Are You a Credit to Your Race?

This “credit to your race” business is a notion concocted by an oppressive mainstream. What good do we do by yielding to it and stifling the personal freedom of black people?

A different standard

I asked in my post about RHOA whether white people were spending time agonizing over the shameful antics of the Bravo brand’s white housewives and their families. I doubt it. I don’t think white people feel the burden of the Orange County wives’ rude, dull and ambition-less adult children. I don’t think they read the shallowness of New York City wives as reflective of white culture. I don’t think all white people flinched when one New Jersey protagonist expressed the desire to open a chain of car wash/strip clubs. Nor will white people be judged by other white people based on the behavior of a bunch of reality show stars. Black people, of course, are judged by the actions of other random black folks–from Flavor Flav to Marion Barry to Serena Williams to Barack Obama. Our fortunes can rise and fall depending what black person is in the public eye and what they are doing. This is, of course, wrong and unfair. Why then, do black people join in enforcing this unequal standard?

Look, I am not naive. I am, unfortunately, evaluated by mainstream America not just on my own merits, but by perceptions of other black people whom I cannot control. The same is true for all people of color. But I feel strongly that the way to combat this problem is to aggressively challenge the biases of the mainstream, not to fold to injustice by playing behavior cop with my brothers and sisters.

I can’t be a credit to my race. I can only be guided by my values, my upbringing and my beliefs. I am a credit to myself.

What do you say?

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