Posted on 05/22/2003 1:05:55 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Stereotype, n., v., a simplified and standardized conception or image of a person, group, etc., held in common by members of a group.
One of my former students wrote the other day expressing concern for her son, a graduating senior at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale. Muscular, big and a fast runner, the young man has a college football scholarship.
The problem is that he carries a secret that, if exposed, will subject him to almost-certain ridicule: He loves and reads the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, he writes excellent verse and he wants to study English and become a poet of the non-hip-hop kind. I was told of his plight because mine was similar when I was his age, which I had shared with his mother and her classmates.
Like I was at 17, this young man is a victim of one of black culture's self-imposed stereotypes: dark-skinned black males are dumb.
As a teenager, I loved poetry and wrote verse about nature. I loved the woodlands and I spent many hours day dreaming as I walked and explored. Even though I observed the tiniest of activity and character and texture in my surroundings, my poems were mostly awful. After I shared a few with my male schoolmates and was laughed into embarrassment, I never tried to write another - even though my high school English teacher said my verse had "nice detail and honest emotion."
I learned then and there that boys like me just did not write nature poems. I was a jock and that was that. I did not fully cast off the black-male-is-dumb stereotype until my senior year in college when Mrs. Josephine Wesley, my English professor, called me into her office and complimented me for a term paper I had written on Robert Frost's poem "Birches." She liked my understanding of Frost's worship of "common objects" and "meditative sobriety," as she called it.
Mrs. Wesley helped me believe in my intellect and believe in myself as a person. I cannot imagine what would have happened to me if this patient woman had not entered my life at that time.
I do a lot of public speaking, and I run a foundation that attempts to nurture young black males. Each black male I meet needs a Mrs. Wesley in his life - a mentor who will transport him beyond the debilitating black-male-is-dumb stereotype.
But this stereotype extends beyond intelligence. Too many African-Americans, like most of the rest of U.S. society, also see dark-skinned black males as insensitive brutes. To avoid offending black men I do not know, I will discuss myself. Most people - black and white - who do not know who I am when they meet me for the first time are surprised about many things. One is my love of flowers. The other day, a colleague who came to my apartment to borrow a book praised my "landlady's gorgeous impatiens." Amused, I replied: "These are my damned impatiens. I planted them. I water them. I feed them." Embarrassed, she apologized, and lamely tried to explain that she had never met a black male who loved flowers. I told her that she obviously did not know many black males.
To the average reader, the above incident may seem trivial, but to me and many other sensitive black men, it represents a defining moment and a reason to worry. Sure, some black men will pretend that they do not care about such things, but they entertain such a notion at their peril. The prejudices that foster the flowers stereotype are the same ones that make us do a doubletake when we realize that the CEO of a major company is black. The same prejudices are at work when we automatically expect to see a black face in the news each time a violent crime is committed.
Why does Colin Powell incite such interest and awe among whites? Why do so many white people think they like him and would vote for him? Because he makes them feel comfortable by defying the old stereotypes about the black male. Fortunately, birth gave Powell fair skin and a fairly decent grade of hair. His environment gave him the blessing of good speech and easy manners, traits that defy the old stereotypes.
I discussed all of these ideas with my former student. What, she asked, should she say to her son about his desire to major in English? I advised her to help him find ways to avoid the stereotypes that will hurt him, that will cause him to play out society's expectations, that will automatically define him.
Majoring in English in itself, I said, is a good way to starting breaking away from the black-male-is-dumb stereotype. He can surprise the world and become a powerful force with his poems. He should ignore peer pressure, continue to read Gwendolyn Brooks, perfect his craft and publish his art.
It sure can, as American Airlines found out when one of its flight attendants said, "Innie, minnie, miney, moe/ Choose a seat/ we've got to go."
I meant the airline that was sued over the "Innie, minnie, miney, moe..." incident. Was that Southwest instead of American?
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