Not Black Enough

A few weeks ago there was a brief controversy among media people who cover sports over rumors of unrest on the Seattle Seahawks football team because some of the other black players thought their quarterback Russell Wilson was not black enough, i.e. did not display what  the other players thought was appropriate behavior for a black man.  His sin apparently was being educated, articulate, reserved, and gentlemanly – behaving more in the manner of a Peyton Manning than a Jameis Winston. There is nothing unusual in this. For years people have noted the destructive tendency of many black people to ridicule blacks who do well in schools, use correct English, and generally lead responsible, respectable, and successful  lives for acting white or being Oreos. The present day notion of the appropriately black black man as a rough, vulgar, unschooled, undisciplined,  “urban” type  is well established and frequently promoted in the media and is commonplace among many black people.  

  

What is not noticed or mentioned enough, however, is how closely this view of authentic blackness resembles  the old stereotype of the ignorant, crude, unreasoning, irresponsible, un-teachable, dangerous black brute  propagated  by racists in the days of Jim Crow. The hypothetical man from Mars, the observer who looks at the facts alone without any preconceptions, would have trouble telling them apart.

In its effects, however, the new one may be worse.  While black people and leaders tended to resent the earlier  stereotype and often saw it as something to overcome and disprove,  too many  people of all races today embrace the new one and accept it as a norm for behavior from and expectations of black people. Charles Barkley said it well in commenting on the controversy over Russell Wilson. “For some reason, we have been brainwashed to think, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not black enough.” It is sad that so many black people have fallen for this. It is despicable that so many people – most of them white -  in the media, the entertainment industry, and politics are willfully doing the brainwashing. They do black people no service by positing so low a set of standards and expectations.