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Elijah Anderson
Article II of an 11-part Series on Race in America - Past and Present
Emmett and Trayvon: How Racial Prejudice Has Changed in the Last 60 Years
By Elijah Anderson
Separated
by a thousand miles, two state borders, and nearly six decades, two
young African- American boys met tragic fates that seem remarkably
similar today: both walked into a small market to buy some candy; both
ended up dead.
The
first boy is Emmett Till, who was 14 years old in the summer of 1955
when he walked into a local grocery store in Money, Miss., to buy gum.
He was later roused from bed, beaten brutally, and possibly shot by a
group of White men who later dumped his body in a nearby river. They
claimed he had stepped out of his place by flirting with a young White
woman, the wife of the store's owner. The second boy is Trayvon Martin,
who was 17 years old late last winter when he walked into a 7-Eleven
near a gated community in Sanford, Fla., to buy Skittles and an iced
tea.
He
was later shot to death at close range by a mixed-race man, who claimed
Martin had behaved suspiciously and seemed out of place. The deaths of
both boys galvanized the nation, drew sympathy and disbelief across
racial lines, and, through the popular media, prompted a reexamination
of race relations.
In
the aftermath of Martin's death last February, a handful of reporters
and columnists, and many members of the general public, made the obvious
comparison: Trayvon Martin, it seemed, was the Emmett Till of our
times. And, while that comparison has some merit-the boys' deaths are
similar both in some of their details and in their tragic outcome-these
killings must also be understood as the result of very different strains
of racial tension in America.
The
racism that led to Till's death was embedded in a virulent ideology of
White racial superiority born out of slavery and the Jim Crow codes,
particularly in the Deep South. That sort of racism hinges on the idea
that Blacks are an inherently inferior race, a morally null group that
deserves both the subjugation and poverty it gets.
The
racial prejudice that led to Trayvon Martin's death is different. While
it, too, was born of America's painful legacy of slavery and
segregation, and informed by those old concepts of racial order-that
Blacks have their "place" in society-it in addition
reflects the urban iconography of today's racial inequality, namely the
Black ghetto, a uniquely urban American creation. Strikingly, this
segregation of the Black community coexists with an ongoing racial
incorporation process that has produced the largest Black middle class
in history, and that reflects the extraordinary social progress this
country has made since the 1960s. The civil rights movement paved the
way for Blacks and other people of color to access public and
professional opportunities and spaces that would have been unimaginable
in Till's time.
While
the sort of racism that led to Till's death still exists in society
today, Americans in general have a much more nuanced, more textured
attitude toward race than anything we've seen before, and usually that
attitude does not manifest in overtly hateful, exclusionary, or violent
acts. Instead, it manifests in pervasive mindsets and stereotypes that
all Black people start from the inner-city ghetto and are therefore
stigmatized by their association with its putative amorality, danger,
crime, and poverty. Hence, in public, a Black person is burdened with a
negative presumption that he or she must disprove before being able to
establish mutually trusting relationships with others.
Most
consequentially, Black skin when seen in public, and its association
with the ghetto, translates into a deficit of credibility as Black skin
is conflated with lower-class status. Such attitudes impact poor Blacks
of the ghetto one way and middle-class Black people in another way.
While
middle-class Blacks may be able to successfully overcome the negative
presumptions of others, lower-class Blacks may not. For instance, all
Blacks, particularly "ghetto-looking" young men, are at risk of enduring
yet another "stop and frisk" from the police as well as discrimination
from potential employers shopkeepers, and strangers on the street.
Members of the Black middle class and Black professionals may ultimately
pass inspection and withstand such scrutiny; many poorer blacks cannot.
And many Blacks who have never stepped foot in a ghetto must repeatedly
prove themselves as non-ghetto, often operating in a provisional status
(with something more to prove), in the workplace or, say, a fancy
restaurant, until they can convince others-either by speaking "White"
English or by demonstrating intelligence, poise, or manners-that they
are to be trusted, that they are not "one of those" Blacks from the
ghetto, and that they deserve respect. In other words, a middle-class
Black man who is, for instance, waiting in line for an ATM at night will
in many cases be treated with a level of suspicion that a middle-class
White man simply does not experience.
But
this pervasive cultural association-Black skin equals the ghetto-does
not come out of the blue. After all, as a result of historical,
political, and economic factors, Blacks have been contained in the
ghetto. Today, with persistent housing discrimination and the
disappearance of manufacturing jobs, America's ghettos face structural
poverty. In addition, crime and homicide rates within those communities
are high, young Black men are typically the ones killing one another,
and ghetto culture - made iconic by artists like Tupac Shakur, 50 Cent,
and the Notorious B.I.G. - is inextricably intertwined with blackness.
As
a result, in America's collective imagination the ghetto is a
dangerous, scary part of the city. It's where rap comes from, where
drugs are sold, where hoodlums rule, and where The Wire might have been
filmed. Above all, to many White Americans the ghetto is where "the
Black people live," and thus, as the misguided logic follows, all Black
people live in the ghetto. It's that pervasive, if accidental, fallacy
that's at the root of the wider society's perceptions of Black people
today. While it may be true that everyone who lives in a certain ghetto
is Black, it is patently untrue that everyone who is Black lives in a
ghetto. Regardless, Black people of all classes, including those born
and raised far from the inner cities and those who've never been in a
ghetto, are by virtue of skin color alone stigmatized by the place.
I
call this idea the "iconic ghetto," and it has become a powerful source
of stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination in our society, negatively
defining the Black person in public. In some ways, the iconic ghetto
reflects the old version of racism that led to Till's death. In Till's
day, a Black person's "place" was in the field, in the maid's quarters,
or in the back of the bus. If a Black man was found "out of his place,"
he could be punished, jailed, or lynched. In Martin's day-in our day-a
Black person's "place" is in the ghetto. If he is found "out of his
place," like in a fancy hotel lobby, on a golf course, or, say, in an
upscale community, he may easily be mistaken, treated with suspicion,
avoided, pulled over, frisked, arrested-or worse.
Trayvon
Martin's death is an example of how this more current type of racial
stereotyping works. While the facts of the case are still under
investigation, from what is known it seems fair to say that George
Zimmerman, Martin's killer, saw a young Black man wearing a hoodie and
assumed he was from the ghetto and therefore "out of place" in the
Retreat at Twin Lakes, Zimmerman's gated community. Until recently, Twin
Lakes was a relatively safe, largely middle-class neighborhood. But as a
result of collapsing housing prices, it has been witnessing an influx
of renters and a rash of burglaries. Some of the burglaries have been
committed by Black men. Zimmerman, who is himself of mixed race (of
Latino, Black, and White descent), did not have a history of racism, and
his family has claimed that he had previously volunteered handing out
leaflets at Black churches protesting the assault of a homeless Black
man.
The
point is, it appears unlikely that Zimmerman shot and killed Martin
simply because he hates Black people as a race. It seems that he put a
gun in his pocket and followed Martin after making the assumption that
Martin's Black skin and choice of dress meant that he was from the
ghetto, and therefore up to no good; he was considered to be a threat.
And that's an important distinction.
Zimmerman
acted brashly and was almost certainly motivated by assumptions about
young black men, but it is not clear that he acted brutally out of
hatred for Martin's race. That certainly does not make Zimmerman's
actions excusable, Till's murderers acted out of racial hatred.
The
complex racially charged drama that led to Martin's death is indicative
of both our history and our rapid and uneven racial progress as a
society. While there continue to be clear demarcations separating Blacks
and Whites in social strata, major racial changes have been made for
the better. It's no longer uncommon to see Black people in positions of
power, privilege, and prestige, in top positions in boardrooms,
universities, hospitals, and judges' chambers, but we must also face the
reality that poverty, unemployment, and incarceration still break down
largely along racial lines.
This
situation fuels the iconic ghetto, including a prevalent assumption
among many White Americans, even among some progressive Whites who are
not by any measure traditionally racist, that there are two types of
Blacks: those residing in the ghetto, and those who appear to have
played by the rules and become successful. In situations in which Black
people encounter strangers, many often feel they have to prove as
quickly as possible that they belong in the latter category in order to
be accepted and treated with respect.
As
a result of this pervasive dichotomy-that there are "ghetto" and
"non-ghetto" Blacks-many middle-class Blacks actively work to separate
and distance themselves from the popular association of their race with
the ghetto by deliberately dressing well or by spurning hip-hop, rap,
and ghetto styles of dress. Similarly, some Blacks, when interacting
with Whites, may cultivate an overt, sometimes unnaturally formal way of
speaking to distance themselves from "those" black people from the
ghetto.
But
it's also not that simple. Strikingly, many middle class Black young
people, most of whom have no personal connection with the ghetto, go out
of their way in the other direction, claiming the ghetto by adopting
its symbols, including styles of dress, patterns of speech, or choice of
music, as a means of establishing their authenticity as "still Black"
in the largely White middle class they feel does not fully accept them;
they want to demonstrate they have not "sold out." Thus, the iconic
ghetto is, paradoxically, both a stigma and a sign of authenticity for
some American Blacks-a kind of double bind that beleaguers many
middle-class Black parents.
Despite
the significant racial progress our society has made since Till's
childhood, from the civil rights movement to the re-election of
President Obama, the pervasive association of Black people with the
ghetto, and therefore with a certain social station, betrays a
persistent cultural lag. After all, it has only been two generations
since schools were legally desegregated and five decades since Blacks
and Whites in many parts of the country started drinking from the same
water fountains.
If
Till were alive today, he'd remember when restaurants had "White Only"
entrances and when stories of lynchings peppered The New York Times.
He'd also remember the Freedom Riders, Martin Luther King Jr., and the
Million Man March. He'd remember when his peers became generals and
justices, and when a Black man, just 20 years his junior, became
president of the United States. As I am writing, he would have been 73 -
had he lived.
Elijah
Anderson is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Sociology at Yale
University. His latest book is The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and
Civility in Everyday Life. This article, the second of an 11-part series
on race, is sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and was
originally published by the Washington Monthly Magazine.
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