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181 6 Black Empowerment and Self-Help “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —James Baldwin, 19631 E R A S I N G T H E FA L S E image of black inferiority will require increased economic, educational, and political empowerment of blacks, and massive black self-help efforts, particularly in emphasizing the importance of education and limiting the use of racism as an excuse for not trying or for misdirected efforts. This chapter challenges us to break down false notions of racial hierarchy through a new emphasis on massive self-help efforts. By believing that failure is inevitably the result of racism, some blacks create the false and dangerous notion that their futures are out of their own control. As Debra Dickerson explained, “The last plantation is the mind, and . . . blacks can’t see that they have the ultimate power in post– [civil rights movement] America—the power to disregard the nonsense and refuse to be sidetracked from accomplishing what’s important. . . .”2 Indeed , it is this sentiment—that it’s time to stop blaming racism—to which Bill Cosby referred when he said, “Now look, I’m telling you. It’s not what [whites are] doing to [blacks]. It’s what [blacks are] not doing.”3 It is high time that blacks avoid playing the race card in error and accept responsibility for both their successes and their failures. This means change for many blacks who view their own destinies as out of their control, at least to some extent, due to white racism. This does not, however, mean ignoring the actual racial discrimination that continues. White conservatives like Rush Limbaugh accuse advocates of affirmative action of creating a culture of victimhood, yet those fighting such policies also have a tendency to play the victim. A classic example is the infamous 1990 television advertisement used by Jesse Helms in his North Carolina Senate campaign against Harvey Gantt, a black candidate. The 182 Ending the Paradigm ad shows the hands of a white man as he reads a letter rejecting him for a job purportedly given to a black beneficiary of affirmative action. A voice says, “You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt says it is.”4 Helms won a close race that political experts suggest turned on the ad’s effectiveness in convincing some whites, who otherwise would have opposed Helms, to vote against Gantt.5 The irony of the ad is that it revealed the tendency of whites to transfer responsibility for their own personal failures. All individuals—black or white—have the power to exercise significant control over their destinies in this imperfect world. It is this imperfection, however, that makes it necessary for remedial programs designed to reduce the harm caused by ongoing racism to target only those in need of a remedy.6 Avoiding negative racial presumptions by blacks and whites would represent a huge step forward in bridging the racial divide. Charges of bigotry must be avoided when race inequity is absent. And when inequality does exist, it is important to identify its cause. The tendency for some blacks to overestimate the role of racism is harmful .7 Political activist Jesse Jackson Sr. has been rightly criticized for his reaction to the highly publicized rape case involving the white Duke University lacrosse players and a black dancer, Chrystal Gail Mangum.8 After the accusations surfaced, Jackson immediately jumped to the aid of Mangum, eventually accusing the Duke players of wanting to act out a slavemaster fantasy with a woman because of her race.9 All of the accused men eventually had the charges dropped, and those charges were found to be baseless. Conservatives such as Professors Shelby Steele and John McWhorter believe that substantial numbers of blacks use racism as an excuse for failure and an entitlement for undeserved benefits.10 These academics believe that such blacks view themselves as victims of racism when, in reality, they are victims of their own deficiencies. Steele defines “race-holding” as “any self-description that camouflages a person’s weaknesses, insecurities, fears or inadequacies.”11 Race-holding, according to Steele, occurs when a black person uses race to keep from looking at himself or herself.12 He goes on to say that it is the tendency for black people to reject...

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