Blacklisted

In South Africa, there is a vibrant "colored" community that was positioned politically between blacks and whites by the apartheid government, in order to divide their non-white opposition. There is much debate in South Africa about what constitutes these colored people: their roots, the extent of mixed racial heritage in the community, their cultural history. But what is most interesting to me about this group of individuals is the extent to which their identity is influenced by the societally constructed extremes of black and white.

 Coloreds in South Africa, like many people in the United States, occupy a region of society in the proverbial gray zone. While their place in South African society was determined in large part by apartheid ideology, it is maintained by a lingering cultural identity that sets limits on what is acceptable and what is not. In many ways these limits are defined by the two extremes between which the community is placed: white and black.

 There is a common saying among the coloreds of Cape Town, which expresses their dual frustrations in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa: "During apartheid we were not white enough, and now we are not black enough." While receiving many privileges not afforded to blacks during apartheid, coloreds undoubtedly suffered much white racism in that period. Now, nearly a decade after the first democratic elections in the country, coloreds do not receive the same disadvantaged status that many blacks receive for social programs and aid.

 Yet the collective identity of coloreds, beyond their socioeconomic status, is what has been affected most by these policies. Not unlike many minorities in the U.S., young colored people speak of "acting white" or "talking white," a manner of speech associated with education and the use of by-the-book grammar, or even with being raised in a foreign country. I take issue with the whole notion of "acting white," here or abroad. What does it mean to "act like a white person"? (or, for that matter, to act like a black person?) I know lots of white people who can dance, and tons of black people who speak nothing but pure English.

 Of course we all perpetuate stereotypes, but do we honestly think we can reduce any particular human action to some amorphous comment based solely on race? By ascribing a certain style of speech or a particular way of dress to all members of one ethnic group, we severely limit the possibilities for members of that group who might deviate from the standard. In doing so, we place huge shackles on individual identity and force people into restrictive roles that may not be at all who they are. We unknowingly rule out a whole range of human experiences and prevent interactions that could take place, if only we were a bit more commonsensical.

 We see it all the time in the movies. Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins. Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen. The loud, arrogant black guy meets the mild-mannered, educated white man. Ha, ha. A perfect recipe for comedy. Why are these things so damn funny to us? Not only do they reinforce stereotypes about blacks and whites, but they place an increasingly firm wedge between whiteness and blackness in our society: what they mean, how they are perceived, and who benefits.

 The strange thing about the concept of "acting white," unfortunately, is that it often arises from within non-white communities. The constant portrayal of education and intelligence as "white" (and thus "bad") greatly undermines the pursuit of these goals in poor black (or colored) communities. Further, our eager acceptance of these stereotypical definitions for "acting black" or "acting white" infuses those who might deviate from the standard we have set with an overwhelming sense of loss and confusion--to be oneself means to have lost the part of one's identity associated with ethnicity. And in all of this we tend to buttress the idea that you don't need to take the time to get to know individuals; their race is all you need in order to stock, file and categorize them.

 The sad thing about this paradigm is that the vast majority of the burden lies squarely on the shoulders of minorities. Currently, because whiteness is such an amorphous, meaningless concept, losing a sense of one's whiteness means very little to most whites. Conversely, for many blacks, losing a sense of one's blackness (or the part of one's identity associated with that cultural heritage) is tantamount to self-destruction. This disparity in experience explains why raising educational and professional achievement in the black community will be such a difficult, arduous process. Even if we could ignore the fiscal disparities in education for blacks and whites, racism dies hard. Its impact on the psyche of black America dies even harder: the kind of affirmative action we practice now will not go much further in uplifting the millions of poor blacks in America's urban and rural centers. Their lives are set on an injurious path at a very young age, in part because of the little jokes we tell, the movies we support, and the social scenes we restrict ourselves to on campus.