Decision ‘08

The Unbearable Inarticulateness Of Being

When I spoke of Joe Biden’s gaffe, unlike many who focused on the ‘clean’ bit, I focused on ‘articulate’, and even on my own similar words, because it struck me that this has nearly always been a backhanded complement when applied to black public figures. Eugene Robinson confirms my thesis in the Washington Post (I quote at more length than I’m usually comfortable with because I think Robinson is quite, um, eloquent on the subject):

There was a sharp reaction [to Biden’s comments], mostly focused on Biden’s incomprehensible reference to personal hygiene. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a one-time presidential candidate, said that when Biden called him to apologize, ” I told him I take a bath every day.”

For my part, I never made it past “articulate,” a word that’s like fingernails on a blackboard to my ear. As it happens, President Bush used that same word Wednesday to describe Obama. “He’s an attractive guy. He’s articulate,” Bush told Fox News.

Will wonders never cease? Here we have a man who graduated from Columbia University, who was president of the Harvard Law Review, who serves in the U.S. Senate and is the author of two best-selling books, who’s a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and what do you know, he turns out to be articulate. Stop the presses.

It’s interesting that Obama’s reaction dealt solely with the A-word. “I didn’t take Senator Biden’s comments personally, but obviously they were historically inaccurate,” he said in a statement. “African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate.”

Maybe he heard the screech on the blackboard, too.

Yes, I’m ranting a bit. But before you accuse me of being hypersensitive, try to think of the last time you heard a white public figure described as articulate. Acclaimed white orators such as Bill Clinton and John Edwards are more often described as eloquent.

What’s intriguing is that Jackson and Sharpton are praised as eloquent, too — both men are captivating speakers who calibrate their words with great precision. But neither is often described as, quote, articulate. Apparently, something disqualifies them.

Condi Rice is another story. Regular readers know that I think this administration’s foreign policy is wrongheaded and dangerous. But I leap to Rice’s defense when I hear people say, in the most patronizing tone, that she’s soooooo articulate. What on earth do they expect? The woman has served as provost of Stanford University, national security adviser and secretary of state. Think maybe she ought to be able to speak in complete sentences?

I realize the word is intended as a compliment, but it’s being used to connote a lot more than the ability to express one’s thoughts clearly. It’s being used to say more, even, than “here’s a black person who speaks standard English without a trace of Ebonics.”

The word articulate is being used to encompass not just speech but a whole range of cultural cues — dress, bearing, education, golf handicap. It’s being used to describe a black person around whom white people can be comfortable, a black person who not only speaks white America’s language but is fluent in its body language as well.

And the word is often pronounced with an air of surprise, as if it’s an improbable and wondrous thing that a black person has somehow cracked the code. I can’t help but think of the famous quote from Samuel Johnson: “Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Articulate is really a shorthand way of describing a black person who isn’t too black — or, rather, who comports with white America’s notion of how a black person should come across.

Whatever the intention, expressing one’s astonishment that such individuals exist is no compliment. Just come out and say it: Gee, he doesn’t sound black at all.

And that’s exactly why I felt even my less egregious comments deserved an apology, as well. As Robinson said, you don’t have to think there is malice afoot to acknowledge the history of the word when used in this context - and that history is pretty much as Robinson described it…

2 Responses to “The Unbearable Inarticulateness Of Being”

1 too many steves Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 4:27 am
Quite right, its the implied surprise or, to use his word, astonishment, isn’t it?
2 Gwedd Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Mark,

Now that all of the collective self-flaggelation is accomplished, my we move on to other subjects? big grin… please?

You know, I was watching a neat show sometime back. Morgan Freeman was being interviewed, and of course, the subject of Black History month came up. Freeman was adamant that the best way to stop racism is to simply stop talking about it. He was very much against a “Black History” month, inthat he felt that, as an American, it cheapened him and other black Americans by making them, well, black, and thus set apart. their history is as much A,erican is history as any other’s, and I fully support his views.

The only folks who insist on talking about racism are those who stand to gain by keeping America in a state of seperate, but equal, which has simply been renamed as “multiculturalism”. Same thing, same goals, divide and conquer.

Respects,