SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN

by Malik Isasis
















What does it mean when white folks say that black folks are articulate? It means that those white folks’ expectations of black folks are not high.

Delaware Senator and presidential candidate Joseph Biden stuck his foot in his mouth on January 31, 2007 when he said of Barack Obama:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Senator Biden's comment was offensive and just inaccurate. The late African-American congress woman, Shirley Chisom was clean and articulate; Activist Reverend Jessie Jackson was clean and articulate; Activist Reverend Al Sharpton was clean and articulate, Activist Alan Keyes was clean and articulate, former congress woman Carol Moseley-Braun was clean and articulate--by the way, I’ve never seen the word ‘articualte’ and 'clean' used for white politicians before.

In Senator Biden’s world, he clearly meant his statement as a compliment, which leads me to logically conclude that Senator Biden believes that black people are intellectually inferior to whites. Mr. Biden’s white supremacist upbringing allows him to justify the belief that black and brown people are lazy and dumb. Mr. Biden isn’t alone. White supremacy is the default setting in American culture. It is the founding philosophy of the United States.

What is white supremacy?

White supremacy is an historically based institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent for the purpose of maintaining and defending systems of wealth power and privilege.

The most common mistake people make when talking about racism, white supremacy is to think of it as a problem of personal prejudices and individual acts of discrimination. They do not see that it is a system of interlocking reinforcing institutions—political, economical, social, cultural, legal and military, educational--all our institutions. As a system, racism affects every aspect of life in a country.

These institutional tools are used wittingly or unwittingly to oppress both black and brown, which statistics bear out in healthcare, incarceration and infant mortality rates. The media’s disconnect and seemingly hostility toward people of color--say Mexicans or Muslims, is a result of white supremacy, which is also described as a normalization of oppression, that is to say, dominant culture’s assertion that the oppressed are in their social strata because of their natural ability. Kendall Clark articulates this well:

“If you can convince everyone, but especially members of the oppressed group itself, that the way things are is natural or inevitable or unavoidable, people will be less likely to challenge the way things are.”

Any charges of institutional racism or white supremacy are strongly denied by the media establishment.

Racism is the emotional and intellectual default position of this country. It’s the inheritance from the founding fathers and has been passed down from generation to generation like a family heirloom.

An insightful article on Borat by Adam Doster, illustrates this default position.

It’s interesting to see, usually white pundits and news analysts discussing race in the absence of people of color, rather than emphasizing the underlying causes, they, the pundits and analysts tend to focus on the symptom—simply put: they come in like hazmat teams and cordon off the racist act and individualize it to the offender, and then marginalize the systemic, institutional racism that is epidemic within American society.

White supremacy is used to justify violence and marginalization; it gives the false sense of knowing a culture and breeds contempt. Racism no matter how cute and fluffly it comes packaged, dehumanizes. When you dehumanized a people, it is quite easy to destroy them. White supremacy is at the root of American foreign and domestic policy, which explains both Baghdad and New Orleans.

Referring to a U.S. Senator who graduated from Columbia and Harvard University as 'articulate' distracts and minimizes conversation. It's condescending and not far removed from its ancestor, "You're a credit to the race."

What is the difference?

Barack Obama was right in correcting Joe Biden's misreprensentation of past African-American presidential hopefuls. They were all very clean and very articulate.

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