Before she was confirmed, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers gave a prize to a white co-worker in blackface and a dreadlock wig for having the best costume at a Halloween party, and posed for digital camera pictures with the happy winner. On her way out, she asked that the pictures be destroyed, so they couldn't come back to haunt her. T'yeah. Nothing is really destroyed in the digital age.
Naturally, the photos reappeared—not a moment too soon, as in, yesterday and removed any doubt there was some mix-up. The Rastaman's shoe-shine tan is readily apparent. She claimed that she couldn't, like, tell if he was black or not. It's funny, because I get that a lot too. Well, it's not like a Vin Diesel type situation: Halloween Dude is clearly not of African descent. But maybe Myers is dumb as rocks: let's give her that. I'm thinking, if she couldn't tell Lionel Joseph from Cameroon was, in fact, a white man in a costume, wouldn't somebody walking around an office party in prison stripes, you know, raise some concerns? If Julie Myers can't tell the difference between a black person and a white man in blackface, she probably shouldn't be charged with Homeland Security. But that boat has sailed: she's in like Flynn.
I doubt that Myers is prejudiced or racist in any measureable way, and frankly that's part of the problem. I could get my brain around that kind of idiocy. But her fist mind saw nothing wrong with allowing an underling to walk around a company event in blackface—no bells went off. But it's hard to fault Myers, in a way. You and I know that blackface is off-limits to white folks, even on blogs. But Myers is a portrait of the new White Negro Hipster: white folks who listen to rap music, embrace hip-hop culture, remix and twist antebellum stereotypes enough to feel fully invested in the black experience and make light of heretofore respected red-lights and taboos. This willful ignorance is the down-side of multi-culti Americana: once your flavor is added to the melting pot, those that stir the zeitgeist feel free to test the boundaries of good taste, and as Don Imus learned, results may vary.
It's hard but it's fair.
Jimi Izrael is a writer and commentator living in Tallahassee, Florida.
