Today we continue our ongoing examination of one of America’s most curious social animals-the Black Male. But, unlike previous posts, where we look at the matter from the perspectives of employment, or relations with law enforcement, today’s post will plumb the depths of territory that in my humble view, gets a considerable degree or short shrift in the public square.
In more recent years, the notion that one reason why Black kids haven’t done as well in school and by extension in life, is because of the idea that doing so is seen as “acting White”. Virtually all eyes reading this right now, are familiar with those words and the ideas they generate. Prominent Black figures from Bill Cosby to Barack Obama himself, have addressed this issue. Black scholars, like the late John Ogbu, have done detailed studies of the so-called “phenomenon”. Even books have been written about it, if not articles and chapters of larger works.
What seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle within the midst of this debate, are some clarifying questions: first of all, exactly WHO among African Americans makes such a claim? We assume and lump in “kids”, but the facts on the ground as we have it from test scores and other objective measures flies in the face of this assumption-as we have learned in as many weeks, Black Women consistently outscore and just do better overall in terms of education than do Black Men. From grade school to highschool and on into college, and beyond, this is easily documented. So, its difficult to square all of this with the notion that “Black *kids”* hold this “acting White” view. I posit that we need to be much more precise-it is fair to say, based not only on the aforementioned evidence but other more admittedly anecdotal but nevertheless powerful measures, that it is BLACK MALES who may indeed hold these “acting White” views.
So, if we indeed accept and start out from that premise, more questions emerge. One of them, is where precisely did this idea come from? Was it always thus in American life? Or was it a relatively recent thing that has come upon us? And in any event, a much deeper question for me is, WHY do so many Brothas take this or similar views? What’s the psychology involved-the rationale-the reasoning-the emotions that drive it? Surely, people do things for a reason, no matter how seemingly nonsensical they may be to the rest of us. Up until now, I’ve never really heard these questions being asked; the “default” position seems to be, to wag a finger at the collective of Black Men and shout/shame them into “acting right”. Needless to say, the stats as we have it, don’t look encouraging in that regard.
History records that indeed the idea of Black Men thinking that to have a rich life of the mind was akin to “acting White” is indeed a relatively new thing in American life. Nor have Black Men always done well in schools either, for a number of reasons, when compared to Black Women-indeed, the historical record is that Black Women have always tended to have more formal education than Black Men, going back a century ago and beyond. But this didn’t stop Black Men from wanting to learn about the world around them. In fact, a kind of self-teaching has long been a part of the Black tradition when it came to its Males, and we can point to very well known examples who were for all intents, largely self-taught – Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Stanely Crouch, Richard Wright, and many, many others. It would be a mistake to assume, that just a Brotha did work requiring a strong back, that he also didn’t have a strong mind as well.
So, what happened? We are now in he early 21st century; this “acting White” business has been around in the public discourse since at least the 90s. Something took place to transform Black Men who saw learning vital to their sense of self-actualization regardless of whether they went to school or not, to Black Men who are at the very least indifferent to any form of education, if not outright virulently hostile to it.
On this score, to be sure, there will no shortage of speculation and theories flung about; many will point to the “Great Disruption” that was the 1960s and early 1970s as the cause and culprit. And in fairness, it may indeed play a role, however small or tangential. For my part, I am not entirely sure exactly what happened or precisely when; but the evidence as we have says to me, that what we’re dealing with isn’t something chronic, but rather some relatively new. And we’re lightyears away from understanding why-which means we’ll also be lightyears away from actually solving this riddle.
But I do have some thoughts to share on the matter…
After much thought on this and related questions, it occurs to me that perhaps one reason why Black Men are disengaged from education and learning, is because in so many ways, they don’t see it as being worth the effort, that it is a world that for all intents and purposes is cutoff from them. On this score, many Black Women are quite vociferous in their response-after all, if they were able to do it, why can’t Black Men, too?
And this *is* a legitimate question, if for no other reason that very often such sentiments come from Women who face very slim pickings out on the mating market. While there are perennial murmurs about the need for Black Women to “broaden their horizons” the best evidence as we have it are that for better or for worse, and for the foreseeable future, Black Women in aggregate see Black Men as their ideal mates. And, because like White Women, and indeed other groups of Women in modern American life, they too want a mate that shares many of the experiences, interests and outlooks on life that they have. For Women, such things are vastly important.
Hence the all-importance of college education, because it not only confers a middle class lifestyle and income, but it also is a kind of “finishing school credential” that Women find very appealing in a Man. Indeed, it is not at all unsual for a Women, regardless of color, to reject out of hand potential suitors who lack this credential, because it serves as a rough proxy for the aforementioned qualities. Of course, on this front, because the pickings for Black Women are so slim, every suitor rejected means there are even fewer ones left, regardless of their level of education.
In many ways, the gains Black Women have made seem to have come at an almost Faustian price-it is difficult to say today, in 2010, that Black Women on a whole have done quite well for themselves. But the “catch” was that their Men will not be able to share in their success.
Nevertheless many Black Women and even some Black Men will essentially Black Men to “get over it”-but, aside from this strategy clearly not working, the other part that they overlook is that again, a major reason why so many of them seem disinterested in learning and education is because they’ve “learned” through their own life experience and that of other Black Men they’ve known, that there is relatively little gain to be had from it-and often, the cost put in outweighs the return on investment. At this point, if moral shaming doesn’t work, we can turn to grids, graphs, studies and statistics, but what we fail to see here is that for so many Black Men, the perceptions they have override the “reality” we may be trying to advance in a misbegotten effort to change their minds. This is especially true when it comes to Black Women-we have to remember that they, like all Women, have been shown to be more willing to do what is required than are Men, in the main. And Men have shown that when there is little to be gained in the effort of anything, they begin to vote with their feet.
Some tend to react violently to the idea that people tend to be more interested in something when they see others like themselves doing it, too-the whole of marketing schemes and political campaigns is built on this truism, informed as it is by psychological understanding of the human mind; but somehow, we expect Black Men to suddenly be immune to this facet of behavior and just soldier on anyway, regardless as to what they’ve seen or witnessed in the negative. Others will attempt to argue, well, look at Obama!-he’s made it!-or other high achieving Black Men. And there’s something to be said for that.
Nevertheless, these are more like Black images than real flesh and blood Black Men that other Black Men see during the course of their everyday lives. Here, is where sports and entertainment-most notably Hip Hop-comes into play, especially in the case of the latter. If ever there was a kind of cultural “public enemy number one” Hip Hop is it. The sheer bromides and assaults on the artform, blaming it for everything that ails Western Civilization from virtually all sides of the sociopolitical spectrum, would in some ways be construed as silly if the charges levelled against weren’t so serious. After all, Hip Hop is hardly the first form of music/culture that shook up the establishment-Rock music stands as stark witness to that fact. Still, one cannot shake the feeling that Hip Hop gets extra added scrutiny, disdain and harsh critique, because of the appearance of its progenitors.
At any rate, while Obama is an image on the tv screen, Jay-Z is someone much closer to home that Black Men can relate to-he is from Brooklyn, NY after all-and moreover, unlike Obama, who has to bend to the wishes of a world that has at best a guarded view of Black Men, if not outright hostile one, Jay-Z and countless other rappers have proven that not only can they have their voices heard, but make quite successful businessmen out themselves to boot-and most importantly, to do it all *on their own terms*. For this is another very important aspect of Masculinity, that Women, and this includes Black Women, who are often seen as arguably the most independent-and that is to stand apart and define oneself as a Man. I have no studies or “proof” to back me up here; but years of observation of this phenomenon coupled with my own thinking on the matter, leads me to these conclusions. Hip Hop, whether one likes it or not, gives Black Men a chance to be heard, in their own voice, in their own idiom, in a way where they define the rules of engagement, so to speak. And to add to all this, their message resonates with Men far outside the hood-record sales consistently show that the biggest purchasers of Hip Hop for some two decades have been White suburban teen and young adult Men.
So its quite understandable to understand why so many Black Men would look to the Hip Hop and sports worlds in the way that they do; true, not all Black Men will wind up a successful rap or sports stars. But we shouldn’t look too askance at such a dream-after all, there are plenty of areas of American Life that are easily as fraught with the same odds for failure. We all know scores of well-off kids who went to the best of schools and had all manner of opportunities who washed out. The same is true for the hundreds, if not thousands, of business startups who crash and burn within the first five years. The thousands of law school and medical school grads who couldn’t pass the final exams needed to get them over the finish line. The scores of hopefuls who are routinely (and often harshly) rejected from American Idol. The point is that it is somewhat foolish to berate Black Male aspirations as impractical and nonsensical, when the very nature of America is to “dream”.
Ironically, given the subject matter of this post, the lyrical content, delivery (or in rap parlance, “flow”) and topics of so many rappers gets short shrift in favor of the artform’s cruder and more crass genres, coupled with what some consider to something endemic to Hip Hop itself, its ostensible “misogyny”. On this score it can’t be denied that at least some rappers have some quite harsh things to say about Women, and there seems to be an entire cottage industry of young Black Women academics who “deconstruct” this and other facets of Hip Hop life and culture, often attempting to make the case for a Feminist niche within it all. Of course, what’s left out in all of the reconstruction and recriminations from all sides, is the tiny little question as to whether there is any truth to what the rappers are saying on that front. Again, in light of its sales figures and those who are among its biggest purchasers, if nothing else such facts should give one pause.
At any rate, Hip Hop has shown itself to contain a kind of mental acuity and acumen that rivals some of the best song writers, poets and writers of other eras and genres. Talib Kweli’s talking about his child being born, Mos Def’s ruminations about the Earth’s water supply, Common’s take on why Socratic questioning is so important, Chuck D’s many stylings on the state of the times for Brothas, and many, many other finely attuned rhyme spitters, kind of pours water on the notion that Black Men are turned off to education and learning. Perhaps it is the wrapping that its presented in, that’s the turnoff?
In my own personal experience, I’ve found that many Black Men highly value learning, so long as it can be seen to benefit their life directly in some way. Perhaps then, the “acting White” phenomenon, is more a reaction to the notion of an “alien”-and a hostile one at that-concept that means little to no good in a Black Man’s life?
Just a thought.
In any event, it seems clear to me that we’re getting nowhere fast by pursuing the present strategy of essentially trying to shame Black Men into “doing right”. Like the late great Aaliyah said, we need a resolution.
The thoughts presented in this post today, I humbly submit, as a step in that direction.
I’m just sayin…
Comment & reply, holla.
The Obsidian
