Nobody, but nobody, has broken it down this precisely.
So I must say I have been amazed this weekend to find out all of the mystical magical things that can happen if black people pull their pants up. Have you heard about this? It turns out we can change the world, we can make miracles happen on earth by pulling our pants up.
Y'know the Sci-Fi movie Dark City where every night the whole architecture of the city starts moving and changing around? Well, apparently, that happens in real life whenever a black man pulls his pants up. For Real. As soon as you do it you're whole neighborhood start changing all around you, suddenly there are all these well funded schools and public resources and affordable housing, it's incredible.
Whenever a black man pulls his pants up the very inner workings of the cosmos re-align in his favor, and I know that's hard to believe, I know most of you won't believe, but to me, that's what so beautiful about the Politics of Respectability. The way it lets you know that even in this jaded, cynical world, there are still some people out there Who Believe in Magic.
And in case it's not clear I'm talking about Don Lemon's advice to Black people for "fixing their problems", and I'm being sarcastic because his advice was Fucking Terrible ©.
I mean, the thing is there are two types of advice that people give you. There's advice that you give to try and help someone with their problems, and then there's advice that you give to make yourself feel better about not knowing how to help them with their problems.
The difference is all in the context.
Like if you tell someone to someone to brush and floss their teeth everyday generally speaking that's "good advice" but... if you're talking to someone who just lost their teeth because they got punched in the face in that context your advice is Fucking Terrible ©. And that is what Don Lemon did this week. And it's how Respectability Politics functions in general.
You're handing out advice that's valid in the abstract but totally useless in context. Advice that serves not to help another person with their problems, but instead to implicitly blame that person for their problems, so that you can feel better about seeing them have problems. That is the function of Respectability Politics.
It's function is not to help those young black men that we walk by on the street. It's function is to help mollify our shame that we project onto those young black men when we walk by them on the street. Our Shame. Our petty superficial shame that all too often comes from us internalizing the same racism that's really causing their problems. That is the function of Respectability Politics.
I would say it's "A tangled web we weave", but I don't think Don Lemon wants us to talk about weaves.
I don't mean to make this all about him, I feel bad to come at Don Lemon like this, because I've always respected him up until now. And I don't know that he is manifesting internalized racism, but he is feeding into a mindset that encourages it.
And when he tells us that his rant about saggy pants and littering and no-wedding-no-womb was just common sense advice that everyone should hear, he's willfully ignoring the context in which he spoke. Don Lemon did not drop all that Uncle Ruckus Life Coaching into a vacuum, he dropped it into the middle of a national conversation about the death of Trayvon Martin. About how he could be killed, about how his killer could go unpunished and let our children have to go out in the world knowing that they could be next because our system is not setup to protect them.
And when Don Lemon comes into that conversation going on about saggy pants and the N-word he's making about as much sense as Steve Carrel saying "I Love Lamp."
Black children and Black single mother's are not the problem. Your frivolous thinking condescension does not help any of them with their problems. All it does is help you medicate your shame, your middle class cringe, that you feel when you walk by them. That is not their issue, it is your issue, and it has no place in this conversation.
What's really frustrating to me is that the biggest silver lining, the biggest hopeful sign we've had in this past month is all of the positive clear sighted righteous energy that's coming from our youth, that's coming from the Trayvon Generation. When I look at the blackyouthproject.com and the dreamdefenders.org I see our children already starting to climb that mountain while you're still yelling at them to get off your lawn.
And that is why I wish we could let go of that Respectability Politics. Stop being the Brick Tamplin of the national race conversation and start supporting and standing by that Trayvon Generation that has already started showing us, the way forward.
I'm out.