With the news of the killing of members of the black community in South Carolina opening up deep-rooted racial divisions in the US, a line from the 90s Hollywood movie Soul Man came back to me. By the way, I would rather use the term African American, but it seems that there is an emphasis on the use of the word “black” simply because of an effort to enforce that, just like white, black is simply another tone which does not have to carry any humiliating/denigrating connotations.
The film, a candy-floss comedy, resolves around a white guy who uses a chemical to turn black in order to get into an Ivy League university offering a place to talented black students. In time, the boy goes completely dark, experiences funny situations due to a few harmless social stereotyping on the basketball field and, eventually, falls for a black girl.
This subterfuge is looked at with consternation by his best friend, a white guy, who is not sure if going several shades darker is a wise idea. But the protagonist remains undaunted, remarking with confidence: “Come on, it’s the 90s, America loves black people!”
Despite the light-hearted nature of the film, it carried a profound message: USA had left the dark chapters of racial segregation far behind, and the white supremacist group KKK (Ku Klux Klan) was only an aberration from the past. In 2015, thanks to the globalisation of media, we now face a deeply fractured American society. Honestly speaking, the theme of Soul Man may appear utterly incongruous in the current setting, where a deliberately neglected crevice is gradually taking the form of a crevasse.
Only a week before the shooting in a church, an incident which left nine people dead, a policeman, sorry, a “white” policeman, had to quit his job because he was recorded on camera manhandling a female black teenager in a bikini while wielding his gun menacingly at her friends at a pool party. Reportedly, the accused policeman’s lawyer said his client did not act out of racial hatred but lost his temper since he was under stress on a personal issue.
More is the worry because, since a law enforcer is carrying a weapon that can kill or maim, his/her losing control may result in horrifying consequences. In this case, the policeman should have taken the day off or gone to counselling. He did not open fire, but, hypothetically speaking, if he had, then his lawyer would also have attributed such an act to mental stress.
Coming to Charleston, Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who shot and killed nine people purely out of racial animosity, is now the focus of intense scrutiny. Some of his friends stated before camera Roof’s repugnance towards fellow Americans of a different colour, though it seems no one took him to be of any serious threat. The death of nine people is an eye-opener that any such desire, spoken in clear mind or even under the influence of alcohol, should never be brushed off as empty rants.
On the fateful day, Roof reportedly spent the morning drinking vodka with a friend. In court, when grieving relatives of the killed spoke to the confessed killer, saying they had forgiven him, we did not see Roof showing a flicker of remorse.
Reminds one a lot of the killer portrayed in the disturbing Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange. What was even more disconcerting to watch was the helplessness of the US administration, which has been fighting a losing battle to control gun ownership. Someone once said that, no matter whoever is in power, the National Rifle Association is always more powerful; therefore, the line “the US President is the most powerful man in the world” is actually a myth.
What an irony. While the US president is powerful everywhere else, in his own country he is unable to do what is needed -- ensure gun control. Of course, gun control is hardly the main reason for the social schism. It seems old sitcoms like Different Strokes, Family Matters, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, and What’s Happening projected a highly choreographed/sanitised version of a tolerant US to the rest of the world.
What we now find is a country that never really got rid of its racial ghosts. It was always there, only we were led to believe otherwise. I am not saying that all states look down upon black people, but it appears that the south still has many pockets where ideologies of racial supremacy are nurtured. We still do not know if Roof was a lone wolf or not, though it’s highly likely that he had been indoctrinated by some source.
Time and again the Confederate flag has been mentioned for being at the heart of this whole tragic affair. Just to revive your memory, this flag represented the Confederate States of America which refused to abolish slavery, eventually losing in the American Civil War.
Despite being a symbol of a flawed social system, this flag is glorified with the colours often used in American pop culture, with little or no regard for its possible damaging impact. Interestingly, in recent times, several surveys talked of growing Islamophobia among Americans -- perhaps the major threat to communal upheaval comes from a firmly-rooted belief of superiority based on the colour of skin.
Sorry to say, that line from Soul Man, about America becoming a haven for black people, now sounds vacuous. USA may have a black president, but the country still has to prove that she loves black people -- north, south, east, and west.
