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Racism and the Black Public Image: A Call to Resistance and Self-Affirmation
The recent racist portrayal of President and First Lady Obama is only the latest in the long, long campaign of contemptuous public imaging of Black people in order to keep discriminatory policies in place that hurt the quality of all aspects of American Black life.
Albert Memmi wrote that “Racism is the generalized and final assigning of values to the real or imaginary differences, to the accuser’s benefit and at its victims’ expense, in order to justify the former’s own privileges or aggression.” Racism as such is an attack on American democracy itself, and its goal of fostering a beloved community of equal citizens. It is an attack on all people.
Recently I finished conducting the Black Public Image Impact study that I created the full results of which is for future publication. This study surveyed persons who self-identify as Black, African American or as People of Color. In response to one of the survey questions “When I am exposed to a negative portrayal of Black Americans it makes me feel?” the majority responded that they felt “angry.”
Black people have always had to decide what to do with their angry as a result of their experience of racism. It is essential at this time in this nation’s history that Black people and others who are being marginalized by racism, sexism and homophobia refuse to internalize the inhuman oppressor’s voice or images of who they are. Failure to resist contributes to the murder of their souls and psyches.
It requires self-care practice, affirming pride in who one is and how one looks, especially in our children. Nonviolent social protest and exercising the vote are proven ways to direct one’s anger and promote a more equal and democratic society.
But self-affirmation and agency are also forms of resistance, and they are needed more than ever—the refusal to see oneself through the eyes of those who mean you harm.
All people and institutions of civil society have a moral and ethical duty to publicly condemn any promotion of the inferiority of any group of people. This must stem from our awareness of our common humanity and love for one another. This will transform our society for the better. However, to protect themselves and their children from the onslaught of racism and its impact on their self-esteem and health, Black people cannot wait for and rely upon the sympathetic or empathetic support of members of the wider society.
Racism stymies our understanding of what it means to be fully human. It diminishes our self-esteem and that can thwart our efforts to see and combat systems of oppression. Our flourishing as human beings requires that we rid ourselves of negative images of ourselves and one another. We have to honestly confront the ways by which we consider ourselves either “less than” or superior to any other person and change our self-perception to that of our common equality as human beings. The character and destiny of America is not fixed in the stone of racism.
Resisting the evil of racism and renewing our sense of hope as a democratic nation means that all of us needs to engage in the radical transformation of unjust systems. We must not allow ourselves to accommodate systems and ideologies of oppression. Our confronting and diminishing racism help us to preserve the dignity and worth of being a democratic nation.
Pursuing spiritual and meditative practices, initiating deep conversations with families, children and trusted friends, and defying the daily noise of racism are some of the ways that Black people must protect themselves from the prejudicial attacks of those who would demonize them. Now is not the time to be distracted from our sense of pride and excellence.
Frederick J. Streets, is a member of the faculty at Yale Divinity School, a clinical social worker, and former Chaplain of Yale University.