Tho' having this topic in this blog reveals my predisposed bias, I'd give it this sub-context:
Inter-play between historical cultural narrative
and the Intra-play within cultural narratives
Both the inter and intra contribute to the general social pathologies. In the last 2-weeks I can provide anecdotal events with whites and black (females) that would substantiate this premise.
I contacted a high school acquaintance who WAS a member of SDS and an agitating activist in 1970, when he showed up in New Haven in support of the anti-war/anti-racism protest. He now lives in the ex-urbs of Northern California. I contacted him regarding a common acquaintance he's known since grammar school and I've definitely known since the 7th grade. The reason I wanted to contact him was that our common acquaintance's father, who was white as 'Mr Former SDS' had hosted a convocation at his church in 1957 or '58 for the United Negro College Fund. The church was in an white neighborhood, which was the first time I had ever visited in a white neighborhood white people. I phrased my message to Mr SDS that "her father was responsible.." as part of my opening line. SDS reacted to that if I was getting to do a victim blaming, until he read the subsequent part "hosted a convocation at his church in 1957 or '58 for the United Negro College Fund..". I noted that before I added that subsequent phrase, but continued with my question.
Within the same week, on my residential block when I greeted a 'friendly neighbor', the subject of my recent vacation trip and being at the NYS Fair came up. The neighbor asked what was it like. I told him I made a video of the locations and our actions at those locations, and I offered to pass on that video to his email or phone. I gratuitously asked for HIS number, he counter-offered and asked for mine. I gave it to him. He didn't text me back that day, and when I saw him later in the week, he said he'd been busy and forgot, BUT he did mention an activity which had contributed to his forgetfulness that was supposed to happen this weekend, that would have been 10 or so days from that conversation. He was going to share the info on the event and event passes for me and the wife. I told him that he could text-or-email that info to me. He countered, saying he'd drop the info off in person [thus avoiding me having his text # or email address. He saw my facial expression, and knowing what I was thinking about the intent of his counter-offer he didn't come by withthe info or passes for the event.
Both of these reflect how seeming liberal-minded white people fall back to behaviors that would've been more expected of the preceding white generation.
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The instances with the black females were stereotypically telling.
The earlier instance was with the cashier at a retail discount store. She had involved conversations who were both white and without covid masking. But she engaged them quite engagingly. When it came to me she had no to limited speaking to me. Curtly asked me if I wanted a receipt, when I said I did, she took the receipt from off the machine and stuffed it in my bag, not handing it to me. Her previous white conversants had shopping carts that they left outside the store for the 'help' to bring in from off the sidewalk or out in the parking lot. Unlike those two who knew there were no cart corrals from which 'the help' could gather the carts than going around the parking lot hoarding up the stray carts, I brought my cart back in and placed it with the other returned carts.
The second black female was the manager of what I learned to be a 3rd-party cellular store. I called the store because of it being the closest one of that brand to me. I needed to activate my Sims chips and port-over the numbers of my to-be former carrier. She told me that they did activation as a courtesy, not as a normal operation at their store. As it turned out I still chose them than the corporate store that was more on-the-way than their shop. She was not pleased when I did show up. Told me, ungraciously, to wait over there for someone to help. The person who soon volunteered to help was constantly interrupted by the manager over some missing keys,which the volunteer clearly showed she did not have possession of those keys. The 'volunteer; worked through the interruptions and did what I thought was the completed steps for the activation of my phone.
When I got to my car and started the phone up, the device asked for a code. When I brought the phone in to inquire about the code, the managers feigned to have ANY idea why that code was there, plus suggested that my activity with the former carrier was the cause. In fact, the truth turned out to be that the interrupted and harassed 'volunteer' put the wrong chip in my phone and activated the other one in my possession. The code being asked was for their SIM card and had nothing to do with the former carrier. Because of the obfuscation that followed the harassment for me seeking the store to install and activate the chip, it took another 4-hours, another SIM chip and a handy discount of a no-charge phone.
Both instances brought back Franz Fanon's writings of psychological pathology legacies in 'Wretched of the Earth' and 'Black Skin White Masks'. In short, by either in the imitation of the behavior of those who were responsible for the former repressions and oppression, or those who seek to identify more with those representative of an acceptance they seek, than denigrate any association with reminders of their skin-tone similarity.
The past legacies of structure are a tangible psychological reality in the resulting behaviors on enough black people so that the present pro-and-con narrative, strategies, and tactics concurrently exists.
IM-Not-HO, this is a competition of survival of the more functionally nurturing and rationally congruent to thriving outcomes. As much as the lingering and sublimated, latent forms of racial denigration still exist, the behavior of black persons' reactions to the first hand experience or third-hand narrative is a greater definer of present and prospective options than the anecdotal actions and psychological narratives perpetrated by the vestiges and latent structures of the perceived antagonistic culture.
