Race and the Devaluation of Black Lives in America

The end result is a racial justice movement in 2019 that, in many important ways, is still seeking to answer the same questions of framing and tactics as those of previous generations. The deaths of African Americans at the hands of predominantly white law enforcement officials nationwide constitutes a form of ‘legalized lynching’ that has been noticeably on the rise—or, at least, increasingly well-documented. The usual attacks on the victims’ characters as delinquents, violent, aggressive and stubborn faithfully echo the justifications given for anti-black violence in previous generations. Despite graphic evidence of these killings, the situation has continued unabated in a manner difficult to imagine had the victims been white citizens. The representation of black victims as violent continues to prove deadly, and the pro-black movements of the day are still fighting to counter this public perception.

Separate, but still related, is the concept of respectability politics. Respectability politics characterized American race relations as far back as the nineteenth century, and still rears its head in contemporary discourse on interracial interactions. Respectability politics refers to the idea that non-white minority groups need to exemplify good behaviour and economic ability in order to be taken seriously by the white majority. Debates around respectability politics were common in the early black liberation movements, and the idea was central to some pivotal decisions. One example was the rallying around Rosa Parks’ case for the Montgomery Bus Boycotts rather than other women who were more easily vilified by a white audience. This debate continues today. For instance, Black Lives Matter rejects respectability politics, noting that victims with chequered pasts are no less deserving of justice and fairness. Nonetheless, there is still tremendous pressure, from White and Black Americans, for black people to behave correctly in order to have their basic needs met. This is most recently evident in the media reaction to several black girls who have stepped forward with testimonies about their sexual exploitation by an internationally acclaimed R&B singer, R. Kelly. Despite numerous allegations of child pornography and sexual misconduct over the years against the perpetrator and cries for help by the victims’ families, these girls face shame and dismissal for not being ‘respectable’ black victims and their families, rather than the alleged perpetrator, are heavily castigated.

So, what is to be made of the continuity of certain themes in centuries of black liberation movements in the United States? It is obvious that despite progress in several areas, negative representations of blackness in the American consciousness continue to be a problem. However, three books on the social construct of blackness and whiteness in modern American society explain not only the past, but also the conceptions of black criminality and expendability that are very much present today. The three books are At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance by Danielle McGuire; Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida by Tameka Bradley Hobbs; and From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton. From these sources, it is obvious that the racial oppression of black people will likely continue for generations to come so long as American perceptions of black inferiority persist unrestrained.