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Part 2 of the Black Dilemma Series

In the public discourse about racism and its particular effects on the status and plight of African- Americans, views seem to be polarized towards two extremes. On the one hand you have people like Bill Cosby, Shelby Steele, and Jon McWhorter who exalt the concept of personal accountability above all other reasons for the “black dilemma”. Then you have those who stress that racism is the primary cause of socioeconomic disparity, lack of opportunity, and inequality – in essence “blaming the white man for black people’s problems”.

But where is the middleground? As with all things it is clear to me that a balanced view is necessary here, yet not too many people seem willing to discuss the roles of both lack of personal accountability (and the anti-intellectualism, self-hatred, and self-sabotage associated with it) and racism. We don’t even have to consider the two factors as equal, and it doesn’t really matter which is more significant, as long as we recognize that the problem of race and equality for African-Americans is too complex to attribute to one set of causes.

There is such a division between the two ideological camps, just as there seems to be between “black intellectuals” and lay African-Americans. I was speaking to my father, who could probably be considered one such intellectual, and he expressed a complete indifference – even belligerence – towards other African-Americans who he perceives as unintelligent and irredeemable. It is clear that he takes the side of Cosby and the “black conservatives” but while people like Cosby and McWhorter issue their message for the purpose of progress, however myopic they may be, my father is content to just dismiss socially encumbered African-Americans into oblivion. “Put them in a hole and let them kill eachother”, is what he said to me. Take those words out of his mouth and put them in the mouth of a white man and they become Machiavellian and social Darwinist.

I mention my father’s view not because he is anyone important or influential, but because I suspect this is a view that is shared by many “black conservatives”, although they may pay lip service to the ideal of progress through accountability. That is to say that these ideologues have already in many ways given up on real possibilities for change, and have instead embraced an ideology to “save the better of us” at the expense of everyone else.

I understand the frustrations and the outrage and the separation between so-called black intellectuals and black conservatives and the mainstream African-American community on whose behalf they claim to fight. I have felt the same ostracization as Jon McWhorter for daring to “talk white”, the resentment for not sustaining the apparent status quo of anti-intellectualism. I also feel that Bill Cosby is not far off-base when he criticizes African-Americans for their own role in their dilemma. However I think that this mantra of personal accountability has also become one of accusation and condescension that serves no purpose other than to nurture self-hatred and dissension amongst African-Americans in a situation where clearly inspiration and solidarity are necessary. I have several times used the term “community” as if to suggest there is or ever was such solidarity, but this ideological separation amongst other things reminds me that, in fact, there is not.

My father says that he does not give a damn about “them”, them being those African-Americans who are mired in the difficulties of the black dilemma, caught between racism on one side and self-sabotage on the other. But I do not share that view. As much as “they” frustrate me – and I only separate myself from them on the basis of my privilege and lesser experience of the “black dilemma” – and as often as I want to give up, I absolutely refuse to abandon “them”. I have no idea what is possible, and I have no idea what I can personally achieve to better the status of the disenfranchised African -Americans, but I am almost certain that the answer lies somewhere in the middleground between personal accountability and full acknowledgement by ALL people of the effects of the institution of race and racism.

I mourn the fact that there is such a divide even between myself and other African-Americans as to make it difficult, even impossible sometimes, for me to communicate my thoughts to them. It troubles me that all my lofty theorizing and ideology seemingly has no practical application. The language barrier between Standard American English and African American Vernacular English, which parallels the ideological divide, cripples me in that I do not have the words to express my ideas in a way to make them more widely accessible, and in that much of what I have to say is categorically dismissed because of the way in which I say it.

There are so many different voices speaking out against the same problem, yet they are shouting at eachother across an ideological divide rather than speaking to one another in a way that is truly conducive to progress. And that saddens me in ways I can’t even put into words.

I am reminded of something I read about Gandhi which said that in the same breath that he fought for equality for Indians in British-controlled South Africa, he vocally denied the rights of “black” South Africans to that same equality. It was as if it were just as important to separate Indians from “kaffirs” as it was to equalize the statuses of Indians and whites. How this relates to the topic at hand is that I feel that “black intellectuals” are so busy distinguishing themselves from black stereotypes and those real people the stereotypes have come to represent, that they have in effect abandoned the most ideal cause of true equality. I am of the mindset that equality for anything less than all of us is equality for none of us.

“Black intellectuals” and “black conservatives”, in their bids for social progress for African- Americans, need to remember not to alienate everyone else. Between the black bourgeoisie and the black stereotype are millions of real people caught up in a real struggle that cannot be won from opposite sides of the ideological divide. Just as it is the “responsibility” of African-Americans to take their fate into their own hands, to educate themselves, to push themselves, to do all that we know is necessary to bridge the socioeconomic gap, it is also the responsibility of conservatives and intellectuals to reach out instead of pointing the finger, to suggest rather than accuse, and to provide guidance rather than condemnation. If you cannot, then respectfully withdraw from the conversation, because you are no longer in service to progress.

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