Knee! Grow!

by Dennis Green

Call it “the other N-word”! And there was Stephen Colbert, leading his audience in a chant, one half shouting, “KNEE!” and the other half chiming in, “GROW!” “KNEE-GROW! KNEE-GROW!”

And there was Morgan Freeman, standing just off-stage but on-camera, and Colbert urges him, “C’mon, Morgan! Knee! Grow!” And Morgan gives them all a deadly killer stare.

Surely one of those classic moments in television history.

But now “Negro” has joined the lexicon of verboten words and phrases, along with “bitch,” “Kike,” “redneck,” “honky,” “queer,” “Roundeyes,” “Gook,” “Girlie-Man,” “Custer Died For Your Sins,” “Out of Vietnam NOW!” and “Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.”

Political correctness rules the day.

I’m French and Irish, but hardly anybody sings, “Froggie went a’courtin’ and he did ride, uh-huh!” when I walk by, and I haven’t been accused of being a member of the IRA for at least a dozen years. But I’m well aware that about a hundred years ago, the Irish, the Germans, Poles, and Italians were at the bottom of the ethnic pile on.

And yes, I know some older black people in Oakland who are much more comfortable with the term “Negro” than they are with “African-American,” or even “black.” Yesterday, the airwaves were filled with self-anointed spokespeople for the culture honored along with Martin Luther King, Jr.

And what I didn’t hear was what those of us who have worked in the black community, in Oakland politics, in the inner city institutions such as hospitals and clinics know for a fact: everybody’s a racist in his or her most private moments. In Oakland, for at least the past ten years, the struggle for power between blacks and Hispanics, (or is it “Latinos” this week?), has been…vigorous.

I worked on Jerry Brown’s first campaign for Mayor of Oakland, and I was well-aware that his chances were greatly enhanced by the fact that the previous administration, that of Elihu Harris, had been so dysfunctional that the grip on politics there by the black community leaders — especially the ministers — was weakened. And Jerry brought the first economic development to Oakland it had seen in many years.

Oakland City Council member and Hispanic powerhouse Ignacio de la Fuentes, who would have, in the ordinary course of things, followed Jerry’s second term as Mayor, was nudged aside by the return of long-time Congressman Ron Dellums. His Mayoral reign has been a disaster, rife with corruption, cronyism, absentee governing, a huge deficit, and a surge in crime.

So there is no magic solution to the ills of the black inner city. Economic development downtown does not guarantee prosperity in the neighborhoods. But neither does merely electing black politicians with connections in Washington, D.C. Having a dream doesn’t mean it can’t turn into a nightmare.

©2010 Dennis Green