Between ‘smart’ and ‘ghetto’ can we all be black?

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From Zettler Clay, Clutch Magazine:

When Monique stepped on stage to accept her Best Supporting Actress award at the Oscars, residents in California could hear the residents in New York. Polemics and cheers ruled the Twitterverse and before I could click that update button, a torrent of tweets flooded my timeline.

“Thanks. Exactly what we need, another award for playing a debilitating African American character.”

“The world sees us a certain way, and as long as we play our “role”, we’ll continue to get rewarded like this.”

I was among the throng who was vocal about Monique’s “victory.” But then a bad case of deja vu struck: How many times will black people have this argument among ourselves while schools are still closing, the prison industrial complex inches upward and sexual transmitted diseases continue to ravage our community?

There’s a term for this: intellectual classism.

Many think of classism only in the corporeal sense. Money and status are the predominate prisms of how class is viewed in this country. Intellectual classism is not race dependent. Nor salary dependent. Nor gender dependent. Anybody of any sex, of any race can and does exercise their right to assert mental superiority.

When it comes to the African-American community, the divisions between the “noble” and “commoners” are well-documented. Take for example: The Afristocracy and Ghettocracy. Money and educational level (in the degree sense) are basic determinants of admission into each.

Afristrocratic thought can’t fathom why other black people can’t see beyond the trees; ghettocratic thought doesn’t understand why other black people can’t see the trees.

“Get educated. Help yourselves out.” says the Afristocracy.

“Get off your high horse and help change some of these conditions. Not everybody has access to your resources” says the Ghettocracy.

Imagine a child dealing with tumult everyday before going to school. Every day. That child is marginalized before he/she even steps out the house.

Continue to the full article at the Clutch Magazine website.