Don Lemon: Truthsayer?

What Don Lemon, has initiated, or better yet, vocalized in my honest opinion was an uninformed rant in which he happened to hit some salient points. Was he raving like Bill O'Riley? No, but still he came across as a quarrelsome curmudgeon with an ax to grind. Do I get upset when I see students come to my class with their pants hanging down, of course. Do I disparage them with a barrage of classist elitist expectations. No; I treat them like I would treat a member of my family, "Boy pull your damn pants up in my room." You see I attempt to establish a rapport of care because for many of my students, to see an African American man with a Ph.D. teaching them; its an anomaly. In many cases, because of the crisis of the lack of strong African American male role models beyond athletics, there is a fierce internal negotiation when it comes to race and gender. I think this is due to emasculation of education. I also believe that because of the absence of strong African American men in the home, there is battle not just from male students but also from female students to have to negotiate African American male authority. So in many cases, I have to establish a special type of dominance that says I care about, I love you, and I love you enough to flunk you. Because of the politics of race in this country, we all know what I'm about to say next, we as African Americas must be exponentially better than our white counterparts just be recognized as 3/5ths of a human being. This is where I have the problem with Lemon's logic. With his rhetoric, I feel he says, if Black Folk play the role of "Charlie Good Negro" all the racial problems will be anesthetized. He fails to penetrate a plethora of the systemic social ills that in many cases exceed the controls of many African Americans of 1960s and beyond. I further contend that he fails to explore the concept of life chances vs life choices. White people in America are born into unearned privilege. As a culture, as a nation, we have normalized whiteness, we have awarded whiteness and we have placed race (particularly white supremacy) within every institution of the American way of life. Kimberly Williams Crensaw and other Critical Race Scholars have posited that in the legal system, the probability of of African Americans receiving what we call justice from majority white juries in the country is slim to none. This was evident with Zimmerman and this was evident with Till. So as I say this, Lemon's comments to me were the equivalent Rivera stated when he attempted to problematize Trayvon Martin for being killed. You look like an animal, you will get shot and killed like an animal. Again, I have fault with this logic because it robs African American young men of the inalienable right to be treated as a human being. Am I saying that we are perfect.. no, but at the same time, many folks in the hood were born into the hood, and statically, according to economist Bona-Silvia it is 20 times harder for African Americans to elevate themselves from poverty, 10 times easier for poor whites. This goes back to my point of informed opinion making. Clearly he had no information, no data, no real facts, and for me, and I believe all of you and others whose company I am happy to share, we are critical thinkers. Personally, I like to see evidence before one engages in hyperbolic judgements. I must say when I was in college, I did not take it seriously because, it was something to do, girls to see. Kim can attest to that. But when the real world smacked me in the face with the structures of institutional racism, wow that was a different beast. I'll go to one example I experienced just so you can see the challenges that African American men had to negotiate. I was working at The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. I had a master's degree in educational technology, but instead I was relegated to checking out AV equipment. Now I did this for 9 yeas and eventually I changed my job. I had an oppressive white female supervisor who I had titanic battles with over my job. We won't discuss the fact that I was doing the work 3 people by myself constantly. We won't talk about the fact that there was a living breathing document from the office of state personnel that cosigned that African American men suffered disparate treatment in state agencies. But I will talk about the fact that when I made this fact known, no one there listened to me. I will talk about the fact that I had a nervous breakdown and was out of work for three months. And I will talk about the fact that whenI came back, no accommodations were made to remove me from this oppressive supervisor. In fact, and here is the funny part, this woman tried her damnedest to bring out the thug in me. Right after I am back from medical leave, knowing that I had anxiety issues, she attempts to provoke a fight with me. She snatches a piece of paper out of my hand, trying to scold me. In the untrained mind, these were the options, A) I quit my job cry and run away, B) I smack the shit out of her and feel good for five mins and get hauled off to jai. What she failed to realize is that I had a lawyer, and I was taking good medication that allowed me to really think this process through... In doing so, I stated I'm injured, left the office, went to the magistrate's office and took our a warrant for her arrest for assault and battery. The point Im making is that before we bash folk for not having the competencies to battle racism and internal neglect, it is imperative that we think more in the line of DuBois and the 10 going back for the 90 as opposed to the bashing. Im not saying all of his points are valid, Im not saying all of his points are. Im saying, as best as I can you must come from a position of love and you must be willing to get your hands dirty in struggle.