I think you're talking about cultural values which we learn automatically. They
become part of who we are. And so it is with class. We, who are blind, are, I
believe, particularly sensitive to speech patterns. Uneducated people who speak
ungrammatically, may trigger a negative response. Listen to Barack Obama
speak, and compare that to the poor black youngsters' speech that I heard when
I visited the Westbury junior and senior high schools. I remember those speech
patterns from my own high school days. Then listen to the people on The New
York Times Book Review podcast. Obama sounds like them, highly literate and
intelligent, polished. The poor black kids never learned how to use speech
effectively with people who aren't part of their inner circle.
Miriam l
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2017 7:04 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: What Does It Mean to Be Black in America?
So much food for thought here.
Once upon a time when conversation turned to the topic of racial
discrimination, I would say to my friends, "I am not prejudiced". And of
course I really believed it. I had been raised to understand that we do not
judge another by the color of their skin, or by their sex, or by where they
came from. But looking back I can see how silly this declaration was. How
does a White Male raised in a country where racial prejudice runs wild, avoid
being contaminated by it?
When I think of the vast numbers of ways our White Ruling Class has built
prejudice and discrimination into the very fiber of our unconscious thinking,
it is almost too overwhelming to begin to rid ourselves of it.
This causes me to consider how deeply ingrained in our Culture is the notion
that success is measured by wealth. It is so woven into our societal fiber
that we seldom notice how deeply ingrained it is. And just as it is with
racial prejudice, we have no concept as to how many ways it influences our
thinking and our behavior.
As a child, I dreamed of growing up and becoming a singer or a writer.
But when I thought about these goals, I always phrased it, "A rich and famous
singer" and "A rich and famous writer". Looking back I can see what I could
not see at the time. My real goal was to become Rich and Famous. Singer and
writer were simply the means I thought might get me there.
Worship of wealth is so ingrained in most everything around us that we accept
it as our Reality.
While I think that Black men and women have taught themselves to recognize
prejudice, and to begin building methods of over coming it, the domination of
our Working Class is so complex that we do not seem to see how controlled our
lives are. And in this, we are totally controlled.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/2/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jeffrey Sterling. (photo: AP)
What Does It Mean to Be Black in America?
By Jeffrey Sterling, Reader Supported News
02 July 17
When I am released from prison, I must see "I Am Not Your Negro,"
Raoul Peck's film about writer James Baldwin and his book that was never
written.
The film is the most recent entry in my "things to do when I'm free" list.
The few reviews I had access to were enough to pique my interest in
the film, and that interest became list-worthy after a friend sent me
the book version of the film. The book moved me because it is filled
with reflections of my own unwritten story. "I Am Not Your Negro" asks
the question I have posed my entire life: What does it mean to be
black in America?
When I was young, James Baldwin scared me. I happened upon some of his
writings during my escapes to the public library; his words left me
with an uncomfortable sense of who I was. He was frighteningly clear
that America would see and judge me solely based on the color of my
skin. I didn't need anyone to tell me I was black. I knew it and the
realization held more pride for me than angst. My challenge was to
figure out what being black actually meant. It wasn't so much that I
didn't want to believe what Baldwin was saying about being black in
America; I didn't want to accept it. I was reading about the same
bleak meaning of being black that I was trying to escape from. I could
not accept the recurrent, self-effacing sentiment I was hearing from
blacks in my hometown that I, and every other black person, "... ain't
nuthin' but a nigger and always gonna be so 'cause the white man ain't
gonna let you be nuthin' but a nigger." What I saw and felt around me
was that blacks were angry, fearful, and in some ways submitting to
the burden of a particular understanding of being black in America.
And this meaning wasn't coming from the big cities or the Deep South
that I wanted Baldwin's America to be limited to; this was from
small-town, heartland USA.
That very real terror was what scared me. I resolved to turn that fear
into determination. I was desperate to convince myself that I could be
whatever I wanted to be and that I could find an identity that was
mine and not thrust upon me because of the color of my skin. I had to
forget about Baldwin and set out to find my own experience of being
black in America. In Baldwin's own defiant words, "I am not a nigger,
I'm a man."
However, time and again, the quest for knowing what it meant to be
black in America provided unfortunate revelations, which became more
evident when I was in school. For example, I remember feeling
liberated when I reached the 7th grade because finally I was going to
be able to select the classes I was interested in. I was so excited to
choose more advanced English classes, hoping to delve deeper into
writers like Shakespeare, Haley, and Dickens, or discover new voices.
And yet, whatever outward excitement I exuded was short-lived. A few
semesters were enough to put others on notice about me.
I
was confronted with questions, interrogations:
"Why you takin' classes with them white folks?"
I neither had the opportunity nor experience to answer these questions
before an answer was made for me: "Hmph ... that niggah ain't nuthin'
but uh Oreo."
Such were the questions and judgments I heard again and again during
high school, college, and law school, and they weren't limited to the
suspicions of fellow classmates and observers. Even my beloved
grandmother expressed wariness at who I thought I was in response to
my excitement about being accepted into law school. "I thought it was
okay you going off to college, but I don't know about law school," she
told me. "I just think that's above where colored folks ought to be."
I was devastated and confused. While attempting to find my own
identity, I was acting against the social identity expected of me. To
my classmates and my grandmother, being black meant not being white,
certainly not doing things viewed as typically white. There's a still in "I
Am Not Your Negro"
from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" of Isabelle Sanford's character
looking at Sidney Poitier's character with suspicion, almost rebuke,
questioning what he's doing in a place where he doesn't belong. From
the first time I saw that scene, I was haunted by the way Sanford
looked at Poitier; this was the way I was being seen. Baldwin
characterized the look by explaining blacks didn't like the film and
felt Poitier was "in effect, being used against them." I felt a
definite resentment, but I couldn't understand it because from my
standpoint, I was just being myself.
It didn't make sense to me. I couldn't understand why having and
pursuing my own interests was seen as a denial of my blackness.
Blackness carries with it so many assumptions, so many burdens, and I
wanted to refuse them all.
Being black had to mean more than what I was seeing and experiencing.
The angst was so debilitating, my only answer was to retreat into
myself and my dreams with blinders on. I was not denying being black;
I was refusing the burden of the meanings of being black that did not
permit me to be what I wanted and knew myself to be.
Through the years, I revisited Baldwin. After the initial shock, I
came to realize that there was something positive for me in what
Baldwin was saying.
I realized that he was speaking the language of race from and by those
whose lives were defined and limited by it. By revealing America and
its falsehoods of race, he was telling me that I was more than the
obstacles that would confront me. This newfound encouragement in
Baldwin would prove essential to withstand the burdens to come.
I was proud when I joined the CIA. I used to go around to the front of
the building from the parking lots so I could proudly walk across the
emblem in the main lobby instead of using the usual employee
entrances. I had found my dream job and I was determined to succeed. I
just knew that I was going to be accepted and treated equally, like
any other employee. I, of course, felt that was the case until I was
told it actually never was.
I was eager and excited when the time finally came for me to take a
position abroad, out in the field. I completed my training as a case
officer: I studied and learned a new language, and I proved my
capability working on the Iran desk. I was within a few weeks of
departure when I was called into my supervisor's office.
"We've been thinking about your assignment."
"Yeah? I'm just about set to go, is there more I need to be doing?"
"Well, we're ... uh ... concerned. We're worried that you kinda stick
out as a big black guy speaking Farsi."
I was dumbfounded: they were taking my assignment from me solely
because I was black. The CIA, in no uncertain terms, was telling me
what being black in America meant to them. Once again, I was "beyond
where colored folks ought to be." They were calling me a "nigger" just
as, if not more than, those who didn't feel I fit who I was supposed to be in
their America.
''No!" rang through my mind as I calmly asked, "When did you realize I
was black?" "The decision's already been made." They gave my
assignment to a white officer who did not have the operational
experience, training, or qualifications that I had.
That experience was not the only instance of my being subjected to the
CIA definition of black in America. My determination to succeed and
not fall prey to racial prejudice carried me through years of
subjugation, culminating in my suing the CIA for discrimination. Much
to my dismay, a court ruled to dismiss my suit - not because the
discrimination didn't happen, but because such a trial posed a threat
to the national security of the country. In dismissing my action
against the CIA and denying me a fundamental right, in its decision,
the court stated, "We recognize that our decision places, on behalf of
the entire country, a burden on Sterling that he alone must bear." The
court was confirming, under the auspices of the law, the very real
burden of what it means to be black in America not only for me, but
for all black Americans.
I further understood the meaning of being black when I learned that
fighting the CIA made me a persona non grata to the black leaders and
civil rights organizations to whom I pleaded for assistance. Instead
of receiving help, I was encouraged to leave the country. And then
there was being a defendant in a trial that would have made Jim Crow
proud. Now I sit in prison, which is to many the ultimate meaning of
being black in America. And it is here that I have been reacquainted
with James Baldwin. His words in "I Am Not Your Negro" embody my story
all along. As much as I wanted to deny him, I have lived every bit of
his pondering, "when you wonder what your role is in this country and
what your future is in it." I have dared to ask the question, what
does it mean to be black in America? I have learned that it is a
question no one wants you to ask if the answer does not fit within the
boundaries set by the myth of whiteness that taints the viewpoints of
both black and white America. I have had to wonder whether choosing to
ask the question is an answer unto itself. As Baldwin would say, it
has been more of a journey: "I am saying that a journey is called that
because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what
you will do with what you find, or what you find will do to you."
Finding what it means to be black in America has been a wonderful and
tortuous journey, but it was one I was always going to take.
Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA case officer, is currently serving a 3
1/2-year prison sentence for leaking classified information to a New
York Times reporter. His forthcoming book will be published by Nation Books.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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