Melissa Harris-Perry and Sorority Racism

During the recent Oscar awards, Chris Rock provided commentary on how racist and sexist the Oscars are. He called the Oscars out for being the “sorority-type” racism that tolerates but doesn’t fully embrace those of us kissed by the sun. Chris Rock put it this way: this kind of racism says, “you’re just not good enough.”

Many whites in the audience were visibly uncomfortable, providing that voluntary deflective laughter that happens when you’re either convicted and/or frustrated but can’t really express that conviction and/or frustration. Some of them squirmed in their seats while others appeared impatient with Rock’s monologue.

Here’s the thing, though: if you think Rock’s comments about sorority racism were only limited to the Oscars, you’d be sadly mistaken. Just ask Melissa Harris-Perry. After having her show pre-empted for more election coverage, Harris-Perry (who has a PhD in political science and has been teaching classes on voting trends for years) sent an email to her show’s staff saying she wouldn’t be trotted out as a black token for MSNBC. This email sparked a firestorm, and eventually led to the network canceling her show.

But the story isn’t over. After they cancelled the show, MSNBC decided to throw salt in the wound. In severance negotiations, the network essentially placed a gag order on her in order to receive her severance package. If MHP took her package, she would only be able to speak about the network in her academic work, and would be contractually bound not to disparage MSNBC in any of her public commentary thereafter. Harris-Perry refused the stipulations, and left her severance at the table. In a Washington Post article, a representative for MSNBC claimed that MHP was brilliant, just “difficult to work with.”

This is sorority-type racism at its finest.

It’s sorority-type racism because MSNBC is supposed to the “progressive” news network, extolling diversity and appreciating a multiplicity of voices. This was supposed to be the liberal station, the station where people of color are appreciated and offered opportunities — well… that is, until these same people call it out for being discriminatory in its programming. And then, MHP isn’t good enough — although disgraced journalist and admitted liar Brian Williams is.

If this example isn’t enough, I’d like to say this: it is this kind of racism — the “sorority-type” racism — that is the most frustrating and the most malignant, especially for black leftist progressives like myself. It is frustrating because, as a black person, the people who embody this kind of racism genuinely think that they’re not racist. And it’s malignant because the lack of acknowledgement of one’s own racism provides the right kind of fuel for certain structural and institutional realities to persist.

Before I go on, I want to say this: I’m a black cis-gendered man married to a black woman, and fully acknowledge that I am steeped in (hetero-)sexism. I know this, and am open to being critiqued, criticized, and silenced. I’m no saint; I don’t do this consistently. But I try, and admit when I fail. And I fail often.

But sorority racism doesn’t operate in this way. This kind of racism is the most difficult to navigate because it tells people of color — or any marginalized group, for that matter — that change will happen, just not on our terms. Trump is troubling, but, like Marcus Garvey once said, the explicit white supremacist is an ally to black liberation because they’re upfront and honest about their hatred for people of color. When I see Trump, I know what I’m dealing with: a bigoted, sexist, homophobe and xenophobe who is unapologetic about how horrible he is. He knows this, and his followers do too (though they might not use the same language I just did to describe him). In short, we know what we’re getting from Trump; if he becomes president and completely dismantles this country, we cannot feign ignorance, because we allowed a man who was more concerned about the size of his penis than the state of the union to take the oval office. All Trump has done is give voice to the navel-gazing misogynistic white supremacists who have been lurking in silence for years.

But sorority racism is different; the nature of (white) progressive politics has been difficult for many black people (not all) because these politics extol reconciliation, justice, and equality — but does so in a way that keeps whites at the center of any kind of progressive movement. It centers William Lloyd Garrison instead of Frederick Douglass, and Lydia Marie Child instead of Harriet Jacobs. Audre Lorde spoke about this in her speeches and academic presentations, and Iggy Azalea and Macklemore benefit from it through Grammys and album sales.

This kind of racism is present in both Sanders and Clinton’s campaign strategies of trotting out mothers and daughters of slain black men in an effort to solidify their credibility with black communities, turning black tragedy into political capital and white presidential contenders into political heroines and heroes. This kind of racism turns black people into evangelists for white saviors, transubstantiating progressive thought and politics into an extended Christology of whiteness. Like the movies The Help and The Blind Side, what matters is not so much the existential plight of the person of color as the cathartic release from racism that the white person feels in his or her actions.

Connected to this, sorority racism speaks the language of empathy and equality but will distance itself from black resistance and/or disruption. Sorority racism encourages marginalized groups of color to be “patient” or “civil” when communities of color express their discontent and anger at systemic, institutional, and interpersonal forms of racist discrimination. Dr. King mentioned this in his letter from a Birmingham jail, and Nina Simone sang about it in “Mississippi Goddamn.”

Sorority racism also gets annoyed at black resistance that refuses to center or absolve whiteness. Sorority racism claps when Ashley Williams is escorted out of a Hillary Clinton fundraiser for calling Clinton to the carpet. It wonders why the #blacklivesmatter movement doesn’t publicly address the issue of “black-on-black crime” — as if intra-racial violence isn’t the same across different racial groups. It asks black people why they’re destroying buildings “in their own communities” — as if these buildings are somehow bastions of collective economics and black solidarity (sorry, a CVS isn’t a community center).

I cannot speak for Dr. Harris-Perry, but her actions would indicate that she wants no part of this sorority. Sororities take pledges on the assumption that the pledges want to be a part of that group. Like these sororities, this kind of racism assumes that blacks are so hungry to participate in a mythological “American dream” that they are willing to partake in the communion of salvific whiteness — eating the bread of white resources, and drinking the wine of access to (formerly) white spaces.

If I come off as the angry black man, I’ll just have to be that guy today (even though I’m actually quite happy at the moment). I don’t want or need a white savior, and again, while I don’t speak for her (or any other black person for that matter), I don’t think MHP does either. She is phenomenal on her own.

I think what many of us want — and maybe Dr. Harris-Perry as well — is to work and fight with white people who are willing partners, who are willing to be, as W.E.B. Du Bois said, “co-creators in the kingdom of culture.” The status of co-creator centers no one, therefore benefitting everyone. It appreciates difference as the condition of possibility instead of turning it into a kind of multiculturalism that understands difference as an obstacle to progress. Co-creators reconsider their ideological leanings when they engage with new perspectives instead of condescendingly complaining when these new perspectives are disruptive to existing ways of social life. If you happen to be white and progressive, please ask yourself: are you participating in a rush, or ready to be a co-creator? If you’re willing to be a partner, let’s get busy thinking, growing, and changing together.

Otherwise, there are many other fraternal and sororal opportunities for people of color.