Under The Sun: The Death Of Respectability Politics.
“I just put diamonds on all of my teeth
Now they probably think I ain’t intelligent” Under the Sun, by Dreamville & J. Cole, DaBaby’s verse.
The first time I heard this song was a revelation. I am reluctant to look up the liner notes, to see if they sampled Lil Wayne’s Let The Beat Build, because I like thinking they did. Cole murders his verse, then Lute comes in and does damage, but the star of the song is DaBaby. He starts his verse off with “I just put diamonds on all of my teeth/Now they probably think I ain’t intelligent…” and I was transported to my childhood growing up in an all-white suburb of Minneapolis. The scars of segregation and a rapid integration still fresh on both of my parents. There were many offenses in my childhood home that could induce a spanking, but embarrassing my parents in front of white people was at the top of the list.
You see white people had/have very delicate sensibilities, back then and now. Wearing baggy clothing can cause a white person to clutch their pearls. Speaking AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) is another stimuli that can cause white people to devolve into their feelings. Dreadlocks like Bob Marley are always acceptable, because it makes white people remember their dorm room where they had a poster with his image on it. They feel safe with Bob Marley like dreads, but anything else makes them feel uneasy, especially corn-rows. Yet, corn-rows are a must for any young and modestly attractive white woman, who spends even a second in the Caribbean to let everyone know they were worldly and cultured, because they had been overseas. Soul food also can be triggering to white people. In fact, a small black boy walking down the street, by himself, was enough to trigger some white people to cross the street or clutch their wallets or purses.
Growing up their were a number of ways I could embarrass my college-educated parents in front of white folk. My parents and grandparents always made sure their houses were spotless. All of my aunts and uncles’ homes smelled like a combination of bleach and Pine Sol. I guess, during their day white people would say that black people were dirty and it was my parents' generation and the generation before them that vowed to combat that lie. When I was coming of age in the early to mid 90s white people were now believing falsehoods about affirmative action. Classmates would state that I am only getting in to this or that college, because I am black. I would retort, the only reason you are not getting into college is because you are a lazy and inept.
I graduated high school in 93, went to college in rural Iowa, and in 94 I grew out dreads. For my parents that was the equivalent of putting diamonds on all of my teeth. Yet, for the first time in my life I had achieved a 4.00 GPA. I got the dreads over the summer, much to my parents’ dismay. We belonged to a white church, where my father was on the board. My dreads embarrassed my parents in front of their white church-going friends, despite my intelligence. This resentment towards my dreads was so consuming, they funded a trip to Europe for me, so their white church-friends would not have to see me.
Even with my dreads my grades continued to rise. It was now 95 and the new students who were thinking about visiting the college, in rural Iowa, saw a black man with dreads. This blew their minds. For many people I went to college with, I am the first and only black person they know. Even today, I will scour their Facebook friends’ list to see how many black friends they have. In most cases, I am their only black friend. However, that is not uncommon. 40% of white people have zero black friends. The average white person only has one black friend. The average black person has eight white friends. As the great humanitarian and attorney of our time, Bryan Stevenson, has noted: we have a proximity problem. Powerful and rich white men have never wanted us to be friends, because if we were friends their lies about my intelligence would ring hollow.
As an attorney, I wear a suit and tie. I take great pains in my appearance, well I did before Obama became President, after Obama became President I can honestly say I care very little about my appearance. I would submit, that my appearance should matter even more. I go to court. I attend Phoenix City Council Meetings, where most, if not all, the members of the Council know me on a first-name basis. Various elected officials call me from time-to-time seeking my advice. I get invited to events, where powerful and well-monied individuals hold court. Yet, despite this adjacency to power, I dress horribly now, because of Obama.
As Ta-Nehisi Coates has stated several times about President Obama, he was a brilliant and handsome black man, married to an equally brilliant and beautiful woman, who together had two brilliant and beautiful daughters, and that gorgeous dog Beau. This family has attended the best schools in America. President Obama and Michelle Obama are best-selling authors. Barack Obama achieved the presidency, and yet a large and vocal section of America see him as nothing more than a nigger. It does not matter that he is perhaps the greatest orator we have ever had as a President during a time when oratory skills were not valued. His speeches even more poignant than those of the Great Communicator.
President Obama was always well dressed in a suit, but even his sartorial choices were derided by a certain section of white Americans. Obama was hated, not because of his actual performance as the President of the United States of America, but because of what he represented: change and hope. Change from 43 white men who had all obtained the mantle of President and hope that anyone else after him could be President.
Yet, the vitriol and evil that was uncorked as result of him being President and the determination of white people to put black people in their place left us unprepared. The whitelash that followed his Presidency was rage filled and unrelenting. They elected the first white President in Donald J. Trump, to be their avatar.
Donald Trump, is a thrice married man, serial adulterer, sore-loser, has three different baby-mommas, lacks a terminal degree, was handed everything from his father, and lacks any ability to write or deliver a speech. President Trump was unqualified, unprepared, and uninterested in doing the work of being the President of the United States of America. Donald Trump is actually everything that large swaths of white Americans believe Obama to be and they think Trump is what Obama is: a decent man.
Even today some pathetic white person will take a ridiculous swipe at Obama or his wife, because they are black. Despite him having perfect control over the King’s English, they still hate him. Despite him wearing tailored clothes, they still mock him. Regardless of him having an unparalleled work ethic, they call him lazy. If white people are going to call the best of us, not just those who are black, but of all Americans, a nigger, then I get to wear my hoodies and Crocs.
My parents are now embarrassed by those white church friends, from Minnesota. Facebook, has made their lack of intelligence obvious. Their constant posts about Donald Trump being the most Christian President of all-time, has caused my parents to abandon those friendships. The constant posts about the 2020 election being rigged, has caused my mother and father to abandon them.
Before Obama, I too would have been worried about the consequences of putting diamonds on all my teeth. Post Obama I simply don’t have time to care. If they want to ridicule, like DaBaby I swim with the sharks and they don’t have enough heart, they need a bigger pool.
