I watched SNL's skit "Black Jeopardy" last night. The one with Tom Hanks as a Donald Trump supporter? Of course I watched it three days after it aired because I have never once in my life stayed up to actually watch SNL on the air. Who stays up that late anyway?
The skit got a good deal of coverage because it asserts in a hilarious way that Trump supporters and Black folks actually have a great deal in common.
I suggest you watch the skit before reading on:
Basically all of the characters are surprised when the Donald Trump supporter seems to "get" Black culture as if it is his own.
The main joke of the skit comes toward the end when the double jeopardy category is revealed as "What Lives Matter," and it's obvious that these folks, who have all responded similarly so far, will reveal completely disparate views on the phrase Black Lives Matter.
It shouldn't surprise us, though, that poor Black folks and poor white folks have so much in common, because they DO.
And that's the remarkable point SNL is making with their skit.
Whiteness was created as a means of empowering one group at the expense of the other, specifically making white folks feel superior to Black and brown folks, no matter their socio-economic status.
The idea of whiteness did not exist prior to Black slavery and whiteness was not popularized until the existence of these colonies and this country built on slave labor.
Whiteness was created as a means of cementing a system of oppression for wealthy folks' economic gain.
The idea adopted by many poor white folks that Black and brown folks are the cause of all their problems, has been taught to poor white folks for centuries by rich white folks.
Tim Wise puts it well that "whiteness was created to divide and conquer, to create the notion that even though you might not have much, at least you're not Black, at least you're not indigenous . . . . . You may not have much, but at least you have as W.E.B. Dubois said 'the psychological wage of whiteness'" (Wise).
Historically speaking poor people have much in common with other poor people.
And yet poor white folks are tricked by rich white folks that the reason they're suffering is because of poor Black and brown folks, furthering the divide between groups of people who can be united.
SNL's "Black Jeopardy" skit is hilarious.
But it's also saying something very important about humanity and how much more we have in common than we might think.
My mom has made an observation a few times to me that when she reads the books or articles I've recommended on racial justice and healing, she's reminded how much of her childhood as a poor child of poor Norwegian farmers in Wisconsin looks like that of poor Black folks' experiences in the South post-reconstruction.
Share-cropping; abuse by land owners; land stolen by banks; biased wages and treatment; her childhood was marked by these experiences and they scarred her father's mind and body in ways she can't forget.
In her pocket of the US in the 40's and 50's, she encountered no Black folks. But by that point, if she had, I'm sure the widely disseminated narrative of her superior whiteness would have affected any interactions she would have with them as they affect any interactions white folks have with Black folks now (internal biases)
It's in reading stories now that she can see the same human experience from one poor person to the next, regardless of color.
She has agreed, however, that her life was never in danger because she was poor and white, whereas being poor and Black is often a death sentence.
It was then, and it is now.
In order for white folks to begin to say "Black Lives Matter," we need to unravel the centuries-long narrative of white supremacy that is based on nothing other than economic gain for the wealthy.
We need to see the humanity in the "other."
We need to read stories and find our similarities
We need to interact, for proximity breaks barriers.
Then white folks can maybe begin to believe the systemic violence perpetrated against Black bodies.
If we cannot see our own similarities, we cannot see humanity in the other. And our co-humanity is where we must start.
