Internalized Racism

I heard a minister at my church comment this week on how difficult it is to convince the younger generation that racism is alive and well in America. Children of the 80’s, 90’s and beyond no longer have the visual, palpable reminders of water hoses being sprayed in the faces of black people or having the police deliberately loose dogs on groups of people because they were standing up for their right of free speech and equal rights. Our children today no longer have to suffer the indignity of “Coloreds” and “Whites Only” bathrooms and water faucets. My minister shared that her teenaged sons tend to brush away her cautions and concerns as “old fashioned” and “well, it’s not like that anymore.” And to some extent, they are right, it’s true. I missed most of these visual reminders too, but what I DID have to cope with was sitting in a classroom in a predominantly white university and being ignored by not only my peers, but by the professor as well. I came to think of myself as “The Invisible Chocolate Spot.” I remember having to work twice as hard, to get less than half of the recognition. I remember quite clearly writing a short story in high school for a writing contest and being told that while my story was far and above the other submissions, they would not be able to publish it because it was too controversial. It was the story of a young black girl who foolishly falls in love with a white boy. The boy takes advantage of her love for him, but eventually publicly humiliates her. It was 10 years or more before I wrote another word.

Anyway, as I listened to my minister, I concluded that both mother and child had valid points. I do believe that racism is still alive and well in America, but I think it’s wearing a different face now. I think black folk have internalized the hatred that was perpetrated upon us for centuries; our behavior and attitudes reflect that we have accepted that we are “less than” and we are something to be ashamed of. Take for example a recent conversation I had with an African American co-worker. I was sharing with her my experience last summer working as a camp counselor for a Sudanese Youth camp (more to come about this later). As she flipped through the pictures of some of the children she became quiet and still and a look of “uggghhh” came over her face. “What’s up with that face?”, I inquired. She didn’t immediately answer, but then I started to understand. The majority of the Sudanese adults and children at the camp were very dark in complexion. There were more than a few of them with skin so dark, it almost reflected a complete absence of color or hues in their skin. I admit, I was initially startled, because due to racial mixing in our society, one rarely sees skin this color. There was a 9-year old girl, with legs up to “there,” she was nearly at my eye level even at this age. She is absolutely gorgeous. You just KNOW she’s going to develop into a goddess. So, I’m gushing about how beautiful this child is and my co-worker says with disgust dripping from every syllable, “but she’s so bu-lack!!!”

Bear with me now; truly, I do have a point to this. I will share another example that occurred in my Vacation Bible school class this past week. A 69-year old woman sobbed uncontrollably as she shared how she was rejected by her mother, her OWN mother because she was “too dark” and her hair was “too nappy.” She was still struggling to understand what she could have done to offend her mother and how should could have made things better. Her mother would say to her, “I had my children and then you came along.” (Her siblings were “high yeller, with long, wavy hair.”) Her mother would leave her home alone because her mother would become annoyed and frustrated trying to comb her thick and highly textured hair. I myself remember at the age of 10, on the afternoon that my baby sister’s birth, my father coming through the door asking, “what color is she?” before he even looked at her.

Behavior is functional and serves a purpose. People don’t just BEHAVE; stereotypical, repeating behaviors have been reinforced and molded by circumstances. The early slaves had to adapt to the attitudes of the slave owners solely as a means of survival. I mean, really, most of y’all saw “Roots”; you saw what happened to Kunta Kinte when he refused to believe he was nothing less than the king he was born to be? One either adapted to the demands of the plantation, or died! So, minimizing ones “Africanizisms” evolved into an adaptive behavior. (Yeah, I know, I’m making up my own words now!) And consider the adaptation and internalization that had to also take place within the slave owners; the amount of conditioning that had to be involved to convince an entire nation that African people were not really human, less than animals, and with no feelings or values is incredible to conceive. But that’s the only way to make sense of how one group of humans could perpetrate such atrocities against another. So, you had the oppressed group accepting the attitudes and behaviors of their oppressors, and the oppressors having their attitudes reinforced by the behaviors and internalization of the oppressed.

Come back tomorrow for Part II and conclusion of 'Internalized Racism'


My heart and soul and the Goddess

My heart and soul and his best buddy at camp!!