood and is present in my adult life as well. He’s shared some wisdom with me over the years and we have a lot in common. My mother passed away during my adulthood, but I still had both parents for my full childhood and teen years. My mom was truly amazing; beautiful, funny, creative, talented, and kind. Even so, our family was not and is not perfect. The way I grew up is privileged over other families, especially among Black people who have internalized White supremacist notions of what a good family should look like. Instead of examining the structural, systemic and institutional factors working to stigmatize and destroy Black families of many types, some indulge in the hierarchies where one family type is automatically deemed “better” than another.

The assumption that a Black girl or a Black woman who has any ideology or behavior outside of whatever is considered “good” has this because she doesn’t have a father, and if she does have one, he must not be a “good father” is a terrible assumption. The patriarchal notion that behavior and identity must be dominated and controlled by the father and the idea that if she is not “good,” ultimately it is her fault anyway, are present. This is why the “fatherless” label as an insult is truly problematic in multiple ways. Instead of examining how oppression itself creates rigid notions of “good” and “bad” in the first place, people are blaming children (and later, adults) for reactions to absent parents and deciding that “any” reactions that do not conform to White supremacist capitalist patriarchal notions of “goodness” (which ultimately excludes Black people, even when they adhere to standards shaped by respectability politics; i.e. the Obamas as a family would never be insulted, yet they are) are the “wrong” reactions.

What is truly problematic is that the men making the insult do not realize how it actually reveals more self-hatred than misogynoir, when the latter not the former is their intent. What they are ultimately saying is “I think you are damaged and broken and ain’t shit because you are a Black woman, without a father, and you didn’t have a father because everyone knows Black men ain’t shit.” Black men should not be so eager to insult Black women who were not raised with their fathers because ultimately fathers are Black men. Using this as an insult ultimately confirms that they do not believe in or support Black people as a whole.

Being a womanist is not about “hurting” Black men’s feelings. However, if my rejection of patriarchy, sexism and misogynoir and all of its intraracial and interracial manifestations is interpreted as “hating” men or “hurting” their feelings—men, including Black men need to evaluate that. Why is my own self-hatred needed for them to feel “loved?” Why is it so imperative to hurt me with “fatherless” as a pejorative that they don’t even care that they are revealing self-hatred and hatred for other Black men?

(I do note that some Black men are calling other Black men this, and some Black women are calling other Black men/women this as well; this speaks to the problem with internalized racism and classism. In this essay, I focused on Black men calling Black women this because of the gendered STIGMA of being a Black woman without a father—a stigma that manifests through misognyoir quite often. For example, I’ve seen Black men state that they’re looking for women without fathers because they want “sure things” in terms of sex, and ones who even joked that women who don’t have a father attend their high school graduation are the women they go after. The idea that a Black woman might be vulnerable from a LIFETIME of oppression and stereotypes placed upon her because of her father not being active in her life is used as an angle of exploitation quite often.)

I Don’t Want “Advice” On My Body From Men

About a week ago, I was in an elevator and a Black man that I didn’t know got on. He immediately asked me if I have eczema. (Remember when conversations started with “hello,” or the weather?)

I have had eczema, a medical condition, since childhood. I do get tiny breakouts on my neck whenever the temperature changes from winter to spring and then spring to summer. (Also, stress is a huge factor, and the stress of daily street harassment, has been an eczema trigger for me.) Now, I could have done the usual and ignore him as most of my time in public involves dodging and ignoring men (literally crossing the street, rerouting my paths etc. to try to avoid confrontations and street harassment). Seriously. This must be 80% of my time in public. I don’t want to be bothered. I DO NOT WANT TO BE BOTHERED.

Instead of ignoring him, I said, “yes I get breakouts; I talk to my dermatologist about it.” (In other words “I have a doctor, your ass ain’t her, so fuck off and die.”) He rolled his eyes and then told me I need to buy soaps at the wig shop. Now, Korean-owned wig shops in Black communities do have some soaps, but sadly, most of them are for bleaching/whitening skin, not curing breakouts. Further, nothing at a wig shop is going to be better than what a dermatologist provides, or even better, a natural remedy (which I’ve tried too). I walked off the elevator and kept walking, but in a different direction away from him, as he kept on talking.

Several weeks ago, a random Black man asked me for change for a twenty, but I didn’t have any small bills. I thought once I said “sorry, I don’t have any change” he would move on and ask someone else for change. No, he then proceeded to try to tell me “tips” for my natural hair, as I was wearing an afro that day. My afro is shiny, soft and luxurious. Further, why would I want a random man’s advice on my hair when his own was busted and crying for an edge? He obviously was not taking care of his hair, and even if he was, this still is no reason to begin to comment on a woman’s body, a woman he does not know from Eve. I turned around and put on my headphones.  (I don’t know what I would do without headphones.)

If I do discuss my hair, I discuss it with Black women and I am not interested in discussing it with anyone else. I alluded to this yesterday when I wrote White Women’s Racist Responses To Black Women’s Natural Hair. Now, I have had conversations about hair with strangers that I met the same day. However, these strangers are Black women, and they do not begin the conversation with insults or advice that I did not ask for. We talk about hair, our experiences and then share ideas or information. It never comes off as one trying to be an “authority” over another, or one implying that their advice is automatically superior and needed.

In the name of whatever deity they worship or don’t, I need Black men and White women to leave me alone, especially when it comes to my body. Both of them stand in oppressive positions in regards to Black women and beauty because of sexism/misogynoir and male privilege and White supremacist Eurocentric beauty myths and White privilege.

True, some stylists of Black hair are Black men or White women. However, again, they need to know when to speak. These two men I mentioned above were not physicians or hair stylists. Why would anyone think that they should be providing “advice” to random people they have no relationship with on a topic they have no knowledge on? The entitlement involved here is a product of privilege.

Related Post: The Beauty Binary, Street Harassment and Rape Culture

White Women’s Racist Responses To Black Women’s Natural Hair

The tweet below deeply irritated me…

It genuinely disgusted me that a White woman would fix her fingers to send Solange (or any Black woman for that matter, but yes I am a Solange stan) such a disrespectful tweet.

This is not a tweet where Solange’s control over her own body is not in question (Black women can ultimately choose what they want to do with their hair), such as a question asking does she like natural hair more than relaxed hair etc. This is one where a White woman basically asserted that Solange is not beautiful without a relaxer, especially in an age where many Black women are going natural and an age where the politicization and dehumanization of Black bodies still remains an issue.

I love Solange’s response and she simply blocked the woman and went on with her fabulous life. (The woman then tweeted a screen capture of Solange blocking her. Really. She couldn’t stop with this first tweet.)

Then yesterday, I watched a video by wordwarfare (B. Marie) on Tumblr where she proceeded to describe conversation after conversation with her mother’s White nurse; the woman seemed to NOT KNOW WHEN TO QUIT. Insults and quasi-compliments as racial microaggressions and some overt racism seemed to be how this woman made small talk about B. Marie’s natural hair. This included her claiming that Whites have “good hair” and “bad hair” too (totally eschewing the politicization and dehumanization along with White supremacy and colourism that creates this dichotomy for Black people) and repeatedly questioning her care regimen.

White privilege is why White women do not have to know when to quit; they’re reared to believe that they are the standard of beauty coupled with the idea that their opinion matters more and should be inserted anywhere, because they are White.

Between seeing these two incidents and the oh so many incidents that I have had with White women regarding my hair (including trying to touch it, as if they are entitled to put their hands on my body), I’ve come back to that place…that question about White women, Black women and interpersonal relationships. I cannot have any with ones who are not intersectional feminists that I’ve personally vetted. I’ve tried. I no longer try. I don’t have any White friends, but it certainly isn’t because I never tried.

I can (and do) have relationships with some Black women who aren’t womanist/feminist. Why? Because regardless of the differing ideology, I’ve not encountered any Black women who view me as an immediate inferior, a science experiment to appropriate from or destroy, or a threat to their concept of beauty. Even when dealing with ones who are patriarchal and colourist—the experiences still have not left me with the stress that the experiences with insensitive and racist White women have.

Situations like these (and the plethora of microaggressions and overt racism that I’ve dealt with from them) are why I simply do not want to have conversations about my hair with White women…like ever. We don’t have anything to discuss.

Related Posts: 7 Things To STOP Saying To Black Women About Beauty, Black Women Do Not Have To Reject Any Mention Of Beauty To Be Womanist/Feminist, White Women In Black Natural Hair Spaces, Natural Hair IS For Everybody

I Hate Nightclubs (They Feel Like Street Harassment To Music)

A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, I saw (through retweet) a tweet that mentioned that women who attend the club just to dance with their friends in a circle need to stay out of the club/stay home. Once again, an opinion shaped by male privilege reared its ugly head and demanded that women stay out of a socializing space that they paid to be at if they are not there for the sole purpose of dancing with men and/or finding someone to have sex with. This is not the first time that I’ve heard such a stance; the idea that the only purpose for nightclubs is for heterosexual foreplay and sex seems to prevail.

Despite loving to dance, I for one hate nightclubs now. I used to attend when I was in undergrad over 10 years ago. I loved reggae clubs then. I visited a few with hip hop DJ’s, but mostly reggae was my thing (or if the club had multiple rooms, I would spend most of the time in the reggae room versus the hip hop room; the few times in the latter, the harassment would escalate rapidly into fights). I would go get something cute (usually a breathable top, jeans or slacks and boots) to wear and head out with 1 to 3 women friends, also undergraduates. We simply wanted to go out and have fun and dance. Though some women choose (and it is their CHOICE too, not solely a man’s demand) to attend clubs to meet men, that was not my choice.

The harassment, insults, groping, and aggression can ruin a good evening with friends. Politely telling a man NO THANKS (to a drink, dance, phone number etc.) turned into me having to call a bouncer over to prevent a man from attacking me. This happened in my college years MANY times. Once I told a man that I didn’t want to dance so he slapped my friend’s hand when she put her hand in front of me to protect me. A bouncer came over and threw the man out. Once I told a man that I didn’t want to dance so he proceeded to ask a friend that I was with. When she told him no, the two no’s in row seem to truly upset him and he began to curse at her really loudly. Her hair is long and he pulled her hair. We began to fight him off. Bouncers tried to stop him. He continued to try to fight the bouncers. They dragged him outside. It went from 3 bouncers to 7. They had to use a taser on him. It started to look like a scene from The Exorcist. The police came. It was utterly ridiculous.

In these instances bouncers were helpful, but this was not always the case. Most (not all) bouncers are male and many of them also agree with the entitlement that makes them think that going to a club means that men have the right to say or do whatever the hell they want and it is a woman’s job to accept it. Sometimes bouncers were not of help. Sometimes we left the club before being hit or probably killed by some of the men there. (Several times I’d leave a club only to hear about a stabbing/shooting occurring 15 minutes or so after I left.) Conversely, there were times I went to the club and no men bothered us, or one asked to dance and was polite. These times were more rare, but one of those times that dance turned into a good male friend that I had for about 8 years.

One of the worst experiences I had was when I told a man “no thanks” and he calmly went away. I though, “oh good, no harassment!” However, TWO HOURS after this, I went outside to leave the club. As I proceeded to my car with my friend, the man SPED down the parking lot coming straight towards us. We were frozen. I now understand why some people don’t move out of the way when a car is coming towards them; it’s like your brain freezes so your feet don’t work. Anyway, he stopped short…perhaps 5 feet away if that. I could see his eyes. There was a bubbling hatred that looked far worse than anything I’ve seen during most street harassment incidents. I couldn’t understand why. Why did he think this was a reasonable response to being rejected for a dance? Entitlement. Male privilege. Patriarchal masculinity. He felt that the only way to regain “power” was by inciting fear. It was truly hateful and pathetic.

(I shared the aforementioned experience on Twitter a few weeks ago and someone asked me is my life Grand Theft Auto. Actually, I’ve had many experiences where men used their vehicles to aid street harassment; blocking my path to walk, blocking in my car so I cannot leave a place [had to call cops], swerving to try to hit me on the side of road, following me loudly while honking their horn, etc.)

After about age 21 (33 now) I quit clubs for many years. I didn’t visit one again until 2007 when I was visiting one of my sisters in Atlanta. We went to a nice club, a “grown folks” vibe and nobody bothered us. We had a nice evening with nice drinks and spent about an hour there. It was truly pleasant.

Around this same time, I started dancing salsa (Cuban, rueda de casino, and LA style On 1), bachata and merengue, and visited a few clubs (though I traditionally stuck to social dancing parties and salsa performances/salsa school anniversary parties) that played salsa music. Though I never confronted harassment as aggressive as my college years (or as life-threatening), I found that some of the cliquishness (based on marital status, dating status, complexion/hair texture colourism) was not to my liking. (In fact, this needs its own story for which I will write one day, but not today.) I haven’t been salsa dancing on a consistent basis since 2008.

I genuinely love good music and dancing. I made exceptions for the extroverted chaos of clubs (despite being an introvert) because I truly love these two things more than I despise extroversion. I loved them enough to still attend clubs for years in college despite knowing what harassment was going to await me there. I think I was able to muster through this because during college, the street harassment (that I’ve written quite a bit about on Gradient Lair) that I experienced simmered as long as I was on campus (male students rarely harassed me on campus; lucky I guess) versus off campus (all bets were off), so it somewhat balanced out with experiencing it on weekends at or near clubs. This is sad to even think about—the idea of “balancing” and knowing where I can go and how much harassment I will experience based on these choices.

At this point in life, I don’t really dance anymore. I might move my shoulders a bit when wearing my iPod in public or at home, but the experience of having a large dance floor, loud and good music and dancing with friends is something that does not exist for me. And, seeing someone suggest that women should not go to clubs if their reason for being there isn’t to be an object of interest for men truly disgusted me.

Women are constantly navigating where they can be or cannot be because of sexism and misogyny. Everything from skipping the club and no longer dancing because of the threshold of harassment to deciding and mapping out routes to take to “hope” for the least amount of street harassment are just everyday activities for many women, and it shouldn’t have to be this way. As long as men feel entitled to women’s bodies and lives, this continues.

Related Posts: When The Target Of Street Harassment Is Age 12-17 ,The Beauty Binary, Street Harassment and Rape Culture ,Street Harassment and Repeat Harassers

When A College Degree Isn’t A Ticket To The Middle Class For Black People

While over 80% of the people in the world are considered literate, literacy privilege coupled with educational privilege through formal education at a post-secondary institution includes only 1% of the world’s population. In America, roughly 30% of adults have bachelors degrees. Master’s degrees, doctoral degrees (ie Ph.D., Ed.D., Psy.D.) and professional degrees (i.e. J.D. or M.D.) are statistically less prevalent. It truly is a tiny club of people with formal post-secondary education despite recent rises in degree attainment. To be clear, a college education is not automatically indicative of intelligence (many people are intelligent and self-taught). Conversely, many with and without degrees aren’t that bright.

For some, it’s not automatically indicative of upward mobility. This is true for many Black people in America.

About 20% of Black adults in America have bachelors degrees. The recent history of education, from Black men’s increase in acquiring education post WWII to Black women gaining education and heavily filling public and government sector jobs (though since the recession, there has been a decline in public sector employment for Black women), has had a major class shift impact on Black individuals and Black families. The Black middle class grew through military, government jobs, some private sector work and entrepreneurship, plus home ownership. While this has afforded a smaller group (compared to the much larger working class of Black people and those in poverty) to experience upward mobility from one generation to the next, this experience is not truly indicative of the plethora of Black experiences with immigration, regional migration for employment and changing class/upward mobility, degree or not, in the last several decades.

Whites with degrees or without and Blacks without degrees often assume that with conferred literacy and educational privilege comes class privilege and socioeconomic status change by immediate upward class mobility, for anyone Black with a degree. True, this happens for some. But here are a few reasons why this is not a blanket common experience for Black people with a degree:

Being born in poverty. A full class change in one generation doesn’t always occurs for Black people. In fact, there’s been a post-housing market bubble decline across the board for Black people in generational wealth, income, and even the possibility of doing better than our parents. Climbing out of previous generations of poverty with that first person to get a degree and get a “middle class” job is not a magic trick.

Being a first-generation American. The expectation to financially help out family members in other countries through remittances as well as greater financial responsibilities than someone who just has to earn for themselves can be factors. When the parents’ generation is not wealthy and are immigrants to the U.S., a plethora of factors from not having aged networks and business contacts for opportunities to immigration-related concerns can impact ascension into the middle class.

Astronomical student loan debt coupled with underemployment or unemployment that makes home ownership, saving, and moving up from parents’ class impossible. Now, some will argue “don’t go to college” so that there is no debt yet CANNOT provide concrete alternatives for Black people who are not going to be goddamn Mark Zuckerberg, and need practical career solutions without formal education.

Higher unemployment than Whites with comparable resumes. The degree doesn’t make us any less Black and though we technically qualify for higher paying jobs (compared to some jobs that Blacks without degrees have, but with less pay than equally qualified Whites) that doesn’t change the fact that Blacks have double the unemployment rate of Whites and are often hired sparingly as tokens to higher paying jobs, told we are “overqualified” and rejected, or are completely ignored.

Black interest in uplifting Black people and other people of colour and a commitment to social justice means accepting low paid, high stress work even with a degree. Teaching, social work, child care management, mental health counseling, and nursing remain undervalued fields (and here’s why) where only a few reach the top, income-wise, to even come close to being a steady member of the middle class. Often the highest ranking positions in these already undervalued fields go to Whites. The turnover rate and later underemployment or unemployment are high in some of these fields (i.e. non-profit organizations).

Being a part of a class-mixed extended family. Many Black people (especially Black women, who earn 32% more bachelors degrees than Black men) can attest to supporting multiple children/unemployed adults and extended family members on what income (say 50K a year pre-tax) may seem like a lot to a non-degreed person but after taxes and used for multiple people is stretched thin. Add in theist expectations to “support” churches (almost everything in this area is placed on Black women’s shoulders), Western Union to family members and bail/care packages/attorneys for male family members suffering at the hands of Prison Industrial Complex and a theoretical “large” income vanishes often into debt.

Lower starting wealth. White families have 20X the wealth of Black families. Without generations of wealth in terms of investments, land, real estate, insurance policies and more, one illness, car accident or death can literally obliterate a Black person’s new entry into the middle class and with family members who are poor, working class or brand new entrants into the middle class themselves and unable to help and are actually relying on the aforementioned person for help, all bets are off.

The myth among Black people that Black + degree = White wealth is intraracially pervasive and nonsensical. Absolutely, Black people with literacy and educational privilege must check their privilege. Ways of doing this includes not disregarding Black voices without education (for example, I LOVE that Patricia Hill Collins included “uneducated” yet critical intellectual voices outside of the academe in her book Black Feminist Thought, including Black women like Sojourner Truth, domestic workers, adolescents and more), working for justice for poor Black people, rejecting intellectual/consumer elitism and classism (if it applies), and creating/supporting educational methods/tools/ideas outside of the academe. However, the assumption that Black + degree = middle class = evil Black person = disregard their lived experiences is unacceptable. My contention is that literacy and educational privilege does not come with the dollar signs and class privilege as automatic attachments for Black people.

Though there have been good times for me within the last 14 years since completing an associate’s degree, 12 years since completing a bachelors degree and 5 since completing a master’s degree, I’ve also known what it’s like to not know where I am going to live because of money. Not eating for 3 days at a time because I had no money for food. Thinking I entered the middle class for like an hour before 3 of my past jobs were sold off (via merger/acquisition) and my position erased or given to a White male in another state. (They’d often fly down for me to train them for the job that I was going to be losing.) Going from having enough to pay rent to facing eviction. Having the actual paper degrees be the most expensive things that I own while looking under the filing cabinet where I used to keep them for an extra quarter to buy a can of soup. Realizing that the myth of class ascension “beyond” my Jamaican immigrant parents (in poverty, without education beyond high school, who lovingly raised my 7 siblings and I) in one generation wouldn’t necessarily mean truly escaping poverty but more likely dipping my toe into the ocean of quasi-middle class for a year here or there and back to poverty or barely making working class wages here or there. So let’s be clear, just because I can read Foucault doesn’t mean that I have the money to pay the light bill so that I can see while I am reading Foucault.

At the same time, I knew that without an education, there were only fewer options for me than with an education. Where I grew up, we knew that the delusions of trying to be the late Steve Jobs, Jay-Z or Oprah, people who either didn’t start or finish a degree had NOTHING to do with the lived realities of MILLIONS of Black people in America. It is a false narrative that “most” people without degrees are wealthy. Television has clouded many people’s view. They really need to view income stratification in America. America has the most millionaires and billionaires; the problem with this is it actually obscures the real struggle as those high salaries and wealth skew average family income to make it appear more substantial than it really is. The reality is that many with or without degrees in America are “just making it” or struggling, especially if they are Black. And yes, “poverty” is relative. So while people will quickly name a country where average income is a fraction of what it is in America (and realize this comparison is a silencing tactic; people who do this do not care about Black people in America or elsewhere), they fail to realize that Black people who LIVE HERE in AMERICA have to afford to LIVE HERE. The comparison won’t provide them needs HERE. (Also, the belief that success without a degree is “easy” to attain is the type of advice that many Whites in the middle class give. Skip college they say. They don’t realize that even with a degree there are challenges and without one, there are even more challenges for Black people. Advice given to Black students needs NUANCE.)

Oh…and I know the inherent victim-blaming culture in America means that if I am not immediately rich upon degree conferral, I am to blame. I should have majored in something White men like a “useful” major (despite working in “tech” positions [which are worshiped] of “social science” or healthcare industries). If my job is sold away, I must have convinced all of the CEOs to do the merger or acquisition. If I face racism in the hiring process, I must have misunderstood. Believe me, I already heard all of the excuses so I am not interested in them today. 

Nuanced views of the Black educated class (which overlaps with the middle class though they aren’t concentric circles) are needed. Instead of Black people with college degrees viewing themselves as geniuses, automatic leaders and “better” than those without degrees and Black people without college degrees viewing Black people with degrees as all elitists with money for which any time a disagreement is had, it’s due to that person having a degree and no other factor, recognition and understanding of the variety of types of Black socioeconomic and educational experiences are needed…desperately.

The college degree is clearly no longer a magic ticket into the shrinking middle class for Americans. The difference is it never completely was that ticket for Black people.