The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL-BENNETT

We shame people into being who society thinks they should be. Society is more concerned about how someone dresses, than what they do. In fact, we seem to reinforce bad behaviour as long as someone looks respectable. The assumption seems to be that if you cover your shoulders, then you must be a "good" person. A full jacket in 100-degree weather is respectable. A loose shirt is not!

However, we do not define what a good person is. We care not that a woman can leave her children at home alone while she looks respectable. We insist in public spaces that all women be covered adequately; this is especially true in education. We value teachers who dress in modest fashion, hide their natural hair, but cannot read properly, cannot spell, cannot write on the chalkboard, cannot speak standard Bahamian English, do not understand that there is a vernacular language at play. They expose their students to negative behaviour and continue to reinforce negative behavioural traits in the classroom. This is a cultural norm.

We argue that women's shoulders should not be seen; they attract male attention. In order for a man to be acceptable his arms must also be covered and he must wear a suit, preferably made of wool, because that is respectable. This is called colonialism and slavish adherence to old, outdated, harmful attitudes and social mores that never belonged to this social space. They were imposed on us through Victorian ideals of respectability and acceptability. This is incredibly strict for women and horribly rough for men. Respectability is policed and enforced by those in power who see natural hair, for example, as unacceptable. As much as we have moved away from colonialism, we have remained brainwashed into seeing blackness as a problem. We lighten your darkness with perms and bleach. But also dress the part. We hate ourselves because we have learnt well from the colonial masters.

In the case of black men, respectability politics require we be good conformists. On the other hand, one has to have street cred, which means one cannot be conformist, though it becomes the same thing. The rough, tough, womanising, gun-slinging, hard-drinking, drug-dealing man gets the respect. That is street cred. In order for a man to be respectable, he must have a ton of disposable cash, be aggressive, be violent and beat out the competition. A woman must be demure and wait for the man to lead. Respectability is always class-based and determined by social attitudes to race and class. If one is seen as darker-skinned, one is assumed to be of a lower social class than if one is light-skinned. Although this has been disproven, attitudes have not changed. A darker-skinned man will be stopped by the police more often than a lighter-skinned man. A darker-skinned woman is less likely to be seen as attractive than a lighter-skinned woman; hair texture is expected to go along with complexion. All of this is enshrined in respectability politics.

For a working-class or poor, black man, his respectability comes from his ability to behave violently in his community; to be top dog. He is not respected if he's not tough, rough and crass. He is respectable if he demands notice from his peers. He dresses a certain way determined by media, but is unaware of this, though he watches media closely, much like the suit-wearing colonised man who determines someone else's worth by their clothes, shoes and watch (even if they cannot really afford these accoutrements). He will live in a rented home, or forego paying the mortgage in order to look respectable. On the other hand, the young man refused entry into this sphere refuses to be outclassed and responds with violence. What society refuses to understand or accept, is that we set these dynamics up. As discussed in Maia Szalavitz's article in the UK's Guardian: "If your social reputation in that milieu is all you've got, you've got to defend it," says (Professor Martin) Daly. "Inequality makes these confrontations more fraught because there's much more at stake when there are winners and losers and you can see that you are on track to be one of the losers."

This is our reality. Men and women must be respectable, without a care for the violence this causes. We argue that a man can only be respectable if he have plenty woman, but a woman is ratchet if she have plenty man. Indeed, this is termed ghetto behaviour by people who police respectability. When did the ghetto become a bad place? When it was Over-the-Hill was it also seen as ratchet and ghetto? When the black elite were breaking free from the colonial chains was their environment ghetto and violent? To the colonial power it to was; to them it was not. Now that they are the power, they have chosen to see that nothing respectable can come out of the ghetto. However, they also argue that this is what is expected of these "ghetto: people. The respectability police define people by their gender, class, and environment. They argue that we must walk the streets in 100 degree weather confined in suits, jackets and women in pantyhose, and long jackets that cover their bottoms. No cleavage, no lines, please!

Respectability police argue it's a woman's fault if she is raped. If a man is raped, is it his fault too? If either a woman or a man is the victim of incest, is it also their fault? This respectability politics means that we excuse the savagery society has espoused for centuries. We indelibly mark an entire group with an image that promotes failure through self-hatred and derision, and, as this violence overflows from the personal into the communal, society becomes more dangerous unsafe.

We use these stereotypes to the detriment of our society. As much as many blacks fight against this colonisation, it is more important to conform than to be separate and individual. At the Ministry of Education they still insist that women and men come in (im)properly attired in a dysfunctional space where frequently air-conditioning ain't workin', lights don' work, windows nail' close', and classrooms are hotter than a hot day in hell. Children are told to sit still and be quiet. We are focusing on all the wrong things. We are tied to a respectability politics that enforces gendered roles, deepens inequalities and refuses to entertain women's equal legal rights (because then women won't be taken care of by men) and promotes male violence and body shaming. Meanwhile, we claim we want change.