Still Invisible?. Elvin J. Dowling

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СКАЧАТЬ then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the board of directors of the California African-American Museum. "I was also a surrogate for President George W. Bush and the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004," recalls Phillips, a familiar conservative voice on cable news, always willing to uphold the mantle of Black conservatism that was cemented wen President Lincoln emancipated enslaved Africans in 1863.

      As late as the mid-1930s, African-American Republican John R. Lynch, who had represented Mississippi in the House during and after Reconstruction, summed up the sentiments of older Black voters and upper middle-class professionals: “The colored voters cannot help but feel that in voting the Democratic ticket in national elections they will be voting to give their indorsement [sic] and their approval to every wrong of which they are victims, every right of which they are deprived, and every injustice of which they suffer” ("Party Realignment"). In today's political climate, however, being both Black and Republican is often a lonely place to be, as the party has, over time, morphed into a club for rich white men. "The reality is that as America’s electorate becomes more diverse, the Republican party is getting whiter. According to the Pew Research Center, the vast majority of Asian American voters (65 percent), Hispanic voters (63 percent) and Black voters (84 percent) identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party," observed Michael Harriot of The Root, in his essay called "#RepublicansSoWhite: Why Black Voters Don't Mess With the GOP". "Although no more than one-third of the voters in each non-white group leans toward the GOP, a majority of white voters identifies or leans toward the Republican party," Harriot noted. "And none of this is to say that the Democratic Party is a pro-Black party that inherently cares about Black people. It is still controlled and funded by white people, and most Black people are aware of this. But for Black voters, it is still better than the Republican Party" (Harriot). With that reality in hand, however, Phillip' role in the Grand Old Party is just as integral to the political and economic successes of Black people as those who are members of the Democratic Party.

      According to the History, Art & Archives of the United States House of Representatives, in their article, "Party Realignment and the New Deal," the tectonic political shift of African-American voters from the party of Lincoln during the Great Migration of Blacks from the South to the North and solidified during the term of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A series of public works initiatives, social services programs and economic and financial reforms aimed at lifting debt-stricken Americans out of poverty as a result of the disastrous Great Depression, FDR's New Deal offered African-Americans an opportunity at a better economic future, thus beginning their mass exodus to the Democrats ever since. "The realignment of Black voters from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party that began in the late 1920s proliferated during this era. This process involved a 'push and pull': the refusal by Republicans to pursue civil rights alienated many Black voters, while efforts—shallow though they were—by northern Democrats to open opportunities for African Americans gave Black voters reasons to switch parties" ("Party Realignment"). Prior to that shift of political loyalty to Roosevelt and his party's standard bearers, however, African-Americans have not always been a staple constituency group of the Democrats.

      Be that as it may, however, Phillips has continued to confound and top-end stereotypes of Black males throughout the entirety of his long and storied professional career. Having played the roles of an uptight business executive in the 1991 comedy movie, Strictly Business, a district attorney on the long running soap opera, General Hospital, and a big city mayor on the CBS television show, The District, Joseph does not fit into the typical archetype for Black men many Americans regularly see in television and film. Even outside of the glare of the cameras, Phillips assumes multiple roles, all of which are aimed at strengthening the community and the country that he loves. In doing so, Phillips is content with obliterating the erroneous assumptions that some may have of him and other Black men who are often misunderstood. "I once took a hiatus from show business and began substitute teaching, which is another passion of mine," said Phillips. "I was teaching a history class one day and I asked the kids in the class if they could tell me what the fifty-five most important words in modern history were [the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States] and soon after we began a discussion about the Declaration of Independence," he recalled. "There were two Black kids in the class and one of them told me that someone had written a racial epithet on the desk and I said, 'ignore it unless they are, they speaking to you!' I then proceeded to tell the student that I grew up in the sixties, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. I was in second grade when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated,' he recollected, emphasizing the fact that times have, indeed, changed since his childhood. "I was certainly passed over because I was Black, called names, denied service, that kind of thing. Well, one day, my mother told me, because she knew it would happen, that I would be standing in line somewhere, and the clerk will pass me by and whenever that happens to you--because it will happen to you--speak up for yourself and refuse to be treated as a second class citizen! Today, when people are being extremely rude or are intentionally overlooking me, I am prone to say to them: 'Hey, am I invisible to you?!'

       How Does It All Begin?

      Understanding what makes Phillips, and other Black men, invisible when it matters, and front and center on almost all negative things when it's politically and culturally expedient, is critical in understanding how stereotypes work and are perpetuated throughout generations. In her research project entitled, "Negative Racial Stereotypes and Their Effect on Attitudes Toward African-Americans", Laura Green notes: "As human beings, we naturally evaluate everything we come in contact with. We especially try to gain insight and direction from our evaluations of other people. Stereotypes are "cognitive structures that contain the perceiver's knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about human groups". These cognitive constructs are often created out of a kernel of truth and then distorted beyond reality. Racial stereotypes are constructed beliefs that all members of the same race share given characteristics. These attributed characteristics are usually negative" (Green). The challenge that Phillips faces, in spite of his unmistakable presence and disarming persona, is the fact that the negative perceptions of he and other Black men in the United States are so deeply ingrained in the fabric of the nation that it will take an untold number of years to even begin undoing racist stereotypes.

      The genesis of many of the historic unfavorable descriptions of Blacks came about as the majority culture's desire to stop the growing perceived threat that Black liberation represented grew across the country. "Beliefs that Blacks were 'mentally inferior, physically and culturally un-evolved, and apelike in appearance' were supported by prominent white figures like Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson," Green observed. In fact, having received significant backlash for reaching out to and engaging in discussion with one of the leading African-American thought leaders of the time, Booker T. Washington, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt even pledged his allegiance to white supremacy, when he stated his belief that, as a race of people, African-Americans were "altogether inferior to whites" (Green). "This idea of African-Americans as apelike savages was exceptionally pervasive. For example, in 1906, the New York Zoological Park featured an exhibit with an African-American man and a chimpanzee. Several years later, the Ringling Brothers Circus exhibited "the monkey man," a Black man was caged with a female chimpanzee that had been trained to wash clothes and hang them on a line" (Green). Today, while not as ubiquitous as it once was, typecasting Blacks as inferior and childlike is something that has been part and parcel of how America has continued to perpetrate white supremacist ideology.

      Even still, Joseph Phillips believes that the moment in which African-Americans begin classifying all issues that deleteriously impact Black people, such as interactions between Black males with law enforcement officials, it dilutes the argument for change. "When you lump everyone together, I have a problem with that," declared Phillips as he noted the dichotomy between the tragic circumstances related to the high-profile deaths of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown, two young Black males who died by the hands of police. "When you're innocent and minding your business, as with the case of Tamir Rice, and the cops assault or even kill you, it's very different than when you attack police," he said. СКАЧАТЬ