Respectability Politics

Since we're dealing with Of Poetry and Protest I'm going to be talking about some ideas I had while reading that connect to the Black Lives Matter movement but before that I wanted to provide some context for two things I noticed in regard to respectability politics.

The first would be how people go about protesting. It's been (for lack of a better term) a "hot topic" for a while now, people go on CNN and FOX and talk about how those people (read: Black) should "properly" protest in order to get the respect they "deserve". Which of course mostly means not protesting at all. Not being in the streets, no signs, not shutting down businesses. However then you have cases like Colin Kaepernick who protested by sitting and people were outraged by his supposed 'disrespect'. You also have people like Jesse Williams who gives a thought out, articulate speech and that was also met with backlash.

The second is who gets listened to. Consider rap music. A lot of it now may be about...various things, but there was a time and continues to be a time where rap is used to speak about the injustices people of color face and it's almost always discredited for being too violent. Good examples of this would be N.W.A's "fuck the police" verus...Sam Cooke "A Change Gon Come." Both have important messages but are spoken differently. There's an idea that I'm guilty of having myself, that something needs to be dressed a certain way in order for me to take it seriously. In order for a person to be validated, listened to, for that person to expect respect, they have to present themselves in such a way that is considered...intelligent, non threatening, safe...and even then you may not be accepted but in the very least you have a platform to speak.

The question of whether or not you want to be seen as a stereotype or as something more in regards to adjusting your appearance or mannerisms, censoring yourself to make others more comfortable.

With these things in mind I'd like to talk about "Lil Kings" by Frank X Walker, because I'm curious about the consequences of that line of thinking I found myself caught in: reading this poem saying "I want to believe I'd listen to this person" while also thinking, "why would I listen to a nigga like this?"

Because it is a response to MLK's image and the standard to which white folks hold people of color in regard to current protests, I thought it would be the most meaningful.

The poem is written in language that mocks this pristine image of what it means to be acceptable, the words are written as they are pronounced in a less...articulate dialect. "Doctah" for instance. And it juxtaposes what or how we know MLK to be and what the perceived opposite of that would be. There is no peace, there is no communication, it's action action action in a way that's much different from the Black Panthers or Malcolm X. We're presented with the idea of a revolutionary being someone who would be considered uneducated, ignant' ghetto and by all literal meanings of the word "a thug". Not only are we forced in that moment to put this image along side Dr King, we're also forced to realize that this "thug" and this pastor have the exact same ideals but two different ways of presenting themselves and approaching it.

I don't necessarily want to say that this person is 'more Black' or realer than MLK was...but to acknowledge that there's something fundamentally different in how we would accept or...disown these two figures even within the Black community. Even worse outside of it.

I don't really have a conclusion to these thoughts at all, but I really want to know how others honestly felt about this "lil King" whether or not you would listen to him, take him seriously, why or why not.

How that plays into how we protest today, how leaders are seen, how these images and perceptions are created.