Tag Archives: DuBois

African-American Males, African-American Men, Black Males, Black Men, EDUCATION, POLITICS

A Few Thoughts Regarding Why Many Black Men Will Not Be Voting In This Year’s Election: It’s A Missed Opportunity

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Y’all telling me that I need to get out and vote, huh, why?
Ain’t nobody black running but crack-kers, so, why I got to register?
I’m thinking of better shit to do with my time!!!!!

Andre 3000 (OutKast)

 

The criticism hurled at Black males always increases during political season. One could set their clock by it. Politically engaged Black men realize they are destined to be blamed when a candidate such as Stacey Abrams loses while receiving little of the celebratory kudos when Barack Obama ascends to the Oval Office.

As with most things involving Black men, the injection of their presence into political discussion problematizes matters exponentially. Predictably, much discussion about Black men and the franchise occurs without their input. We are frequently relegated to lab mice commented upon by political talking heads.

If only the political pundits that speak with unwarranted authority resting on little more than copious amounts of historical illiteracy regarding America’s convoluted racial history abandoned such foolishness, they may learn that Black males’ non-participation is attributable to the perceived irrelevance of American politics. Far too many poor and working-class Black men have been positioned in a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation. OutKast’s Andre 3000 insightful lyric that he is “thinking of better shit to do with my time” sums up many Black males’ view of the worthlessness of political engagement.

It is difficult to argue against well-known data that highlights Black men lagging behind their contemporaries in a host of areas such as:

  • Educational Achievement
  • Life-Expectancy
  • Income
  • Incarceration Rates

When one considers that we are all conversant on the myriad issues facing Black men, it is time that we begin searching for solutions to the above societal maladies.

The most crucial question facing Black America should revolve around Black men’s inability to recognize that their past, present, and future plights are inextricably linked to the political arena.

Unlike many of my contemporaries, I place the blame for Black males’ withdrawal from the political arena at the feet of Black America. I fully realize that it is a contentious thought to place the blame for Black male struggles in the political arena at the feet of our kind; however, such an assignment is the only one capable of alleviating the matter. Put simply, if we don’t own this problem, we will never take the definitive steps to mitigate it.

As has been consistently stated by those interested in uplifting Black males, “no one is coming to save you Black man.” Hence, we must educate our own in regard to history, politics, culture, economics, etc. Relevant education is the only path capable of reversing the unfortunate pattern of Black men ignoring the political process. I am sure that you agree that an absence of understanding regarding politics guarantees Black America will continue to reap the worst things this society has to offer.

The onus is on Black educators to teach, re-teach, and teach important life-saving material to their brethren. Yet, those in desperate need of such illumination also have a responsibility to listen and learn from those experts who are willing to teach.

We must never forget that “WE ALL THAT WE GOT!!!!!”

 

African-American History

THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK

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Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards—ten cents a package—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card,—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DUBOIS

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Why White America is Responsible for the Lynching of George Floyd and What They Can Do About It

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Brrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng!

The above word is the first line of Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son. The famed Chicago Renaissance writer intended for the ringing alarm clock to serve the purpose that all alarm clocks serve, to wake this nation up. From Wright’s perspective, America needed to be awaken to its Race problem.

Although significant by itself, Wright’s Native Son is only one of a series of bridges that highlight America’s great tradition of racial bigotry. The resistance of David Walker’s Appeal, Frederick Douglass’ admonishments during a Fourth of July presentation, Anna Julia Cooper’s lamentations from the South, W.E.B. DuBois’ prophetic warning that “the problem of the 20th Century will be the color line” and a series of deaths all serve as reminders of America’s horrific history of racial animosity. The alluded to bridges have led us to the murder of George Floyd by so-called law enforcement officers who were deemed fit for employment by the Minneapolis Police Department.

Americans are no different from other groups in their desire to embrace traditions that portray them in a favorable light and distance themselves from grander traditions that depict them in a negative, yet accurate light. An unbiased review of the American historical record reveals White America as a collective of greedy, avaricious, ends-justify-the-means, racial bigots who have little problem turning a blind-eye toward genocide if it serves a larger purpose.

This consistent inconsistency is nothing new.

There is no greater depiction of America’s character than the following litany offered by Frederick Douglass nearly two-hundred years ago. Douglass characterized this nation in the following manner.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department officers in front of an attentive public is yet another reminder that Douglass’ words still ring true.

The optimistic side of me hopes that Douglass’ words will activate White America to take a serious look at its soul. A soul that has been formed in the midst of centuries of unconscionable acts of hatred, racial bigotry, and tyrannical rule.

Let me be clear on this matter, the genesis of America’s Race problem began with White America and the solution to it will come from that community as well. There are only two reasonable paths that Whites can take to achieve the above goal. They can either aid in the total destruction of Black America or turn inward with the full intention of executing a intra-racial Civil War designed to exterminate unsavory portions of their community. A process that would call for them to address the bigotry of close family members, political leaders, and associates. It is obvious that there is no way that White bigots and Blacks are going to ever peacefully coexist within the same country.

I resist with every fiber of my being the white rage that leads so many of my Black countrymen to view Whites’ as a monolithic population whose foremost priority is the extermination of Blacks. My personal experience prevents me from embracing this daunting perspective. Yet, I am firmly entrenched in the belief that the only population capable of stomping out America’s grand tradition of racial bigotry and hatred is White America. Put simply; it is time that White America regulated its own citizens as there are segments of White America that are impenetrable to outsiders.

I am certain that it is within these socialization centers where the most virulent racial bigots are created by a daunting narrative that masquerades the evil-doings of White heroes and heroines for the extension of White privilege. This can only be eradicated by our White countrymen. The failure of White America to get its house in order makes the public lynching of Black men such as George Floyd an inevitability.

The ability to end racial bigotry and the cascade of ills that flow from it is found within a White America whose power and privilege rests on its existence. Trust me when I say that the alluded to conundrum is not new. It is the same issue that faced abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown. I hope that White America will realize it and get busy cleaning their own house; however, I have little hope that they will.

After all, racial tyranny is one of their grandest traditions and its destruction will come at a steep cost that I am unsure that they are willing to pay for the sake of freedom, liberty, and justice.

Dr. James Thomas Jones III

© Manhood, Race, and Culture 2020.

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The Offensiveness of Color-Blindness in America

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It is difficult to argue against the fact that those among us who insist that they “do not see color” are balanced between being well-meaning and naïve. My familiarity with such types is best expressed by an unemotional reaction to their pleadings for me to join the ranks of the historically illiterate.

Despite what the “color-blind brigade” believes, I understand that their emotional state vacillates between moments of frustration and uncontrollable white-rage. This matter is at the forefront of my mind due to a recent Facebook posting from what appears to be a well-meaning White lady who insists that she “does not see color.”

As stated above, I understand that her passion flows from a desperate desire to see all of her countrymen living in harmony. However, she fails to comprehend a fact provided by a former student who posited that “America will never get past Race. It is who we are. So how can we ever get past it?”

Although I agreed with my student’s assertion that impressively echoes W.E.B. DuBois’ ominous warning that “the color line will be the problem of the twentieth century,” I realized that the source of this post vehemently disagrees with such sensibility.

Experience has taught me that the “color-blind brigade” wishes for a simpler time that never existed. A cursory examination of their beliefs reveals that “We never were what they thought we used to be.” Many of their numbers have foolishly advanced the assertion that “If we stopped talking about Race it would simply go away!!!!!”

I can only imagine that if my exchange with the lady who created the alluded to post were in-person and not via social media that she would scream that “I don’t see color!!!!! I only see human beings” to my face.

I’m convinced that the color-blind argument, albeit well-meaning, primarily results from what can only be termed a loose use of language. Put simply; these people do not realize what they are actually saying in their fits of rage. If provided the opportunity to meet with representatives of the “color-blind brigade”, I would ask them to provide a description of me. I am certain that they would avoid physical descriptors such as my status as an African-American male.

What members of the “color-blind brigade” fail to consider is that their steadfast denial of physical traits is not complementary to those they are seeking to aid in their color-blindness. It is extremely insulting. They are in effect saying that they must deny a portion of my being to accept me or you. If provided the opportunity, I would advise the “color-blind brigade” to abandon their standard phraseology in favor of the following.

“I recognize your racial identity; however, I do not ascribe any negative characteristics to you because of it.”

Trust me when I say that this slight verbal alteration will make a major difference to all and hopefully open a long-overdue dialogue about Race in America.

Dr. James Thomas Jones III

© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2020. 

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