It is unhelpful to completely tear down “the system,” Adams argues. (Photo Credit: Pixbay)
The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
In 2020, it is bold for me to contend that the majority of White Americans are not racist and that the majority of Black Americans are not victims of systemic or overt racism. As we craft solutions to heal the scars from slavery and segregationist policies, much of the effort depends upon institutions to reconstruct their policies and provide support systems for underprivileged minorities. However, I question the substance of many of the oft-offered solutions.
I have always wondered how we recognize individual Black Americans, both in the past and present, who have made significant contributions to their respective fields. George Washington Carver was an American agricultural scientist who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion, Frederick Douglass escaped slavery and became one of the most affluent Black abolitionist and statesman, Dr. Mae Jemison served in the Peace Corps and was the first Black female astronaut, and beloved Princeton professor Toni Morrison was a prolific novelist and essayist. In spite of the odds, they succeeded. But how was that so? If society is absolutely systematically against Black Americans, how did they succeed?
I question why Black Americans aren’t doing better, in spite of the solutions I consider very actionable, including increased job opportunities, school choice, funding for education, as well as police and criminal reform. We can always take the steps to reform policy and add social programs to aid a group that has been historically wronged, but I believe the problem is the broken culture of many Black Americans, which has been perpetuated by several factors.
Many perpetuate the victimhood mentality that Black Americans cannot succeed because “the system and white people are oppressing them.” This victimology has been dangerous for the Black community because it results in a belief that individual initiative will inevitably fail. This has been packed in the term “white privilege,” which argues that society benefits white people over non-white people. However, such a notion is challenged by data. For instance, Indian Americans, Pakistani Americans, Filipino Americans, and Taiwanese Americans each out-earned white Americans in 2017, and Asian Americans are 40% more likely to hold an undergraduate degree and nearly twice as likely to hold a graduate degree compared to White Americans. Furthermore, more than 43% of African immigrants hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is far ahead of White Americans and African Americans. This does not seem to fit the narrative of “white privilege” very well.
Society has a very distorted definition of “white” and “black.” Recently, I heard the term “whiteness,” which, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, refers to the way that white people, their culture, and their beliefs uphold the standard to which all minorities are compared. Customs and qualities deemed white include “rugged individualism,” “punctuality,” and “a nuclear family.” Of course, some of these traits were not conceived by so-called “white culture.” West Indian immigrants, for instance, share a proud culture of determination, hard-work, and self-reliance. Regardless of their socioeconomic position, there is a sense of resourcefulness, which pushes them to rise to the top. The Islamic Golden Age, which is characterized in part by a period of significant scientific progress, particularly with the development of algebra and enhancement of the scientific method, debunks the premise that scientific reasoning is considered “white culture.” There are a myriad of examples I could list, but it is clear that these qualities, being precursors for success, are not exclusively “white.”
Black Americans are scared of being perceived as “white” when they do overachieve. There are decades of news pieces on how Black kids are tormented as “white” for enjoying school. According to anthropologist John Obgbu, after writing “Black Students in an Affluent Suburb,” he received over 100 unsolicited letters from Black people explicitly attesting that they were teased as “white” by their Black peers for liking school, and their grades suffered as a consequence. This conclusion is further corroborated by a 1997 study by Clifton Casteel. This perverted culturalism is only perpetuated by stereotypical and counterproductive representations of “authentic” Black Americans and black culture as those living in the ghettos.
Since the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and more recently, George Floyd, racial tensions have been brought to the forefront of American debate. From America’s collective reactions, we have an issue, we are martyring criminals. Our society unreservedly “cancels” imperfect historical individuals, yet they actively glorify modern imperfect individuals. George Floyd was not a saint walking into a store with a counterfeit $20 bill. He was a criminal and spent five years in prison for breaking into a pregnant woman’s house and holding a gun up her gut as his partners in crime robbed the house. Moments before his fatal incident, he was reportedly high on fentanyl and methamphetamine, and he acted psychotically. I am not trying to vilify him, nor am I saying that the officers justified in his case. But, I am arguing against the instant martyrdom and reverence of a man with a criminal record. He should not be a role model for Black children (and tragedy of his death should not be equated to the Holocaust). We should instead celebrate individuals like David Dorn, a 77 year old African-American retired police captain who was shot by a rioter looting a pawn shop. Through glorifying felons like Floyd, we only further perpetuate the very stereotype of criminality and thuggery that we are trying to eradicate.
These reasons partially capture why there is a difference of culture between Black Americans and West Indian Americans who, in spite of being lumped into the same racial group in America, have outperformed Black Americans in several key ways. For one, 46% of Black immigrants from the Caribbean are homeowners, which is higher than Black Americans. Many landlords are also West Indian. Black immigrants from the Caribbean and South America have a median income of $43,000 and $53,000 respectively, which is higher than that of Black Americans, which is $35,000. 18% of Black immigrants from the Caribbean and 14% of Black immigrants from South America live in poverty, which is lower than Black Americans.
It’s hard to claim that slavery can contribute to the difference between African Americans and West Indians living in the United States today, since both groups’ ancestors were enslaved. West Indians are descendents of African slaves brought to the Caribbean islands, primarily under British rule during the 17th and 18th centuries. Once freed from slavery in 1833, a generation before the colonial American slaves, they worked—without white overseers—in sugar fields of the Caribbean islands. Later, many of the better educated individuals and families immigrated to the United States where some experienced overt racism. Yet, there the aforementioned disparities are trie.
I highlight these differences to encourage Black Americans to revive the sacred element of individualism and self-reliance for success instead of blaming the system. A belief in individual moral agency has been instilled in me by my immigrant relatives, and it has led me to think that accountability for conditions within the Black community, such as high abortion rates, crime, disproportionately high single parent households, and high teen pregnancy rates, belongs to the Black community itself.
Black Americans should fix a broken culture. The Black family is statistically broken. Black fathers are more likely to report having an out of wedlock birth than not. Among Black men, 72% have had a child out of wedlock, and 48% have had one in marriage. Abortion rates are significantly higher for poor Black Americans than their non-Black counterparts, even as Planned Parenthood facilities are stationed in many diverse lower socioeconomic areas. While erstwhile red-lining policies have been one of the catalysts for this familial disturbance, it has only been encouraged by the failed welfare system, which has marriage penalties and disincentivizes those who need welfare to work and get out of the system. In effect, children are more likely to drop out of school and commit crimes without the support of parents. These are things that can be changed by our determination and decisions. Black Americans should be confident to take it upon themselves to ensure that they can provide better conditions and take full accountability for these issues without relying on the government.
I am not writing to suggest that we should ignore attempts to properly uplift Black Americans given their historical suffering, especially with regard to education and poverty. Justice is due. Nonetheless, a culture of accountability and individualism should be reinforced. It is up to individuals to heal our communities. The system is imperfect, but we should direct our efforts to improving it instead of blaming it.
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