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I Might Look Black, But I Ain’t Like “Y’all”: Mia Love & The Paradox of Race, Gender, and Religion in American Politics
By Dr. Darron T. Smith
Part 1: Understanding Mia Love’s Racial Consciousness
Mia Love
Don’t be fooled by what you see. Mia Love (see here) might look black, but she ain’t like “us.” Despite the well-known racist notion that “all blacks look alike,” there is more to being black than looks alone. Black people generally share in common African ancestry and specific alleles that control for variations in skin color and other physical features; besides that, black folk are as rich and diverse a group as they come with many distinct cultures, languages, and dialects. To most Americans, however, what the casual observer typically categorizes as a “black person” is not always someone who identifies as “African American.” By African American, in this sense, I mean those individuals whose African ancestors where enslaved and then transported to the Eastern shores of what is now the United States, and through natural increase, became the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of former slaves. With that history comes a bloody and violent past replete with pain and suffering at the hands of white power and privilege. Africans enslaved in America centuries ago were forced to shape new relationships with former rival tribesman out of sheer necessity, thus developing into a culture that we know currently as African American. With that rich tapestry of African culture forged through a record of struggle and longsuffering, African Americans survived the onslaught of white supremacy by producing rich and vibrant Black communities, tight knit in personal connections, where knowledge was gathered and disseminated about how to survive and agitate for social justice that had long been denied. This is not to say that Mia Love and others of more recent immigrant lineage are not American, but the category of “African American” illuminates a particular heritage, enticing a certain frame in our minds (see here).
Haitian flag
Haitian Americans, on the other hand, as well as other black Americans of different emigrant origin and history have their own unique chronicle. Mia’s parents, for example, emigrated from Haiti to the United States in the 1970’s, some 170 years after their homeland gained its independence. With them, then, they brought received wisdoms unique to Haiti from its history of French colonial oppression. But also with them, they brought wisdoms, sensibilities, and frames associated with a history of black rule and sovereignty.
After arming themselves under the direction of military leader Toussaint L’Ouverture and, subsequently, Jean Jacques Dessalines (see here), Haitian slaves fought for their freedoms in the revolution of 1791 and finally gained their independence in 1804 after trouncing Napoleon’s forces for the second time. Mia’s Afro-Haitian ancestry is very similar to that of North American Blacks with equally violent and complicated interactions with Europeans. It differs from U.S. slavery and emancipation in that Napoleon and his white army were forced out of Haiti, leaving a predominately black country to govern itself. Haitian citizens were now in control of there own destiny, but not before they inherited many of the same European racism(s) that plague the U.S. mainland such as colorism, which is discrimination on the basis of skin tone. Since then, Haiti has been a predominantly black nation with unprecedented high levels of illiteracy, poverty, government instability, and other challenges. However, Haiti is the only black nation in the Western hemisphere, which means that despite its problems, they are free from white supremacy (within their country at least). Mia’s parents come from a culture that was literally created by a black majority who has experienced two hundred years of freedom and black command.
In contrast, African Americans have only been “free” since the passage of civil rights laws some forty-five years ago and continue to experience discrimination in housing, education, health care, and other forms of civic life in a white dominated culture. In fact, black Americans have merely lived an illusion of freedom. The richness of the African American culture is deeply rooted in social justice and a tradition of fighting against the absurdity of white supremacy that persists even today. From 1619 when 20 Africans landed in Jamestown, Virginia on a Dutch frigate to 1968 when the last civil rights law was passed, African Americans endured 350 years of slavery and near slavery-like conditions. In this country where white privilege and power is the norm, racial and ethnic immigrant groups of lighter, white appearing complexion (mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe) have consistently and inevitably been able to assimilate into the American culture and come to be considered “white” in American context. Immigrant groups of darker skin have not had that opportunity. Instead of being granted government succor in both the guarantee and upholding of justice at every corner of life as our constitution promises each American regardless of their station, African Americans have continually been denied or had limited access to decent and affordable housing, a world-class education, and low cost, high quality health care. And as society’s income and wealth gap widens, systemic racism continues to pervade every facet of American life.
Although weak legal strides have been made to redress some our most pressing racial vexations as a nation, serious deprivations remain for too many Americans of color. These deprivations are centuries-old and fly in the face of our universal appeal toward “go it alone” and “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” attitudes, questioning the validity of these metaphors. The image of successful people who rose from the ashes to make something of themselves is an enduring theme in U.S. society and enough to reinforce the idea in popular culture. Because white America is the architect of these improbable white frames of success, scores of immigrants came to the Americas in hopes of better days ahead. Yet, African Americans whose ancestors were involuntarily brought to this country do not follow a similar life trajectory and, thus, feel differently about race than one whose family voluntarily immigrated here for opportunity sake. Where Mia’s experience is one of hopes and dreams, albeit largely reinforced by popular stories, images, and myth-making of the American propaganda machine, the mass media, African Americans’ experience as a group is one of despair.
Mia’s history and challenges are not so different from African Americans. What is different, however, are the philosophical tools by which Mia interprets her experiences; put differently, the way in which she buys into the notion of the American dream and individualism as well as how she views herself as a black woman through the prism of a U.S. white lens. As all “races” in North America view themselves through a white lens, Mia’s hair style, diction, cultural orientation, friendships, mannerisms and habits, nevertheless, are an extension of her degree of acceptance of white supremacist norms and values which induce her unconscious hatred for all things African American. This behavior should not be seen as strange, but instead an effect of living in a white world that has historically devalued black people and their accomplishments. All black Americans do this to some extent. The difference with Mia Love is that her upbringing, stemming from a more recent immigrant state of knowing and being, causes her to continue to believe these “norms” of whiteness without questioning their basis and origin. African Americans, on the other hand, have developed counter frames to protect themselves against white supremacist notions, creating an alternative way of “viewing” their position and circumstance. As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett detail in their book, The Spirit Level, only once we correct the widening income gap will we see improvement in every major social indicator from health and crime to education and jobs. Such opportunity comes from community as well as a greater sense of fairness and justice (see here).
This tradition of fighting and struggling against systemic racism is distinct for African Americans, something that recent immigrants of African descent cannot completely comprehend. Because Mia Love and others like her have not come from an institution of perpetual battle for their freedom, voice, and right to exist in a supposedly egalitarian society, they have the luxury to be unconscious of the white-black paradigm in this country. However, this much is true about U.S. racial understandings about blackness, it doesn’t much matter if you where born in America or immigrated here, the one-drop rule is still alive and well in contemporary America (see here). No one person of color is free from discrimination in this country. With even the slightest hint of “black” (African) features, white America still sees that person as black. And with that comes the white centered frames of what it means to be black despite the cultural variations of blackness. Mia Love has the unique opportunity to learn two distinct histories and cultures. It would behoove her to understand and embrace the African American social-cultural history because the reality is she looks like “us.” We are all the sons and daughters of former slaves; we share this fight together.
Follow me on twitter @DrDarronSmith
I saw this post linked from the Mormon Stories Podcast Community, and I wanted to comment on something here…
I can understand your point that people like Mia come from a basically different background that gives them a different understanding and awareness of racial issues in the country. However, wouldn’t it be correct to say that the socializing of black people in America (*as* black, or *as* African Americans) is something that occurs even today? It is something that doesn’t just happen because of your parents, and your grandparents, and the community in which you’re raised. In other words, I am challenging what you wrote early in the post here:
What I am wondering is whether the category of “African American” can illuminate a particular *experience* that entices a certain frame in our mind, rather than mostly a particular *heritage*.
For example, later on, you say:
To me, this isn’t something that focuses on the past. This is something that focuses on every generation. *Every generation* of black folks in America has had to fight against the absurdity of white supremacy. And as you point out, that exists *even today*, so it *even affects individuals like Mia*.
I think that what you write in your last paragraph really captures things well:
I quote this part to point out, though, that the latter part speaks out against the former part. I don’t think that Mia Love (or other “recent immigrants of African descent”) cannot completely understand what it means to fight and struggle against systemic racism just because they do not come from family traditions of doing such. Rather, I believe that they can understand what these things mean because whenever they come to America, they will have to do it themselves. Why? Because as you say, the one-drop rule is still alive and well in contemporary America. Even if they wanted to be unconscious of race issues in America, they cannot be, because race is pressed down upon them by others in society.
Anyway, I have written a lot in this comment, but the reason I do so is because I think that increasing, we have black folks who are more “estranged” from the traditional centers of black community. I mean, from a Mormon context, I think that growing up Mormon means that I have missed out on a whole lot of things of African American culture. The black church is basically foreign to me.
And to allude a little bit to your previous post…I have a friend from my childhood who was also a black Mormon…but he was in many ways more estranged from the center of African American traditions than I was — he was adopted into a white family.
While I can certainly agree that he would view race through a lens of whitness (and I probably would tend to do this strongly as well), and that he probably hasn’t been raised with the tools to deal with racism…that’s not to say that he is immune to these things, or that he can just ignore them. Because of his and my *contemporary* experiences of white racial supremacy in America, we have to learn the counter framework to oppose those things.
Hi Andrew. Thank you for your comments.
This is a difficult topic navigate because of the word choices we use to describe people of color in American; however, these word choices and the identities that we attach to them was the very reason I chose to address this issue in Part 1 of this blog. To help clarify, the original definition of “African American” that I describe in the first paragraph is referring to a definition that was created by white U.S. framing, and thus, one that blacks choose to use or avoid in identifying themselves. That is, many folks who self-identify as African American come from this particular background. As I’ve stated, this is not to say that other black Americans are not American or are not African American, if you will, but that many black Americans of a more recent immigrant background often do not identify with the term “African American.” Or if they do, they only do it in certain contexts. In other words, they “cherry pick” when they want or do not want to use this term to describe themselves. Obviously, this is a generalization, but one well documented in the literature.
Furthermore, you make my point well that we all experience racisms in this country regardless of where you are from and regardless of your upbringing. Because our white dominated society is not very sophisticated in understanding and interpreting different forms of blackness, we are all lumped into the category of “black” (which in most white minds is synonymous with “African American”). Because of this, many first and second generation black immigrants feel the strong urge to disassociate from this term and claim a different heritage. But there are no easy identifiers to categorize yourself differently without using verbal terms. My point is that white America will still see you as black regardless of what you call yourself. And each one of us will face the same racisms (whether we choose to see it or not) so people such as Mia Love might as well embrace the term and accept it.
Could I ask what was your intent in writing this article? Was it to somehow discredit Ms. Love because you don’t agree with her politically? Does not everything that you outlined apply also to Barack Obama since his African ancestry is from an immigrant who arrived in the States well after Dr. King’s march? Perhaps you have laid a similar case against Obama, but I’m guessing you have not.
My intent was not to hurt Ms. Love but to analyze her situation and try to understand her disconnection with the larger African American community. I have also written about President Obama in a similar light in my book, White Parents Black Children.
So during the 08 election, did you think that Obama would be incapable of truly understanding the struggle of the “real” African American experience? Your writing comes across as truly divisive, like you’re trying to make Mia Love some sort of “other” or outsider simply because she believes in teaching a man to fish rather than handing out “free” fish. Herman Cain, for all his infidelities, has similar political believes as Ms. Love and yet he is a “real” African American. How would you psychoanalyze him? (And no personal attacks on him–he’s like so many other philandering Dem and Rep politicians)
Dr. Smith,
I’ve come to your website to gain a greater understanding of your views as I have found in your writings ideas that I can vigorously support. I am very happy I have done so as I am gaining a much greater understanding.
Your opening statement about Mia: “She might look black, but she ain’t like ‘us,”’ helps me to understand better what your meaning of being black is. First, from what I’ve read on your site so far, you seem to define your relationship to humanity strictly in terms of race. Well, actually that’s not true, it’s a very specific definition of race that is extremely exclusionary. That must be difficult and even painful for those who might feel a kinship but are instead excluded, unless they accept your view of what their life’s experience and perception should be. “Us” it seems, is someone who holds to a very particular world and political view. It’s not just skin color, it’s skin color with a particular adherence to specified and proscribed beliefs that allows one to be included in the race. I find that very interesting.
As I read on I found this astonishing statement that you made about Mia:
”As all ‘races’ in North America view themselves through a white lens, Mia’s hair style, diction, cultural orientation, friendships, mannerisms and habits, nevertheless, are an extension of her degree of acceptance of white supremacist norms and values which induce her unconscious hatred for all things African American. This behavior should not be seen as strange, but instead an effect of living in a white world that has historically devalued black people and their accomplishments. All black Americans do this to some extent. The difference with Mia Love is that her upbringing, stemming from a more recent immigrant state of knowing and being, causes her to continue to believe these ‘norms’ of whiteness without questioning their basis and origin.”
I find it hard to believe that you really claim know this to be true and could actually write and say this about another human being? In your mind, there doesn’t seem to be any room for any other possibility of any other explanation as to why her beliefs and world view differs from what you think they should be in order for her to be one of “us” meaning a black African American. In other words, you don’t seem to be able to question your own views as faulty. Instead, you seem to set them as the benchmark of truth to judge others by. I’ve heard and read what Mia has said about her value system and why she believes the way she does. I’ve also heard Condelezza Rice speak about this and her views, even though she and her parents suffered greatly under the tyranny of racism, do not conform to your view of what it means to be black. Do you accept that Condelezza Rice is African American, or is she also blinded by her unconscious hatred of all things black as an explanation of why she doesn’t accept your perception of the truth? The values that these two women ascribe to are values that I have found in cultures throughout the world and I find it hard to believe that they would be dismissed so easily as “acceptance of white supremacist norms” or the “universal appeal toward ‘go it alone’ and ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ attitudes, questioning the validity of these metaphors.” Have you not been out of this country and seen these values in cultures throughout the world especially in cultures with no white population?
Let me tell you a story of a wonderful childhood experience. After the Vietnam War, there were many refugees of Vietnamese and Hmong decent that moved into my town in the Sacramento, California area. Needless to say, they were not well received. These people did not know the language, they were not educated, they were extremely poor with many families sharing the same apartment or, for the lucky ones, a house. They were far different than any race we had encountered before and shortly after their arrival there were stories of “gooks” eating our neighborhood dogs. They often moved into the predominantly black area of Oak Park or the 65th street expressway and Power Inn road where run down houses, boarded up stores and shops, vacant fields full of trash and old cars were the norm. They started coming to school and stayed to themselves for obvious reasons. Over the next few years, a drastic change took place. Those fields began to be cleaned up and strawberry fields were planted in their place where for the first time in our community’s existence, we could buy fresh strawberries from the field. Vietnamese stores, (yummy donut shops were my favorite) salons and others shops started opening up where vacant boarded up stores once were. By the time I graduated from high school, they were among the top students in our school in scholastic achievement. These people came in with nothing, not even a knowledge of the language and faced severe racism and changed the neighborhood and the perception of their culture. They were so much more than the dog eating people they were originally accused of being. I was simply inspired by their culture and work ethic. There was no way one could claim that they were blinded by white supremacist norms. They did “go it alone” and they did “pull [themselves] up by [their] bootstraps” thus validating these time honored metaphors across all cultures and creeds.
I recall when Dr. King’s day was first being celebrated and I stayed up late to view this round table discussion about this very topic that you are speaking of. There was Jesse Jackson and other prominent leaders making the same claims that you are here. There was also a black college professor, I think it was from San Jose State University who had a counter view. Two black college students from a predominately black college back east dared to make the statement that such things such as working hard and obtaining an education would provide them with the best chance of success. I was shocked. They were called “Uncle Tom’s” and a host of other terrible things. I didn’t even know what Uncle Tom meant then. Now I can understand why there was such an uproar and condemning reaction to what they said. If someone doesn’t tow the line with a certain view of racism, they aren’t one of “us.” I witnessed that then. There were also great claims of racism in Florida for example. But then a Jamaican and Haitian were interviewed who were successful business owners who said that the city was extremely helpful and they found no racist attitudes. Jesse Jackson said that they city people must have known that they were Jamaican or Haitian and therefore would help them as they would not help an African American. I didn’t buy it and neither did these people as they readily ascribed other observable reasons why success was not attained.
Personally, I don’t buy the victimhood mentality and I think it is simply debilitating. It certainly has been for me in my life when I have been faced with multiple setbacks. I know there is racism, especially in the past. There is racism, sexism, religious intolerance and all kinds of bigotry throughout all cultures as there are all kinds of disadvantages in life that the human condition compels us to face. To me, it isn’t what happens to a person that defines their culture, race or character, it is how a person responds to what happens to them that defines who they are. That was the overwhelming message from Condelezza Rice as this is what her parents taught her. I’ve seen and experienced too many success stories where people of all races and cultures have overcome so many obstacles in their lives to be successful. As I have studied cultures throughout the history of the world, it is my view that cultures are successful, not due to the color of their skin, but due to whether their culture respects and values fidelity in marriage and the family. To the extent that they do, the cultures thrive. When the cultures reject these time honored values of family, fidelity and hard work, they suffer greatly. No culture can sustain the breakup of the family resulting in a high out of wedlock birthrate and be successful.
Dr. Smith, respectfully, look up the word prejudice in the dictionary and then view those definitions with how you have described Mia Love. Personally, I think that what you have said about her is hurtful and simply shameful and you, above all people, should know better. You are better than this and have too much to contribute to stoop to this level to discredit someone who does not hold your world view.
Mark
Oops, I read my post. I referred to the college professor from San Jose State Unversity as “I think it was”. I meant he of course.
Mark,
There is so much in this comment- rather than address each point specifically, which would be better done in a personal conversation, I would at least like to give you the curtesy of a reply and address some of your overall themes. I’m not sure that you fully grasped what I was saying. This is a complex problem that requires students a significant amount of time to comprehend, yet I addressed it in one blog. Let me first say that this was not a personal attack on Mia Love, but instead an analysis of her racial consciousness as a preface to my next blog on an analysis of her interesting political position as a black, female Mormon. I don’t know Mia personally. What I do know are the cultural/social understandings about race. Secondly, most people respond to race from a “personal experience” standpoint. I do as well, of course, with my experience in every day racism as a black man in this country, but understand that I also come from a place of informed knowledge. Though you may discredit my work, I spent 9 years studying this subject and have a Ph.D. in this area. So my writings, though they seem to you as though I’m using my “views… as a benchmark to judge others by” as you say, are really founded in years of doctoral training, research and literature. Lastly, I would like to stress that I, by no means, devalue hard work and education. After all, I have 3 post-graduate degrees and worked my tail off as a working father every step of the way. I do believe strongly that no one succeeds on their own accord. Successful people work hard, yes, but this idea that all you need is hard work and determination is one of the great mythologies of the American experience. For example, studies have shown that people in the lower socioeconomic class of more unequal societies actually have higher aspirations than those in the higher classes. (I know you are doubting this, but this is why I encourage you to read studies.) Family, friends, education, right place at the right time are all examples of how one uses their circumstances to succeed. Another circumstance that contributes to success is white privilege. Obviously there are non-white people who are and have been successful, but these numbers are highly skewed and, I would argue, the road was much more arduous. Again, this is ONE circumstance that merely helps one achieve along with their hard work and education. But this aspect is difficult to see as a white person, particularly as a white male who is at the top of the “food chain”, unless you go looking for it. I would like to challenge you to study or at least read informed works on this topic before making an assessment. Not to discredit your experiences, but they most commonly are viewed though a white lens (whether you are white or not, though I’m left to assume you are by several of your comments). If you want to start small and for pure entertainment, I would encourage you to read some of the following pieces below. However, once you walk away with a better knowledge from these pieces, it would only benefit you to explore deeper….
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (which is a very entertaining book on all aspects of success)
The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson
White Privilege by Tim Wise (if you’d prefer a short article, I can direct you to Peggy McIntosh’s article White Privilege)
White Wealth, Black Wealth by Oliver Shapiro
Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life by Annette Lareau
Schooling in Capitalist America by Bowles and Gentis
Black Identity, West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities by Mary Waters
Impact of Racism on White America by Hunt and Bowser
Dr. Smith,
Thank you for your reply. I really do appreciate it.
I do not disagree with you on much of what you say. I do suggest a bit of dare I say humility with statements such as the following:
“What I do know are the cultural/social understandings about race. Secondly, most people respond to race from a “personal experience” standpoint. I do as well, of course, with my experience in every day racism as a black man in this country, but understand that I also come from a place of informed knowledge.”
Do you really think so? What if there was another black man with your equivalent or even superior educational background but who draws a completely different conclusion? I know this scenario exists. I have read and listened to them. Whose informed knowledge is true and who qualifies to be one of “us?” That’s why I took such issue with your characterization of Mia and now I take issue with you using your educational background as a justification for doing so. For example, I read a lot from Leonard Pitts, Eugene Robinson and Charles Blow. Thomas Sowell almost universally disagrees with them and, in my opinion, he is more educated. Who’s right? I don’t think education or background is the determining factor in the equation. It’s just simple humility to know that we cannot possibly know how or why people come to their views. On this topic, we will simply disagree. I’m not asking for agreement. I suppose I am asking for acknowledgement or validity in this point of view.
However, you may be surprised that I whole heartedly agree with you as to me it is just common sense that people of a lower socioeconomic class would tend to have higher aspirations than those of higher classes though they generally don’t have the means or the knowledge to achieve those aspirations without an exponentially greater effort. It doesn’t take much thought to understand that when you’ve made it, or perhaps the disparity is actually more pronounced in cases where your progenitors have made it and you are reaping those rewards, your aspirations tend to dwindle. I have no doubt about the many aspects of racism that are built into this culture that you alluded to in this reply and your other writings that I have read. I do agree that racism still exists and I believe it will always exist. However, I also accept that there are countless and far more determining reasons outside of racism why disparities exist in this and all cultures. I also believe that racism is no longer the greatest stumbling block to African American advancement in our society and I believe it is not even close to the greatest obstacles. I suppose I agree with many of the views that I have heard and read from Bill Cosby and especially the Rev. Jesse Jackson, (when he is not speaking to a white audience) about the real struggles in the black community. Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia gave an incredible and inspiring on Aug. 7 2011 after a rash of mob violence that was often racially motivated among the youth was really plaguing the city where he spoke of his upbringing and the values that need to be instilled in the community. He is still emphatically delivering that message of personal responsibility and accountability.
Perhaps a scenario outside of race that I’m sure you can relate to might be more helpful to clarify my point about what bothered me the most about your post.
Dr. Robert Jeffress is the senior pastor of the 10,000 member First Baptist church in Dallas. He holds a doctorate and is quite educated, certainly far more than I in his religious view. He has recently publically stated that Mormons are not Christians but are a cult. He was excoriated in the press and by several other evangelical leaders as a bigot for doing so. He has made this statement many times before but the repercussions this time were something new. What Dr. Jeffress was saying is that Mormons are not one of “us” but in his case, he was speaking not of being a Baptist, but he was excluding Mormon as Christians. Since Mormons do not hold his view of what he thinks it means to be a Christian, he excludes us from the realm of Christianity. I find no difference in what Dr. Jeffress did to Mormons in terms of religious views and what you did to Mia in terms of racial views. Do you see my point? Can you explain to me what the difference is? We can discuss, agree and disagree on many aspects of racism in this culture and hopefully learn a lot from each other in the process. What I found offensive in your post was that you actually claim to know how and why “Mia interprets her experience” to the point where you claim to know that “she views herself as a black woman through the prism of a U.S. white lens” and that she accepts “white supremacist norms and values which induce her unconscious hatred for all things African American.” You cannot possibly know this which makes these statements so outlandish and hurtful. You are also saying that there is only one truth and you have a monopoly on it as any other view is skewed if even unconsciously through white lenses. Really?
You do not view these statements as a personal attack. If you said this about me, I certainly would. I mean, how do you defend against the statement that her hatred of all things African American is unconscious? I would be thinking: Here is this man who doesn’t even know me and yet who nevertheless is telling me that I feel and think and derive my beliefs and values in a certain and even offensive manner. I search my soul and don’t feel this way but I am informed by this well educated man that my feelings stem from unconscious hatred meaning that I don’t even consciously know about it. Can you really not see how incredibly hurtful and condescending this is? You are telling a person that they do not consciously understand their own experience – but you somehow do.
Finally, you trump me in education. I have not spent 9 years studying this subject. My post graduate work was at a state university in California in the field of Mechanical Engineering. Nevertheless, as you certainly must know, a person could have dozens of degrees and spend a lifetime studying a subject and still be very, very wrong. I know of no field of study where there is unanimity of thought or complete agreement in accepted knowledge. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” There is a reason why this made it into the scriptures. Science is always changing and the behavioral sciences are so subjective. I still don’t see a basis in educational achievement that qualifies anybody to think they can know how and why someone believes, acts or interprets their own experience. I have read world renowned psychotherapists who have spent years with patients and still say that they don’t have a clue as to why these people think and do what they do.
Your statement: “Again, this is ONE circumstance that merely helps one achieve along with their hard work and education. But this aspect is difficult to see as a white person, particularly as a white male who is at the top of the ‘food chain’, unless you go looking for it.”
I completely agree with you about the white male at the top of the food chain. And you don’t have to look far to see it. In fact, you have to be willfully blind not to see it. Even a poor white male has so much less to overcome than a poor black man. Though I think a poor white male with no emphasis on education and a weak family structure has a lot more to overcome than a wealthy black male with a strong family and educational tradition. My childhood experience with the Vietnamese and Hmong people I think was more than one experience. U.C. Berkley was even talking about a quota on Asian’s in their university because they are accepted far beyond their percentage of the racial population. Asians face all kinds of racism as well. But they have cultural values of family and work that overcome this. Poor Vietnamese and Hmong refugees who were forcibly transplanted into a strange culture use those cultural values to overcome many of the effects of racism. This is not a singular experience or achievement but is product and result of cultural values within the Asian community. Jews, Haitians, Cubans, Jamaicans, East Indians all achieve well beyond their representation in the population. Why are they able to overcome to a greater extent our cultural racism?
Just for your information. My background is that I came from a large and very poor family with a severely handicapped younger brother. I am of mixed European decent but as far as I know, the largest single slice in the pie of my racial make-up is 1/8th Chippewa Indian and I know more about my Indian heritage than any other. I look white but my older brother looks like our ancestor grandfather Chief Sam Frog. My parents had no college education and never spoke of it nor encouraged it in our home. I was the first to go to college in our family history and I finished my degree when I was 40. You can be white, poor and have all of the disadvantages that you described above. Put on top of that being a Mormon, and well, we aren’t even Christian and seem to be the last group that can with hostility openly be attacked. I’ve tasted the bitterness of bigotry throughout my life but nothing like what African Americans have had to endure. Last week I was indexing some names from the 1940 census. I had two pages from Alabama that were all of negro decent. I was deeply moved by this experience. There was a marked difference between these sheets and the other ones of whites from Alabama – So many widowed women of a younger age and so many mixed family homes. My heart just ached for these people and what they had to endure. I served a mission in the Philippines over 30 years ago but my greatest hope now is to serve a mission in Ghana or the Congo with my wife. From my youth the scripture about the first being last and the last being first has influenced my view about racial injustice. Please know of the honor I have for you in coming to and accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ. What an incredible journey and how much you have had to overcome to have this faith is almost beyond my comprehension and I love you for your integrity and courage. If I were to sum up my religious view in just a few words it is this. Evil is overcome by love. It is overcome by absorbing the injustice and by returning injury with love. That does not mean that you don’t use all your efforts to prevent future injury and I applaud you and strive to do what I can to overcome the evil of racism. Nevertheless, I cannot control what others do to me, I can only control how I respond and I have been commanded to forgive and to respond with love. That is foremost in how I approach the world and what shapes my views. My culture is not white or Indian, it is the culture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are family.
Thank you Dr. Smith. Be assured, I will continue my reading.
Mark
I’m left wondering if the people defending Mia Love are her campaign staff. This isn’t a short one off article dissing her. This piece is full of complexity and contradictions describing the African diaspora experience. Those focusing on electoral politics are missing the boat.
That said, I do have some issues with the piece that have nothing to do with Mia Love, who is frankly sort of beside the point in all of this. The notion that Haitians have been free for 200 years is incorrect. It assumes that as long as you don’t have a military force on your country’s soil that you are free. Stronger arguments have been made by better writers than I that this is at best naive and incorrect.
Haiti is still colonized. Not by a military force but neocolonialism is done through industrial and economic arrangements that work together to control and/or influence strongly governments, people, economies, culture, everything.
I say all of this to explain that most immigrants to the US from African countries are not the poorest of the poor and usually hail from something approaching a middle class background and thus enter the US with their own set of racial and class problems that they have internalized. That is the starting point of their ideological approach.
In an attempt to integrate and assimilate into US white middle class culture, they mimic the lines of Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the conservative and liberal establishment that stresses individual achievement and minimizes historical fact and easily demonstrable socio-economic reality. These all work seamlessly together to encourage the creation of distance from ex-slaves in the US who still labor under a new kind of slavery. Different from the old but slavery all the same.
Africans of whatever origin are for the most part used by white power to forward the racist Horatio Alger narrative because for a while it was a racist social faux pas for a white person to do so. With the help of Barack/Michelle Obama and people like Mia Love, white people are now freer to turn back the clock to the time when they could openly criticize Black people as lazy without ANY fear of being called racist, which they were and still clearly are.
Ingemar,
Thank you for your comments. First off, this was a build up to a piece in which I will examine Mia Love and her political positions more closely, but I felt that an analysis of her racial consciousness was in order before one can fully understand the way in which her racial identity intersects with her religious identity in the face of politics in Part 2 of the blog.
Furthermore, I understand your argument about Haiti and it’s perpetual neocolonial struggles in the wake of white supremacy. Although I agree that Haiti is still influenced by white supremacy in the world at large (which I allude to at the end of paragraph 2), I disagree that they are not free. Within their country, they are a free people; no one is holding them as literal slaves. And they do not have the daily insults asscoiated with living in a predominately white context, consistent reminders of historical deprivation associated with long history of slavery and Jim Crow. The people in power are black. Whether their leaders are good or bad and whether they are influence by the white nations around them, the nation is still under black rule. In other words, the average Haitian is under the leadership of someone that looks like them and that symbol makes a difference psychologically. They may have a cast system in Haiti, which i would argue would be influenced by white supremacy, but they do not have a daily visible reminder of racial oppression.
I appreciate your insights in your comment. Thank you for reading with a critical eye.
Dr. Smith:
I disagree.
There are millions of ways to be “Black” or “African-American.” If there are thirty million Blacks in the U.S., then there are thirty million different ways in which the black experience is being lived. A Black person living in Alaska will have a different “experience” from an African-American living in Sunflower County, Mississippi. This stands to reason, don’t you agree? An eighty-year-old black man in Virginia will have a different conception of race from his black teenaged granddaughter living in La Jolla, CA. Surely, you are aware of these truisms at an unconcious level but your need to believe in an ideology, I fear, blinds you to the truth. Writers write truth, you know.
Yes, anyone can point out examples of racism and lingering discrimination based on race. But I find Mia Love refreshing because she is a race pioneer, in a sense. We should applaud race pioneers, not distance them from “blackness” (whatever that means).
What is blackness? Is it in the eye of the beholder? Is it an internal self-conception? Does it depend upon the person? There are millions of possible answers because each person is different, and that is ok in my book. I think too much scholarly talent is wasted, quite frankly, in the Hunt for Black Identity. Your thesis presumes some universal Black Identity that Mia Love is estranged from. Maybe, just maybe, Love has decided to believe what she believes and to marry who she wants to marry because of her own decision making. Bully for her!
I find Black Identity is ever changing. Black Identity should be loosely defined therefore, not strictly constructed. (I am still waiting for someone/anyone to define “Black Identity” with a hard edge.) Was Rev. Lemuel Haynes “black” under your definition? Alexander Twilight? What about Edward Brooke? Thomas Sowell? Thurgood Marshall Jr.? Adam Clayton Powell, IV? Jean Toomer? The list goes on and on….
Well, I have written enough. I am always amazed when intelligent scholars are disdainful of race pioneers. Mia Love is just one way of blackness. The black community needs more race pioneers, not fewer.
Agreeing to disagree,
Shelby
thank you everyone, working on my first paper on black women’s maternal health and concurrent HIV status…addressing who is considered black, African American was a quandry…great info! again, thanks
It’s amazing I saw this. I have been hearing a lot about this individual since her “historic” election win on November 4th, 2014. I was looking at her position and she stated the one thing she wants to do is go to Washington, join the “congressional black caucus” and then take it apart from the inside. When I read that, I got the idea that she’s not spent much time around black Americans and she had no connection to the history of black America because she came from a country where blacks ruled the country. She has her sites on destroying something that is there to insure minorities of all flavors have a voice and that voice is heard.
I think she’s going to have a problem with the other 16 black women who’s grown up in this country and had to deal with being black in America. And I don’t think she’s going to be able to deal with the black men also in congress who will have a real experience of America.
Thank you for this analysis. Just reading her position on issues important to me tells me she does not support what I want for my family especially my kids.
Did not read your entire link on race consciousness. But I think some care and mention needs to be made about those Africans who migrated from the Caribbean and other places with a clear overstanding of the history of struggle of the African-american population. These African immigrants participated fully in the struggles of the African-american Brethren an Sistrin once they arrived. I enjoyed reading both the article on mia love and the link to race consciousness. That needed to be said. I must go now.