Blog 5 Successful Black Man memes

The reading from our text last week--"A Dozen Demons" by Ellis Cose--reminded me of some memes I'd first seen a few years ago such as this one: http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/440068-successful-black-man. 

The memes are supposed to work in the following way: you view the text at the top, in this case "I'll take you to my dealer," and then you view the picture of the black man in a suit. The fact that he's black implies that the text at the bottom will have something to do with a drug dealer or something illegal--this is a racial stereotype. The text at the bottom actually says "I'm sure he can fix you up on a deal for a new car." The fact that the text on the bottom doesn't match the racial stereotype we expected to see is what supposedly makes the meme funny. 

The idea that this meme format--there are thousands of "successful black man" memes that use the same picture from the meme cited above with the text altered--is supposed to be so funny highlights the extent to which racial stereotypes persist today--specifically in our generation of internet-users. The expectation one has after reading the text at the top of the meme and seeing the picture of the man seems to parallel the Low Expectations that Ellis Cose discusses in "A Dozen Demons." According to Cose, "Conrad Harper, former head of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and a partner in Simpson Thacer & Barlett, said that throughout the years he had seen plenty of young associates 'bitterly scarred by not being taken first as lawyers...but always first as African Americans...' If someone's competency is consistently doubted, ‘the person begins to question his own abilities’” (601).

The double-consciousness that a black person experiences in a white collar work environment is likely exacerbated in light of these memes because “black” and “successful” are presented as two supposedly mutually exclusive characteristics. To be/have both defies expectations in a way that is apparently funny.

I realize these memes are supposed to demonstrate a lack of racism; the fact that racism is hinted at and expected seems to indicate some level of racism actually existing. The very idea that viewers of these memes expect them to be racist says something about the viewers themselves, and thus it says something about the expectations people have about black people regardless of their class or their level of achievement in the work world. How can a black person who is a lawyer, for example, expect to be taken as seriously as a white person who is a lawyer when meme’s like the above one are all over the internet?