The narrative regarding people of color (POC) is outdated and needs to change. For too long others – read non POC – have told, written and documented the history and stories of marginalized people. Unfortunately, the version told doesn’t always paint a pretty or accurate picture. Text books along with news casts and media are not immune to this phenomenon. For example: U.S. History typically starts with the Puritans and the Mayflower not with the Indigenous folks who were already here. We’re told that American wealth was created by train barons or the discovery of gold and oil not on the backs of slaves. When you watch or read the news you can almost believe that African Americans are our country’s primary criminals or that most Latino Americans are here illegally. The common rhetoric of the day is long overdue for a paradigm shift – or remix if you will.
I grew up on the Northside of Minneapolis which has long been the predominately black neighborhood in the city. All during my childhood I heard stories about how bad it is to live there – poverty, drugs and crime were prevalent and your best bet was to stay away. It didn’t help that during the 80’s our state had some of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country or that there was a concentration of public housing on the Northside. As a youth, I could not rectify the stories or fears people expressed about the people in my neighborhood, even now I still can’t. The Northside was home to and gave rise to both Prince and Keith Ellison. My block was mixed – in the true sense of the word – there were black families (predominately) more than a few mixed tribe families (I’ve adopted the word tribe instead of race) as well as a Native family, a Jewish family and a handful of Caucasian families. We had a doctor, music teacher, city maintenance worker, public housing maintenance worker as well as a fireman living on our block. On the next block there was a gym teacher and a career Marine – both black. We were a hop, skip and jump away from Theodore Wirth Park – the largest Park Board park in what has become the best park system in the country. We were regular people – not the scourge of society that the media or statistics would have you believe.
When I left the Northside to attend college in Eau Claire, Wisconsin I found that the negative narrative extended and continued beyond my stomping grounds. At first I was appalled and then I became angry that people would believe that certain POC’s are all the same– the common narrative at the time would have you believe that all black folks were either welfare queens, drug dealers or pimps and prostitutes. I had to constantly explain to my classmates why I “spoke so well” because their image of articulate people didn’t include any that looked like me. That my “free ride” in college was based on my status as an independent student and not somehow unearned because I was black. Truth be told, I, like a lot of others from impoverished backgrounds, took out massive amounts of student loans to cover the expenses that our grants and families couldn’t. Like Audre Lorde who stated “If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive,” I had to constantly tell my own story – over and over to a disbelieving audience – who pegged me with stereotypes that simply didn’t apply. When I mentioned these experiences to the Director of the Multicultural Student Office she explained that “a majority of the student body come from homogenous backgrounds and the only exposure to POC’s are what they see and hear on television and in the media.” As well as asking that I “Do everything in your power to dispel the myths regarding black people as their interactions with you will be the narrative they have of us”. I knew then just as I know now that this was her way of explaining that to be successful we had to take three steps forward just so that we could be pushed back two.
That was almost 30 years ago and the narrative hasn’t changed much. In fact, it has taken on a whole new dimension. The myths and stereotypes have been perpetuated for so long that they touted as truth. Instead of just being considered prone to lawlessness we are lawless such that we are automatically suspect. A black man with a legal permit to carry a gun is considered dangerous as are black boys with toy guns and the only recourse is to shoot to kill. Henry Louis Gates Jr, a Harvard Professor was arrested after entering his own house because it wasn’t believable that he was a resident of a neighborhood a few blocks from Harvard Square. He became angry when police were called to his house to investigate a possible robbery and was arrested for disorderly conduct. During World War II West Coast Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps regardless of loyalty or citizenship. Executive Order 9066 which applied to those with “Foreign Enemy Ancestry” somehow excluded those of German or Italian descent. I first heard this story in High School but I was an adult in my thirties before I found out that the 442nd Regimental Combat Team that was comprised mostly of volunteers from the Internment camps and Japanese Americans was one of the first troops to participate in the liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camp at Dachau. The Navajo Code Talkers is another story that was not in my history books.
The narrative that marginalizes POC’s is changing but not without lost blood, sweat and tears. How many more Sandra’s, Philando’s or Tamir’s have to die? How many more stories will be left out of the history books and newspaper’s? How many glass ceilings have to be broken? When will the C-Suite of Corporate America look like the American population? When the narrative changes. Not a slow as evolution change but an in your face paradigm change. It is time for a remix. The Hip-Hop kind where an old song is mixed with new lyrics. Lyrics where the contributions of all, whether or not they are deemed good or bad, are part of the narrative. So that Madame CJ Walker is a household name along with John D. Rockefeller or the ideal of a terrorist includes Timothy McVeigh. The Clarence Thomas story as a member of SCOTUS or Michael Steele as the first black chairperson of the Republican National Committee should definitely be part of the Smithsonian’s African American History Museum and not excluded. America has a history of only telling part of the story and social media informs me that the official remix is happening before our very eyes. How long will it be before the recording is available to all and considered worthy of notice? After all Black History is American History, to continue to separate it is to do us all in injustice.
