The Tie That Binds: Identity and Political Attitudes in the Post-Civil Rights Generation

Chapter 4. Issues of Empowerment and Liability: The Moderates

Issues of Empowerment and Liability The Moderates Several strands connect the six students who hold more moderate political attitudes: First, all but one are solidly middle class; second,they have not experienced much discrimination; third,all but two attend majority-white institutions; and fourth, all point to the failure of both blacks and whites to solve racial problems. Of the six students, only one is from an urban setting, and three are from single -parent families. This group is the smallest among the interviewees , and, along gender lines, it is the most evenly divided: three women and three men. The individualist perspective dominates the views of these moderate students. While the racial group identities of most are strong to moderate, these identities are grounded in the more positive aspects of treating other blacks with respect and acknowledging a common history, rather than the negative aspects of discrimination. Three of the six feel that there is no black identity to speak of, and that it may be dangerous to attempt to define such a thing. The danger lies in reducing the black experience to stereotypes, exacerbating an already severe problem. Several of the students who grew up in the South worry about the way blacks are perceived by the larger public, and believe blacks should comport themselves in more socially acceptable ways. In sum, the views of these students represent the ways in which integration, education, and increased media exposure to politics and contemporary social issues have influenced the post–civil rights generation . 4  The Stigma of Inferiority: Pressure to Perform Marie Potter—Woodson University Marie Potter, a student from a large northeastern city, is a sophisticated young woman with a mature presence. She grew up in an allblack neighborhood,and attended an all-black elementary school.She is from a single-parent home, although her father is a strong presence in her life. Marie’s mother is a professional, and active politically and socially. Her father is also a professional, and, with her mother, has seen to it that Marie received exceptional educational opportunities. Marie attended a high school with a special curriculum designed to attract a diverse student body—a “magnet” school. This was her first integration experience. This high school had no formal grading system, which helped Marie to focus more on learning. At first Marie liked and was comfortable in this new school setting. As one of the few blacks attending, this began to change in her second year, when she experienced some “difficulty.” She was vague about the nature of this “difficulty,” but indicated that it was just a generalized feeling of not belonging. This is when she began to think about attending a historically black university, which indicates that her difficulty was racial in nature. This desire to be in an all-black environment emerged when “all my friends I still hung out with were the ones I knew from before and they were black. I didn’t get integrated into the population at the school. I didn’t get into any of the cliques.” In other words, Marie was not accepted as part of the student body, and her social life remained as circumscribed as it had been before she came to the school. The relationships she had formed with the black students in the all-black school from which she transferred sustained her in the new majority-white environment. This period in her life serves as a reference point when she comments on what she feels binds blacks to one another in ways that other groups are not similarly bound: We’re all in the same boat. We’re all here, especially at this university, to prove ourselves. To say that, “yes, we can handle anything that you throw at us and still come out at the same level as another person.” I  | Issues of Empowerment and Liability really have to be ten steps ahead of the people that I graduate with in order to be at the same level as them when I’m job searching. I have to have at least three or four work experiences. They just come out of Woodson with one internship and get that job. But I have to have a whole lot more experience and corporate background behind me to be in the same running with them for that position. Marie also feels that black identity is related to...