Lawarence Ware, a philosophy professor at Oklahoma State University and co-director of the Center for Africana Studies, wrote an opinion piece for The Root titled “How Black Americans Are Raising a Generation of Kids Who Don’t Understand Blackness: We have failed one generation of Black kids, and we must ensure we don’t fail another.”
He began, “There is a tragedy happening in the Black community … This generation of Black kids neither understands nor appreciates what it means to be Black.”
This sentence appears straightforward, but it’s “ontological.” Ontology is the study of being and existence. Professor Ware was not suggesting that these children simply do not identify with Black culture; he was stating that they do not exhibit the essence of “Blackness.”
Then he gave a history lesson.
He explained that the Great Migration lasted from 1910 to 1970. Six million Black people from the South relocated to the Northeast, Midwest, and Western regions of the United States in search of less racism and greater job opportunities. These refugees from American racism established thriving Black communities in the cities they fled to. As a result, many Black people found economic success. Then Blacks began to move away from the communities they had built and into the suburbs. Because of where they now lived, Black children began to attend predominately White schools.
“We thought we’d made it.” Professor Ware said. “Then we saw that there was an underside to this success. It started small. One or two of the Black kids raised in the suburbs would show up to a family reunion not knowing how to play spades or dominoes. Maybe they would ask that Taylor Swift be played at the cookout instead of Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye. If that was the extent of the problem, it wouldn’t be a significant issue. But it did not stop there. It got worse. There are many Black kids who feel more comfortable around White kids than they do their own people. There has been a copious amount of research to support this.”
The “supporting” research cited in Ware’s opinion piece was Dani McClain’s 2019 Atlantic essay, “What’s lost when Black children are socialized in a White world.” However, McClain’s essay does not back up Ware’s claim that Black children raised in the suburbs feel more comfortable around Whites, but it did hint at why Professor Ware believes certain Black children do not understand “Blackness.”
McClain defined the verb “socialize” as “to make suitable for society.”
She stated that the word is often benign. She next posed the question, “What does it mean to encourage children to become suitable for a society that isn’t really suitable for them?” It’s worth noting that the subtitle of McClain’s essay was, “I interviewed dozens of Black mothers about how they help their kids navigate schools where they might be perceived as threats or made to feel unwelcome.”
The subtitle suggests that McClain and the Black mothers presuppose that the “dominant culture” is hostile toward Black people; therefore, as parents, they feel compelled to protect their children by teaching them to resist this culture.
McClain noted that the mothers were worried about the subtle ways in which Black students were told they didn’t belong in classrooms where the dominant culture, with its emphasis on obedience and hierarchy, differed from their culture at home. These mothers discussed their efforts to encourage their children to question authority, speak freely, and express opinions, only to watch their children be reprimanded for doing so.
Another mother told McClain that she chose to send her children to public schools while knowing they would provide difficulties for her family. The mom added, “Her children are there to learn and participate, but they’re also there to question and transform negative aspects of their schooling.” McClain remarked that the mother’s children accepted their role as student activists. The mother stated that she did not want her children to adopt all of the cultural standards taught by educators. She sends them to school to get “a part” of education.
Now let’s return to Professor Ware and the children he described. Were these Black children genuinely uncomfortable around other Blacks, or were they made to feel uncomfortable? Professor Ware fails to mention that Black kids who take pride in rejecting the dominant culture also take pride in ostracizing Black kids who are immersed in it.
Professor Ware also asserted that a predominantly White upbringing has an impact on voting behavior. He stated that “Pew Research reports that 7 percent of Black voters over 50 currently identify as or lean conservative, a relatively small amount. But 17 percent of Black voters under 50 align with the Republican party. And much of that has to do with where they were raised.”
What precisely is Professor Ware getting at?
He’s saying there are too many Black kids who grew up around White people, and these Black kids don’t understand “Blackness” because their parents didn’t teach them that being Black means being victimized by the dominant culture.
Professor Ware’s opinion piece doesn’t come close to proving that Black parents have failed a generation of Black kids, but it did demonstrate the radical departure of the current Black intelligentsia from its predecessor.
The Black intelligentsia of generations past was dedicated to instilling Black pride into children, but now they just indoctrinate them with pessimistic “Blackness.”
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