My second interview with Dr. Bryan Washington was disappointing, not because of the subject or the conversation but because my recorder failed to pick up our voices during the interview. Despite this malfunction I did take away several important points from the interview as I improved my focus on my questions zeroing in on how to solve the problem instead of talking about it. Dr. Washington is the son of a college professor who founded one of the first black studies programs in the nation, and he talked about how his upbringing was not typical for a black American.
As I took notes on Dr. Washington talking about his upbringing with a black intellectual as his father, we discussed how the media has had a powerful hand in defining what it means to be black. Dr. Washington talked about what he calls the complexity of blackness and remembered being told that he was not black enough as a child because he was not interested in sports and music, the black professions. He went on to talk about how people often fail to recognize the complexity of blackness and how it is in part due to the images of black people presented by the media. Black people not only provide diversity in American society, but there is much diversity within the race all of which adds up to define what it means to be black. Dr. Washington talked about the black upper and upper-middle class, a group he believes is commonly ignored by the media and as a result is not seen by the country.
This concept of the upper-middle class remaining in the shadows nailed my issue on the head, except I want to create interest in addition to recognition. I asked him how he envisioned the recognition of this “other half” as he called it, happening. He replied that, “having a presence, and making (positive) noise in high profile professions,” is the way for these people to get recognized. He described the necessity for black people to “make noise” as part of the saying that blacks must work twice as hard to earn half as much. His next point brought about a realization for me. He said that now that we have a black president in Barack Obama, many Americans believe that racism has been eliminated from society.
My realization connected back to Dr. McCartney’s point about revelation and discovery instead of complaint. Though I agreed with many of Dr. Washington’s points, I think that they have been identified and I wanted answer the question, how do we solve it? So I asked exactly that. A reflective Dr. Washington told me that in his case his family was the factor that kept him focused on goals outside of the so called “black professions”. He also recognized that there are positives examples among the celebrity elite and that we do not need to eliminate them from the headlines. I agreed, it is not a case of subtraction and then addition, it is simply addition. We need more role models in more professions.
Dr. Washington’s point about his family is an important one because of the image of the struggling minority family. A strong, supportive family emphasizes the sense of self-worth that Dr. McCartney talked about and Dr. Washington talked about living with. We often hear about children losing their way in life due to family issues but we rarely hear about how it impacts their aspirations and dreams for their future. A strong, supportive family is not always possible regardless of race, but I realized the importance of having someone to encourage a child and give them the tools to succeed.
Our interview concluded with more discussion of president Barack Obama. Regardless of politics we discussed the fact that many people had cast their vote in the 2008 Presidential Election with his race on their mind, whether it was the reason they were voting for or against him. I think this is due to the unfortunate belief that one’s race says something about one’s ability to perform, much like a character trait. We talked about celebrities receiving popular media coverage from decisions made that perpetuate these beliefs as they live the negative stereotypes that have been engrained in people since black people were brought onto American soil. I asked him if he believed that we were making progress towards the lofty goal of a post-racial society. He responded that he believes we have a long way to go but as long as the recognition is there we can continue to move the conversation and our society forward.
