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Sublime & Ridiculous In Today?s Papers

Blogging may be a little spotty for the next few days (then again, it may not), since Helene and I are on the way to Pasadena to watch her receive her PhD at the Caltech commencement on Friday. (Then, as long as we?re there, we?ll stay in Calif. for a couple of weeks, culminating in my happily annual visit to a wonderful gathering Ward Connerly hosts every summer at the Reagan Library. Don?t worry; we have wonderful dog sitters at home.)

Anyway, I?m writing from Dulles, in a hurry, but wanted quickly to point you to two noteworthy items in today?s news, one sublime and one ridiculous. The sublime piece is by Dorothy Rabinowitz in today?s Wall Street Journal, ?The Alien in the White House.? No, she?s not a birther, and in any event the alienation she describes is much more profound than a mere accident of birth. If you can?t read it online, go buy a copy of the WSJ today. It?s worth it.

At the other extreme, Jonathan Capehart?s ?Rage: Why Obama won't and can't give you what you want? in today?s Washington Post is ridiculous. It appeared first yesterday online in a Post blog, PostPartisan, and even more ridiculous is the judgment of Post editors that it deserved space on the print OpEd page today.

?Let me ask you a question,? Capehart begins.

When was the last time you saw your black male colleague, especially if you're in a white-collar profession, show anger or rage in public? My hunch is never. There's a reason for that. African American men are taught at very young ages (or learn the hard way) to keep our emotions in check, to not lose our cool, lest we be perceived as dangerous or menacing or give someone a reason to doubt our ability to handle our jobs. Think of the emotional corset women in leadership positions are expected to maintain to ensure they never cry in public or show TOO much compassion for fear of raising the same doubt and seeming weak.

I will let others worry over whether portraying professional women in an ?emotional corset? is stereotypical sexist putdown (witting or unwitting) of women. My concern here is with Capehart?s argument that black professionals like Obama (and presumably Capehart himself) have in effect been crippled emotionally by the internalized fear that showing rage would provoke fear and hostility from a racist white majority. Not in the 19th Century, but now.

Quoting a friend?s email, Capehart dug his hole even deeper:

Black men, especially educated black men, grew up with images of non-violent protests in the face of aggressive policemen, consequences of actually ?displaying anger? like the Rodney King situation and are conditioned not to ?act out? in crisis situations. Even in sports, you see ?fits of rage? with black athletes, but even that is more controlled than, say, hockey, where if black athletes were to display that level of rage -- it would be called a riot!

If Obama were to display anger he runs the risk of Angry Black Man syndrome, becoming too scary or threatening to the public, immediately non-presidential!

I have to run now, but I?ll have more to say about this later. In the meantime, take a look at my discussion here of what some have called the ?post-traumatic slave syndrome,? with its reminders of the seminal work of historian Stanley Elkins on slavery.

SLAVERY [Elkins? book], likening the insitution of slavery to the Nazi concentration camps, argued that the peculiar institution was so brutal, and so total, that it transformed its subjects into the docile, childlike figures of Southern mythology, creating something he called a ?Sambo personality.? Much of the historiography of slavery over the past generation has been an extended effort, largely successful, to refute Elkins by stressing the success of slaves in creating their own culture, etc. In many respects the debate over Elkins? book foreshadowed the debate over Moynihan?s famous report on the problems of the black family, which he traced back to slavery. To a surprising and unfortunate degree, the ?post traumatic slave syndrome? sounds like a farcical reprise of a parody of the Elkins argument.

Also here:

Perhaps the most influential example of this phenomenom was the publication in 1959 of Slavery: A Problem in American Intellectual and Institutional Life, by the influential American historian Stanley Elkins. Influenced by the research of psychoanalyst Bruno Bettleheim, who had argued that Nazi concentration camps had ?infantalized? their inmates, Elkins argued that the institution of slavery, like the concentration camps, was so oppressive and so all-encompassing that it broke the wills and psyches of slaves, making the ?Sambo personality? real, not a figment of the imagination of deluded slaveowners. Elkins himself, by the way, was a liberal, and his analysis influenced many policy initiatives in the 1960s, not least of which was his friend Daniel Moynihan?s call for efforts to shore up the black family.

We knew we were taking some risks in electing Obama, but who knew that he was an emotional cripple?

More later...

Full post as published by Discriminations on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).