Now I know a little bit about how John Kerry might feel. The near victor in 2004, swift-boated and flip-flopped out of the few thousand votes necessary to win the presidency, seemed almost resurgent and among one of the leading contenders for 2008 until "the joke." He said something along the lines of how students who do not study will end up getting stuck in Iraq, initially refused to apologize, then did so and gracelessly bowed out of campaigning for candidates in the '06 midterms and any second chance bid for the White House.
I made a joke, too. I wrote up a short, perhaps overly sarcastic post on the Daily Jolt that highlighted a number of events (a hip-hop concert, Sen. Obama's announcement for president and a day of service) celebrating African Americaness during the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and wryly remarked that "for anyone not interested in these activities, don't worry, things will go back to 'normal' very soon."
Friends and even those who did not know me personally or that I am, indeed, African American, have since told me they thought the joke was right on target (if not a sad indicator of the reality of diversity on our campus) and that they received the sarcasm with the laughs I intended. Others did not look so kindly upon my attempt at race-based humor.
On behalf of the Daily Jolt and for those who felt offended by my commentary, I stepped up to the plate and publicly apologized at the University Diversity public forum on Feb. 22. You must hold yourself accountable for every word you write and its effects on others. Fellow Eagle columnist Caleb Enerson is perhaps feeling the effects of this through the small-scale Lysistrata that is being threatened against him following his attack on feminism at a campus that is almost 70 percent female. Smooth move, buddy.
The diversity event saw lots of great discussion about everything from homophobia to misogynist lyrics in many of the hip-hop songs we enjoy. Most of the talk centered on issues in the African American community and that is what I will address here. A few highlights stuck out for me. A white female spoke out against the eagerness of some people of color to call whites "racists" at the first hint of prejudice. I related to her statement a great deal, as this term was leveled at me following my post by many who perhaps had no idea who I am or that it is functionally impossible for me to be racist in the manner in which I was being accused. Racism is a term that we as people of color cannot be too zealous in our use of. Racism is forcing people of color to the back of the bus, strategically underfunding their schools and avoiding issues that hit their communities particularly hard. It is prejudice institutionalized against a whole race, not a mutual misunderstanding between classmates or a joke misinterpreted.
Next, an African American basketball player spoke out against the implication made by women of color that the white females he associates with are "groupies" and that because he associates with them, he is somehow a traitor to his race. This is a tired refrain. By dating or associating with white women, black men are in no way diminishing the importance of the women of color in our community. Their struggle has no doubt been an arduous and remarkable one. As the line goes in Talib Kweli's song "Black Girl Pain," "the world should clap for" black women. I would argue that men of color can do so without exclusively associating with or dating them. That said, I have an African American girlfriend and a white mother. I love them both. And no one is going to tell me who to care about based on his or her own personal hangups about skin color.
Finally, an African American female who was at the center of a minor Facebook fiasco regarding a comment left on a picture called the black men in the room to task. She challenged them to quit praising the popular culture (some contemporary hip-hop and other elements) that acutely demeans women of color and fosters a negative self-image within them before they call out women for calling each other negative names. This is a challenge that virtually all of us will find difficult to live up to. It forces us to make better choices about the artists we support, the language we use and most of the things we have been socialized to believe about women of color.
In attending University Diversity and reading Juan Williams' book "Enough," I am coming to realize that increasingly, outside of the institutional racism that still permeates our society, many of the problems of the black community lie within us. In our eagerness to eliminate productive dialogue by too-quickly labeling whites as racists, in the self-destructive images of ourselves that we perpetuate; in our constant measuring of how "black" we and others are; and in our inability to properly take the mantle from those who marched, sat at lunch counters and were beaten and attacked for the rights that we don't give a second thought today. If we spend all of our time being victims rather than tackling the issues within our own community, we'll never gain the victories we seek.
Paul Perry is a senior in the School of International Service
and a liberal columnist for The Eagle.
