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Reflections on “Acting White”
There is a well-documented phenomenon of high-achieving students in inner-city schools being accused of “acting white”, a crippling, pervasive notion that “authentic” black identity requires a rejection of academics and of a broader constellation of positive behaviors as “white.” The wokerati deny this is an actual phenomenon and that in any case, it would be the canonical sin of “blaming the victim” to notice it even if true. There is also the pseudo-empirical response that this is no different from white nerds being ostracized by cooler but academically average white kids. Of course, white nerds are not accused of being a traitor to their community and their race.
The always thought-provoking John McWhorter recently wrote about the “acting white” problem and Stuart Buck’s book Acting White (2010) in which Buck describes in detail the way in which heavy-handed school desegregation plans thrust black kids into a foreign and often overtly hostile environment. That brought about the “acting white” notion as a reaction. McWhorter then raised the hard question: What can be done about adverse behavior patterns among blacks that evolved in response to tangible, real forms of racism now that those external racist pressures are long gone?
Chasing an invisible new contrived form of racism as the solution is clearly not the answer and unquestionably makes it worse. The genuine residual damage from racial injustice is now situated in a place and manner that neither legislation nor contrived white good intentions can reach.
Rather than start with a clear-headed assessment, we are instead living through a period of insanity in which white people are actually espousing the astonishingly condescending and overtly racist belief that patterns of self-destructive, self-defeating, antisocial behavior comprise “authentic” black culture while also declaring that virtually all of the habits and dispositions that foster academic, financial and personal success should remain unique to white people.
Having then constructed a hopeless, eternally unjust, and very weird new ideational apartheid, the new woke religion compels white people to escape and transcend their whiteness as a spiritual duty. In so doing, they become beings free of all cultural, historical, and social ties with their inherent evil. In stark contrast, black people are obligated to remain in their sanctified victim status–they cannot be woke and cannot join white people on this new higher plane of moral and mental existence because they never committed the original sin of racism and are thus ineligible for redemption and enlightenment. In the new openly racist “antiracist” religion, white people can transcend their whiteness into an enlightened state (and keep their lifestyles intact) but black people stay in victimhood forever.
My father was a DOJ attorney in the DOJ Civil Rights Division in the 1960s. For a good part of my teen years, he was traveling back roads in rural Tennessee and Mississippi documenting details and conducting interviews for the federal actions that he and others brought. He told me about all the alternative plans and suggestions that were rejected as a matter of law and policy—like integrating early grades first or various voluntary or other gradualist plans. As a matter of law, most of that was not possible even though the social dynamics and likelihood of adverse outcomes were well understood. For example, everybody knew that there was a threshold percent threshold of new black students that once crossed would trigger white flight. That threshold number varied by community but it was always there.
And everybody hated busing. Invariably poor whites, not the children of white doctors and lawyers wound up on the bus. [As an aside, I always thought the notion that black kids in Boston would be academically uplifted by being in class with the kinds of kids I knew from Southie (instead of the offspring of the Harvard faculty) was vaguely insulting.]
But the law was the law. And whatever the price, segregation had to go. And even with 20-20 hindsight, I don’t see many viable alternative solutions to the problem as it existed and was understood at that time. It was time to end the old order.
It always irritates me when I hear vapid statements about the alleged lingering effects of slavery and Jim Crow when the problems under discussion as usually more likely to be the aftereffects of badly conceived and executed policies intended to help. It also irritates me because that formulation of the problem is invariably used to justify a stupid solution.
I don’t have all the answers but I do know that this is one area where we don’t need to join the rich woke fantasy life that will only make things worse while making us stupid. We need ruthless honesty in equal measure with compassion and patriotic common cause for our mutual well-being. Maybe the conspicuous sheer stupidity and immediate harm of wokitude will inadvertently hasten that needed outcome. It is time.
Published in General
“It’s ok to be white” is not a horrible slogan for white people to adopt for themselves.
Just some black people. I believe that many know it already. It is their battle to fight now. We have our hands full with white progressives. They must be defeated for everyone’s sake, black and white alike.
We get called racist for pointing out such truths, other black people get called “Uncle Tom.”
Yes, they do. But they continue to fight anyway. That is admirable and I think reaches some. And yes we do. But if conservative blacks can tough it out, then we should be able to as well.
I’m not sure that’s true. The older parents may know, but often they won’t enforce it on their kids because of the backlash they receive.
I agree. Unfortunately, I think it leads us to a bad place.
What seems likely to me is that the progressives’ endless racist harping about the evils of people with light skin is going to eventually stir the evil giant of large scale racism. Normal, decent people will be tired of being told how bad they are, and will start pushing back. And then we’ll have something we haven’t had in decades, real honest-to-goodness widespread racism.
The minorities, poorer and weaker, will ultimately suffer. It’s a stupid, unnecessary tragedy brought about by foolish people who believe that the monster of racism can be awakened and leashed into their service and will never turn on the people the progressives pretend to care about.
But I think the point of this post is that only they can help themselves at this point. We cannot. They can either reject the dominant culture as per white progressives and relegate themselves to eternal strife and poverty or embrace the dominant culture and succeed. But it is their choice and their struggle. We can support them by opening doors and offering support and welcoming them into the ranks of conservatives, but that is all.
Saying it’s ok to be white is a really mild and appropriate push back to the anti white hysteria going on. We aren’t saying white is best.
The worry over appearing racist for completely acceptable thinking is part of how we got to this point.
There’s no need to build the “that’s racist” fence this far back.
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There’s no shortage of murder in what would be considered white cultural history – music and stories. Murder ballads abound in the world of old folk music, Down in the Willow Garden, Tom Dooley, etc… Sadly, there’s also no shortage of actual murder.
I don’t listen to rap, or whatever it’s called now. I associate it with something ugly and angry, perhaps because that’s what it was like when it first came out and I didn’t like it then. Since I don’t listen now, I don’t know if it has changed.
But I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there’s something self-destructive in the genre, in its themes and tone, that goes way beyond other mainstream forms. Its treatment of women, its relationship to authority, its anger, materialism, violence all seem contrived to speak to a generation of lost males.
It’s probably terrifically popular with all sorts of demographics, but a lot of it seems modeled after, and a celebration of, urban dysfunction. Hard to imagine that that isn’t a problem, given its popularity.
I’m not comfortable with this premise. I think America pretty much left the residual damage from racial injustice behind decades ago. The damage we see today is the result of the Left’s cultural and political “progress” and their constant churning of racism for profit.
I agree, today we see the Progressive Left’s racism in action. The foundation and residual effects of the old racism are gone.
I would agree if you were to substitute the word “”socialists” for “communists.”
That is so true. I think that perhaps the best step forward would be the election of President Tim Scott.
You mean President Uncle Tom? That’s what they’ll call him.
Thomas Sowell addressed these issues in White Liberals and Black Rednecks. There is some amazing analysis and research in that book. I am reading it now for the second time.
Thomas Sowell should be one of the most quoted figures in America….but alas….followers of Frederick Douglas and Booker T Washington don’t play to the American cultural white and black elite.
I remember back in the 70s I was hearing the claptrap about all cultures being equal. This was an obvious lie, but if you don’t have to actually live in the violent, unjust, harsh 80% of the world, you get to rub your chin and say “yeah, all have their good and bad points.”
But it leads to the insidious idea that foreign cultures can be recreated at will, and that it will work out fine if you reject the dominant culture. Bring your own language and take one step back commercially. Reject the nuclear family and you get crime and poverty. Dress and act like criminals and you take another step away from mainstream. And the whole time, we have the elites telling them that it’s completely normal, that culture is totally valid. And if you disagree, you’re the problem!
Maybe we can start over and say that all cultures are not equal, wait till they’re out of breath calling everyone racist, and see if we can align priorities.
A lot of the problems in “black culture” are the “black leaders” (often just race-hustlers) telling “their people” to reject what is being “imposed” on them. Until those “leaders” somehow “disappear,” or are just ignored by “their people,” I wouldn’t expect any improvement.
That’s good, but I like the one I made even better:
KeDavis, you’re right about the black leaders and thier unique relation to, apparently, a significant swath of blacks. If some Italian or Polish or Irish character tried to become the spokesman for his ethnic group (to be Al Sharpton for one of those groups), it would not go well. Imagine the guy saying that it was pretty obvious that his group couldn’t be expected to come up with a photo ID, or a utility bill. Or advocating for special programs to help them get jobs because they can’t get jobs on their own. That ritoing is justified and looting is getting even. Pointing out the need for programs because the group has academic achievement gaps, and so on. It would not go well as the anti defamation league condemns the guy. You just couldn’t have a Geman equivalent of Al Sharpton.
Guys like Al and Jesse reinforce all notions of oppression and indignation about a rapidly increasing body of microagressions.
On the bright side, there is a black middle class. They’re married, they push their kids in school, they care what their lawn looks like and drive better cars than mine. They obviously do not buy what the Rev is selling. I hope their voices and example will put the lie to victimhood and government reliance.
A lot of those people support groups like BLM, though.