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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe ‘New Black’ Mentality Is Causing More Harm Than Good, So Please Black Celebrities, Do Better
Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2015, 03:27 PM - Edit history (1)
http://hellobeautiful.com/2015/03/22/why-black-celebrities-should-be-black-activists/Last year Raven-Symoné demanded that she not be seen as “African-American,” but rather just American. She also informed us all of her “interesting grade of hair,” as she aimed to negate her Blackness. This week she essentially defended a former Univision host who compared Michelle Obama to an ape. Hip-hop artist Common also informed us that Black people can end hundreds of years of racism and systematic oppression by extending a “hand of love,” to White people.
I would ask Kanye West to snatch all their mics, but to be honest, his recent declarations that “we” shouldn’t focus on racism, leads me to believe he is on this train of “New Blacks” as well. Destination: White acceptance.
Full disclosure: To many White people, from the distance, I am their Black friend dream-come-true. My middle-class, highly educated, slightly-English influenced way of speaking and all in the slim-privileged body of a polite Nigerian girl, probably meets the ideology of a respectable Black person. I am more Lupita Nyong’o than K. Michelle and they like that.
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malthaussen
(17,213 posts)That argument has been around as long as the first slaves.
-- Mal
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)as opposed to some hyphenated-American, should we tell them that they are wrong, or should we respect their choice?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)That's how Joyce liked to talk. She was a good-looking woman, Joyce was with her green eyes and honey skin and pouty lips. We lived in the same dorm my freshman year, and all the brothers were after her. One day I asked her if she was going to the Black Students' association meeting. She looked at me funny, then started shaking her head like a baby who doesn’t want what it sees on the spoon.
" I am not black,” Joyce said. “I’m multiracial." Then she started telling me about her father, who happened to be Italian and was the sweetest man in the world; and her mother, who happened to be part African and part French and part Native American and part something else. “Why should I have to choose between them?” she asked me. Her voice cracked, and I thought she was going to cry. “It’s not white people who are making me choose. Maybe it used to be that way, but now they're willing to treat me like a person. No—it’s black people who have to make everything racial. They’re the ones making me choose. They’re the ones who are telling me that l can’t be who l am. . . .”
They, they, they. That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn’t a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective.
Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white Culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don’t have to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America’s happy, faceless marketplace; and we're never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse; not so much because we’re bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives -although that’s what we tell ourselves- but because we’re wearing a Brooks brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger.
"Don’t you know who I am? I’m an individual"
(emphasis in the original)
https://books.google.com/books?id=HRCHJp-V0QUC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=obama+dreams+from+my+father+%22i%27m+an+individual%27+brooks+brothers+impeccable&source=bl&ots=PH7A6Z7HVI&sig=BMyzx-WtIGT7sVHMW9ysyTZpdzM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=61cQVZ73K8GbgwTD7IHwBA&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=obama%20dreams%20from%20my%20father%20%22i'm%20an%20individual'%20brooks%20brothers%20impeccable&f=false
As a white guy, I lack standing to weigh in and judge how people identify since I really don't have that burden. But, if you want another perspective . . .
bravenak
(34,648 posts)I noticed it when dumb-dumb (LLCool J) sand that GAWD AWFUL song accidental racist. I said to myself , "B, WTF is LL doing? Is this SNL?" It was NOT SNL, oh no, it was that fuggin Idiot LL, running around talking some stupid shit about, "I'll forget the Iron Chains if you Forgive MY GOLD CHAINS!" I was like " Really,LL? Really? STFU and take your ass back to school you dumbass."
Then I looked him up. REPUBLICAN. Of course.
Just like all people, black people sometimes get a pile of money and lose the ability to think properly and start thinking they speak for large groups of people. I guess since Bill Cosby fell the hell off, they are in a race to become 'America's respectable Negro'.
That's my take. And the stuff Jamaal and I said about Common the other day.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)bravenak
(34,648 posts)Me and yr dad are like TWINS! 
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)People like Pharrell and Raven are around white people every day. No surprise that they adopt opinions seen as white-ish
What we are seeing is the beginning of black integration. Which can be good or bad depending on how much of their unique identity people would like them to maintain. It couldn't happpen before now because of segregation laws, which caused social and geographic segregation against even wealthier blacks that endured beyond the end of legal segregation.
The stratification system in our society is slowly re-ordering itself. It's so slow that many will say it's not happening, but I see it every day.
B2G
(9,766 posts)
Bonx
(2,065 posts)
It boggles my mind. The whole 'if you're a member of this race, you should think like this, and you should have these values' thing...WTF??
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)From reading what is there, three black individuals are mentioned. All three have different thoughts on how they would like to be perceived and how they want to go through life perceiving others in this aspect. All three seem to be respectable positions for one reason or another. They are also just small glimpses into their psyche, not the whole story. They're different people, who would have thought?
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Wanted to read it. I appreciate your follow up.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts) NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)1) It almost reads with a "they aren't black enough for me" tone. That could be my preconceived notions(with respect to this topic) going in.
2) Feel much more confident in this point. The author went on to write about past celebrities like Sam Cook and Ruby D. I think the manner they attempt to make this point falls flat on face value. There is a long list of AA celebrities from this time period that did not use their stature to do much with respect to race. I am not saying that is a negative on them. At the same time, the author picks out three people from today that they don't agree with as if to say "look what black celebrities are doing today." Many black celebrities of today talk very openly about race issues. I think the author had a point to make, this part didn't fit their narrative unless they did some slight of hand, so they did.
I think the author could have made a great point with their own thoughts without using others. What she really did by doing it this way is to simply show everyone is different.
