Another Black History Month has ended. I wanted to knock a few tasks off of my Black to-do list. I started by reading the reprint of All About Love by Bell Hooks. I dove back into a collection of short stories by Langston Hughes. Like I do every year I listened to select speeches of Malcolm X. I visited various museum collections of Black art and took notes. I went to poetry readings. I rewatched a few films by Oscar Micheaux. Even so, my “blackness” was called into question numerous times by people I am close to and by people I don’t even know. This isn’t exactly new. I’ve dealt with that problem my entire life and were I a bit younger I’d be upset by someone saying I do not behave as they expect a Black man should. I rarely question back. Do they mean docile? Do they mean aggressive and uncouth? I haven’t actually reflected on what it means to be Black in quite some time mainly because I don’t think our society at large knows anymore. Most of America isn’t concerned with the question of what the Black man is anymore, they’ve moved onto other boogeymen to demonize such as trans and queer people. So maybe Blackness is over? Maybe we’re finally free from the constraints of racial and ethnic labeling? Maybe the reality of being born Black has now reached a liberatory status earned from being?
No such chance.
“Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it.”
Langston Hughes
I spent most of this month of February contemplating the status of liberation as it pertains to colored peoples. I must admit I am vexed. The society that we have created is horribly, sometimes terrifyingly so, unequal. It is limitless in its efforts to constrain us and enforce our behaviors and collective destiny. It seems as every year that passes, no matter what progressive gains are made there are new horrors that greet us from seemingly nowhere. The solutions we craft are usually framed by liberalism; this idea that we are in fact equal and should behave as such. Liberalism demands that to solve the problems inherent in a flawed civilization we just have to inject civility into it. We must include more in order to prevent injustices. We must recognize systemic injustices and by no means dismantle them, but ensure that they just behave in a way that is acceptable to most people. There is a certain teleological view of time with progressivism. That no matter what we do as we progress in time we will become more free, more enlightened, and less miserable. The tracks for this train are set in their direction and inequality, injustice, etc., are just slowing it down.
And so, many of my observations of socio-politics that fall left of center are that we focus too much on distractions; we chase the bugs. We can’t really get fighting poverty right because poverty is a massive confluence of intersectionality. It isn’t caused by one thing. It’s caused by six or seven massive things. We can’t exactly solve racism because at this point we have so many institutions and systems designed by racism that removing them completely would result in a world we don’t recognize. We can’t exactly design the free world we want because the current world demands we have a lack of imagination. What we do instead is push large companies to include people that previously weren’t included. What we do is push entertainment companies to ensure there is representation in our media. We write careful and persuasive essays and documents attempting to reason with agents of an institution or system who themselves are unreasonable.
It is possible that the liberal idea of equity is ill-suited for the demands of the moment. Liberal reform has long been associated with adding civility into institutional problems. And we must remember that many of our institutions are built and run by people who benefit from inequitable systems. Equity is the tool of the moderate and a means to ensure no one is upset by a shifting balance. It is I suspect one of the reasons prison reform fails repeatedly. I understand the frustrations of Angela Davis. We focus more on unionizing prisoners and ensuring they have rights that the wardens respect rather than aiming to create a society where prisons aren’t necessary. We can’t exactly reform the police because liberalism does not include a revolutionary apparatus. The answer is to dismantle methods of enforcement that prove dangerous to society, not teach them sensitivity. An equity apparatus is civilian oversight while keeping the institution intact. So, we will continue to die at the hands of the State.
It’s good to see these accomplishments as good things because if they didn’t exist we’d have no way of knowing if things can get better. And this is the vexing part. Our society sucks and the greatest tool we possess sucks at regulating it. We have the imagination to visualize a better world but we are hamstrung by our fear of upsetting the people who run it. But in just my lifetime I’ve seen some positive change. I can maybe say that my life is better off now than it was 30+ years ago. But there are still parts of this country that I’m entitled to travel in freely that I do not feel safe in. My very existence is called into question constantly. I am always under constant threat of dying at the hands of the state.
I have argued with colleagues about what it means to be at the end of Blackness. One states that the end of Blackness occurs when through considerable strides and through (painful) effort, Black people reach parity with White. Then and only then will the distinction vanish. Another states that Blackness ends when the reality of being Black (as it is constructed by White and Black people) ceases to place constraints. Maybe there is a compatibilist view. If you believe that this current reality places constraints on Blackness, then no matter how much college you attend, no matter how civil you behave, no matter how right and reasonable you are, you will never be free. A solution would be aimed at making the effort to achieve parity, not equity. The complete removal of constraints and boundaries, not just mitigants and bug chasing. I just don’t know how to bring this about yet.
Anyway, hope is the dream of the waking man.
Way Past Policy 