Langston
“Negroes - Sweet and docile. Meek, humble, and kind. Beware the day they change their mind. ”
Hello again. In the words of Dr. Dre: “I’m back in the lab with a pen and a pad trying to get this damn label off”. I might have screwed up the lyrics or adjusted them to fit me. I’m not sure which one.
Anyways, the last piece I wrote was inspired by observations I’ve made about the world around me and this one is no different. It’s actually inspired a conversation I’ve had with my stepfather multiple times regarding his “friend” who voted for Trump all three times while having an immigrant wife and the all-important sign of “not being a racist”, a Black friend.
I know the first thing you thought to yourself was, “He voted for ICE crackdowns and potential denaturalization while being married to an immigrant?”. Yes, he sure did. He also voted for federal workforce reductions while being a federal employee. I guess he thought somehow the policies wouldn’t effect him — which he found out differently, during the shutdown. My favorite quote for that brand of voter is: “Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
My stepfather’s friend is a staunch Republican. He’s a veteran. I believe he served in the Marines and we all know they have a reputation for not being the brightest of bulbs. Although, I’ve met some unintelligent Navy guys in the last few years — Including one who doesn’t know much about anything and when I asked him “Why don’t you feel the need to know things?”. He said “Well, I count on you to be informed”.
It must be nice to feel like you don’t have to know anything. For context: He is a white male telling a Black woman that he counts on her to be informed and educate him. He’s perfectly fine being completely ignorant and espousing hot takes on issues he hasn’t researched because he knows he has the privilege to do so — while insisting white privilege doesn’t exist. He ranted about DEI to me, his Black friend (now ex-friend) claiming that everything should be “merit-based”. If it was, he as a white man with limited knowledge would be earning less than I, a Black woman with more knowledge. But we all know, that’s not the case. He also ranted about immigrants, saying the usual: “People should come the right way”. Your ancestors came over here when it didn’t cost 10s of thousands of dollars in legal fees, take potentially decades of living on US soil and have to take a citizenship test that he and others that say “Come over the right way” would fail.
Typical. Conservative. Shit.
The final straw for me with that “friendship”, if you can call it that, was his condescending attitude about the erasure of Black history including Medal of Honor recipients being dismissed as “DEI Medals” and the attempts to gut The Voting Rights Act. This person claims to listen to MLK Jr. speeches every year during the holiday but shrugs his shoulders at the dismantling of his legacy. That is not an ally. I told him as much in a text message ending our “friendship”. I explained how DEI has become the new N word with the hard R, however when Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts were created they benefited white women mostly and Black people were at the bottom of the totem pole as usual. I asked him “If DEI is preventing white men from getting opportunities, why do white men hold most corporate positions? Why do they make up the bulk of college admissions?” You can’t be a victim in a system that was created specifically for your benefit. The problem is, people like him view minorities that have had to work twice as hard to get accepted into the same educational institutions and receive the same employment opportunities will overshadow them. “Merit” to them is whiteness, not expertise.
I ended another friendship with someone I’ve known for 15 years, who you could say I hooked up with off and on as well. This is the guy I talked about in my piece “We’re not in Kansas Anymore”. I was disappointed but not surprised to find out he’s a closet racist. It became apparent with his rhetoric about immigrants. While I am not an immigrant, I take issue with it as the nicest people I have ever met are immigrants. Not to mention, his fabrication of Kamala Harris not being able to “complete” a sentence or thought while the orange guy ranted about Hannibal Lecter and gave answers unrelated to things he was asked about was offensive. One candidate was deemed intelligent to him simply for being a white male — no matter how he mispronounced and misused words or gave bumper sticker sized answers to nuanced questions. Part of me gives credence to the reason behind him believing propaganda and sharing AI videos with me as if they were fact is that he lacks the education to know that he was being lied to like many other Americans.
Although let him tell it, we have the same level of education since I do not possess a Bachelor’s degree. On a simple job application that you can select “Some college” on, that is true. However, I was matriculating at a university before I left school to focus on my health and figure out what it is that I truly wanted to do. Dropping out after failing a couple of courses at a junior college is not even remotely close to my education level. In his mind, white privilege allows him to tell the lie that we are the same in the effort to bring down the uppity Negro woman a peg. That alone is cause for me to cut you off. But supporting a man who thinks people who look like me shouldn’t have rights and thinking I should stick around and be “friends” with you? No. Don’t be upset because you handed me the scissors.
What I’m saying to you is: my stepdad is the docile Negro. He believes in keeping your head down just to get along, not rocking the boat and being ok with your friends supporting racism just because you’ve known them for a long time. You can know someone for years and not really know them. What they do in the face of racial injustice matters, especially when you’re Black. They cannot be your allies while voting against you. But I’m done talking to him about it because you have to live and let live sometimes. I’m not sure if he’ll ever change his mind.
As for me, I won’t hesitate to tell you “Don’t let the door hit ya, where the good lord split ya. See ya boo-boo!”.
Some Historical Context
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Some Historical Context 〰️
Because I love a full circle moment and consider this a teaching moment: The reason I chose the Langston Hughes quote to preface this piece is because he was an important figure in The Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance is the period between the end of World War I and the mid-1930s that allowed for the rise of Black scholars and artists due to the Great Migration from the segregated South to Harlem. It wasn’t just limited to Harlem, New York. The movement flourished in other cities like Los Angeles and Cleveland that African-Americans flocked to in an effort to flee the oppression of the South — laws that kept them from exercising fundamental rights and the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing Black people through lynchings and destroying their communities, e.g., Rosewood and Tulsa.
Before you start with the Democrats started the KKK stuff — Yes, they did. But let’s not omit the rest of history, shall we? Let’s not pretend like the Klan’s official newspaper didn’t endorse Trump not once but twice. Let’s not pretend like Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t sign the Civil Rights Act into law and the “Dixiecrats” left the party to become Republicans and they’ve been there ever since. Remind me again, whose supporters have been seen waving the Confederate Flag? Telling history factually matters despite what the current Republican regime tells you. I don’t do cherry picking.
The Harlem Renaissance gave a voice to the Black unskilled workers, the middle class intellectuals, artists, and musicians. They all shared a common history and the economic boom of the North and Midwest allowed them tap into their true potential. Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois are two of my favorite intellectuals. I listen and reflect to the crooning of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong. Duke Ellington and his orchestra make me want to do the Charleston or Jitterbug, even though I can’t dance to save my life. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God has a special place in my audiobook library.
There are some younger black folks that do not know the importance of these figures or have never heard of them. I find myself playing professor and trying to impart wisdom on these young people. Oftentimes, they don’t see the importance in voting or reading. We can’t afford to be uninformed or lackadaisical.
Our very survival depends on upon knowledge that we were denied access to. An educated populace is harder to control. The Harlem Renaissance gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement through newfound social consciousness. That’s why we as African Americans and other minorities have enjoyed the rights we have today. Unfortunately, now you have an administration in power that is hellbent on stripping those rights away. And some non-black minorities felt that the Civil Rights Act was just for Black people. They couldn’t be more wrong. I’m sure that’s abundantly clear now.
So what do we do? Organize, educate ourselves and unfriend those people who claim to love us but vote against us. That’s the best advice I can give in these times.
Sources:
A New African American Identity: The Harlem Renaissance. https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/new-african-american-identity-harlem-renaissance.
Detrow, Scott. Ku Klux Klan Newspaper Endorses Trump; Campaign Calls Outlet “Repulsive”. NPR. November 2, 2016. https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500352353/kkk-paper-endorses-trump-campaign-calls-outlet-repulsive.
Little, Becky. How the “Party of Lincoln” Won Over the Once Democratic South. History Channel. August 18, 2017. https://www.history.com/articles/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-over-the-once-democratic-south.