Kill This Messenger: An Open Letter to America's Minority Children
Dear _____________:
I'm glad you took my advice and watched both the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. While you may have gotten enough information for a terrific civics paper, you also got an important lesson on "real" life in this country. Learn from it.
In America, it is true that you can be practically anything you desire. And yes, you will have to work very hard for it. Harder than some of your friends. Your parents already told you that. But rarely do you really get to see what they were talking about play out right before your very eyes. You did last night. Learn from it.
When your parents demand that you speak clearly and in well-formed sentences, with proper syntax and without the slang, without the "you knows" and the "likes", they're not just being hard on you. They want the world to see and understand someone capable of articulating a coherent thought. When they chide you to stop listening to that music, turn off the TV and read a book -- big thick books with no pictures -- it's because they want you to learn how to think, not just repeat the last thing you heard.
You live in world where certain people -- this election cycle they have been called "regular" people -- can get by by doing less. Let's be honest: the standard for Gov. Palin's success was set so low last night, that failure for her was impossible. She could fumble her way through poorly memorized talking points, substitute phony beauty pageant charm for substance and come away a winner. You will not have that luxury.
Gov. Palin could spout nonsense in the white man's version of ebonics -- "get down to gettin' down to work," "give a shout out" to some classroom in Alaska -- "talk straight to the American people" in the most circuitous language ever delivered on a debate stage and get away with it because, in addition to being someone's definition of "cute," she is also white.
You betcha, I said it.
And if you watched the post debate "analysis" last evening and today, you saw white person after white person defend the indefensible. She was nervous, they said. She was folksy, they marveled. She connected with "us," they told you. And in this case "us" is not you. Had you or I or Barack danced through a debate like this, we would have been laughed not just off the stage, but out of the race.
Got that? You don't get to play "Debatin' With the Stars," doing flat-footed versions of the quick-step, jive and tango, and score perfect tens from biased judges.
Sarah Palin was given every benefit of the doubt, every available point for not drooling on her suit jacket, not farting loud enough for the microphone to pick up, not getting lipstick on her teeth. She earned extra credit for the beauty queen kiss blow to her "First Dude," for winking at the audience and not falling off her high heels. You would not be judged so lightly.
You must answer every question put to you, and anticipate every question that isn't. She can choose to not answer any. Ever. You must be on pains to have your facts and figures straight. She is at liberty to make hers up as she goes. She is free to lie at will. You are not. Um hum, I said it.
The expectations for you are always higher and harder and always changing. Barely graduating from decent state school is not enough. You need those "super student" credentials on your permanent record, and the better the schools you attend the better for you. But remember, in this topsy-turvy, "up is down" world, being a good student will be held against you. You will be called "arrogant" and "presumptuous" and "elitist."
When you speak carefully and thoughtfully, you will be called "professorial" and "articulate" or "an orator," as if those are bad things.
The Sarah Palins of the world will be hailed as brilliant for doing mundane things mundanely. You will not. You will be asked to give them a break, give them a pass, overlook their obvious failures while not getting any breaks or passes yourself. (And seriously, you don't want their breaks and passes. The cost is way too high, especially for your own self-esteem.)
The soft bigotry of low expectations is not your burden. You cannot get by with a pussycat purred, "That's hot." You cannot slip into presidential politics by winning Miss Congeniality or winning American Maverick. Your bar will always be set high.
Remember what you learned last night: You must be two or three times as good to earn half the credit. She only needs to show up. Quietly breathing through her nose is optional.
But everything you achieve, you will have earned. Fair and square.
