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Though many readers may find that black fiction may provide metaphors for contemporary life, an examination of contemporary nonfiction by black writers adds to the tradition of the white image in the black mind in essential ways. Works that are particularly important in providing recurring aspects of the white image in the black mind are journalist Ellis Cose The Rage of a Privileged Class ( 1993), which focuses on interviews with successful blacks in white-collar positions who have found their careers hindered by covert racism; Lawrence Otis Graham Member of the Club ( 1995), which, in part, details the types of racism the author encountered while a student at Princeton University; and law professor Derrick Bell Faces at the Bottom of the Well ( 1992), which combines short stories and essays to analyze essential features of racism and their effects on blacks, including black scholars and professors. While these works are certainly class bound, through that feature itself, the authors give an ominous and necessary message: white racists are a continual presence in blacks' lives--even in the lives of those who are thought to be successful. These racists are often covert in their actions, which are couched in the defense mechanisms of denial, silencing of blacks, and repression, among others. The authors convey to their readers that these defense mechanisms are employed mainly on an unconscious level. Hence, as bell hooks makes it clear in Killing Rage ( 1995), we must study and create a discourse that exposes hidden and insidious racism. Perhaps the key aspect of race relations in America is what might be called neoracism or nonracist racism. Clearly, nonracist racism is an oxymoron, an impossibility. It is that very impossibility, however, that is at the heart of the good-hearted weakling and the liberal of the past and present. White "people do not have to be racist--or have any malicious intent--in order to make decisions that unfairly harm members of another race. They simply have to do what comes naturally." Indeed, in The Rage of a Privileged Class, Cose demonstrates that what blacks often--perhaps most often--have to protect themselves from is not the foaming-in-the-mouth, Bull Connor-style racist but the person who claims that he or she is not, and, indeed, cannot be a racist: that person is the nonracist racist. In the past, one "knew white people didn't like black folks," which is to say that one knew how to act, how far one could go, and what would not be allowed. . . . In short, one knew one's place. For [black] parents today [who want to prepare their children for racism] such certainty does not exist. (151) In this passage, it is made clear that overt racists policed blacks' behavior in a way that was more straightforward than covert racists. Yet, the ways in which covert racists attempt to police blacks' behavior and to maintain a system that allows them simultaneously to practice and to deny racism are of grave concern to blacks, as one sees in Cose's book, as well as in Graham Member of the Club, Bell Faces at the Bottom of the Well, and hooks's Killing Rage. Cose builds a convincing case that many whites implement a most insidious brand of racism: hidden racism by those who claim that race plays no role in their decisions. Cose tells, for instance, the story of Lennox Joseph, a management consultant who was offered a top job at a corporation. Joseph recalls, "No one [on the board of the company] was saying 'Come on, Lennox, you'll be great'" (25). Cose continues: "Instead, at least on the part of a few board members, he sensed an attitude that he should be grateful for whatever salary and compensation package they decided to give him. He also sensed resistance from a few members of the staff. The woman in charge of marketing, for instance, could never seem to find the time to put together a press release announcing his promotion" (25). This type of reluctant and sloppy treatment, experienced by many blacks in white-collar positions, signals to the black employee, who often is one of very few black employees--a clear indicator of the lack of commitment to basic integration at many American companies, the negligence and hostility of many of the whites with and for whom he works. Cose offers the experience of black psychologist Ron Brown: "Time after time, he has encountered blacks who felt undermined in their work, or who watched less competent whites pass them by. And while they suspected race may have played a role, they could never be sure, partly because the corporations refuse to acknowledge any such possibility" (34). Cose's interviews demonstrate that the frustration experienced by such people as Brown's clients is the result of the fact that the most overt racial dynamics, which would reveal the bigotry of their white colleagues, are manifested in meetings among senior colleagues--often all white--at which evaluations and decisions about the few blacks are made, thus allowing the whites to avoid confrontation with the bigotry in their perceptions of and actions toward their black colleagues. Thus, nonracist racism performs the same function as the more honest and open brand of racism: the maintenance of white power, privilege, and homogeneity. As a result of the consequences of nonracist racism, blacks' trust of "nice" whites is low indeed. "What is one to make, for instance, of the black law partner who laments that in today's gentler climate 'white folks ain't saying what they mean,' and who yearns for the brutal honesty of the past, when it was clear that 'white people didn't like black folks?'" ( Cose 1993, 148). This episode leads one to infer that in order to understand blacks' mistrust, whites need to answer this question for themselves, for related to the answer to this question is the fact that covert racism keeps whites in power and blacks the objects of discrimination, in spite of the appearance of racial progress. This fact is made clear by Cose: [E]ven though the gates of the corporation have swung open, many doors are still marked "Whites only." At the same time, armies of white men have convinced themselves . . . that marginally competent minorities, pushed along by quotas, are snatching up every decent job and promotion in sight, leaving nothing worth having to hard working whites who only want a fair shake. ( 1993, 171) Hence, as whites pat themselves on the back for not being racists and indeed put energy into the maintenance of an idealized self-image concerning their feelings about blacks, they promote both the continuation of racism and the feeling among themselves that racism is a mere neurosis that exists in the black mind. These are some of Cose's main points. Cose sums up nonracist racism by quoting sociologist Joe Feagin: "[E]ven the subtle displays of prejudice blacks today are more likely to encounter can be devastating" (159). Cose continues: "Today white discrimination less often involves blatant door-slamming exclusion, for many blacks have been allowed in the corporate door. Modern discrimination more often takes the form of tracking, limiting or blocking promotions, harassment and other differential treatment signalling disrespect" (159). When whites wonder scoffingly why blacks sometimes say that they prefer outright bigots to nice whites, Feagin's point conveys that all they have to do is look at the practice and results of the nice, nonracist racism to see blacks' point. Derrick Bell also writes about the preeminence of nonracist racism. He makes it clear, for instance, that while one no longer sees the "for whites" and "for coloreds" signs of the Jim Crow South, the absence of such overt symbols of racism while racism still exists can cause whites to claim that racism is not an important factor in American life. Thus, while discrimination continues and can even flourish, according to Bell, with the erosion of active efforts to include more minorities in education and businesses, blacks can find themselves not knowing when such bigotry will arise to shut them out of opportunities necessary for educational and professional advancement ( Bell 1992, 6). Hence, while Bell is certainly not calling for a return to Jim Crow, he does make the point that when discrimination is open, it not only can be fought but it also does not give people a false sense of security or deniability where racism is concerned. As Bell contends, "Today . . . bias is masked in unofficial practices" ( 1992, 6). One major point made by Bell is that many whites have abandoned any commitment not only to affirmative action but to mere integration (in any meaningful sense) in workplaces and educational institutions even while proclaiming a commitment to nonracialism. Hence, Bell and Cose concur: covert racism is one of the primary barriers to blacks' progress. Moreover, Bell illustrates that a major aspect of nonracist racism is that whites may be motivated less by hostility toward blacks than by a tribe mentality that results in a desire for racial hegemony. This tribe mentality is not better than the more uncomplicated blanket hostility toward blacks; it is merely another less discussed aspect of racism. As Bell quotes Matthew S. Goldberg's Discrimination, Nepotism, and Long-Run Wage Differentials," "Racial nepotism rather than racial animus is the major motivation for much of the discrimination blacks experience." Continuing this idea, Bell says to fictional character Geneva Crenshaw, You're suggesting that whites tend to treat one another like family, at least when there's a choice between them and us. So terms like "merit" and "best qualified" are infinitely manipulable if and when whites must explain why they reject blacks to hire "relatives"--even when the only relationship is that of race. (56) Bell's statements help to explain the feelings of many blacks in workplaces and educational institutions that they are the unwanted stepchild who lives in the basement while their white colleagues bond with each other based solely on race and thus on the assumption that they are similar in some fundamental way that blacks cannot share. Moreover, Bell's statements shed light on many of the experiences of the blacks interviewed by Cose in The Rage of a Privileged Class who feel stalemated in their careers as white colleagues who are quantifiably less qualified and less competent than they are given both social acceptance and professional advancement. (These things are often linked.) Furthermore, as many of Cose's subjects make it clear, it is the racism that is manifested in such situations that is hard to address: "Today even the worst racist denies being a racist. Most whites pay a tremendous price for their reflexive and often unconscious racism" ( Cose 1993, 56). Hence, in discussing contemporary racism, one must pay close attention to the price paid by blacks as a result of the racism practiced by our modern-day good-hearted weaklings and liberals. Related to such discussions of racism is a question raised by Lawrence Otis Graham in Member of the Club about whether it is harder to combat overt or covert racism. Reflecting on his years as an undergraduate at Princeton University in the early 1980s, Graham writes, As bad as relations were with whites, I realize that the covert nature of racism at Princeton was easier to tolerate than the vicious, overt bigotry that occurs on college campuses such as Michigan State, University of Michigan, or Rider College, where the fraternities sponsored a 1992 Dress Like a Nigger Night and paraded around dressed like black slave mammies and butlers. Princeton was a polite place. Few would ever call you a nigger to your face. Maybe behind your back. Instead they treated you like one. They ignored you. And if you pointed out their bigotry, they called you oversensitive. Formality and politeness were the rule. Perhaps that is why it was so hard to fight--because, like smoke, it was hard to get your arms around it. The development of this passage is intriguing, for Graham seems to argue that covert racism, while perhaps easier for blacks to bear, is much harder to address and combat than overt racism. Graham's ideas ultimately support those of Bell and Cose that "polite racism" inhibits and harms blacks' lives as it provides whites with psychological protection from having to confront their own racism or accept being confronted with it by blacks. It is now important to look more closely at how racism is conceived of and operationalized by whites. A key component of modern-day racism, especially of the nonracist kind, is how whites employ the defense mechanism of denial. According to Cose, "[W]e live in an age where legions of white men have concluded they are the group most discriminated against" ( 1993, 36). He continues, "America likes success stories. We also prefer to believe that our country--give or take a David Duke or two--is well on the road to being colorblind" (38). Optimistic as this view may be, Cose makes it clear that it is part of the denial of racism by many whites. Indeed, a significant number of whites seem to believe that racism does not exist to a significant degree and that blacks who complain about its continuation are merely whiners. Another issue raised by Cose is the connection between denial and displacement in the belief in a new victimology whereby whites feel that they are the true victims of racism insofar as they believe such a thing exists: "To the extent that racism is perceived as a problem by whites it is increasingly perceived as an evil perpetuated by blacks--with whites (particularly Jews) serving principally as victims" (153). Hence, Cose believes that, in one flight of fancy, whites can both deny that white racism exists and claim to be the targets of black racism. Cose quotes one of his interviewees, a law school dean, who says that most white Americans are in denial when it comes to acknowledging their own racism. It is essential for Americans to study "why the nation is in such a state of denial, why so many whites find it hard to believe that blacks experience what blacks clearly do" (163). Moreover, though one reason for whites' denial and demand for silence about racism is that many whites "idealize an abstract fairness" by whites for blacks, other reasons are more ominous (143). For example, based on a poll of Americans aged from fifteen to twenty-four, Cose writes that many blacks are frustrated that many whites refuse to give validity to blacks' experiences of racism (143-44). This rejection by whites of the credibility of blacks' perceptions of and experiences with racism caused many blacks polled to feel that they could not trust their peers to acknowledge and to want to combat the racism perpetuated by themselves and others (144). Thus, whites' commitment to racial advancement was thought to be highly suspect by the blacks polled (144). Consequently, white denial further damages race relations. As bell hooks points out in Killing Rage. White folks are into "denial" bigtime. . . . Overt racism is not as fashionable as it once was and that is why everyone can pretend racism does not exist. . . . [Thus] everyone in this society, women and men, boys and girls, who want to see an end to racism, an end to white supremacy, must begin to engage in a counter hegemonic "race talk" that is fiercely and passionately calling for change. 5 Without honest discussions of racism, denial takes place: "Racism then can be presented [by whites] as an issue for blacks only, a mere figment of our perverse paranoid imaginations, while all whites continue to be brainwashed to deny the existence of an institutionalized racist structure that they work to perpetuate and maintain" ( hooks 1995, 26). Hooks and Cose thus seem to concur that one of the primary consequences of denial is that it provides for whites a pretense of a resolution to racism--even as blacks experience it otherwise. [P]retending (or convincing ourselves) that race no longer matters (or wouldn't if minorities would stop demanding special treatment) is not quite the same as making it not matter. Creating a color-blind society on a foundation saturated with the venom of racism requires something more than merely proclaiming that the age of brotherhood has arrived. . . . The problem is . . . that so many [whites] are in denial. And though denial may be a great way to avoid an unpleasant reality, it is no substitute for changing that reality. ( Cose 1993, 188, 191) Hence, the point is made that for whites to pretend that racism is solved by maintaining denial and silence about it is merely a disingenuous way to convince themselves that racism has nothing to do with them, which may be the ultimate slap in the faces of black people. Coupled with denial is the white demand that blacks be silent about racism. Cose's discussions with those involved in politics make this demand for silence evident. The experience of former New York mayor David Dinkins is illustrative of this point. Cose recalls, for example, a letter from a New York Daily News reader who dismissed Dinkins's anger about an antiDinkins police demonstration in front of City Hall where police referred to the mayor as a "nigger." What Cose felt the reader was really saying by dismissing Dinkins's anger at indisputable racism was "that whatever reactions he might have to racism were inconsequential, certainly nothing she wanted to hear. And she was not alone" ( Cose 1993, 29). Moreover, still discussing Dinkins, Cose writes, "[T]o speak frankly and honestly about race would be to anger . . . those whites who preferred to believe that racism, by and large, had disappeared" ( 1993, 30). In addition, former New York politician Basil Patterson states that black politicians are inhibited in their ability to be honest about racism, as many whites become annoyed by what they perceive to be blacks' exaggerated concern with racism (31). Thus, whites' expectations that blacks will be silent about racism diminishes the degree to which both politicians and other blacks can combat racism by being honest about it. Moreover, the white demand for silence certainly extends beyond the political arena. Cose, for instance, recalls the experience of a fellow writer, an editor at an important newspaper. The man wanted to write an article about the anger of members of the black middle class, a relevant topic because he had the idea soon after the first verdict concerning Rodney King's beating by police and the ensuing Los Angeles riot. The man was advised by a colleague not to do the story because high-ranking whites at the newspaper might feel that he was writing about his own anger, and they might label him an "angry black man." It "was only a small step from being seen as an angry black man to being labelled a troublemaker" (32). Lest this connection seem farfetched, Cose offers many examples of blacks to whom it has been made clear by whites that honesty about racism is converted by whites into a belief that such blacks are merely being confrontational, or troublemakers, when they openly talk about racism. For instance, Cose writes about a man who was retiring as vice president for personnel at one of America's largest companies. He had been moderately outspoken about what he saw as racism within and outside his former corporation. He had learned, however, that his honest attempts at advocacy got him typecast as an undesirable. So when he changed jobs, he decided to disassociate himself from any hint of racial agenda. The strategy had clearly furthered his career, even though other blacks in the company labeled him as an Uncle Tom.(66) Thus, it seems that whites sometimes offer blacks a spurious choice: be a "safe," silent black person or be willing to earn animosity and pay the price for showing that most threatening trait of all: honesty.
One of the most important quotes of The Rage of a Privileged Class is that the white demand for silence calls for blacks to perform identity management around whites. According to Cose, "Putting aside for the moment what it means to be 'black,' the fear of being forced to shed one's identity in order to prosper is not at all uncommon" (66). To illustrate this point, Cose tells the story of a black man whose agreement with the white demand for silence clearly affects both his identity and his career. This story concerns a police officer who makes detective after nineteen years of seeing less qualified whites get promoted. Upon seeing whites bypass him, he does a smiling, Uncle Tom act, "so determined was he to avoid being categorized as a race-obsessed troublemaker" (67). Though his career advances, this man's tale illustrates what whites really do by demanding that blacks not be honest about racism: Even though he made detective years ago, and even though, on the side, he managed to become a successful businessman and an exemplary member of the upwardly striving middle class, he says the anger still simmers within him. He worries that someday it will come pouring out, that some luckless white person will tick him off, and he will explode, with tragic results. This man's repression of his feelings and the resultant hidden rage, probably against the very whites who like him as a nonthreatening black man, indicate the high emotional price blacks can pay for managing their identity in front of whites so that their careers can advance with the help of the whites who have the power to promote them and decide on their continued employment. Thus, while there may be a pleasant facade between blacks and whites, underneath is the racial division that is the hallmark of a racist society. As bell hooks explains in Killing Rage. To perpetuate and maintain white supremacy, white folks have colonized black Americans, and a part of that colonizing process has been teaching us to repress our rage, to never make them the targets of any anger we feel about racism. Most black people internalize this message well [because] we know that one can be exiled forever from the promise of economic well-being if that rage is not permanently silenced. Consequently, in order to have a career at all in fields dominated by whites, blacks very often learn that they should check their true identity at the door and stuff inside themselves their justified anger at prejudicial treatment by whites. Cose makes two essential points in discussing whites' desire not to hear blacks' honest feelings about race. First is the whites' blame the victim attitude toward blacks who are honest. As a result of this attitude, sophisticated blacks have learned that to suggest that whites are racist is not a useful exercise in the current climate--at least when talking to whites. Indeed, a murderer who blamed the devil for his crime would likely receive a more sympathetic hearing from many whites these days than a black intellectual who railed against racism. ( Cose 1993, 153) Hence, Cose seems to convey that whites, whether they want to face it or not, by silencing blacks merely confirm that they are more afraid of being confronted by their own racism than of practicing it. In a central passage in The Rage of a Privileged Class, Cose sums up the major effects on both whites and blacks of the white demand for silence about racism: "[W]hites tend not to understand what [blacks'] anger is about. As a result they are likely to dismiss the complainer as a chronic malcontent or a maladjusted person who perhaps needs to be eased out" (32). Thus, the stakes for blacks who do not repress their true feelings about race can include their ability to make a living at what they want to do. Moreover, the lack of honesty that many whites demand from blacks results in a lack of empathy for blacks by whites, a mainstay of racism, whether intentional or unintentional. According to Cose, "The inability to talk about race in anything resembling honest terms compounds the very misunderstanding that renders silence necessary. For those blacks and whites who come into closest contact, it stands as a huge barrier to their ever truly accepting one another or finding common ground" (33). Consequently, as whites try to impose a no-talk rule on blacks, they guarantee the perpetuation of what so many deny they are guilty: racism. Perhaps the most maddening aspect of both white denial and the demand for silence is that these attitudes are designed to enable whites to feel that their views on race are the only valid ones, that their racism is not racism, and that they can say anything to blacks with the assurance that blacks will--or should--be silent and in denial. Two incidents from Cose's book support these points. One incident concerns a woman who worked in public relations at Dow Chemical Company. The woman recalls attending a training session headed by a veteran [white] manager who declared, totally out of the blue, that he had absolutely no idea why anyone in a white neighborhood would vote for a certain black mayoral candidate in Chicago. She was the only black in the room and was so troubled by the attitude that seemed to underlie his comment that she walked out. When the woman hit the glass ceiling for blacks in the company, it was clear that white attitudes toward her had deteriorated and that this deterioration was certainly due to racism: "Even her way of talking drew attention [from whites]. Upon meeting her, one colleague remarked with evident pleasure and astonishment, 'You don't speak ghettoese.' She had an overwhelming sense that what he meant was 'You're almost like us, but not enough like us to be acceptable'" (61). This passage illustrates the point that while blacks are expected to maintain a white-imposed silence on race, whites express openly their race-centered thinking. Thus, if whites refuse honesty and dialogue, dishonesty and racist monologues will remain prevalent and maintain the racial divide. Related to the denial and silencing that many whites employ concerning racism is the demand for sameness and safety from blacks. By this phrase, I mean that whites demand that blacks downplay their differences from them, thus emphasizing the ways in which blacks can pretend to be similar to whites. Ideas similar to these are expressed by Erving Goffman in Stigma ( 1963) and James Baldwin and Margaret Mead in Rap on Race ( 1971). Moreover, Cose's book has countless examples of how blacks face whites' demands for sameness and safety--which again means identity management for blacks--primarily in their places of employment. Cose offers many stories of whites' demanding that blacks make them feel safe from their (whites') own racism. This demand is one of the main demons that Cose cites as recurring for blacks in their places of employment. The particular demon relevant here is "the inability [for blacks] to fit in" (56). Cose recalls a white newsroom recruiter who spoke with him about potential black candidates for employment by the New York Times. "He was concerned about an attribute that was tortuously difficult to gauge: the ability to fit into the often bewildering culture of the Times. . . . He wanted . . . people who could be 'Times people'" (56). The type of identity the recruiter wanted a black Times employee to have was evidently a combination of Bill Cosby and William F. Buckley (57). The recruiter clearly thought that only a seriously deracialized black person could "fit in" with the New York Times. The racism here is made further evident when Cose states that the man did not look for a similarly bizarre stereotype in whites who work for the paper: he "and many similarly placed executives almost instinctively screened minority candidates according to criteria they did not apply to whites" (57). That such demanded for black identity management are race bound to a degree that endangers many blacks' ability to gain and maintain employment in predominantly white settings is abundantly clear. Cose continues to show white demands for sameness and safety when he states that many blacks need to "expend an inordinate amount of effort trying to make whites feel 'comfortable' with them" (77). He also states that many blacks feel that their white colleagues want them to downplay their assertiveness, especially when dealing with topics that entail issues of white fairness to blacks, or risk being thought of as people who are looking for trouble (77). Furthermore, Cose makes it evident that his interviews with blacks show that the white demand for sameness and safety is also, in effect, a demand for white supremacy. This fact stands out in key examples from Cose's text. A black female lawyer, for example, states that she sensed on the part of some of her white colleagues, "How dare you put yourself on the same plane with me! How dare you challenge me! How dare you think that you have the option to question my power and my authority!" (83). The woman goes on to state that such defenses of white superiority are often communicated in a way that is very subtle. . . . It's communicated when there's a meeting and there are discussions going on and you express a dissenting opinion. . . . I see a very different reaction from my challenging them than I've seen with white females. . . . I don't see it [such disapproval] with a lot of white men. . . . But it is an attitude and it is present in white males of power who can influence your career. (84) This episode clarifies that some whites need to recognize that blacks who have such experiences know that whites are really working out in such situations as the meetings she recalls that blacks who are not safe threaten their egotistical and racist feelings of power. A supreme example of the connection for whites among safety, sameness, and superiority can be seen in law school dean Ulrich Haynes's recollections of his days with a management recruiting firm in the 1960s. According to Haynes, whites wanted from minority job candidates "somebody who, by and large, they could feel a little bit sorry for, who would be so happy to have the position that he was entering into [that he] would not cause them any problems in terms of professional advancement" (124). Ironically enough, whites with such attitudes often wanted to hire the least qualified black person for the job; they obviously did not want their sense of superiority threatened and therefore rejected qualified minorities who might feel as confident and assertive as the black female lawyer who caused white consternation by acting as if she were the whites' equal. Such employers as those described by Haynes often put blacks into the "last hired, first fired" category because the real qualification for a job with such whites is that blacks not threaten their safety. From these examples, one can see that whites often demand that blacks manage--or manipulate--their identity in a vain effort to make whites forget about their race and thus feel comfortable--at least to make whites feel safe in their presence, not really from blacks but from their own undealt with bigotry. This fact helps to explain the experiences of several of Cose's interviewees who were told by whites to be team players, partly by not acting as confident and assertive as their white colleagues (68). This demand is made evident by business professor Ella Bell when she speaks about blacks from the top law schools: They'll make it [into a company] in one or two years, and then all of a sudden they start getting this real fuzzy feedback--what I call static feedback--from their supervisors. Somehow they're "not team players." They're "too outspoken, too aggressive." . . . All of this is subjective, nothing you can fix. . . . And when you ask for examples it gets even flimsier. (78) The idea that blacks must be docile and safe is also indicated by another story about a black lawyer. This story is perhaps the most powerful in Cose's book concerning whites' bigotry toward their black colleagues. When he was made a partner, a little less than three years after signing up, his first act was to request his personnel file. What he saw astounded him and confirmed his impression that many factors considered relevant to partnership were idiotically idiosyncratic. He discovered that one partner, disapproving of his Afro hairstyle, fretted over his "bushy" appearance. Another worried that clients might not accept him. Yet another, noting that he had worked for a civil rights agency, wondered whether his politics might not be too radical. At partnership meetings where the future of associates is determined, he still sees evidence of subjective criteria being used to weed blacks out. (17) This man was extremely fortunate not to be "weeded out" himself, since his colleagues considered their own racism above his merit in some of their evaluations of him. It is no wonder that because of such racism this man fears that his children "may not be ready for the 'street fight'" they may face in trying to address such bigotry. Moreover, the lawyer's story validates the experience of many blacks who discern that whites, both secretly and overtly, judge them according to race-based standards that are not applied to whites. At this point it is important to consider what is revealed by the examples under discussion about what whites are truly demanding from blacks by looking for black character manipulation that would produce blacks who try to reduce their racial difference from whites and thereby be nonthreatening to them. Such whites might seem to stress the need for racial sameness; however, they do not want this sameness to translate into equality. Hence, the true requirement for blacks in the incidents under discussion seems to be that blacks must accept being, to coin a phrase, the humble, docile, smiling "Negro" who stands tentatively at the threshold of American society, never presuming to come in without an invitation. Whereas Cose studies race relations in the workplace in The Rage of a Privileged Class, Graham focuses on racism in the university as he meditates on "The Underside of Paradise: Being Black at Princeton" in Member of the Club. His experiences as a student make it evident that blacks in educational institutions often meet with the same demand as blacks in the workplace for identity management, predictability, safety, and downplaying their differences from whites. Graham recalls, for instance, being asked to join an eating club by a white student whom he had just met who tells him that he is the right type to join the club. Graham critiques the boy's alleged friendliness by exposing his racism: Imagine, after knowing me for only fifteen minutes, he had already determined that I was his type: safe, predictable, respectable, tame, docile--the kind who he could understand and whose actions could easily be anticipated. I was the sort of black that didn't live in the Princeton Inn--the down-campus dorm where many of the non-integrating blacks lived. I was an up-campus black, the kind who understood the nuances of black-white relations. The kind who saved black slang for those deep and gritty moments with my own people. The kind who roomed with white guys yet didn't date white girls. The kind who would volunteer time to help plan the club's monthly parties yet not insist on attending or bringing black friends to them. ( Graham 1995, 186-87) This passage conveys the idea that such a white person really wants a black person who will not awaken his or her preexisting prejudices against blacks. Thus, Graham exposes the bigotry that lurks beneath the surface of many nice whites. Identity management continues to be a factor in what at first may seem to be an innocuous exchange. The white person who would like Graham to join the eating club asks Graham if he likes steak. "Lying, I gave him the answer I assumed he wanted. 'Sure, who doesn't?' . . . I gave Hal a corny goodold-boy thumbs up gesture that should have gotten me kicked out of the black race on the spot. 'Awesome!'" (190). Yet, such acting makes no inroads into the overall campus racism. Graham recalls an incident that happened when he went to a dining hall without his friends, who had eaten earlier: After standing in line for my food and then finding a space at a long wooden table populated by fourteen or fifteen very WASP-y looking men and women whom I'd never seen before (virtually everyone in the room was blonde) I put down my tray of food and walked back through the crowded room to get a glass of milk. After getting the milk and turning back toward the table, I realized I'd missed a round of musical chairs. Except for my green tray and the knapsack on the back of my high-backed wooden seat, the trays, the knapsacks, even the chairs--except mine--were now gone. As I stood there, glass in hand, contemplating the now vacated table, it occurred to me that more than a few people were amused by this scene. Graham's point seems to be that while blacks sometimes divest themselves of their very identity in order to fit in with whites, there is no reciprocity in this aspect of black-white relations. The boy who invites Graham to join the eating club and the students who leave the table merely practice different rejection styles toward a black person whom they do not know and whose feelings and very identity they do not care to know. The connection between whites' demands for safety and predictability and their racism is clear in another episode, one which involves Graham and his white roommate. He tells of a time when he was involved in the campus antiapartheid movement and his roommate, Steve, says, "I heard what you were saying out there, about how Americans shouldn't support and invest in places like South Africa. Please don't get offended by this, but do blacks really think Americans are so terrible, and that things are so racist and unfair in the United States?" (214) Graham recalls with ennui and faint disappointment his reactions to Steve's words: Well, why wasn't I surprised to hear this? Although I knew Steve was openminded and friendly to black people, I always thought that most other white people secretly wished that all black people would disappear, taking our problems and their guilt with us. . . . It was the first time I had done something to cause my white peers to say, "Oh, so he is just like the rest of them." In this episode, as well as the one involving the student who asked him to join the eating club, Graham makes it evident that an important component in many whites' feelings toward blacks entails a kind of false bargaining: "If you do not remind us that you are not like us, we may tolerate you; as long as you do not burden us with your racial identity, we may even like you. If you refuse this bargain, we will throw you on the junkheap with the rest of the ni . . . uh, blacks." The failure of universities to combat racism adequately is especially sad in that they have a population that is there to learn--to be educated. While not all universities are equally negligent, both Graham Member of the Club and Bell Faces at the Bottom of the Well show the serious failures of whitedominated places of higher education to deal with their own racism. In fact, it seems that both authors would agree that universities often perpetuate racism by employing the tried and true defense mechanisms meant to deal with racism: denial, repression, silence, and the demand that blacks deemphasize racial differences. Graham incisively critiques the failure of white university leaders to live up to their obligation to address racism: The best American universities have always been laboratories for the social and political changes that sweep the country from time to time. . . . [A student] needs the university and its administration to act both as provocateur and moral compass. Race is a subject that desperately needs the informed and authoritative voice of the college community. Most black and white students leave their homogeneous communities and arrive on campus curious, intimidated, or even repulsed by the students of the other race. . . . Filled with doubt, or even worse, derogatory stereotypes regarding the other, they are at a loss about how to treat or identify with those different from them. Without guidance or a higher moral vision from university leaders, the course of least resistance is for that student to re-create that homogeneous community on campus. Unless a university instills a vision of diversity as somehow better, more desirable than homogeneity, a campus naturally begins to mimic the outside world, with its sturdy, racially defined barriers. Graham gives a case in point: the handling by white administrators of black students who were planning to bring Minister Louis Farrakhan to speak at Princeton in 1989. The administration acted with duplicity in causing the students to cancel the speech at the last minute by demanding that they put up an additional five thousand dollars for security. "The university missed an ideal opportunity to take a stand on the issue of racial problems on campus and beyond. But, instead, it took the easy, passive-aggressive route it always has. It said nothing about the nature of the speech but instead used a shopworn ploy to prevent it from happening" (220). Consequently, blacks and whites remained locked in an adversarial position as a result of the duplicity and failure to talk honestly about racism which are the main ingredients in the mishandling of racial issues. The issue here goes beyond Farrakahn: universities sometimes contribute to the inertia that guarantees the continuance of racism which is a sad commentary on higher education. Derrick Bell attacks universities from another angle in Faces at the Bottom of the Well. Bell, who left Harvard Law School because of its lack of inclusion for most of its history (until recently) of black female faculty, is highly aware of how white professors and administrators can maintain racial homogeneity among faculty by the veiled and unyielding demand for blacks to be predictable and safe in their scholarship and in their dealings with white colleagues. Moreover, Bell makes it clear that the white intolerance for difference is often evident in whites' stance during tenure decisions involving blacks. Bell points out that tenure may be an even greater obstacle for blacks than open bigotry although the two are connected ( 1992, 139). He states that tenured faculty sometimes act as "guardians at the gates" to refuse entry to those whose backgrounds, interests, and opinions are not like theirs; in fact, Bell seems to state that merit is a much less significant factor than sameness or assimilation. Furthermore, this desire by whites for blacks who will "fit in" as a result of seeming "like us" is an important exclusionary barrier to many if not most blacks (139). As a result, it is no wonder that near 1990, the percentage of black professors at universities and colleges, other than historically black schools, stood at about 1 percent. It is not surprising, therefore, that in Killing Rage, bell hooks states. While it is true that the nature of racist oppression and exploitation has changed as slavery has ended and the apartheid structure of Jim Crow has legally changed, white supremacy continues . . . to inform the social status of black people and all people of color. Nowhere is this more evident than in university settings. And it is often liberal folks in those settings who are unwilling to acknowledge this truth. ( hooks 1995, 187) Bell's ideas help to explain hooks's feelings when he discusses the white attitude that often rejects black professors and scholars as a result of the unyielding refusal to tolerate difference: he states that even excellent scholarship by minorities can be rejected by whites for discriminatory reasons, barring many minorities from being hired or promoted ( Bell 1992, 140). Threatened by challenges to their assumptions in works that raise political or reality-based issues, whites can dismiss such work as being simply "ideological" rantings (as if this judgment were not itself ideological), claims Bell (140). Hence, Bell concludes that the hiring and tenure process favor blacks who downplay their blackness--or, echoing the terms of acceptance discussed by Mead and Baldwin in Rap on Race and Goffman in Stigma-minimize their difference from whites. It seems, therefore, that Bell picks up on the idea that blacks in university settings are held accountable for the degree to which they are assimilable--a notion that is one of the foundations of racism and one of the key obstacles not only to diversity but also to adequate integration (however amazing it may seem that integration is still an issue to be argued for at the turn of the twentieth century). Indeed, many blacks who have experienced the racism in such evaluations as those referred to by Bell know that their white colleagues claim to be nonideological and therefore objective and fair in their rejections of their black colleagues' work. Furthermore, Bell's experiences corroborate the idea that whites who perpetuate such behind-the-scenes racism, as they almost never have to take accountability for their prejudice, are often the first to deny that race plays any role in their systematic rejection of black scholars. Yet, this denial is merely another defense mechanism: the minimizing and downplaying of the black candidates' race and of whites' own racism. Nevertheless, as whites claim a nonideological objectivity in their evaluations of their black colleagues' ideological work, they betray the fact that their stated freedom from prejudice is merely the mental trick that bigots perform when they refuse to face their own inner racism. Finally, Bell makes another point relevant to whites' evaluations of their black colleagues' work which extends to a general commentary on the handicap many whites have in being able to respond intelligently to black scholarship and criticism. Stating ideas that are relevant to black literature, art, and music, Bell writes that innovative work can meet with a response from those who resist difference as if it smells bad, reflecting such people's "offensiveness response" to things that challenge them (143). Bell again implicitly challenges the notion that color-blind assessments of merit decide the fate of those whose work challenges the norm and for which new standards of evaluation may be in order (143). Bell's comments make it evident that, when white readers evaluate works by blacks that critique them, it is essential for those whites to ask themselves whether their estimation of such works hinges on whether the works affirm or question their view of the world and of themselves concerning blacks. They then need to ask themselves if they feel that the world is not big enough for themselves and those who question them because that is the issue that results in whites' failure to hire and promote blacks in many academic settings. As hooks points out, "Often we [blacks who work in colleges and universities] work in environments predominantly peopled by white folks (some of whom are well-meaning and concerned) who are not committed to working to end white supremacy, or who are unsure about what that commitment means" When one reads the works under discussion by Cose, Graham, Bell, and hooks, it becomes clear that a typology of whites emerges that is consistent with those in black fiction. The works by Cose, Bell, and Graham, in particular, continue the discussions begun by earlier authors of the main components of the white identity that emphasize the ways in which many whites create an armor of defense mechanisms that enable them to practice racism and to protect their self-image from being affected by charges of bigotry. Moreover, as a result, as hooks points out in Killing Rage, it is imperative that society become aware of and produce, when possible, "counter hegemonic race talk" which can be a liberating discourse for blacks and for relatively enlightened people of all races to "bear witness to the reality . . . that this nation can be transformed, that we can resist racism and in the act of resistance recover ourselves and be renewed" |