Racist behavior from many in white America toward people of color is increasing at an alarming rate. I contend that this increase is occurring through a new, more sophisticated manipulation of erroneous conceptions of blackness in the imagination of many white people in America. On a recently televised daytime broadcast of ABC’s “The View” headed by Whoopi Goldberg, famed comedian, author and political critic D.L. Hughley was quoted as saying, “…the most dangerous place for Black males to exist in America today is in the imagination of white people.” Hughley explained “a white suspected criminal could have just shot 17 people and is almost always arrested and brought to trial, but a Black male suspect would most likely be shot in the back running away unarmed because he is presumed in the mind of a white officer to be a threat to the patrolman’s life and guilty before ever being brought to trial.”
Hughley’s statements point to notions discussed in a 2010 book written by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, “The Condemnation of Blackness; Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America.” In this work, Muhammed explains that in the “psyche” of many white people as far back as early British and American philosophers who helped to frame foundational concepts about identity, race and intellect elided the roles of Blacks in contributing to American society. These thinkers, furthermore, also minimized the ability of Blacks to serve as agents of social change. Muhammad posits that equal rights and social inclusion for Black males had for over two centuries, been held hostage through the emergence of what he labels as the “criminalization of Blackness” which was fueled by racist ideologies deeply entrenched in early American philosophical beliefs.
Earl Hutchinson corroborates these assertations when he argues it was the use of “the fine art of Black male bashing” that beleaguered the social justice efforts of Black men throughout American history in his book “The Assassination of the Black Male Image.” Hutchinson further argues “that it was a sinister conceptualization of Blackness that held the race back from its pursuit for equality.” Hutchinson’s argument concerning the prevailing conceptualization of Blacks in 1853 is illuminated by George Fitzhugh’s argument that “slavery rescued Blacks from idolatry and cannibalism, and every brutal vice and crime that can disgrace humanity.” Fitzhugh, often regarded as a spokesperson for Southern loyalists, articulates a belief espoused by Southern white supremacists and sympathizers.
These narratives still resonate hundreds of years later. Various nuances of this narrative also have major catalysts in the articulation of white supremacist ideology in America, clearly affecting the sociopolitical footing of Blacks in the contemporary U.S., in a multiplicity of ways.
Twenty-five years ago, in the essay “Endangered/Endangering: Schematic Racism and White Paranoia,” Judith Butler examined “the schematic formation” of the racism which led to the epic verdict of the Rodney King case. She also discussed how paranoia among many white Americans shaped white perception of Blacks and the perceived danger from their existence. She entered her discussion explaining how the defense attorneys for the policeman accused of police brutality attempted to establish the innocence of their clients, building a case around “evidence” from the videotape of the incident that night. Because of the brutally violent and vicious nature in which the police officers are seen as they beat King this evidence would have to be perceived in a particular manner by the jury.
The defense attorneys would have to convince the jury, that what they saw on the video should not be interpreted as violence against King, but rather an attempt by the officers to protect themselves from violence by King and ultimately protect white culture from the violence that emanates from Black men in general. The fact that the video to most people would obviously “speak for itself” is the problem in the text. Arguably most people believe what they see, and it is an acceptable truth that certain predispositions accompany the perception of the conversation that what is being visualized and offered is true, however what Butler suggest is that white paranoia has so negatively influenced the ability of many white people to see Black men and subsequently Rodney King correctly, that what they are “seeing” does not “say” the same thing to them as a white culture, that it “says” to other cultures within America, consequently when videos such as the one used in the King beating or other instances where Blacks are victimized by whites; either in constructed authority positions or perceived “power positions.”
Today, mounting fear trapped in the imagination of many whites has matured into countless deaths in the Black community. The deaths of Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Treyvon Martin, Aaron Bailey and others, are all tragic reminders of the social evil emanating from the tortured unchecked imagination of racists thinkers. Sadly, what may be worse than an imagination in such a tragic condition, is the infectious affect it has on an entirely new generation of whites, who consistently hear the sentiments of their often-polluted imaginations reinforced from the podium of the United States presidency and White House.
