By Roberta Nin Feliz
I remember being in the 5th grade when my school’s principal dedicated a school day to watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama. That was in 2008. Students filled up the library and surrounded the TV on the rolling platform. My principal was ecstatic and his excitement stirred a wave of whispers and shuffling across the room which later turned into a wave of cheers when President Obama was sworn into oath. I didn’t understand the weighted significance of having an African-American president, but as a 5th grader, it meant that Blacks were capable of achieving great things. I had yet to discover concepts like racism, colorism and segregation . . .or slavery, racial profiling and stop-and-frisk. To me, having a Black president meant people liked Black people and they were not just “gangsters.” Years after the inauguration of the first African-American president, the recent murders of African-Americans have challenged the authenticity of American tolerance toward Blacks and minorities.
Surely, Apple’s introduction of multi-colored emojis signifies a new form of tolerance and racial inclusion. Now, users can tap an emoji to change its color on their phone. Yet, how much good will arise from this situation is questionable. In an article for the Washington Post, writer Paige Tutt says “Deepening the skin color of a previously white emoji doesn’t make the emoji not white. It’s just a bastardized emoji blackface. The blond-haired emoji man and the blue-eyed emoji princess are clearly white, but you can slip them into a darker-colored skin. These new figures aren’t emoji of color; they’re just white emoji wearing masks.”
Some of the new emojis introduced by Apple through its IOS 8.3 update
Nevertheless, the multi-colored emojis are a step in the right direction. Apple may have just oversimplified an issue that is way too complex. It isn’t just about multicolored emojis. Even children’s dolls that are supposed to be brown just look like white dolls with brown skin and curly hair. The issue at hand is the systematic construction of a “default” conception of what “people” ideally look like; white, blonde hair, blue eyes. White is the default. Everything else is an outlier.
How do parents explain the recent events of racial violence to their children? How should adolescents of color cope with the murder of people that look just like them and the president of their country? How much progress, if any, could we possibly have made as a nation if citizens are still being treated as dangerous, foreign people? Who, if anyone, has the answers to these questions? These are the exact questions this nation fails to address. Did we really make progress or has it been an illusion?
Michelle Alexander and her acclaimed book.
Author and professor of law at Ohio State University, Michelle Alexander believes that today we live under the New Jim Crow, a redesigned system of the Jim Crow racial caste society. In her book, The New Jim Crow, Alexander writes “Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.” Indeed, once someone is labeled a felon he or she faces employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote and denial of welfare assistance, much like African Americans in the Jim Crow era. Like myself, Alexander’s elation over Barack Obama’s election has dwindled into deep disappointment. “Today my elation over Obama’s election is tempered by a far more sobering awareness.” she writes.
President Obama at his inaugaration in 2013
As more African-American men are murdered by white police officers, the nation hangs on a thin thread of faith and trust in the government. In his victory speech, President Obama said “”If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” Yet, the election of an African-American president does not signify the end of racial bigotry, nor does it miraculously reverse the historical and systematic oppression of a people. While there have been excellent strides towards equality, an agenda of white supremacy has been part of the national character since the birth of the United States of America. Yet could it be possible that the nation can transcend the tragedies of its past that haunts its people today?
Nobel Prize Winner Toni Morrison proposes an answer in her interview with The Telegraph. She says: “‘People keep saying, ‘We need to have a conversation about race. This is the conversation. I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back.” She continues, “And I want to see a white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, ‘Is it over?’ I will say yes.”