The Good House Negro

What does it say about our culture and the identity that we’ve put out of ourselves as Americans to the world when Al Queda leaders refer to our next president as “a house negro who does the bidding of whites.”

Is it to say that in the modernity of our world that still the most effective and offensive insult is to refer to blacks as house negroes versus field negroes? Is the world so aware of the inbred self pathologies of our country and culture that it knows that the hierarchy of color card is still the best hand to play to incite us? Does the world still see us as the backward racist country that founded itself on slavery and built its freedom on the blood and backs of black Americans? These were all questions that I asked myself this morning, as I watched the crawl at the bottom of the screen during my morning news. It would be laughable if it didn’t get the kind of attention that it will undoubtedly get. The very fact that I’m writing about it validates the insidious nature of such a comment. The fact that it is wholly inappropriate, totally ridiculous and utterly inflammatory aside, I heard it loud and clearly this morning and here I am writing all about it.

As is the case with many of the things that I experience I parallel it to my own life, my own experiences. Sadly I can understand why they thought that the comment would be effective, though I completely denounce (lest it sound like agreement) what was said and truly find it disgusting. I can’t pretend that it didn’t work, if only just a little. I do not consider myself militant, I may be called passionate by those who know me well, but I can’t say that I walk around with an afro or with a fist in the air while sporting my Huey Newton t-shirt. I do however actively admit that I’m more racially sensitive as I grow older than I have ever been before. Not because I believe that more racism exists, but because I believe that more of it is tolerated and what scares me more, more of it is believed by those it is perpetuated against.

I am more than a little curious why he chose “house negro”. The spot reserved for blacks, that weren’t too black and wouldn’t be considered offensive to have to look at daily. Whose milder and lighter skin was more palatable to the white supremacist class, the enslaved that were often the progentry of the ruling class? There are countless reasons why that particular term was levied at Obama, and none of them are lost on me. So when comments like “good hair”, “uppity”, “house negro”, “step and fetch” are made, I tend to react in ways that now surprise me. Becoming a mother has changed much of my view on the world. Becoming a mother to inter racial children has made me more conscious of the messages and signals that we send our children. When my nephew, who happens to be portuguese and black asked his mother, my sister, if God was white, since every picture he’d ever seen of Jesus was of a blond haired, blue eyed version that looked nothing like him and logically that if the son is, than the father must be, I was appalled, understanding but appalled. Until she said what floored me and almost brought me to tears, which was that his question was followed by, I guess it’s better to be white, since we learn that everyday we’re too be more like Jesus. My sister by the way has a master’s degree in education and counseling, and is the CEO of a consulting firm that handles diversity and inclusion for school systems. To say she knows and understands the effects of inbred self-loathing is an understatement. But there she was explaining to her son that by no means does being like Jesus mean that you have to want to be or that it was better to be white.

And then we come to this morning. Where that very card was played across an international stage and I wonder honestly what should offend us more. The statement or our own complicity in its effectiveness?