Respectability Will Not Keep Black Americans Safe

Those following American headlines after high profile police shootings of black individuals may notice the subtle, or not so subtle, that these people "had it coming" or "deserved" their deaths in some way or another. One response to this is that only by becoming model citizens, that black Americans can avoid being killed by the police. But this line of thinking is deeply flawed, and will not, and has not, kept black Americans safe. The America that was lauded was never the America that African Americans lived in. No, that America was not for them. “There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this ‘homeland of the free.’. . . America has never been America to me,” wrote Langston Hughes. 

This piece describes an excruciating number of black deaths, by lynching, by mobbing, by drownings, by bullets. During the Civil Rights movement, strategists employed respectability, by proving that black people could be the most upright of citizens, and thus deserving of rights. "Drawing on a tradition that went back to the turn of the century, blacks in the movement worked hard to curate an image as God-fearing, hardworking, law-abiding, and family loving Americans." This worked to highlight racism in a vivid light, but does little to protect them. 

The author, Carol Anderson, lays out 5 arguments as to why. First, the standards are close to "sainthood," and secondly relies on the individual to represent all black people. "Third, the politics of respectability links rights to behavioral performances and not to the fact that blacks are human. Fourth, with so much focus on behavior, very little attention is paid to the important role institutional, systemic racism plays in fostering continuing inequality." And finally, respectability puts the onus of responsibility of killings on the victims themselves, that they deserved their deaths because they did not do enough to be respectable. 

Respectability politics cannot keep black Americans safe, so we must find another way forward.