Black Americans Have Faced Racism Regardless of Whether They Wore Sunday Clothes, Business Suits, Durags or Pajamas
Don’t start ranting and raving with what I am about to say, because I like well-dressed and clean people—but white supremacists could care less if you have on a suit, a durag, or pajamas. We can respect each other and dress well, but you are out of your mind if you think that institutionalized racism will end by dress codes.
The problem goes back to the civil right era when Black protesters with Martin Luther King Jr. would wear their “Sunday best” while protesting. They thought it was only about stereotypes, but the system of white supremacy couldn’t care less. By simply stressing dress codes, without realizing the structural power of white supremacy, that denied jobs to Blacks and Browns in the best suits, is letting institutional racism off the hook.
The Politics of Respectability
Later the “politics of respectability” which was invented by historian Evelyn Brroks Higginbotham. She used it to describe how moral reform and polite behavior to fight racist stereotypes. But it did not end much of anything. Ideas like this point to an ignorance that racism is not systematic. Nice clothes, speaking “proper English, ”and smiling all the time” will not end racism. It assumes that racism can be solved if marginalized people just change their behavior— stop wearing “Durags” they say. Skin color is the defining mode of white supremacist thought, not dress.
How Respectability Politics Helps and Hurts
According to Black Perspectives, “When someone is engaging in respectability politics, he or she adopts the manners and morality of the dominant or white culture in order to counter negative views of African Americans or blackness.” Many scholars have documented how this strategy “helped and hurt middle-class and working-class Blacks.” Respectability politics leaves lingering questions about police abuse, racial killings, and denial of jobs because of skin.
The CROWN Act was created in 2019 to ensure protection against discrimination based on “race-based hairstyles.” By extending protection to hair styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots in the workplace and public schools, racists soon realized that hair was not a good way to make the victims abide by the rules of whiteness, so the hit became clothes.
Racism Is About Comfort and Control
When someone is engaging in “respectability politics,” they are in fact adopting the manners and morality of the dominant or white culture, but it won’t work as white supremacists are not going to respect anyone but themselves and the system that gave them white privilege. Also, beware of the fakers who are secretly white supremacists and say things like, “I don’t care if you’re Black, White, Purple or Green, I don’t see color.”
Also Read: Rev. Al Sharpton, King Family Announce ‘Defend the Vote’ Rally
We can agree to look nice, but racists only want to feel comfortable around Blacks. Shotgun houses in an ally was an example of this as they did not want Blacks to have houses facing the streets where Whites had to look at them, or walls separating Blacks from Whites in segregated restaurants.
Dress Codes Distract From Injustice
Worrying about dress does not address injustice. Dress codes encourage members of the oppressed community to conform to dominant social norms in appearance, speech, education, and behavior as a means of gaining acceptance and equal treatment. Suggesting that equality can be achieved through proper behavior or dress codes is foolish thinking. Dress codes shift attention away from Blacks being drowned or hanged, and from crooked medical examiners.
Respectability Could Not Protect Ahmaud Arbery
“Ahmaud Arbery was running in his own neighborhood and was murdered for the crime of running while Black.” He was not a criminal; he was a “respectable” Black man, no pajamas or durag on, and yet he still paid the price for being Black.
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