The harsh truth is that 'respectability' is the exorbitant tax we African Americans are forced to pay daily as we try to live out our versions of the American Dream.
Interpretation
Respectability is a burden imposed on African Americans in their pursuit of the American Dream.
This quote highlights the societal expectation for African Americans to conform to a certain standard of respectability in order to gain acceptance and success in pursuing the American Dream. It suggests that this pressure acts as a heavy tax, complicating their journey and often demanding more effort and sacrifice than is asked of others.
In practice
In a discussion on systemic racism, this quote can illustrate the challenges faced by African Americans.
Isn't it sad that really the only times I feel seen as an American are when I'm abroad? I'm not saying racism doesn't exist outside of the United States. What I am saying is that the rest of the world can see that I'm American. Why is it so hard for so many White Americans?
Caught in a racial uproar, people make all sorts of promises to make amends. Whatever they do tends to be heavy on symbolism and light on lasting change.
When you're Black in the United States, you grudgingly grow accustomed to having people deny that your existence is integral to everything that makes this country what it is.
There are still too many instances of police neither protecting nor serving LGBTQ and other marginalized communities. But the response shouldn't be to ban LGBTQ police from a parade.
Scapegoating is as American as apple pie. And because there's almost always a racial or ethnic dynamic to it in our country, scapegoating is the evil cousin of white supremacy.
When you're Black in America, you spend a lot of time counting firsts. The higher the first, the more we marvel (and shake our heads at how long it took to happen.) The higher the first, the more the person who achieved it comes to represent how we want the nation to see us.
Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.
So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.
...that melancholy which we feel when we cease to obey orders which, from one day to another, keep the future hidden, and realise that we have at last begun to live in real earnest, as a grown-up person, the life, the only life that any of us has at his disposal.
Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.
All individuals in all cultures use the same thirty basic moral categories, concepts, or principles, and all individuals in all cultures go through the same order or sequence of gross stage development, though they vary in rate and terminal point of development.
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
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