This morning, we woke to the news that Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has died at the age of 92. Parks, of course, is credited with starting the a 380 day bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama that was the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. While the social forces that led to the end of segregation and Jim Crow laws would have continued moving forward without her, there can be no discounting the simple strength she showed that day.
Ironically, or perhaps not, there is another article in today’s Post about another daughter of Alabama who has had a major impact on the world, Condolezza Rice. Unfortunately, instead of praising her accomplishment at becoming the first African American female Secretary of State and being the most trusted adviser to a President, Eugene Robinson wonders what went wrong with Condi Rice.
Like a lot of African Americans, I’ve long wondered what the deal was with Condoleezza Rice and the issue of race. How does she work so loyally for George W. Bush, whose approval rating among blacks was measured in a recent poll at a negligible 2 percent? How did she come to a worldview so radically different from that of most black Americans? Is she blind, is she in denial, is she confused — or what?
The possibility that she might be right, or that she might legitimately have a point of view different from that of so-called “mainstream” African-American politicians is, of course, not even considered. She works for George Bush. She’s a Republican. There’s got to be something wrong with her.
It’s as if Rice is still cosseted in her beloved Titusville, the neighborhood of black strivers where she was raised, able to see the very different reality that other African Americans experience but not to reach out of the bubble — not able to touch that other reality, and thus not able to really understand it.
Rice’s parents tried their best to shelter their only daughter from Jim Crow racism, and they succeeded. Forty years later, Rice shows no bitterness when she recalls her childhood in a town whose streets were ruled by the segregationist police chief Bull Connor. “I’ve always said about Birmingham that because race was everything, race was nothing,” she said in an interview on the flight home.
In other words, its her parents’ fault for raising her well. But wait, there’s more.
She doesn’t deny that race makes a difference. “We all look forward to the day when this country is race-blind, but it isn’t yet,” she told reporters in Birmingham. Later she added, “The fact that our society is not colorblind is a statement of fact.”
But then why are the top echelons of her State Department almost entirely white? “That’s an artifact of foreign policy,” she said in the interview. “It’s not been a very diverse profession.” In other words, there aren’t enough qualified minority candidates. I wondered how many times those words have been used as a lame excuse.
What if she’s right, Eugene ? Do you suggest that she hire minority candidates who aren’t qualified just because they are minorities ? Oh, yes, you probably do don’t you ?
As we were flying to Alabama, Rice said an interesting thing. She was talking about the history of the civil rights movement, and she said, “If you read Frederick Douglass, he was not petitioning from outside of the institutions but rather demanding that the institutions live up to what they said they were. If you read Martin Luther King, he was not petitioning from outside, he was petitioning from inside the principles and the institutions, and challenging America to be what America said that it was.”
The civil rights movement came from the inside? I always thought the Edmund Pettus Bridge was outside.
I know very few black Americans who think of themselves fully as insiders in this society. No matter how high we rise, there’s always that reality that Rice acknowledges: The society isn’t colorblind, not yet. It’s not always in the front of your mind, but it’s there. We talk about it, we overcome it, but it’s there.
Maybe true, maybe not, I am not in a position to say. However, if there is anyone who has come close to overcoming the legacy of racism, its someone who has risen to the top of American government and is being openly discussed as a candidate for President. Unfortunately, she does not seem to be getting any credit for it.
Linked with The Political Teen and Outside The Beltway and Mudville Gazette’s Open Post
