Subscribing to this mindset means constantly modulating your own behavior while goalposts continue to move. We also know that it still doesn’t and never will work. The insidious nature of White supremacy seduces its victims into thinking “if I could just do better, look better, _____ better, then I’ll be fine,” while never challenging the system and those who facilitate and benefit from its perpetuation.
The painful truth is that one can dress like Fonzworth Bentley, write like Toni Morrison, and speak with erudition of Michael Eric Dyson and still die from simply being Black and breathing. You can never be “perfect” enough. Being among the best dressed on campus didn’t stop a tall Black male colleague of mine at another institution from being suspected by campus police of being an escaped inmate, despite being a tenured faculty member. Neither my suit nor my degrees saved me from being once assumed too incompetent to have written a program report myself. (Note: I did.)
We know that White supremacy permeates every aspect of society, from our politics, to our criminal justice systems, everyday interactions, and yes, even our most enlightened institutions of higher education. To challenge it, we must stop kowtowing to appease those who will likely find us inferior and subhuman regardless of our speech patterns, hairstyle or choice of attire. We have far too many examples to remind us that no such affectations will save us from racism. With this realization, we might as well live our fullest lives and be our most unapologetically Black selves. This, in itself, is a form of resistance.
With this in mind, the students in my Black male programs will continue to wear their suits, blazers and dress slacks. Not as a survival technique to make themselves seem less threatening, but because they actually want to wear them. I can only hope that they won’t fall under the deception of believing that their nice threads, or speech patterns, or level of education, etc., will render the real “threat” of their Blackness invisible.
Article Appeared @http://blackstarjournal.org/?p=4942