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Clemons and Cooper
Activist Enola Aird hopes for “emotional emancipation for black people” in the coming decade. But first black communities will have to work hard to erase 400 years of “brainwashing” by a “myth of black inferiority.”
That was the message of a CTV Black History Month special aired Thursday night. Four panelists conversed for an hour on the topic “Stereotype Threat is Real, But Its Effects Don’t Have to Be.” The discussion explored the origins, effects, and possible solutions to the powerful stereotypes that perpetuate racial inequality.
The panelists were Erik Clemons, executive director of LEAP; Randall Horton, poet and University of New Haven English professor; and Camille Cooper, director of the School Development Program. Aird, founder of the Community Healing Network, was the moderator. The special was the latest installment of 21st Century Conversations, a program produced by the OneWorld Progressive Institute.
Panelists agreed that a more equal society is possible, if black institutions and families can work to undo the crippling damage of racial stereotypes.
As for the post-racial order that the U.S. supposedly has entered with the election of President Barack Obama? “We’re not going to let them get away with that,” said Aird. “We have to deal with the whole brainwashing thing before we move on to the post-racial.”
The “Brainwashing Thing”
Horton and Aird
The “brainwashing thing” refers to the argument of a new book by marketing expert Tom Burrel called Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority. Burrel argues that a centuries-long media campaign dedicated to projecting negative and demeaning images of blacks has led generation after generation to internalize the “myth of black inferiority.”
The book’s thesis served as a jumping-off point for Thursday night’s discussion. Panelists analyzed the way that negative stereotypes and brainwashing affect many aspects of black life, including parenting, education, pop culture, standards of beauty, community development, and what it means to be a man.
“Brainwashing” is being convinced that “everything that is us is ‘less than,’” everyone else, said Aird.
Consider the “epidemic of violence” that plagues black communities around the country, offered Aird. “What explains the carelessness for the way people treat each other?” she asked. Why is the community not “incensed?” How did people get “so desensitized” to the seemingly endless violence?
A possible answer: Brainwashing. “It’s convinced the world and us of our subhumanness,” Aird argued.
The panelists offered their own examples of problems caused by black stereotypes. Take masculinity, for example. Horton said that black men are taught that they must wear a “mask” of toughness. It’s an image that’s been “commodified in certain ways” by media icons who exploit that stereotype to make money.
Clemons agreed and argued that the black community needs to rebrand what it means to be a man. “Being brave is staying home and doing what you’re supposed to do,” like raising your family, rather than going out in the streets to act tough, he said.
Defeating the Stereotypes
The panelists argued that the power to combat the pernicious effects of these stereotypes lies largely in the family. They took turns giving advice to parents on how to defeat the stereotypes. Clemons said that black parents need to convince their children that they can be anything they want to be. Parents’ “behavior should affirm it as well,” he said.
Aird added that black children need to see their parents in positions of power within their communities, rather than “always looking to others to solve our problems.”
Cooper said that parents can empower their children by encouraging them to exceed at a hobby, no matter how small, so that kids “get the feel of being successful.”
And Aird argued that parents should be more attentive to helping their kids process racial representations in the media and elsewhere. Horton agreed. Black parents “have to continue to beat [the kids] over the head with good images,” he said.
The panelists contended that the education system has a long way to go if it’s to help thwart the hegemony of negative stereotypes. Clemons said that while the “vast majority of teachers” do not “intentionally affirm the brainwashing,” it happens in schools anyhow.
Aird said that for many black college students, it constitutes a “mental health challenge” to make it through predominantly white learning institutions. Cooper added that it can be done successfully, but with “a lot of support.”
Role Models
One potential source of support is a role model with a gripping life-narrative of struggling against the odds to achieve, like Barack Obama or Oprah, said Cooper. Clemons said that a more potent source of inspiration is that of “a community image” of success, like the panelists themselves, rather than “a global image,” like the first black president.
Clemons, who works with young people as director of LEAP, a leading New Haven youth program, described the experience of bringing 30 students to the Lion King on Broadway and seeing their faces light up when watching the play.
“Something happens to you” in those moments when you recognize that the “consciousness of a young person” is heightened, he said. “We need to expose our children to far more than their surroundings,” said Clemons, seeing as many young people in New Haven rarely leave the city.
What would the post-brainwashed world look like for New Haven young people, like Clemons’s students?
Cooper said that she would want to see more non-violent conflict resolution. Horton hopes to see “more of a community.”
For Clemons, “It’ll be a different rhythm of the world.”
People will “walk different, talk different. Everything will be different,” he said.