Why African Americans aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street

Don't Ignore Us!

The title of Stacy Patton’s article in the November 25, 2011 Washington Post, implies that the reader will learn why blacks haven’t embraced OWS, but after reading the article twice, I’m still not sure why.

Statements like the next two support the idea that blacks are “punishing” whites by not joining the protests.

“Perhaps black America’s absence is sending a message to the Occupiers: ‘We told you so! Nothing will change. We’ve been here already. It’s hopeless.’”

"Why should [blacks] ally with whites who are just now experiencing the hardships that blacks have known for generations? Perhaps white Americans are now paying the psychic price for not answering the basic questions that blacks have long raised about income inequality."

But the following statements imply that African Americans simply lack the courage to protest the corporate oligarchy.

"We can’t expect our civil rights organizations and political leaders to help blacks rage against the corporate machine when they are part of it."

"[Blacks] are not willing to risk what little they have for change. Those who are wealthier are not willing to risk and lose.”

Perhaps Patton means to suggest that some blacks are sneering at the protests and others are protecting their turf. However, she leaves out another group of blacks like me who are, in fact, firm supporters of OWS. This article, in effect dismisses us, but we are African Americans too.

What magic number of blacks needs to support OWS in order for African Americans to be seen as “embracing” the movement?

The OWS movement is not yet six months old; why are we already declaring that blacks aren’t supporting it?

Or, is this article, like so much that picks at our racial wound, meant to support the 1% by stirring controversy and promoting divisiveness?

Abandoning Prejudgment

We may yet find miracles…a metaphor for the insight that comes with …the abandon of prejudgment, the willingness to see another viewpoint, and be converted, if only for a moment. Patricia Williams

Someone posted an observation in a Face Book discussion, that white privilege was evident in the gentle treatment of the rioters at Pennsylvania State University by the police. The point was that police are never that polite with black demonstrators. Someone else wrote that there were lots of white people in the nonviolent group at Occupy Oakland, yet the police there were quite vicious.

Both of these posts are accurate and may portend a looming miracle.

People of African descent are the traditional, tried and true outcasts of America, and have been for four hundred years. What has changed, in response to persistent pushback, are the artillery used to enforce racism. These weapons have evolved from whips and dogs, to restrictive laws and policies, to this current awkward period where the laws have changed, but the traditional feelings of superiority remain intact for many. Being avowedly racist, sexist and homophobic is no longer publically acceptable, so such outbursts these days are served with an apology. Although some whites are openly hysterical that “white America is an endangered species,” racism meant to maintain white privilege is now a bootleg operation, which means nobody admits to it.

The reason I think a miracle may be looming is that it is the nature of oppressive power to beat back anybody who dares defy the status quo. The students at Penn State were decidedly not questioning the status quo; they were angry that it had changed. Their desire was to maintain the system as it had been and Joe Paterno’s place in it. The protestors in the national Occupy movement are peacefully demanding that business as usual come to a halt, consequently, they are subject to (almost) the same treatment that blacks routinely receive. It was this way in the Sixties as well when white demonstrators against the Vietnam War were beaten and killed as if they were blacks in the civil rights movement. Far fewer whites than blacks, mind you; I did say almost the same. All of us protesting the status quo—black, white, brown, yellow and red—at some point will join forces. That is the looming miracle.

THE HELP, or Comforting Whites

I wasn’t interested in writing about The Help by Kathryn Stockett until the book became all the rage and was made into a movie. I rarely read fiction, but a friend’s book club read it and she loaned me her copy to get my opinion. I enjoyed the quick read, largely because it captured that mixture of devotion and disgust that people have when they clean up after their “betters.” I know this because I’ve been a maid—your devotion is to doing a good job, your disgust is that they actually believe they are better than you.

I assume the book is largely autobiographical, set in the past so Stockett’s Mississippi family and friends wouldn’t be offended. Besides, how could anybody actually write a book about blacks in Mississippi in the 1960s and virtually ignore the civil rights upheavals? Obviously, it was not part of her consciousness. Her brother's black maid sued her so the author has to insist it’s a work of fiction. White families usually don’t have a clue how their black maids feel about them, so it’s clear to me that Stockett listened to some maids, or a maid.

My issue is not with Kathryn Stockett. I am just tired of the same old shit. At age 74 I’ve been watching this black-people-don’t-exist-until-white-people-notice-us for a very long time. When a white person writes about black life, major media and the movie studios suddenly see us. It's Black Like Me all over again. I wrote about actually being a maid in my memoir, The Time and Place That Gave Me Life; nobody cared.

I know why The Help struck a huge responsive chord in America. The popularity of the book and its being so quickly made into a movie is a comforting reminder to Americans of the place black folk should occupy. This reminder is necessary because there's an African American family in the White House and black folks could get the big head and start thinking they are equal to whites. (After President Obama’s election, the first movie about blacks that was wildly popular was Precious. What a hit that was! SIX Academy Award nominations.)

A group of whites didn’t have to get together to decide that The Help is important because the image of faithful black servants is as American as mom, apple pie and the flag. Black folk were kept as slaves four times longer than we’ve been “free.” And for the first hundred years after slavery, most blacks had jobs serving whites; this is the most familiar and therefore most comforting image white Americans have of blacks. As blacks move forward in a quest for full citizenship, this vision of the “good old days” is periodically resurrected to soothe whites. There have been many incarnations of this comforting trope of blacks as servants including Corinna, Corinna, 1994; Driving Miss Daisy, 1989; Imitation of Life, 1959, a remake of the "immortal" 1934 version; the Beulah Show television series, 1950-53; Song of the South, 1946, and the most beloved of all, Gone With the Wind, 1939. As I said, this has been going on for a very long time.

Other than the reassurance it provides, I see no reason to rave about this book/movie once again showing blacks serving whites. Two years after The Help was published, it’s on film. As the presidential campaign revs up next year, it will be up for Academy Awards and the dominant media image will be black servants being used and abused by whites. Ah, so satisfying it almost makes up for having a black man in the White House.

INDIANAPOLIS’S RUBICON*

“The cultural trail is about positioning Indianapolis for the 21^st century…, how does the Soldiers and Sailors Monument really relate to the 21^st century?” Brian Payne, president Central Indiana Community Foundation that funds the Cultural Trail.

I want to offer my sincere thanks to Fred Wilson, the brilliant and subversive conceptual artist. Mr. Wilson, a New Yorker, born and bred, was invited to my hometown to come up with an artistic idea for the Cultural Trail. And did he ever!

After touring downtown Indianapolis and observing the number of monuments and memorials (Indianapolis is second only to the nation’s capital in its propensity to erect monuments), Mr. Wilson was struck by the fact that the only person of color in a monument was a newly freed slave in the Civil War commemoration on the Circle. Mr. Wilson, who specializes in drawing attention to racial inequities via his artistic reconfigurations and installations, decided to “free” this anonymous slave yet again. Wilson figuratively removed the slave from the Circle’s Civil War monument to give him a prominent place of his very own, atop a pedestal holding a flag. The unknown slave is still shirtless and shoeless, but his broken chains have been removed and he’s sitting up a bit. This is, after all, “a twenty-first century empowered African American.”

When Wilson presented his idea to the Curatorial Advisory Committee for the Cultural Trail, they accepted it without hesitation. And I understand that. After all, they commissioned a prominent and much-acclaimed African American artist to come up with a concept for their cultural trail; what effrontery it would have been to question his concept.

I interrupt here to point out that it appears Indianapolis is striving to emulate places like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Boston—attracting tourists, hosting a Super Bowl, and more important, keeping their young educated talent in town to give the city some pizzazz and help it to grow. If this city could just stop the “brain drain,” or even slow it down, perhaps we wouldn’t be seen as such a backward place and the talented young wouldn’t flee to other places. I’ve lived all around the country, including in several major cities, so I know how we are perceived from outside. I won’t repeat the responses I get when I tell people where I’m from, but I do recall a particularly stinging remark I read in a newspaper column. The writer said, “I stepped off the plane in Indianapolis and set my watch back twenty-five years.”

Back to the Cultural Trail. I noticed that the other art works on the Trail are mostly whimsical or symbolic; certainly not in any way controversial. Mr. Wilson says he intended his art to be in that same mode, but instead his decision to reproduce a slave to “be the first public art work dedicated to the African American community in Indianapolis’s downtown public art collection,” has stirred the proverbial hornet’s nest. By the way, these are not Mr. Wilson’s words, but are taken from the Cultural Trail’s press release. Wilson had no idea his conceptual art was to be the city’s signal tribute to the African American community. Wilson’s intent was for it to be a “work of art and a catalyst for asking the question, ‘Why are there no other representations of African Americans in Indianapolis?’”(There is a sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. in a neighborhood park; however, Wilson was referring to downtown monuments.)

What an excellent question! Why are there no representations of African Americans who have contributed to Indianapolis? As a black woman who was born and reared in Indianapolis, and who considers herself knowledgeable and aware, especially regarding African American history and culture, I am ashamed to admit that I never considered that question until now. That is why I am grateful to Mr. Wilson.

I’ve never met Wilson, and only know him from what I’ve seen online, but I can’t get this imaginary scene out of my head of him in a discussion with his New York friends.

Wilson: “I actually proposed a gigantic permanent sculpture of a slave to be prominently displayed in downtown Indianapolis.”

Friends: “You’re kidding! What did they say?”

Wilson: “They went for it.”

Friends: “Are there any black people there?”

Wilson: “Oh yeah. Lots of black folks live there.”

Friends: “Well, black folk won’t stand for a sculpture of a slave in 2011!”

Wilson: “We’ll see. If the folks in charge want a slave sculpture, and the black folks allow it, then the world will know exactly where Indianapolis is coming from. I hope we have it ready for the Super Bowl.”

Wilson and friends: ROFL

Apparently, the answer to Brian Payne’s question is that in Indianapolis, African Americans will continue to be seen as slaves.

*The expression, “crossing the Rubicon” means to pass a point of no return. Indianapolis is at the Rubicon. We have yet to see whether or not the city will cross it. Or perhaps, the city is just a rube, being conned.