5/12/08:

One of the truisms I grew up with is "you have to be twice as good to go half as far." This was a shorthand way of explaining racist assumptions about Black inferiority as well as the most effective method for countering them. This saying also made clear that no matter how much one surpassed the bigoted expectations or the performance of whites, the reward was probably not going to be commensurate with one's achievement.

Although there are significantly more educational and employment opportunities in the post civil rights era than there were in the 1950s, racism is still a barrier. How else to explain statistics from the U. S. Census Bureau which show that in 2001 the median earnings for a white male with a bachelor's degree was $55,307, but for a Black male with a bachelor's degree it was only $42,999, a wage gap of more than $12,000. Census figures show that median earnings of Black men and women are consistently lower than those of white men and women, at every educational level.

The concept of "twice as good to go half as far" may partially explain why some have labeled Barack Obama an elitist or as Newsweek magazine terms it in a recent cover story why he has a "Bubba Gap." Hillary Clinton's race and class privilege destined her for Wellesley, Yale or comparably elite institutions and yet she is believable as a down to earth champion of working and middle class voters. Paradoxically, Obama who was born with neither race nor class privilege and who attended Columbia and Harvard on scholarship is seen as elitist. That Obama's accomplishments are viewed by some as suspect points to the complicated history of race and class in this country.

Prosperous and educated people of color have been frequently viewed with suspicion, have been considered threats, and have faced resentment from both Blacks and whites. Some of the most violent racial attacks in this country have been against economically successful African Americans. The most notorious example was the massive 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma race riot, which burned out an entire Black community and left approximately 10,000 people homeless. This downtown neighborhood had so many property owners and businesses it was referred to as the Black Wall Street. The 1997 film, "Rosewood," depicts a similarly violent attack on the town of Rosewood, Florida massacre in 1923.

For those who may have little exposure to a wide range of people of color of various educational, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds, Obama may well seem like an oddity. Might he be considered insufficiently presidential, however, if he were less polished in his demeanor and not as intellectually sharp?

I have quite a few of my own stories about challenging stereotypes, which I have tried to do every day of my life. One of the most shocking happened a few years ago on a beautiful summer afternoon when I went to collect petition signatures with a friend on the block where she lives. We approached a middle aged white man and after I briefly stated why we were petitioning, he responded with extreme hostility, "So you're an educated Black girl." I was thunderstruck. It had been almost half a century since I could accurately be described as a "girl" and the words that came out of his mouth took one of the things I most value and turned it into an insult. Suddenly there it was right on the sidewalk, the supposedly inevitable chasm that exists between human beings because of race, class, and gender.

I don't believe it has to be that way, but it will require some difficult conversations, moving beyond our comfort zones, and a willingness to learn if we are ever to experience the remarkable gifts of our entire human family.

Barbara Smith is an educator and author. She lives in Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood and since 2006 has served on the Albany Common Council. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" in 2005.

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4/14/08:

During this fortieth anniversary year, there is much talk about the world shaking events of 1968. One of the things that I remember about 1968 is meeting my first feminist. It was the fall of my senior year and a few of us had persuaded Mark Rudd, a leader in that spring's Columbia University strike, to come to Mount Holyoke to speak. He had spoken at Amherst the night before. Our invitation caused more than a little consternation among the college administration, but we got help from sympathetic faculty and everything turned out all right.

Mark was traveling with a woman who was active in the very new women's liberation movement. I remember how odd I found this concept. She was a white woman and from my vantage point, I could not imagine what white women had to be dissatisfied about. White women were still very much on a pedestal in society while Black women were buried underneath that pedestal, both inferior and invisible.

All the Black women in my family, like most Black women, worked outside the home, most frequently as domestic workers in white women's houses. Women in my family bitterly recalled the ill treatment they suffered at the hands of white women employers many decades after the soul crushing incidents had occurred. From slavery days, Black people sarcastically referred to their male and female masters behind their backs as Mr. Charlie and Miss Ann. The archetypal Miss Ann was the most self-centered demanding, and cruel white woman on earth. In 1968 I thought, why would Miss Ann need to be liberated? She already had all the things that Black women never had, most especially unearned respect.

A year or two later, my perspective had changed. In the real world I was experiencing sexism as well as racism. I had also begun reading feminist writers, and was especially impressed by Kate Millett's pivotal work Sexual Politics, published in 1970. I became a charter subscriber to Ms. Magazine and purchased an early newsprint edition of Our Bodies Ourselves.

Even though I was beginning to gravitate toward feminist ideas, I was distressed because Black women were still invisible. The mainstream women's movement did not examine the impact of sexual politics in the lives of those who simultaneously experience racial oppression, class oppression, and in some instances heterosexism. By 1973 when I attended the first Eastern Regional Conference of the National Black Feminist Organization in New York City I was committed to building a Black feminist movement.

Women of color have built a much more complex feminism which is also more inclusive and accountable. As we explained in the now classic 1977 "Combahee River Collective Statement," "we. . . .see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives."

These days I think often about the challenges women of color face in order to create a political voice, let alone to exert political power. The race-gender divide manifested in this campaign is largely defined by white women and men of various races. Few remark that demands for allegiance to one candidate or the other are all too similar to the rancorous conflict between white suffragists and Black activists following the Civil War when these movements split over whether the Fifteenth Amendment should extend voting rights to women.

As sexism and racism are pitted against each other, it is Black women who need to be heard. One of the most incisive voices is Linda Burnham's. In her essay, "The Tightrope and the Needle," she points out how some white liberal feminists' may have unwittingly deepened the racial divide in their arguments supporting the candidate they favor. If 2008 is a genuine historical turning point, we need to approach it with nuanced, multi-issued understandings, which the thinking of feminists of color is ideally suited to provide.

Barbara Smith is an educator and author. She lives in Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood and since 2006 has served on the Albany Common Council. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" in 2005.

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3/10/08:

2008 marks an historical breakpoint: the first time that a white woman and a Black man have emerged as frontrunners for the office of President of the United States. No one could have predicted exactly when this would occur and no one could have imagined that these candidates would emerge in the same election cycle.

Nowadays there is no shortage of dialogue about race. But much of what is said does little to increase our understanding of this historical moment, since journalists and pundits like most people have only partial comprehension of what racism actually is and how it operates. One of the notions that has emerged is that if Barack Obama is nominated and elected it will prove that racism is effectively ended in our society. Would that it were so simple.

What this scenario does not take into account is how systematic and institutionalized U. S. racism is, having been set in motion centuries ago by Native American genocide and African enslavement. White supremacy is the bedrock upon which this nation was built and it has had as much impact upon shaping our institutions, values, culture and most signally our power structure and economic system as other more readily acknowledged forces.

Institutionalized racism pervades every aspect of U. S. life, but because it is so normal and also confers white skin privilege, those who are not its targets usually have only sporadic awareness of its impact. When most people think about racism, they focus upon individual attitudes and personal interactions and generally overlook its much more powerful institutional face.

A sampling of statistics provides a useful window into how racial oppression continues to manifest itself. Let’s start at birth. In 2002, 5.8 white infants died per 1000 births compared to 13.8 African American infants per 1000, an infant mortality rate that is more than double. The Centers for Disease Control reports that from 1991 to 1999 there were 8.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 for white women and 30 maternal deaths per 100,000 for African American women, a maternal mortality rate that is more than three times as high. African American women receive less prenatal care often because they lack money or insurance to pay for it.

Speaking of money, in 2006, 24.3% of Blacks and 20.6% of Latinos were poor compared to only 8.2% of whites. In 2004, 33.2% of Black children and 28.9% of Latino children were living in poverty compared to 10.5% of white children. Social scientists now point to the racial wealth gap as more explanatory of disproportionate poverty than income. In 2001 the median net worth of African American families was $10,700 while the median net worth for white families was $106,400.

The subprime mortgage crisis tragically illustrates how this wealth gap gets perpetuated. A highly disproportionate number of borrowers affected are Black and Latino and according to United for a Fair Economy are facing “the greatest loss of wealth for communities and individuals of color in modern U. S. history.” In an October, 2007 article, “Race and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis” Emma Coleman Jordan writes “that even at higher income levels, black borrowers throughout the country were far more likely than white borrowers with similar incomes and mortgage amounts to receive a subprime loan.”

Among the most chilling statistics are those documenting health disparities. In 2004 the CDC reported that death rates for African Americans were 44% greater than whites for stroke; 30% greater than whites for heart disease; 23% greater than whites for cancer; and a whopping 774% greater than whites for HIV disease. These statistics help to account for African Americans’ shorter average life expectancies.

Housing, education and criminal justice statistics tell a similarly troubling story. The point of all this is not to produce guilt, but to illuminate why there will be no quick fixes for America’s ongoing racial dilemma. The real solution is for each of us to organize with others to challenge institutionalized racism and to actively commit to making change.

Barbara Smith is an educator and author. She lives in Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood and since 2006 has served on the Albany Common Council. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" in 2005.

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2/11/08:

I have been in love with movies since the very first time I saw one. It was Walt Disney's "Alice in Wonderland." My Aunt LaRue took my twin sister, Beverly, and me to one of Cleveland's opulent downtown movie palaces. We were four years old. Beverly and I both had the same reaction when the movie was over. We burst into tears because we could not bear to have this wondrous experience end.

I have seen countless films since then, but despite enjoying films that range from art to fluff, I often say as I walk out of the theater, "They still have not made my movie." One thing I mean is that I almost never see Black characters, especially Black women characters portrayed as having a meaningful life of the mind.

Intellectual depth and superior academic achievement are not generally associated with African Americans in mainstream discourse. When we hear about Blacks and education we hear about low test scores, a huge achievement gap, and high drop out rates. All of these are critical problems that parents, community members, and most of all school systems need to solve. What gets overlooked is a tradition of devout commitment to education and academic excellence among large segments of the African American community that began during slavery.

Slaves were generally forbidden to attain literacy, yet many risked their very lives to do so. Frederick Douglass' description of his clandestine efforts to learn to read and to teach others is a compelling aspect of his autobiography. He states: "I had at one time over forty scholars, and those of the right sort, ardently desiring to learn. They were of all ages, though mostly men and women. . . . Every moment they spent in that school, they were liable to be taken up, and given thirty-nine lashes. They came because they wished to learn. Their minds had been starved by their cruel masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught them, because it was the delight of my soul to be doing something that looked like bettering the condition of my race."*

When slavery finally ended, this passion for education manifested itself in the founding of hundreds of Black schools and colleges, many of which still exist.

Given my love of movies and of learning, I was excited to see the recent film, "The Great Debaters," directed by and starring Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey. It skillfully depicts the triumphs of historically Black Wiley College's debating team during the Depression, a time when segregation and racist violence ruled the land. The team eventually had the unprecedented opportunity to debate teams from white universities. The team coach, renowned poet Melvin Tolson, portrayed by Washington, and Dr. James Farmer Sr., portrayed by Forest Whitaker, are the rarest of screen presences: Black intellectuals and courageous race men who are thoroughly committed to challenging the minds of young Black people. All of this would have prompted me to say, "They finally made my movie," but there was the added impetus that one of the champion debaters, Samantha Booke portrayed by Jurnee Smollett, is a woman, the first female to win a coveted position on the team.

I went to see "The Great Debaters" twice. The second time was with public elementary and middle school students from North Albany Academy. The older students were members of the student government and the younger ones were the siblings of students who are responsible for taking care of them each day while their parents work. Since I suggested this excursion, I was delighted that the kids really enjoyed the movie and that it was the basis of class discussions afterward.

As we celebrate Black History Month, these students' appreciation of the film and the leadership they show both at school and at home indicate that the tradition of African American achievement is still very much alive. Our job is to nurture it.

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*"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," in The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Second Edition, eds. Gates and McKay, New York: W. W. Norton, c. 2004, pp. 431-432.

Barbara Smith is an educator and author. She lives in Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood and since 2006 has served on the Albany Common Council. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" in 2005.

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1/14/08:

Like most people born in the early years of the postwar baby boom, I can remember exactly where I was when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. I also remember where I was when Robert Kennedy was killed five years later in June, 1968.

Perhaps not as many people will remember where they were two months earlier in April, 1968. The sharpness of one's memory may depend upon which side of the color line one lived on. In the spring of 1968 I was in my junior year of college at the New School for Social Research in New York City. That was where I was on April 4rth when I heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis. It is hard to convey the devastation of that moment or how it felt to be brutally reminded once again that the notion of Black freedom was so repugnant to so many in this nation that they would willingly commit the most heinous violence to stop it. Fortunately, a day after King's murder I went home to my family in Cleveland for spring break and we were able to mourn together.

2008 marks the fortieth anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. This month when we commemorate what would have been his seventy-ninth birthday, I am struck by the paradox of how this country manages to celebrate its only legal holiday honoring an African American while avoiding for the most part any serious engagement with issues of race. As a result of this reluctance, King's legacy gets distorted, sanitized, and lost.

One of the currently popular interpretations of King's mission is that he wanted to achieve a colorblind society which is now assumed to mean a society in which race has no meaning at all and can simply be ignored. A sad example of how this theory of color blindness leads to damaging social policy is last June's Supreme Court decision which prohibited public school systems in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky from taking race into account in assigning pupils to schools for the purpose of ensuring racially diverse student bodies. The actual result of imposing this supposedly colorblind policy is the perpetuation of racially segregated schools. When King spoke about wanting his four little children to be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin, he made that statement with full awareness of the system of institutionalized racism and white supremacy under which he and his children lived. I doubt that he wanted his children's racial heritage to be erased, nor did he expect U. S. residents four decades later to pretend that institutionalized racism no longer exists. His remarks were framed in the context of understanding U. S. history and the continuing need to struggle for racial justice. Making the leap from the U. S. version of apartheid known as Jim Crow to a so-called colorblind society without ever eradicating racial oppression just doesn't work.

Our nation's tendency to avoid race is not limited to how King's legacy is remembered. Think for a moment about where you might go to get clear information and to participate in substantive dialogues about race, as well as about African American history, and culture. Almost nowhere. The power structure, unless forced during periods of racial crisis, most notably the Civil War and the Civil Rights eras, has never prioritized delving into and solving the most signal contradiction to U. S. democracy. Instead we move from media driven crisis to crisis, often followed by ritual public apologies and then forget all about it until the next crisis occurs.

I look forward to discussing a variety of topics here. I hope that these commentaries may also provide an opportunity for dialogue about race matters that too often get ignored.

Barbara Smith is an educator and author. She lives in Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood and since 2006 has served on the Albany Common Council. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" in 2005.

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