The "Good" Black and the H-Bomb
Debbie McCoy (OC), Special Contributor
Issue date: 2/10/03 Section: Black History Month
While growing up in this mostly white area, many of my friends (and their families) had never known a black person in a close and interpersonal manner before meeting me. Sooner or later, most of my young friends, proud of their 'openness,' would offer me something that they viewed as a compliment: "Debbie, you're so nice. You're not like the OTHER black people." What OTHER black people? Oh. You know.
The ones on television and in movies. The ones lurking in their fears of being robbed. Was I different just because I was in school with them?
Consider for a moment the politicization and 'criminalization' of black people in America. You may remember hearing about a miserable, murderous institution called slavery that we studied in BGIE. You know.
Black people either taken by force or sold from Western Africa over a few hundred-year period and dropped off in various locations across the Americas (hence the Black Diaspora) to work in grueling and oppressive conditions, never mind often being forced to procreate to generate income for those sick individuals who thought to profit from selling and working to death more human souls. Back then, black people almost had to be portrayed as 'bad' to help justify this frightening system to the country's founders and pioneers. I guess that bragging about boosting earnings by not paying for labor may have sounded a bit calculating...
Maybe you've seen "Bowling for Columbine." If you haven't, you may want to. Michael Moore talks a lot about the American fixation with firearms and with instilling a fear of Black people. We don't have to rely on such a recent work to talk about this issue. Book after book has been written on the topic. A May 1991 article in The Atlantic Monthly by Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall discusses the polarization of race and politics in the United States since the 1960s. More specifically, it talks about CRIME:
"Crime became a shorthand signal, to a crucial group of white voters, for broader issues of social disorder, evoking powerful ideas about authority, status, morality, self-control, and race."
The ones on television and in movies. The ones lurking in their fears of being robbed. Was I different just because I was in school with them?
Consider for a moment the politicization and 'criminalization' of black people in America. You may remember hearing about a miserable, murderous institution called slavery that we studied in BGIE. You know.
Black people either taken by force or sold from Western Africa over a few hundred-year period and dropped off in various locations across the Americas (hence the Black Diaspora) to work in grueling and oppressive conditions, never mind often being forced to procreate to generate income for those sick individuals who thought to profit from selling and working to death more human souls. Back then, black people almost had to be portrayed as 'bad' to help justify this frightening system to the country's founders and pioneers. I guess that bragging about boosting earnings by not paying for labor may have sounded a bit calculating...
Maybe you've seen "Bowling for Columbine." If you haven't, you may want to. Michael Moore talks a lot about the American fixation with firearms and with instilling a fear of Black people. We don't have to rely on such a recent work to talk about this issue. Book after book has been written on the topic. A May 1991 article in The Atlantic Monthly by Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall discusses the polarization of race and politics in the United States since the 1960s. More specifically, it talks about CRIME:
"Crime became a shorthand signal, to a crucial group of white voters, for broader issues of social disorder, evoking powerful ideas about authority, status, morality, self-control, and race."