Shut Up and Dribble

 The reality of being a Black Man in America

Typologies, stereotypes, tropes, internalized racism, victimization, racial trauma -pick the word that best suits you. But regardless of the words you choose, they neither fit nor do they adequately describe what it entails to be Black in America. While normalization of these terms has resulted in static representations and niches such as the Black Entertainer, Athlete, Welfare Queen, and Criminal/Thug -none of these attest to the resilience, determination, drive, and realities that Blacks have created. But what they do accomplish is to preserve and protect the White racial impression of what it means to be Black. Further, to maintain these illusions, stiff penalties are rendered to Blacks who dare to step out of line. The repeated lynching of thousands of Blacks was essentially retribution for those who dared to step across the racial line and dare to be different.

The internalization of these stereotypes has obvious outcomes, as we have seen. Still, the less obvious reactions to these stereotypes by police and educators, judges, politicians, and everyday citizens have led to repeated tragedies. George Floyd and Michael Brown joined over 200 mostly Black men killed by police since 2020. (Raham 2021)  Unarmed Black people, in general, and Black men are more than three times more likely to be fatally shot by police. (Lett, Asabor, Corbin, and Boatright, 2020) Half of the 250 kids expelled daily from preschool are Black boys. (Novak 2023) Black boys lost an average of 132, and Black girls lost 77 days per 100 students enrolled, compared to just 21 days for their white peers due to out-of-school suspensions.   (Camera 2020) Not only are black Men more likely to be criminalized, but they are also more likely to serve 19.1 percent longer than their white counterparts for similar crimes. (King 2017)

Unfortunately, even during these challenges, Black males have been subject to over-policing. When Jack Johnson dared to not only defeat the Great White Hope but then to marry a White woman, he was quickly arrested, condemned, and even arrested for "White slavery" (carrying a woman, White, across state lines for sex. The fact that it was his wife did not seem to matter at the time. Or consider the case of Trevon Martin, who was killed because he was wearing a hoodie and was presumed to be a gang member. And the irony is that George Zimmerman was acquitted as the all-White jury agreed with this assessment.    

  

One of the strangest cases of misidentification was witnessed when Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested as he attempted to enter his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home by local police officers. (Pilkington 2009)  Even having the wrong hairstyle can cause police to overreact, as Clarence Evans learned. While playing with his kids outside his own home, Evans was accosted and forced against his car by a White deputy who mistook him for a suspect. Even after proving that Houston Police had wrongly targeted him, the police officials and union "saw nothing wrong with the encounter." (Miller 2019)

Strangely, as education and income go up, the intersection of race and gender demonstrates that if you are White or a Black woman, there is a reduced risk of discrimination and depression. However, the opposite is true for Black men, who are targeted as "dangerous, threatening, and inferior." Consequently, research demonstrates that these conditions lead to an increased risk of depression among higher-status Black men (Assari, Lankarani, and Caldwell, 2018) and boys (Assari and Caldwell, 2017)  

Being wealthy, or even one of only five Black Republicans in Congress, reports being stopped no less than seven times in one year for doing nothing wrong but driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood. (Vega 2016)  A scary conclusion reached by researchers reporting in the NYTimes reveals that Black boys, even from some of the most affluent families and neighborhoods in America, still earn less in adulthood than their white peers. More troubling is that Black boys from the highest economic group are likelier to end up poor, while White boys from the same tier are likelier to remain rich. (Badger, Miller, Pearce, and Quealy, 2018)

 

Student demonstrators, quietly sitting at lunchroom counters, were dragged away by angry patrons, hosed, beaten, and dragged away. All because they stepped out of their place and tried to cross the sacred line separating White and Black diners. (Bates 2019)  Martin Luther King, jailed for contempt of court for marching on Good Friday,  would write his manifesto "Letter From Birmingham Jail." (Brown-Nagin 2022) After sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest during the 1968 Summer Games. They were immediately banned from the U.S. Team and the Olympic Village. Death threats and jeers heralded their return to the U.S. Four years later, this time in Munich, track athletes Wayne Collert and Vince Matthews were punished because they "did not face the flag" during the Olympic ceremony. They were barred from Olympic competition because they were "Unquestionably…defiant". And in 1996, the N.B.A. suspended Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf because he refused to stand during the national anthem.   More recently, he was barred from playing professionally when quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the anthem at N.F.L. games.   (Johnk 2017)  And who can forget when Fox News Hosts Laura Ingraham rebuked Cleveland Cavelier's LeBron James to "shut up and dribble"? (Sullivan 2018)  

Among entertainers, Paul Robeson outspoken activist against lynching, was among the first before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949 for "propagating communism in the United States." The State Department denied Robeson a passport, and he was effectively confined to the United States and forced to do concerts across fences. More recently, the F.B.I., reminiscent of the 1960 COINTELPRO, aggressively targeted and handed down stiff criminal charges as prosecutors tried to disrupt and destroy this global movement after the police killing of George Floyd. (A.P. 2021)  

Historically, predominantly White legislative bodies have removed black, elective officials from office, effectively disentrancing their constituents.  These statewide bodies have punished the respective officials and denied their constituents their political rights.  These state-mandated expulsions have typically been for minor, if not manufactured, infractions, while the penalties have been severe.  In all cases, the sentences were more related to the political stance of the Black elective officials and not their minor offenses.  The first occurrence happened in September of September as 33 Black state legislators were expelled from the Georgia State Assembly simply because they were Black.  Similar expulsions would occur throughout the South, as in Reconstruction, the rising tide of black voters and elected officials were systematically disenfranchised and expelled from office.  The next major wave of expulsions would come 100 years later as the Modern Civil Rights Movement got underway.  Central Black elective officials such as Adam Clayton Powel and Julian Bond were either legislatively expelled or denied admission to the positions to which they were elected.  Again, the real losers were the voters from their districts, Harlem and Atlanta, who were legislatively disenfranchised.  This brings us to the present situation in Tennessee, where Republican lawmakers expelled two Black men, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson.  Though they were reappointed within days, the trauma was real, and they still must go through a special election.  All the while, they must remain obedient or else face another expulsion and their voters disenfranchised.

Through it all, Black men have been and continue to be active agents in creating their masculinities. And while none of them, or us for that matter, are perfect, we should neither vilify nor romanticize these identities. Black masculinities continually challenge the stereotypes as they reimagine, reproduce, and realign their identities.