Racial hoaxes (op-ed)
We all heard the famous prediction by W.E.B. Dubois that the problem of the 20th century will be the color line. He was half right. At the midpoint of the 20th century that line and its color codes were being dismantled world wide.
That took place a generation before my birth.
I was a child of the last quarter of the 20th century. I wasn’t socialized in the same racial climate as my grandparents and parents. I was assured by almost all adults that my times were better than before. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t experience slights due to my skin color, but whatever happened didn’t have any restrictive nature or preventive power.
I entered college as the 20th century was coming to a close. Globally the Cold War ended, apartheid in South Africa was toppled, and it looked like the major conflicts of the 20th century wouldn’t pervade into the new millennium. This was the climate me and my college friends were maturing into, but we still had our moments of adolescence.
One day a group of us were sitting around broke and bored. We had nothing better to do except conjure up pranks to pull and fast money schemes. Then a friend of mine, who recently bought a used car, suggested a way we can all get “paid”. He said if we busted up his car, wrote the N-word on it, and threatened a lawsuit the school would settle. He asked us to imagine how fast the news would cover a racial incident at a small Christian college with only a handful of black students.
We laughed.
Then we imagined ourselves being interviewed by the media so we began to exaggerate the racial climate on campus. One person mentioned the Confederate flag he notice hanging on a student’s wall. He joked, seeing that symbol of slavery made him feel uncomfortable. Of course, someone else mentioned being watched like a criminal in the campus store, and another person said whenever professors didn’t call on him in class he felt like Ralph Ellison’s invisible man.
We laughed hysterically because we knew the press would believe our tale and it would embarrass the school. Then we joked about being showered with sympathy from supporters all across the country, but that’s what ended all the humor -- the concept of pity on the poor black kids outside of their natural habitat. Our dignity overpowered our immaturity because we weren’t socialized to play the victim, and, more importantly, we knew the institution we attended didn’t deserve such a malicious charge against it.
I forgot all about this silly conversation that took place years ago.
But I was reminded of it by the recent discovery that September’s racial incident at the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School was a hoax. (Five black cadet candidates found racial slurs written on the message boards of their doors. The message said, “Go home N****R!” Then the academy’s superintendent gave a speech on tolerance with 4,000 students standing at attention.) As it turned out one of the five black cadet candidates wrote the message in an effort to get out of trouble he faced for previous misconduct.
The USA today reported this was the latest in a string of hoaxes around race, ethnicity, politics, and religion. Now, I know the amount of immaturity it takes to conjure up a racial hoax, but I can’t imagine the deficiency in dignity it takes to carry it out.
First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 11/15/17
That took place a generation before my birth.
I was a child of the last quarter of the 20th century. I wasn’t socialized in the same racial climate as my grandparents and parents. I was assured by almost all adults that my times were better than before. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t experience slights due to my skin color, but whatever happened didn’t have any restrictive nature or preventive power.
I entered college as the 20th century was coming to a close. Globally the Cold War ended, apartheid in South Africa was toppled, and it looked like the major conflicts of the 20th century wouldn’t pervade into the new millennium. This was the climate me and my college friends were maturing into, but we still had our moments of adolescence.
One day a group of us were sitting around broke and bored. We had nothing better to do except conjure up pranks to pull and fast money schemes. Then a friend of mine, who recently bought a used car, suggested a way we can all get “paid”. He said if we busted up his car, wrote the N-word on it, and threatened a lawsuit the school would settle. He asked us to imagine how fast the news would cover a racial incident at a small Christian college with only a handful of black students.
We laughed.
Then we imagined ourselves being interviewed by the media so we began to exaggerate the racial climate on campus. One person mentioned the Confederate flag he notice hanging on a student’s wall. He joked, seeing that symbol of slavery made him feel uncomfortable. Of course, someone else mentioned being watched like a criminal in the campus store, and another person said whenever professors didn’t call on him in class he felt like Ralph Ellison’s invisible man.
We laughed hysterically because we knew the press would believe our tale and it would embarrass the school. Then we joked about being showered with sympathy from supporters all across the country, but that’s what ended all the humor -- the concept of pity on the poor black kids outside of their natural habitat. Our dignity overpowered our immaturity because we weren’t socialized to play the victim, and, more importantly, we knew the institution we attended didn’t deserve such a malicious charge against it.
I forgot all about this silly conversation that took place years ago.
But I was reminded of it by the recent discovery that September’s racial incident at the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School was a hoax. (Five black cadet candidates found racial slurs written on the message boards of their doors. The message said, “Go home N****R!” Then the academy’s superintendent gave a speech on tolerance with 4,000 students standing at attention.) As it turned out one of the five black cadet candidates wrote the message in an effort to get out of trouble he faced for previous misconduct.
The USA today reported this was the latest in a string of hoaxes around race, ethnicity, politics, and religion. Now, I know the amount of immaturity it takes to conjure up a racial hoax, but I can’t imagine the deficiency in dignity it takes to carry it out.
First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 11/15/17
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