Jack & Jill Politics

There is something deeply wrong with Juan Williams attempt to conflate the issue of whether black Americans see themselves as a single race (I’m not sure when that idea wasn’t a fabrication) with the issue of class.

Conventional wisdom about black America is being turned on its head. Nearly two out of five black people (37 percent) surveyed in a new Pew poll, done in association with NPR, said that blacks “can no longer be thought of as a single race.” Only half of all black people in the country (53 percent) say it is possible to think of blacks as one race. And young black Americans — ages 18 to 29 — are more likely than older blacks to say that blacks are no longer a single race.

The growing perception of two races is really a divide over values.

Over half of all Americans — people of all colors — believe that the values of poor and middle-class blacks are becoming more different. When the question is limited to black people, the answer is even more definitive: 61 percent say values are now more different between middle-class and poor blacks. The perception of a class divide in black America has increased nearly 20 points since a similar question was asked of black people in 1986.

There is a clear break with the historic convention that black people are one race. Racism, stereotypes and segregation laws long enforced the idea of a single black race by keeping down black people no matter their education and class. But just over 50 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision set in motion the modern civil rights movement, with a unified black America pressing for political and social equality, there are significant numbers of people with dark skin, and racial discrimination battles, who say black people do not have enough common experiences and values to be thought of as one race.

Well that’s interesting. Race is now a consequence of “experiences and values” and not actually what you are? How delightfully arbitrary. Blacks befuddled about Juan Williams decision to write a book criticizing reparations for slavery (I’m guessing the sequel is on preventing the tooth fairy from leaving money for your kids…oh wait, the tooth fairy doesn’t exist either) and whites who agree that Juan Williams is not really black because he doesn’t say “motherfucker, where’s my iced tea,” will be pleased.

I agree that black people in America face a wide range of experiences based on class and cultural background, but I don’t see that as a “racial” distinction. That argument seems like it has little to do with what we understand as race and more to do with what Juan Williams thinks being black means.

And Juan tells us.

This comes down to black Americans who believe in family, education and personal responsibility vs. those who point at “the man” or the “system” for the added weight on black Americans.

So now, given to William’s paternalistic summary of black political views, we are to determine that black people are “two races,” the good and the bad, the poor and the bougie? When was the last time being white was predicated on your pay stubs or credit rating?

That is some sick shit.