The Amen Corner: Blackness and the Populism of Common Sense
"The use of the N-word is unacceptable," Stephanie Brown, director of the NAACP’s Youth and College Division announced, adding that "Every time we use the N-word, we disgrace the ancestors who came before us." The setting for Brown’s pronouncement was a mock funeral, for the word “nigger” that was part of the programming for the NAACP’s National Convention in Detroit, MI. According to Michael H. Cottman of BlackAmericaWeb.com, Brown’s words, “brought the crowd," numbered in the thousands “to their feet.” I’ve been here before. Conventional wisdom suggest that when faced with crises and uncertainties, one should rely on their common sense, but when applied to conditions that confront large communities, such wisdom profoundly undermines the possibilities of bringing new ideas and ways of thinking to bear on the situation. David Lionel Smith observed more than a decade ago, “Common sense is not critically self-conscious, and its function is to facilitate conformity and adaptation to familiar circumstances. It thrives on familiarity and fears change, and therefore common sense is profoundly conservative.” While all points-of-view need to be acknowledged and valued in the “marketplace of ideas,” the thunderous applause and standing ovations that often accompany common sense responses, at times shut down and silence alternative points of view, particularly if it goes against conventional wisdom. Indeed common sense borders on a form of
populism, that denies black communities access to the fullest range of strategies to address our conditions.
Such is the case these days when the conversation turns to the subject of blackness, particularly in the era of television programming like Charm School, Flavor of Love and the forthcoming Hot Ghetto Mess. My point is not that the stereotypes that these programs traffic in should not be addressed, but that too often the level of discourse about these issues are simply reduced to the common sense notion that black people shouldn’t make fools of themselves on national televisions in the full gaze of white America. Such logic of course made sense in the early 20th century during the era of Jim Crow, but holds little value in an era in which performed “blackness” is a major commodity for all involved including those blacks who ostensibly produce “blackness” and the corporate media that reproduce and circulate said “blackness." As rapper David Banner comments in the pages of the CQ Researcher, a newsletter published by the Congressional Quarterly, “There was a time in history when we didn’t have a choice about being called a nigger. Now that we’re making money off of it, it’s a problem.” Banner’s comments go against common sense, but they tellingly highlight the complexities of the issue that simply telling rappers, black youth and others, not to use the word, doesn’t allow.
So, of course young black women shouldn’t appear in music videos or on programs like Flavor of Love, engaging in forms of “blackface-without-the-shoe-polish” minstrelsy, that my friend and colleague Joan Morgan suggests they never get called on the carpet for. But a commonsense response to this reality does little to examine the issues of beauty, desire, impoverishment and self-esteem that motivate some to appear on such programs. A common sense discourse that deems that we should ban or funeralize the word “nigger” also does little to highlight the exquisite and thoughtful ways that artists have explored black identity, white supremacy and notions of the familial by using the word. It seems to me that we continuously sell ourselves short by not allowing ourselves to be as complex as possible and that includes our ability to think beyond the little black box of “common sense.”
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