Black in Black

At long last, here is my post on accepted forms of racism. As this is a large, sprawling topic, I will focus on only one aspect of it.

We like to think that racism has become extinct in North America. As any intelligent person should know, this is simply and sadly not true. It is often said that, especially in Canada, racism is less overt. The particular phenomenon I am about to describe qualifies as covert because, as far as I know, no one has pointed it out.

What I am talking about are utterances often heard in the media (not the street) that are deemed humorous, but the logic is just as racist as something from a KKK pamphlet. I recently mentioned Will Smith, so I will use him as an example. More than once, I've heard various voices in the media exclaim that "Will Smith is not black" or other similar statements tending towards the same meaning.

Let us examine the logic of this particular statement.

First, to say that "X is not black", implies that the utterer knows what "black" is, regardless of his own race. The person clearly knows what black is, and demonstrates his disapproval by claiming that so and so does not live up to that status. Thus, before continuing, we must convict the utterer of essentialism, which is a crime in the 21st century. Essentialism (or essentialist belief) posits eternal characteristics to a thing or group. Thus, to say that "X is not black" means that all blacks have (or should have) the same characteristics and traits. By the same logic, one can say that "all women are x" or other similar statements. Essentialism ignores the manifest heterogeneity of any group.

This leads to a second problem. As I've mentioned already, any statement like "Will Smith is not black," which is merely a rephrasing of "all blacks are X," is essentialist. So just how is the person essentializing blacks? He is claiming that blacks have certain characteristics of which Will Smith is not possessed. What precisely are these? First, Will Smith is apparently not black enough. Second, for the most part, he plays stereotypically un-black roles. Similarly, he is not into guns, "bitches," and cars, as far as we know (if he is, it is not part of his public persona). Last but not least, Smith is fairly articulate and "nice." This reminds me of the film Idiocracy (funny movie) in which future rednecks accuse Luke Wilson of sounding like a fag because he speaks in the manner of a semi-educated person.

I will summarize my chain of reasoning. First, by saying that Will Smith is not black, the utterer of the statement has already essentialized black people. Next, the utterer is ascribing certain implied, unspoken characteristics to blacks, and we can deduce precisely what these are by observing what Will Smith is not. In sum, our utterer is claiming that blacks are very dark skinned and are (and must always) dress, act, and speak in a certain way (i.e, violently), otherwise they cease to be black. Blacks, the logic tells us, are not (or shouldn't be) nice; they are violent.

Therefore, our utterer is just as racist as any KKK member, but, of course, far less openly.

Personally, I'm disgusted with statements of this type. I find it refreshing that we have people such as Will Smith who are challenging racial and cultural stereotypes.