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Thursday, April 13, 2006
McKinney’s actions a reflection on her, not the entire race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My sister called the other day. And like most chats with my siblings, the conversation segued into current events.
We worked our way through Katie Couric’s network leap, dissected the Iraq War and landed on the McKinney Incident. You know the story.
On March 29, Rep. Cynthia McKinney had a run-in with a U.S. Capitol police officer who stopped her as she skirted a security checkpoint. He didn’t recognize the six-term congresswoman. She supposedly hit the white officer with a cellphone.
First, she charged racism and alleged racial profiling. Then, with support razor thin, she apologized.
My sister, Joyce, didn’t take a swipe at McKinney like former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) did. And she didn’t call her a “ghetto slut” like Neal Boortz, the Atlanta radio talk show host, did on his show. Mr. Boortz disliked the fact McKinney traded in her “classy” cornrow braids for what’s being called an afro. The talk master took responsibility and rightly apologized for his remarks.
My sister has taken the Mc-Kinney confrontation seriously and personally. She looked beyond politics and partisanship. She looked internally.
“She’s an embarrassment to the black race,” she told me.
It sounded like something my late parents would say. They always told us to never embarrass the family or the race. Carry yourself with respect and dignity, they’d preach, even when you know you’re being spit on. It stuck with all 11 of us — to a degree.
Now, I’m grown. Got my own kids to raise. And a perspective that veers from the wisdom of Mom and Dad when it comes to the burden of shame.
The way I see it, what other people do or don’t do has no bearing whatsoever on me. McKinney is her own person. She makes her own choices. Just like me. She can play the role of conspiracy theorist or yell racism on the Capitol steps. And when she or anyone else black does it, right or wrong, it’s no reflection on me.
No more than Timothy McVeigh or DeLay represent all of white America. I’ve yet to hear a white person utter embarrassment or shame for any miscreant. The action may be condemned, but not the whole race.For them, the association with race and skin color doesn’t run that deep.
And it shouldn’t for me. Or my sister.
It’s taken me years to get to this point. Now, when I see stories like this McKinney mess, I view it totally differently. I don’t condone the action. Nor do I equate it to me. It’s one controversial act. Committed by one person. Not an entire group.
Joyce is fiercely proud and independent. She spent 20 years in the Air Force, got out and earned a bachelor’s degree. Now she works for the Veterans Administration in the Midwest.
When we talked on the phone, I told her why she shouldn’t harbor embarrassment because of McKinney, that she doesn’t represent the flock.
She listened. Seemed to understand.
Sometimes a little brother does know best.
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