Anti-Black Racisms in American Society

Jennell Benson

EID: JRB5883

AFR 303

Mid-Term

Response to Prompt 1

        Recently, there have been numerous events in our nation that has threatened the idea of equality and justice within our society. Issues of institutionalized racism, prejudice, and oppression have just as much impact today as they did during slavery and in the height of interpersonal racism. One of the cases that received the most attention in popular media was the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. Through the response to this case from the government and the reactions of the American people, we can see how important a factor race is in the everyday lives of African Americans.

        In this course, we discuss how anti-black racisms impact society. White people in American and across the globe have used oppression and anti-blackness to assume governmental and other positions of power. They have restricted access to economic, educational, and political resources for Black people and have justified this through stereotypes that sustain black inferiority and white superiority. The response from Bill O’ Riley conveys the perception of Blacks as inferior in the way he describes Michael Brown and the way he refers to Black people as a whole. He speaks about Black people in the terms of “those people”, as if Black people are not worthy enough to be referred to respectfully. He also says that, “they don’t really care what happened” showing that he has a belief about Black people being intellectually inferior and not having the capacity to care about societal issues. The overall tone and demeanor presented in the video depicts the perception of superiority over Black people and especially Michael Brown. However, this line of thinking came way before Bill O’ Riley.

        A theory that was previously adopted by dominant society called Social Darwinism was created to justify that Black people are biologically inferior. This theory assumed that due to the DNA and biological make-up that Black people are born inferior and would never be able to surpass the abilities of White males who possess the best genes. The Bel curve created by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein still carries the same ideologies as the ones presented by Social Darwinism. This leads to White people believing that the perceived strong should survive and the weak should die. Relating to the discussion around Michael Brown by Bill O’ Riley, he employs that police officers are just doing their job instead of committing a crime by killing young Black men in the streets. He assumes that Black men have to be doing something wrong simply by being alive and therefore any police officer has the right to kill them. Biological racisms make it possible to justify this type of discrimination and racial prejudice that lead to Black people being unequally targeted by local law enforcement and murdered.

        Now that we have somewhat moved away biological racisms, cultural racisms have taken its place. This can be see mostly through the representations of Black people on television and in the media since slavery. Racial stereotypes emerged directly after slavery like the “sambo” and “brute” for men and the “mammy” and “jezebel” for women. Now these stereotypes have transformed into the ones that we see represented in cases like Michael Brown and others. Men are perceived as thugs and women are perceived as welfare queens. Black culture is sometimes targeted and blamed for violence against Black males. Bill O’ Riley talks about “Black on Black crime” and the underlying message is that the Black culture is problematic and the ultimate cause of the death of Black men. This is how cultural racism impacts society and the death of Black men becomes justified in the eyes of the oppressor.

        The aggressions made against Black people in American have provided further evidence that racism has become engrained in to the daily functions of our society and its systems. The case of Michael Brown and comments made by people like Justice Scalia show how individual racisms still has an impact today. Since the beginning of slavery and even after the end of segregation, racism has become institutionalized in our society. In the areas of education, health care, income, housing and politics, there are policies in place that created barriers for black people – marginalizing and ostracizing a race of people. Structuralized racism provides a system that blames Black people for their own misfortune; just as Bill O’ Riley blamed Michael Brown for being brutally murdered by Ferguson police. Because structural racism has become so covert, Black people have accepted the concept of inferiority and adopted the blame for all of the disparities that exist in our Black society. This acceptance can also be referred to as internalized racism. This is a cyclical pattern, which starts with society’s production of images of inferiority, then is justified by structural racisms and ultimately confirmed by Black people who engage in internalized racism.

        From the Bill O’ Riley clip and the tragic murder of Michael Brown, it is clear that there is much work to do in regards to race relations in America. We not only have to address the systems of racism rampant in our political compound, but we also have to hold forth to the issues of internalized racism.

This type a racism contributes to Black on Black crime, double-consciousness and other cultural phenomena. Black on Black crime is due to a number of racisms and is often used to justify the slaying of young men like Michael Brown. Politics of housing, economy, and education have contributed to the fluctuation of Black on Black crime, concentrating poverty, thus concentrating drugs and crime. Giving members of society, as well as blacks, just reason for marking blacks as inferior.

Response to Prompt 2

        The emergence of African American culture began with slavery and yields the culture that we know today. This historic cultural identity made pathways for our current music, language, and beliefs. The distinct identity of African American culture is planted in the historical experience of Africans and African American such as the Middle Passage, enslavement and all of it socio-political components, war, abolishment, and reconstruction, and movements for civil rights, Black power, and black lives.

        The slave trade uprooted slaves with different ethnic backgrounds over generations of cultural production. This made the preservation of one particular West or Central African culture nearly impossible. On top of ethnic mixing, slavers greatly restricted the ability of African slaves to practice their religions, language, and traditions. Slaveholders limited or completely prohibited education of enslaved Africans. Due to the lack of formal education, African Americans began to develop a dialect of broken English. The traces of certain dialects can still be seen and heard in literature, as well as historically and predominantly black populated areas. Because African Americans could not read or write, much of their tradition, history and other cultural information was passed down by word of mouth and through legends. This strong oral history is consistent with griot, or storytelling, practices in many West African cultures.