Black Funeral of Michael Jackson

The black funeral of Michael Jackson

Though he may have transcended or "escaped" blackness in life, Michael Jackson was rendered fully black in death. And that says much more about us than about him.

This piece appeared in The Chicago Tribune on 7/9/2009

By Melissa Harris-Lacewell

July 9, 2009

Funerals tell us more about the living than the dead. It's why anthropologists often begin with rituals of death as an entry point for understanding societies and cultures.

I remember watching the funeral of Princess Diana. It was a perfectly British event: the poignant, silent march of her children, the bells tolling at Westminster Abbey, the red coat pallbearers. But I remember being taken aback as the car carrying Princess Diana's casket drove through the streets of London. I was surprised because at that moment the mourners began to applaud.

They'd stood for hours lining the streets and as the casket passed they needed to grieve collectively and publicly. Stiff-upper-lip British culture does not have a mechanism for such public grieving. There is no piercing death wail, no garment rending, no ceremonial dance. So, instead, the British applauded. That applause revealed the missing place in English life for public mourning. The death and remembrance of Michael Jackson has been an interesting window into American culture, its relentless cable news cycle, and the overwhelming but false sense of intimacy our celebrity culture engenders. But for me it was the peek into African-American culture that was most intriguing.

Within a week of Jackson's death I watched the avatars on my Twitterfeed turn from Iran-solidarity green to iconic photographs of Michael Jackson. But the photos were exclusively of "black" Michael Jackson: some from his childhood, some from the "Off The Wall" era, and many from the "Thriller" era. Few of my African-American tweeps were visually remembering the Michael Jackson of the past decade with diminished features and whitened skin. Memorializing Jackson included selective collective memory that allowed African-Americans to see him as belonging especially, if not exclusively, to black folks. Some African-Americans were incensed by the misogynist, racially stereotypical BET Awards that gave the first public tribute to Jackson. Many have been critical of BET as a cable network for more than a decade, and the tribute to Jackson renewed those criticisms. The contrast of Michael Jackson with Soulja Boy felt particularly stark, regressive and embarrassing.

Memorializing Michael Jackson renewed critical conversation about the direction of black music. Jackson's passing inspired memorials that reflected local cultures. My favorite was the "second line" in New Orleans, those who follow the brass band just to enjoy the music. But it was the massive funeral in Los Angeles on Tuesday that was most revealing.

Jackson was an international music icon and his memorial was covered on mainstream media. But it was black tradition most fully on display Tuesday. African-American death rituals have long been celebratory as well as mournful. As a marginal people whose collective identity is rooted in struggle, death is celebrated as a release from pain, inequality and torment. As a deeply religious people, death is celebrated as an opportunity for reunion with God. As a people who were often denied dignity in life, the dignity of a proper "home-going" is a critically important sign of respect. Along with these celebratory aspects of funerals, death rituals among African-Americans are marked by loud, deep displays of emotion and public grieving that mark the sense of loss experienced by the whole community.

All of these aspects of black life were on display Tuesday. And it tells us more about us than about Michael Jackson. Jackson's radical surgical choices largely eliminated his black phenotype. Jackson's romantic choices did not include black women. His wealth and eccentricities set him apart from most black people. In the final years of his life, his music was much more popular in European and Asian countries than among black American listeners. But in death, black folks embraced Jackson. Memorializing Jackson reminds me that death still is a segregated business in America. Funeral homes still anchor black neighborhoods and are a central path of black entrepreneurship.

Though he may have transcended or "escaped" blackness in life, Jackson was rendered fully black in death. And that says much more about us than about him. Agence Global Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, is completing her latest book, "Sister Citizen: A Text for Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn't Enough."

Racism at The Pool

This piece appeared on The Nation.com/Notion on July 9, 2009

For my daughter the moment came in kindergarten. Even though she was the only African American girl in her classroom, she made friends easily, adored her teacher, and was growing in confidence as a student. Then in May, just a few weeks from the year's end it happened. She and a little white boy were playing together at recess as they had done all year when he looked at her and said, "You know, I would like you better if you would take off your brown skin and put on some white skin."

It was 2008 and we live in a liberal enclave in the Northeast.

She was confused, hurt, and surprised when she told the story. She wasn't completely sure what it meant, but I could hear in her voice the creeping, sticky shame of inferiority. I sat listening with my stomach in my feet and a voice in my head screaming, "Not yet. It's only kindergarten. Not yet. Not yet."

I had a similar reaction when I first heard the story about the racism at a pool just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . A group of black and Latino children from Philadelphia's's Creative Steps Summer Day Camp were turned away from the predominately white Valley Swim Club because "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club." They were turned away despite the fact that the day camp paid $1900 and prearranged the swimming period. It appears the core resistance to the presence of black and brown children came from white adult members of the pool.

When I read the story I felt that familiar sick feeling that black adults have when we witness our children encounter nasty, old-fashioned racism for the first time. So many of us have these stories ourselves. Whether we grew up in black communities, mixed ones, or largely white neighborhoods, in the North or the South, urban or rural, we remember the first time. The first time we were called "Nigger." The first time a teacher explained "Nigger means black person." The moment our friends declined to invite us over because their parents didn't want us in the house. The first brutally racist joke whose punch line we still remember decades later.

Because we have these stories we suspect that a similar day of encounter will come for our nieces, sons, sisters, and grandkids, but we hope we can delay it. We hope it will be softer for them than it was for us. We allow ourselves to hope that maybe, just maybe, this generation will be different. We keep believing the doors we opened will stay open long enough for them to pass through unscathed. Then some racist, selfish grown folk turn our precious children away from a pool in the heat of summer as though their blackness is an infection that will spread through the water.

The policy advocate in me says its time to find a lawyer. It's time to collect evidence, time to call for a boycott, public demonstration, and letter writing campaign. Many in the Philadelphia area have begun those efforts.

The parent in me just wants to say ENOUGH. I hate that these young people will never forget the summer of 2009 because while their black President was addressing health care, and their Latina judge was being confirmed to the Supreme Court, they were being turned away from the white people's pool.

When the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 they cited evidence from psychologist Kenneth Clark's doll studies. The studies showed that African American children had a strong preference for white dolls. They attributed positive characteristics to white dolls and negative attributes to black dolls. Although the research design had serious flaws, Clark's study was crucial in convincing the justices of the deleterious psychological impact of white supremacy perpetrated through the segregation of children. These compelling data were important for demonstrating that separate is inherently unequal. Replications of these doll studies continue to demonstrate strong preferences for whiteness even today.

The slow, halting, backtracking, difficult work of dismantling white supremacy is not just about the law, although certainly law must be part of the effort. It is not just about the health of our national democratic project, although our politics will remain sick until we fix it. This work is about our very souls. It is about the deep and enduring damage that racism, segregation, and inequality does to the hearts and minds of human persons.

In 1903 W.E.B. Du Bois called the work of healing America's racism "our spiritual striving."

--this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.

There is a kind of happy ending to the Pennsylvania pool story. Girard college, a Philadelphia boarding school for low income children has given the kids a place to swim for the summer. I first heard about this story from a white colleague. Since the story started spreading through online networks hundreds of white men and women have contacted the pool to express their disgust and outrage.

Many black adults who carry the wounds of our childhood encounters with racism have gone on to live successful, meaningful, happy lives. We don't spend all of our hours fretting over the ignorant 6th grade bullies who called us "nigger." Many of us have stories of white allies and advocates who have been important in our personal and professional lives. When my daughter was hurt by her friend's racial comment, it was her white grandmother who held and comforted her. But the scars remain. The damage is real. And the racial distrust and division in our nation are cemented with these acts of racial cowardice and avarice.

We must be allies together in this struggle. Black and brown children need advocates of all races. The Philly kids needed a white adult at that pool to stand up for them.

Commentary: Racial progress is far from finished

June 5, 2009 from CNN.com

PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) -- America was proud of itself for electing Barack Obama. The pride was not just partisan and ideological; it was also specifically and clearly racial.

The morning after Obama's win, The New York Times declared "Racial Barrier Falls in Decisive Victory." The Los Angeles Times asserted that "for the first time in human history, a largely white nation has elected a black man to be its paramount leader."

Some black commentators openly wept on election night, thrilled with witnessing the election of our first black president. Even Sen. John McCain, conceding defeat, pointed to the greatness of the American promise fulfilled in the election of his opponent. Obama's victory offered the possibility that the scars of America's racial legacy were healed or, at least, that they were less raw.

For many African-American citizens, the election of the first black U.S. president was cause for celebration and open-mouthed wonder about an outcome that seemed so unlikely just two years earlier, when Obama announced his bid.

Despite this joy, many black citizens were dubious that his victory represented the destruction of any particular racial barrier.

African-Americans were both proud of and excited about Obama, but in the 45 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, black Americans had seen doors to power, influence and wealth open just enough to admit just a few without fundamentally altering opportunities for the majority.

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Indeed, responses to a recent CNN/Essence Magazine/Opinion Research Corp. survey indicate that black enthusiasm about Obama exists side-by-by side with deep skepticism about America's racialprogress.

This atmosphere of both enthusiasm and doubt has sparked discussion about whether we have entered a post-racial era in American politics.

It is a difficult debate, because the term "post-racial" is not clearly defined. Race itself is a slippery idea. Typically, we treat race like a fixed, unchanging, biological category. But race is none of these things.

Race is a social construct. Though it is based in physical traits, race is a category developed through social practice, law and history. As a nation, we made blackness through our politics, developing a category of people who could be enslaved and later segregated.

So when we talk of a post-racial America, we are not pointing to the massive demographic shifts that are unalterably changing the racial, ethnic and linguistic landscape of America. Instead, "post-racial" is an expression of social and political longing.

For most, this means an America free of racism and discrimination, but others seem to hint at a society entirely free of racial identity or recognition.

The idea of a post-racial America has been upheld as an achievable ideal where people would receive equal treatment and fair outcomes regardless of their race.

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It has been critiqued as an impossible dream unlikely to exist in a nation with a history of slavery and legal discrimination.

It has been denounced as an unworthy goal that would require black Americans to reject their cultural specificity and unique social and political concerns.

Undoubtedly, the 2008 election broke formerly entrenched racial trends. Obama was elected just as the depth and breadth of the American economic crisis was becoming clear. Some suggested that his victory could be explained by the nation's fiscal difficulties because he was the candidate of the out-party, which often wins when times are hard. But this analysis forgets the cross-cutting history of race.

When the economic pie shrinks, Americans rarely form multiracial political coalitions led by minority candidates. Obama's victory countered the trend toward racial balkanization more typical in tough economic times.

The changing dynamics of racial politics were further evidenced when Obama won both Virginia and North Carolina. In these Southern states and in many blue states throughout the country, Obama shattered the "Bradley Effect," often getting a higher percentage of the white vote than polls predicted. There was little evidence that white voters rejected Obama based on his race, and few white Democrats crossed party lines to vote for McCain.

For these reasons, Obama's win offers evidence of a post-racial American electoral politics. And if not post-racial, these data at least point to a much less racist American voting public than what existed 40 years ago.

Still, the election of a black president has not changed the material realities of racial inequality. African-Americans are significantly more distressed than their white counterparts on every meaningful economic indicator: income, unemployment, wealth, education, home ownership and home foreclosures.

African-American social realities are equally grim. Blacks are far more likely to be arrested and more harshly sentenced than whites. African-Americans are less likely to marry, more likely to divorce and more likely to live in single- parent households. Compared with whites, blacks are more likely to suffer infant mortality, cancer, diabetes and premature death.

Substantial evidence shows that the economic, social and even political gains made by African-Americans in the 1960s and 1970s have leveled off or reversed in the past decade in areas such as urban education, the number of black elected officials and the racial wealth gap. The murder of a security guard at the national Holocaust museum by a racist anti-Semite reminded the nation that old-fashioned, violent bigotry still has life in America.

These sobering realities indicate that race still vastly over-determines the life chances of Americans. These differences cannot be explained away by class alone, because most of these inequalities persist even when controlling for income. To be born black in America is still a tremendous disadvantage compared with being born white in this country.

Herein lies the challenge facing Americans in this new racial era. For much of the 20th century, the battle for civil rights rested on a belief that political equality would translate into social and economic justice. There can be little doubt that many of the substantive battles for political power and representation have been won. In that sense, Obama's election is the fulfillment of a post-racial political promise.

It is equally clear that this political arrival has not ushered in the other substantive racial changes that the civil rights movement hoped to achieve. In many ways, political equality is just the beginning of the process. The work of politics is to collectively craft the nation we want to have. The election of Obama does not indicate the realization of post-racial America, but it does allow us the opportunity to engage in renewed, collective questioning of what a racially just nation is like.

Having achieved so much politically, there is still real debate about how to end overt racism, structural discrimination and persistent inequality. Some want a country where the black kids don't sit together in the cafeteria, while others hope black kids being together will provoke neither comment nor anxiety.

Some want a nation where no one notices race, while others hope that their racial identity can be both recognized and appreciated. Some worry that eliminating racial barriers will only solidify economic differences, while others suspect that economic justice cannot be achieved without grappling with race. Some want the end of all inequality, while others simply hope disparities will be based on "merit" rather than race.

As citizens in a democracy, we can choose the future of our racial politics. Not all at once and not without struggle, but we can make new choices

And this time, African-Americans participate in the process of remaking America's racial story from a very different position than we have occupied in the past. Rather than being solely on the margins of national power, black Americans, through the person of Obama, have achieved a new kind of citizenship more empowered to recreate American race.

This does not mean black people have equal political or economic power, but it does mean that the election of Obama encourages black Americans to even more loudly and clearly articulate our varied aspirations for our country.

In November, we did a marvelous thing. Now, the work begins.

June 5, 2009 from CNN.com