African American criticism and literature

The prison population is largely black and brown; chief executive officers [of corporations], surgeons, and university presidents are almost all white. . . . [B]lack families have, on the average, about one-tenth of the assets of their white counterparts. They pay more for many products and services, including cars. People of color lead shorter lives, receive worse medical care, complete fewer years of school, and occupy more menial jobs than do whites. A recent United Nations report showed that African Americans in the United States [if thought of as comprising a nation of their own] would make up the twenty-seventh ranked nation in the world. . . [in terms of] social well-being. Latinos would rank thirty-third. (Delgado and Stefancic 10–11) I think the first fact listed in the passage just cited deserves further comment because the disproportionate number of prisoners of color in this country has encouraged, if not created, the misconception held by many white Americans that a disproportionate number of African Americans are criminals, in other words, that criminality is an African American trait. In order to show the flaws in this kind of thinking, let me offer just one striking example of why there is a larger proportion of African Americans than whites incarcerated in our country. It takes only five grams of crack cocaine (used predominantly by black Americans) to trigger a five‑year mandatory prison sentence. However, it takes five hundred grams of powder cocaine (used predominantly by white Ameri‑ cans) to trigger that same five‑year mandatory prison sentence. Discriminatory laws like these draw attention to the use of drugs in poor black neighborhoods, a situation that has resulted in increased police surveillance in these areas, while drug use in white neighborhoods is largely ignored. In fact, in the United States the majority of drug users (of all kinds) are white. Yet the majority of prisoners incarcerated for drug‑related offenses are black (Tyson 150–51). As this repre‑ sentative example illustrates, the racial bias of our legal system, not the “natural” criminality of African Americans, has put many black Americans behind bars who wouldn’t be there if they were white. Clearly, many African Americans are still routinely deprived of their civil rights despite the civil rights laws intended to guarantee these rights. Perhaps, then, one useful way to think of critical race theory is as a new approach to civil rights. Initiated by the work of Derrick A. Bell Jr. and others in the 1970s, critical race theory began at a time when the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s ceased to be a political or social force. And though critical race theory started out as a critique of constitutional law—that is, federal law, which is based on the Constitution and which the laws of individual states are not supposed to violate—it has spread to almost every discipline, including the humanities. As we’ll see, critical race theory concerns itself with every topic that is relevant to race. In addition to investigating such obvious issues as the kind of oppression described in the passage quoted above, critical race theory examines the ways in

which details of our everyday lives are related to race, though we may not real‑ ize it, and studies the complex beliefs that underlie what seem to be our simple, commonplace assumptions about race in order to show us where and how racism still thrives in its “undercover” existence. Let’s start by examining what Delgado and Stefancic identify as the basic tenets of critical race theory. I’ll list them for you here—don’t expect to understand all of the vocabulary yet—and then we’ll take a closer look at each one. Basic tenets 1. Everyday racism is a common, ordinary experience for people of color in the United States. . Racism is largely the result of interest convergence, sometimes referred to as material determinism. . Race is socially constructed. . Racism often takes the form of differential racialization. . Everyone’s identity is a product of intersectionality. . The experiences of racial minorities have given them what might be called a unique voice of color. (–) Critical race theorists don’t all hold the same opinion regarding these tenets, but an understanding of these six points will be a very helpful means of introducing you to this growing discipline. We’ll also take a look at a few additional topics as representative examples of the different kinds of issues that are of interest to critical race theorists. 1. Everyday Racism—Many white Americans still think that the word racism applies only to very visible forms of racism, for example, physical or verbal attacks against people of color; the activities of white supremacist groups; the deliberate and overt exclusion of racial minorities from particular hous‑ ing, restaurants, and social organizations open to the public; and the like.

However, in many ways the most emotionally draining, stress‑provoking forms of racism are the kinds that happen to people of color every day, and these forms of racism are the rule, not the exception. For instance, white store clerks or security personnel often watch, or even follow, Afri‑ can Americans who come into their stores. And members of minority groups frequently encounter a lack of common civility from their white fellow Americans—they’re ignored, they see white people grimace or roll their eyes, they overhear sarcastic comments made at their expense—in the most mundane situations: while waiting in line at the supermarket or pharmacy, while paying for gas at the gas station, while asking for informa‑ tion at the bank, and so forth. Other common examples of everyday rac‑ ist behavior exhibited by white people include “being patronizing, talking down, assuming lack of confidence, hiring token blacks . . . or favoring whites. . . . [and] contact avoidance [keeping a physical distance from a

person of color or avoiding touch]” (Essed 205). A particularly damaging form of everyday racism consists of constantly underestimating the abil‑ ity of minority persons, for example, immediately assuming that “typos in their writing are . . . [due to] language deficiency” (Essed 206).

This kind of behavior is especially destructive when it occurs in the classroom, when schoolteachers and college professors assume, often unconsciously, that students of color are in some way inferior: “less intel‑ ligent . . . lack[ing] . . . cultural sophistication . . . work ethic, or social skills” (Essed 207). These kinds of unfounded assumptions can result in the teacher’s grading unfairly, withholding information about scholarships, ignoring or lacking enthusiasm for the achievements of black students, and neglecting to include black students adequately in class discussions (Essed 207). Of course, most of us are also familiar with the continuing problem of exposing children and young people to racially unbalanced curriculum materials based too much (and sometimes exclusively) on white experience as well as the continuing problem of white teachers who respond to black students as if those students “spoke for,” or represented, their entire race.

One particularly revealing example of everyday racism is offered by Taunya Lovell Banks, a black woman law professor. One Saturday after‑ noon, Professor Banks and four of her fellow law professors, all African American women in their thirties and forties and all well dressed, had been visiting a colleague living in a luxury condominium in downtown Philadelphia. They got on a spacious elevator to leave. “A few floors later, the door opened and a white woman in her late fifties peered in, let out a muffled cry of surprise, stepped back and let the door close without get‑ ting on. Several floors later . . . another white middle‑aged woman . . . also decided not to get on” (331). It couldn’t have been the black women’s clothing, age, sex, or locale that frightened the two white women. It had to have been nothing but their skin color alone. Yet their skin color alone was enough to overcome every other physical indication that the women on the elevator were not a threat to anyone. In fact, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the two white women didn’t even see the clothing, age, or sex of the elevator passengers or think about the well‑protected nature of the luxury condominium in which they were all gathered: programmed by white society to react strongly to skin color, skin color was probably all they saw. It was certainly the only factor to which they reacted.

Perhaps one of the most distressing forms of everyday racism is white people’s denial that racism exists or has occurred in a particular instance. Persons of color are accused of being oversensitive “about discrimination, . . . ethnic jokes, ridicule in front of others, patronizing, [and] rudeness” (Essed 207). In other words, they’re accused of seeing racism where it doesn’t exist when, in fact, it does exist, but the white people exhibiting

or witnessing it aren’t able or don’t choose to see it as racism. As Banks observes, when you are told by your coworker that he doesn’t think of you as black, you know that he is trying to say something positive, that he intends to tell you that your humanity matters to him, not your race.

The underlying premise of such a statement, however, is that to be black is to be less than human (236). Then, of course, there’s the difficulty of always wondering if the white person who gave you a mean look or said something rude to you was being racist or was just having a bad day. The emotional stress of trying to cope with being the target of everyday rac‑ ism can damage the psychological and physical health of people of color because the effects of everyday racism are cumulative: “[o]ne event trig‑ gers memories of other, similar incidents” (Essed 207). Meanwhile, white perpetrators and witnesses of everyday racism might not even know that it’s occurring. As Philomena Essed points out, though most people believe that racism should not exist, “there is insufficient inter/national commit‑ ment to educate children, inform adults, and provide citizens with relevant information about how to identify racism, how it is communicated, how it is experienced, and how it can be countered” (204). 2. Interest Convergence—Derrick Bell uses this term to explain that racism is common in our country because it often converges, or overlaps, with the interest—with something needed or desired—of a white individual or group (Brown v. Board of Education 20–29). For example, racism is in the financial interest of upper‑class whites who exploit black laborers by paying them less than their white counterparts, and it’s in the psychological inter‑ est of working‑class whites whose own experience of being underpaid and exploited by wealthy whites makes them need to feel superior to someone else. In other words, racism has many pay‑offs for whites. This is why inter‑ est convergence is sometimes referred to as material determinism (Delgado and Stefancic 7). The desire to advance oneself in the material world—as we just saw, for example, the desire to advance oneself financially or to feel better about oneself psychologically—determines the ways in which the dominant society practices racism.

Even successes in the area of civil rights “coincide with . . . white self‑ interest” (Delgado and Stefancic 18). For example, as Mary L. Dudziak’s 1988 investigation of the U.S. government’s Cold War archives reveals, the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, to legally desegregate our public school system was, as Derrick Bell had argued amid much controversy several years earlier (Brown v. Board of Education 20–29), not an issue of ethics but of politics. It wasn’t altruism that led the Supreme Court finally to side with the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in a school desegregation case for the first time in history. Rather, “a flood of secret cables” and “letters

from U.S. ambassadors abroad” as well as “foreign press reports” (Delgado and Stefancic 19) all indicated that the United States desperately needed to change its racist world image if it wanted to compete successfully with communist countries for the allegiance of uncommitted Third World nations, many of which were peopled by nonwhite inhabitants (Delgado and Stefancic 18–20). It should not be surprising that many critical race theorists consider interest convergence one of the primary causes, if not the primary cause, of racism. 3. The Social Construction of Race—How can we define race as a matter of physical features when the physical differences between light‑skinned blacks and dark‑skinned whites, to cite just one example, are much fewer than the physical differences we often see among members of each group? (Delgado and Stefancic 75). Yet in 1790, the U.S. Congress restricted natu‑ ralization (the acquisition of U.S. citizenship) to white men, and this racial criterion, with only slight modifications, remained in effect until 1952. So over the course of those 162 years of racial restrictions the U.S. judicial system frequently had to decide, among its many applicants for citizenship, which men were white and which weren’t. Are Arabs white? What about people from India? What if a given country contains both light‑ and dark‑ skinned people? To complicate matters, over the course of our history some groups have “become” white, so to speak. For instance, during our nation’s early years, Italian, Jewish, and Irish people were considered nonwhite, that is, of the same status as African Americans (Delgado and Stefancic 76–77).

A look at the racial categories used by the U.S. Census Bureau between 1790 and 1920 (the census is taken every ten years) should show us rather clearly that racial categorization doesn’t reflect biological reality but rather the current beliefs about race at different times. For example, from 1790 to 1810, the Census Bureau designated the following populations as different races: (1) free whites, (2) all other free persons except Indians not taxed, and (3) slaves. From 1820 to 1840 racial categories were as follows: (1) free whites, (2) unnaturalized foreigners (foreigners who were not U.S. citizens), (3) free colored, and (4) slaves. In 1850 and 1860 we had (1) whites, (2) blacks, (3) mulattos (half‑white, half‑black), (4) mulatto slaves, and (5) black slaves. From 1870 to 1920 we had (1) whites, (2) blacks, (3) mulattos, (4) quadroons (one‑quarter black), (5) octoroons (one‑eighth black), (6)

Chinese, (7) Japanese, and (8) Indians. In short, our definitions of race change as economic and social pressures change (Ferrante and Brown,

“Introduction to Part 2” 115–16). The dominant culture claims that “races” are fixed categories, but our history shows us that race in this country has always been a matter of definition. And if you find these facts rather intriguing, consider that “[i]n parts of the Caribbean class has shaped racial

classification so that the richer one is, the whiter one is perceived to be” (Harding 219).

Throughout our history, moreover, many Americans have belonged to more than one race. However, until the 2000 census the Census Bureau did not allow Americans to check more than one box designating race, which since the nineteenth century has consisted of various forms of four racial categories—Caucasians, Africans, Asians, and Native Americans— to which it added, some decades back, “a fifth, Hispanics, who can be of any race” (Sollors 102). In fact, Hispanic is not a racial designation at all, though some people think it is. It’s an ethnic designation for Spanish‑ speaking immigrants from a number of different countries, and though the designation includes all races, most Hispanics identify themselves as white (Muir 95).

Given that so many Americans belong to more than one racial cat‑ egory, the government’s insistence, for more than two hundred years, on a single racial category for each person provides another illustration of how race is socially rather than biologically produced. That is, “the fact that everyone seemed (and still seems) to fit into a single racial category is really the result of the system of racial classification used in the United States” (Ferrante and Brown, “Introduction” 2). As a case in point, Naomi Zack observes that the way the black and white races are defined in America “precludes the possibility of mixed [black and white] race because cases of mixed race, in which individuals have both black and white forebears, are automatically designated as cases of black race,” and it takes only “one black forebear, any number of generations back” to define an individual as black (cited in Sollors 101–2). Moreover, in the case of mixed race nonwhite children (for example, the offspring of an Asian and a black parent or the offspring of a black and a Native American parent), during some years the census classified the children according to the race of the mother, other years according to the race of the father (Ferrante and Brown, “Introduc‑ tion to Part 2” 114–15).

Ironically, given the centuries of statistical contortions performed by the Census Bureau to classify Americans according to race, there is no biologi‑ cal or scientific evidence to support the idea that human beings belong to different races or that there is any such thing as “race.” As Prince Brown Jr. explains, [A]ll of the people in the world today. . . . regardless of their physical features readily exchange genes when they produce offspring. The variations in human traits . . . evident when we look at each other are anatomical and physiological adaptations . . . [to a] particular environment. . . . No particular set of traits is limited to any one group or “race.” . . . For example, while grey eyes are associated

with a light complexion, they do occur among dark complexioned people—as do brown eyes and black eyes. In the same vein, curly hair is associated with dark skin but we all know light complexioned people who also have curly hair. . . . [N]o particular set of traits cluster together to form one group or “race.” . . . [Rather] [s]ome people share similar traits . . . because they live in social isolation, which limits the availability of potential mates. . . . [That is,] [t]he social rules (customs, laws) of their society . . . prohibit them from mating with people whose features are different. (1–)

In other words, if a society’s laws or customs forced all people with fair white skin, curly red hair, and blue eyes to live in separate communities and prohibited their marrying anyone other than people with fair white skin, curly red hair, and blue eyes, we would have, probably within a few generations and certainly within a few hundred years, a rather large popu‑ lation of people with fair white skin, curly red hair, and blue eyes. Would we say that these people belonged to a separate race? I don’t think so.

From a strictly genetic perspective, [I]f humans could be grouped into absolute “racial” categories . . . [w]e would have groups of people unable to have children with any other groups . . . [and] [t]here would not be any differences between people in the same group. Instead what we find is that  percent of genes are identical . . . in all individuals regardless of the population to which they are socially assigned. The remaining  percent are genes which appear in more than one form. . . . for example . . . in the four (A, B, O, AB) different types of blood. That is, there is no gene for “race.” (Brown 1–) Indeed, the concept of race was originally introduced in the field of natural history merely as a convenient way to refer to groups of human beings in different geographic locations, not with the intention of separating human beings into physiologically distinct groups. However, by the nineteenth century, scientists were fixing these groups in permanent categories and claiming that physical differences corresponded to a cultural hierarchy based on biology: human beings, they asserted, belong to different races, and some races—in particular, the white race—are superior to others. It hardly seems a mere coincidence that members of the scientific community adopted this viewpoint at a time when U.S. citizens were struggling with issues of race and racial superiority, at a time when most white Americans believed in a degree of black racial inferiority that justified, in their minds, racial segregation if not slavery (Muir 98).1 Professionals in the natural sciences have eliminated from their discipline the concept of race as a biological category precisely because it is not a scientifically supportable concept. However, neither natural scientists nor anyone else has made any

“organized effor[t] to bring this rejection to the attention of schools, gov‑ ernment, general public, or even related disciplines” (Muir 102). 4. Differential Racialization—Differential racialization refers to the fact that

“the dominant society racializes [defines the racial characteristics of] dif‑ ferent minority groups [in different ways] at different times, in response to [its] shifting needs” (Delgado and Stefancic 8). For example, it suited the needs of white plantation owners before the Civil War to depict Africans as simple‑minded, in need of white supervision lest they revert to their

“heathen” ways, and as happy to serve white people. This mythical stereo‑ type helped justify, the plantation owners believed, their enslavement of

Africans. Later, especially whenever they were thought to be in competi‑ tion with whites for jobs, African Americans were stereotyped as threaten‑ ing, prone to violence, and, often at the same time, lazy. The logic of this one seems rather skewed, to say the least (how can one be threatening and violent if one is lazy?), but stereotypes are often illogical because they grow from prejudice rather than from reality.

We see the same kind of differential racialization of other minor‑ ity groups for analogous reasons. Depending on the historical moment and the needs of white society, Native Americans have been considered friendly and noble, lazy drunkards, thieving heathens, or bloodthirsty sav‑ ages. Similarly, Chicanos/as have been stereotyped as devoutly religious and extremely family oriented, superstitious and gullible, or lazy, good‑ for‑nothing freeloaders, depending on white society’s need to see them one way or the other. Chinese American men have been stereotyped as wise, fatherly guides for youngsters of all races; Chinese American women have been stereotyped as submissive to men; and Chinese American men and women have both been stereotyped as sneaky and treacherous. And although Japanese Americans are generally considered hardworking and trustworthy, during World War II they were seen as dangerous potential traitors and put in internment camps for the duration of the war. Ger‑ man and Italian Americans were not racialized in this manner, though the United States was also at war with Germany and Italy. Could it be that Japanese Americans were more vulnerable because they were defined as nonwhite? Could it be that Japanese Americans were more vulnerable because they had been financially successful on the West Coast and owned considerable property and other financial assets, all of which—including their bank accounts and the furniture in their homes—were seized by the government never to be returned, not even after the war was over and

Japanese Americans were released from the camps? Whatever the real motivation for Japanese American internment, the point is that, like all minority groups, they were racialized in a manner that served the per‑ ceived needs of mainstream white America.

5. Intersectionality—No one has a simple, uncomplicated identity based on race alone. Race intersects with class, sex, sexual orientation, political ori‑ entation, and personal history in forming each person’s complex identity.

“Everyone has potentially conflicting, overlapping identities, loyalties, and allegiances” (Delgado and Stefancic 9). For example, an individual may be a black, underemployed, working‑class male or a Mexican American les‑ bian. Such persons will suffer oppression from more than one source and often have difficulty knowing the reason they are encountering discrimi‑ nation in any given instance (Delgado and Stefancic 51–52). Am I being treated unfairly at work because of my race, class, or past employment?

Have I been fired because of my sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation? If I want to sue, on which basis do I do so if I can’t be sure on which basis I encountered discrimination?

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw offers an example that illustrates how eas‑ ily one’s intersectionality can result in one’s falling through the cracks of government bureaucracy and how dangerous it can be to life and limb when this situation occurs. Specifically, she examined what can happen when immigrant working‑class women of color are victims of domestic violence. In 1990 “Congress amended the marriage fraud provisions of the

Immigration and Nationality Act to protect immigrant women who were battered or exposed to extreme cruelty by the U.S. citizens or permanent residents” (358–59) they had come to the United States to marry. Formerly,

“a person who immigrated to the United States to marry a U.S. citizen or permanent resident had to remain ‘properly’ married for two years before even applying for permanent resident status” (359) at which time both hus‑ band and wife had to apply for the wife’s permanent status. To put a stop to the exploitation of these women, who accepted spousal abuse rather than lose their chance at permanent U.S. residency, Congress voted to allow for a waiver of the two‑year requirement in cases of domestic violence.

However, Crenshaw found that “[i]mmigrant women who are socially, cul‑ turally, or economically privileged are more likely to be able to . . . sat‑ isfy the waiver requirements” (360), which consist, for example, of reports from social service agencies, police, healthcare providers, psychologists, or school officials (359). “Those women who are least able to take advantage of this waiver—women who are socially or economically the most mar‑ ginal—are the ones most likely to be women of color” (360). These are women who don’t have connections in the United States besides their hus‑ bands, so their husbands are their only link to the outside world. They’re women who don’t know where to go for help and who might not even know that help is available. Because the 1990 waiver to protect immigrant women from domestic violence neglects to consider the intersectionality