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The Year in ‘Race Matters’
by
David J. Leonard | NewBlackman
Colorlines
recently published a 90 second video summarizing the year in race, an
amazing feet given what has happened over the year. Statistical measurements define 2011, in many ways:
·
45 percent of
the 131,000 homeless veterans in America are African-American
·
26 percent of
African American families earn less than $15,000
·
1 in 9 African
Americans live in neighborhoods where 40%+ of its residents live in poverty
· Black women earn 68 cents for every
dollar earned by men; for Latinas this number is 59 centers
·
16.2 percent of
African Americans are unemployed
·
17.5 percent of
black males are unemployed; 41 percent of black teenagers are without a job
· 11.4 percent of
Latinos are unemployed; 21.3% of Alaska Natives and 19.3% of members of Midwest
indigenous communities are unemployed
·
In
2011, blacks and Latino were twice as likely to face home foreclosures
· “Between
January and June of 2011, the United States carried out more than 46,000
deportations of the parents of U.S.-citizen children”
Yet,
meaning of this year transcends these numbers. We have seen ample intrusions of blatant racism into the
public square. I
recently wrote about this, arguing:
In Two-Faced Racism, Leslie Picca and Joe
Feagin explore the ways in which racial performances are carried in both the
frontstage (integrated and multiracial public spaces) and the backstage (those
private/semi-private all-white spaces where race talk and racist ideas reveal
themselves in profound ways).
Their research found that the backstage offers whites a place to “perform,
practice, learn, reinforce, and maintain racist views of and inclinations
toward people of color. These
views and inclinations play a central role in generating and maintaining the
overt and covert racial discrimination that is still commonplace in major
institutions of this society” (27-28).
Increasingly,
however, the frontstage is replacing the backstage whereupon whites are
publicly performing, learning, reinforcing and maintaining their racist views
toward people of color. Evident in
college students donning blackface and then putting pictures online, evident in
Gene Marks, Newt Ginrich, Donald Trump and their reactionary pals lamenting the
laziness of black youth, evident in the usage of the N-word, evident in
white-only movie screenings and white-only
swimming pools, the lines between the frontstage and the backstage are
blurring before our eyes. In
other words, the frontstage is now the backstage, leaving me to wonder what
sorts of ideologies, stereotypes and racial talk is transpiring in
backstage. Or maybe, in a “post-racial
America,” widespread racism has returned (did it ever leave?) to the frontstage
thereby illustrating the importance of challenging and resisting in each and
every location.
From
Rep. Doug Lamborn referring to President
Obama as a “tar baby” and Brent Bonzell describing President Obama as “a skinny, ghetto crackhead”
to Fox’s headline for President Obama’s birthday party –“Obama's Hip-Hop BBQ Didn't
Create Jobs” and Eric Bolling “criticizing” President Obama for “chugging 40's in IRE while
tornadoes ravage MO,” there have been ample examples of the ways in which public
expressions of racism have defined the 2011 political sphere. The racism and sexism directed at Michelle
Obama (just one example)
and the astounding types of political commercials (just one example)
are also evident of the ways in which violent rhetoric has dominated the public
square.
