A while back I read this very disturbing book, Passing by Nella Larsen. One of the most talented writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t familiar with her name. They makes me feel like a terrible ignoramus. Much like Zora Neale Hurston, she was railroaded out of the literary world and, in Larsons case, this very talented writer ended working as a nurse for most of her life.
Larsen had a white mother, but as you know that is of no consequence in this country because of the one-drop rule. The story takes place when everything was segregated according to race BY LAW, and the people who were mixed race — but looked white and were considered black — had hard choices in their lives.
Today there’s another form of passing — that is, racists trying to pass themselves as non-racists. They fool no one, and their cynicism is sickening.
When we watched Obama’s health care speech, it was clear to K and I that the disrespect towards Obama is completely racially motivated. It’s so obvious that these White Men can’t deal with the Black Man being their boss, that they don’t think he deserves to be his boss (because he is Black), so they can treat him any way they wish. Which is to say, rudely and condescendingly.
Today, Jimmy Carter said the same thing — the disrespect is clearly racism. And how did the racists respond? With loud protests to the contrary.
“There is not a racist bone in my dad’s body,” he said.
Yeah, is that so? Well, fuck you, racist son of a racist.
Indeed, according to this incredibly well-researched study, most Americans are racist against African-Americans whether they admit it or not:
Discrimination against blacks linked to dehumanization, study finds
The study, “Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization and Contemporary Consequences,” shows how American subconsicously view African-Americans as subhuman, which leads to their being treated as such.
Now, how can a former segregationist and lover of the Confederate Flag, who yells, “You lie!” at the President, say there’s no racism in that? Man, I don’t know how these assholes sleep at night. I guess they have no soul left to bother them.
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[…] Passing […]
[…] Ah, that is brilliant. It’s so obvious and true when she says it — there is no way, numerically, that there can be any pure race. Just as I was recovering from that epiphany, she threw another one at me, which is the definition of who is Black. Now, we have all come to realize that Black does not mean skin color, as people identified as Black have all sorts of skin tones. She points that it is simply about genetic ties to African slaves. It makes no difference what you look like or talk like or what culture you have — it’s still all about the one-drop rule (which I previously referred to here). […]