"It's Time for Black Folks to Stop Trying to Be "Good" in the Face of Our Oppression"

"It seems that for folks like Agnew, one of the great lessons of the 1960s is that we cannot make white people love us by being "good" and mannerable in our resistance to oppression. Being college-trained and well-spoken, employed and law-abiding may — may — take you to the middle-class dream so many of us pine for. But what it will not do is protect you from the crushing white supremacy that is America's greatest national accomplishment. Though many of us seem to know this, we are consistently presented with messaging that would suggest otherwise. President Obama, for example, has made mention of the need for African-Americans to behave "well" or "appropriately" in the wake of the killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner. His imaginary cousin "Pookie" has become a symbol for the sort of black person who just can't get it together. But who has it more "together" than Henry Louis Gates — accosted by a police officer and accused of trespassing in his own home, despite being a distinguished gentleman and senior scholar who walks with a cane?...

Lemon took more umbrage with low-slung jeans than he did with police departments that have abysmal track records of police-on-black violence."

http://www.forharriet.com/2015/06/its-time-for-black-folks-to-stop-trying.html#ixzz3ebziRlxF