Politics? How black is black enough
I don’t care what race you are, when it comes to dealing with your own people, sometimes what is expected becomes the unexpected.
I had yet to reach my teen years when I realized that racial tension also existed within the races.
The enlightenment came when I was 12 years old and working on a woodcarving in shop class at Broadway
Junior High School in Newark, N.J.
I was attacked by three guys in the class because they did not like that I was singing a song by the Beatles.
I was surrounded, hit and pushed around aggressively as they demanded to know if I was black — and if so — what the hell was wrong with me singing that whiteboy song.
That happened during the time black people were taking on racism and uniting under the banner of black power — and I was one of those raising my fist in the air. But I also liked the Beatles, so I hummed their songs because I didn’t think it had anything to do with me being black.
It has been decades since that encounter in shop class but I see not much has changed; it is 2019 and blacks are still accusing other blacks of not being black enough.
And just like I wondered back then, I still wonder now: what does not being black enough mean?
I have always found the underlying connotation in its central theme is disturbing because it suggests that if you are black and successful, you’re not black enough. And that has always irked me because as far as I know, I can’t get any blacker, I can’t wear it more proudly and I can’t defend it more vigorously than I already do.
It was the Bridgeport primary mayoral race between Mayor Joseph Ganim and state Sen. Marilyn Moore that brought back that shop class memory, though it has played out in other scenarios throughout the years.
During the campaign, the Rev. Mary McBrideLee told Hearst Connecticut Media why she was knocking on doors to drum up support for Ganim and would not support Moore, a black woman.
“If she was really black I probably would support her,” she said. “I think, sometimes, she forgets she’s black. I really do.”
Why is that cheap racial copout always hurled by some blacks at blacks who have achieved a semblance of success? What makes us enemies of our own people?
The Rev. D. Stanley Lord, president of the Greater Bridgeport Branch NAACP, said in part “this is a way to divide those of color. But, those of us whom have common sense tend to ignore those whom tend to use this type of divisive language.”
That it comes from a person in a leadership role as both a councilwoman and a minister is more disheartening than it is disquieting. It is a problem because when you are a minority, there are fewer people engaged in the political process in leadership roles.
And it also suggests that all blacks should think alike and achieve goals in the same way.
This is not a column taking a position on whether Bridgeport voters put the right person in office; nor is it suggesting that blacks should only vote for their own and dismiss candidates from different races.
I think blacks here in Connecticut and nationwide are already sending a message to black candidates that the color of their skin will not be enough to win them the black vote — and that is as it should be. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris can both attest to that.
But it is a column saying that those black candidates should be judged the same as their peers by blacks: as to their skillset, character and abilities — and not by some ridiculous allegation that can’t be substantiated, let alone defended.
But as Lord said, “There will always be those whom are just ignorant to the reality that there isn’t a more black or less black person.”
I know that many blacks will have a problem with me writing this column, but I also know that many more will stand and cheer because somebody has got to say it.
Moore said she was shocked by McBrideLee’s comments and wanted to know: “What do I have to be? What do I have to look like? I’m as dark as dark can get.”
Those are questions that only blacks can answer when it comes to their expectations of leadership. I don’t know McBrideLee and I am not in any way suggesting her voice and work is not needed or valued.
But until those questions can be answered, they will remain the elephant in the room and we will continue to divide and separate when unity is the answer.
And that is a sad commentary when it is clear from the problems in the black community that blacks need other blacks — politically and otherwise — now more than ever before.
Politics? How black is black enough?