AN OPEN LETTER TO TYRA BANKS: A "MAMMY" MINDSET IS NOT AN ATTRACTIVE LOOK, EVEN FOR A SUPERMODEL

Tyra, My Sister, it pains me to say this because I do admire your successful reinvention from model to businesswoman. I do respect your efforts in developing a summer camp for young women. And I’ve no doubt that your “heart” is in the “right” place advancing causes close to it.

But I must say, Ms. Tyra, that after watching many a show where you claim to shed light on one of the most relevant, tragic, culturally entrenched and on-going transgressions of the country –- racism-white supremacy –- I have come to believe that you need to –- and I say this respectfully -– catwalk yourself across amerikkka in search of education and true historical perspective on this issue.

In gushing –- oops, I mean “interviewing” –- presidential candidate John Edwards, you posed one of the most ridiculous and inaccurate questions I’ve heard a white candidate asked: “What is it like to be THE MINORITY in the presidential campaign? I mean, with a Black and a woman, you are the minority. What’s that like?”

Tyra, Tyra, Tyra. . .

I hate to say this, but with that one statement, you just added “fuel to the fire” for all those for whom the term “supermodel” is synonymous with “superstupid.”

With that one statement, you just “outed” yourself as being so totally ignorant of --or maybe it would be more truthful to say that you are more than willing to defiantly ignore, for the sake of the comfort level of your white audience:

• HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONAL WHITE PRIVILEGE. Tyra, how could one EVER –- especially knowing the history of this country –- equate a white male (or even a white female) in this presidential race as having “minority” status?

Leaving aside the numbers for a moment, just in terms of the white skin privilege supported by history, cultural norms, and institutional power, how could you EVER make that statement?

Did you mean that:

• JUST BECAUSE FOR ONCE IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY there is a white woman and an Afrikan Descendant man who are polling equally strong or stronger numbers;

• JUST BECAUSE FOR ONCE IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY someone other than a white man might have a statistically relevant shot at the Oval Office;

• JUST BECAUSE FOR ONCE IN 400 YEARS a white man in ONE political party might actually have to WORK at “earning” the votes of Afrikan Descendant people with more than just empty, watered down promises. . .

. . . that this white man is actually DISADVANTAGED because he cannot automatically rely AS MUCH on HIS unearned white -- and white male -- privilege?

Tyra, say it ain’t so!!

With that one statement, you -– yes, YOU, Tyra! -- “outed” yourself as being so totally willing to ignore historical truth and basic logic to protect your white viewers from the fact that:

• MATHMATICALLY, THERE IS NO WAY THAT: ONE white man is a “minority” in a race where there are TWO ADDITIONAL white men participating in the same party, in addition to ONE Afrikan Descendant man and ONE white woman.

Tyra, even with the “new” math, in a race of THREE men competing for the top spot on the Democratic ticket –- TWO of them WHITE men -- AND FOUR of those FIVE Democratic candidates being WHITE (the three white men and Hilary, a white woman) –- it looks like the white candidates and the white men who are candidates are clearly in the majority.

So tell me once again, Tyra, by what logic have you anointed John Edwards the “minority” candidate?

A “Mammy” mindset is not an attractive look, Tyra, even on a (former) supermodel.

And I don’t mean to dis –- even though by your comment, you dissed Afrikan Descendants and all those generations who lived (and continue to live) in a white supremacist system -- but Tyra, I truly believe you know better than that.

And not that you asked, but here is one piece of unsolicited advice that I hope will help in keeping you from making such unfortunate and inaccurate statements in the future: in your "down" time, please spend more of it immersing yourself in learning about the true history of this country, because you have proven that, in the many ways in which it counts the most, your education and understanding are truly -- and sadly -- lacking.

And ignorance is not an attractive look even when you dress it up in high fashion.

Moving Forward!

Adar

BLACK WEALTH LOST IN BLOOD. . .

I saw a young Black man the other day. All dressed in white, handsome face under a white Kufi, surrounded by smooth white fabric on all sides.

In a casket.

I sat and watched his face for what seemed like a long time, waiting for him to wake up, trying not to hear the stifled sobs around me.

I saw his peers, young people with faces bright with promise and shadowed by grief.

I saw Elders there, too, with faces of resignation and I could almost hear them thinking “Oh My God, yet another one, why did we lose another one, what did he ever do? How is it that our wealth – our future – is being stolen, lost in the bloodbaths that are daily occurrences in Baltimore? How did it come to this?”

I stared at him, knowing that there was a young woman somewhere who is now a widow, even before she had the opportunity to meet the young man who would have grown into her husband, father to her children. Generations were killed by that gunman’s bullet. Generations – children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren – passed into never being when that young man took his last breath.

Killed standing at the bus stop, just trying to get home.

And it would seem shocking if the storyline were not so familiar.

And I can see the headlines once – IF – the killer is caught, the rush to excuse actions by invoking the tired tales of a childhood gone wrong. I can hear the spin on Black talk radio about giving the killer another chance because, after all, what good would it do to put away another young Black man, would it bring the victim back? Because “. . .two wrongs won’t make a right”, especially in a criminal INjustice system that is so weighted AGAINST Afrikan descendants.

We so guard our communities from the whiff of white supremacy that sometimes we even knowingly and willingly hide killers in our own midst.

Guess we feel that it’s alright if the only people they are killing are their own: us Black folk.

And we pay for that mindset by offering up our young Black people as sacrificial lambs to the Black killing machines among us, down-payments on the price owed for keeping them out of “the system.” Handing over our wealth – our Elders, our children, our futures, our communities – to those who do not value them and willfully and gleefully destroy their own: US.

Why do we give them that allegiance while they take the best from among us? And why do we save our outrage for white people, then, who are “only” doing the same thing?

As I kept waiting for that young man to open his eyes, to give us back the promise of his future, the following refrain kept playing again and again over the speakers: "Lord, make me more than I am. Make me over again.”

If only the killer had another chance to make another choice. If only that innocent young man had not been robbed of his chance to live.

If only we as a community had the guts to stop shielding killers who rob us of our joy, our promise, our youth-wealth, just because they are Black. In shielding them we have made a bargain with the Devil which robs of us our Futures as A People.

Lord, truly make us more than we are.

And help us to stop colluding in our own genocide and to make the investment in keeping our young Wealth alive and safe.

Moving Forward!

Adar