'Get A Life Honey' - Shown The Door By LaShonda Jones, Black Was No Longer Beautiful For White Corinne

Corinne Muzelle had given her life to black people.  She had marched with Martin and Ralph, sat-in with Stokely and Rap, sang camp songs on the Freedom busses to Selma and Montgomery, got spat upon, hosed, and snapped at by Bull Connor's dogs. 

Such defiance for a noble cause became her life's work, and she never once turned away from the plight of the black man, soul of the primeval forest, naturally sentient, intelligent beyond measure, direct descendant of Lucy, and heroic fighter for justice.  He would soon be atop the human pyramid where he belonged, supreme, at the pinnacle of life, looking down and never more up at overseers, masters, and owners. 

 

As President of The Black-White Women's Caucus a non-profit activist organization formed in the days of integration, that short period of shared racial values, camaraderie, and solidarity, Corinne worked tirelessly to promote the cause of black women who were abused, beaten, and left on the curb by indifferent, predatory men; or who were bitches and ho's, all high-shelved and booty on the streets of the ghetto, but bought and owned.

Her work combined her two passions - the inevitable rise of women and the liberation of people of the African diaspora.  It was a heady time, those early years of the Caucus, a time of sharing, intimacy, and friendship annealing the political determination of all who worked there.  Corinne could actually say she had black friends, had been to their homes, and shared in their values. 

Over the years, the racial climate changed significantly in America.  The days of complaisant accommodation, i.e. integration, were long gone and in its place was the harsh reality of racial separatism. Only if the black man was recognized as the Prince of Times, standing alone without white support, would he find his place in the New Age. White people like Corinne might be well meaning enough, but they held the black man down, kept him picking cotton on their liberal plantations. 

In recent years this separatist trend was sharpened by the culture of 'identity'.  You were first, foremost, and forever defined by the color of your skin and from that recognition would come the racial solidarity only hoped for in the congeniality of the past. 

So, when the board of directors decided to replace her with a black woman, she should not have been surprised.  Anyone could have seen the change coming.  The slights - dwindling speaking engagements, an empty inbox, her office moved down a flight to an interior space, fewer smiles and warm greetings, and not one social invitation - would have been obvious signs that her tenure was coming to an end; but Corinne refused to believe it.  Her black sisters simply could not be that callous, that dismissive of her years of solidarity, her love. 

Only when LaShonda Jones, the board's pick to replace her, walked unannounced into Corinne's office and told her that her service was over, to pick up her check at HR on the way out, and with a 'Get a life, honey' shut the door behind her, did Corinne get the picture. 

Rather than see this as a natural evolution of things, she took it personally.  It was a betrayal, a treasonous act of personal indemnity, a slap in the face, a dereliction of moral responsibility, an unexpected finality. 

For finality was what it was.  Who would have her now that she was a has-been, tossed out thanks to a reverse racism she never thought possible?  How could a black woman, long the victim of white supremacy, Jim Crow, slavery, and persistent oppression become a turncoat, exhibiting the worst kind of racial prejudice against her, a woman who never judged by the color of anyone's skin, who believed in racial universality, the goodness of all?

'See, what did I tell you', said an old college friend, the only conservative Corinne allowed herself and only because of longevity and the happy times at Yale they both shared - the Old Campus, the Yale Bowl, the Taft Hotel, all the accoutrements of a politically uninvolved life. 

The friend was now an investment banker at Fitch & Longworth managing a billion dollar portfolio in high-tech industries. Zuckerberg, Huang, Brin and all the rest of the high-flyers in Silicon Valley and 'Not a black face to be seen'. 

The patent racism of her friend shocked her. Why, black faces were everywhere on the football field, the basketball court, and in just about every show and commercial on television; and it was only a matter of time before they broke out of the shuckin' and jivin' stereotypes which had so unfairly kept them down for so long and made it to the top of American business. 

At the same time, the truth of her friend's observation could not be ignored - there were few blacks if any in the top echelons of American high-tech industry, no algorithmic geniuses in Cupertino, no plasma physicists redefining computing, no members of the AI avant-garde.  Worst of all, crimes in America were disproportionately committed by blacks, federal prisoners were overwhelming black, the inner city was a dysfunctional dystopia.  

Despite her best efforts and those of her colleagues, little had changed in the black community over the many decades of their inter-racial efforts. Yes, black men and women were more visible and less overtly discriminated against, but their performance on all social indicators was near rock bottom.  How long would it take, and God forbid, was this it? Was there really something about the Jewish-Asian ethos, or an undeniable genetic predisposition to genius?

No, never, impossible!  Corinne would never, could never admit that there was something wrong here, that there was more than just support, good will, and white guilt to progress and performance.  We were all created equal, Corinne knew, and that this period of racial inequality would, must end. 

'No use crying over spilled milk', said her husband Bob, an old social justice warrior himself, one morning after her dismissal from the Caucus.  'You're still a young woman'; but of course she was not and despite her youthful energy and enthusiasm, the clock was ticking. 

She was at sixes and sevens, lost, and confused.  It wasn't just that at her age it would be hard to find another comparable position, but that the niggling doubts that began with the 'Get a life, honey' and the harsh expose of her Vassar classmate were beginning to form a new, surprising, and a bit frightening new perspective. 

Her friend, knowing that Corinne was down on herself, at loose ends, and in an emotional turmoil, took her in, invited her to her Georgetown and Park Avenue dinners, shared her Nantucket summer home, and exposed her to another life.  A life of sharp intellect, corporate enterprise, and above all simple, uncomplicated ambition.  For her classmate's friends, Corinne's sense of community, togetherness, bonding and unity were distractions, dissimulating errors in judgment, blind alleys.  

Above all, the black man was not special at all - not to be dismissed, marginalized, or abused, but simply treated like every other American, liable to failure but with unlimited opportunity and subject to the laws of competition and market reality. 

It was not that Corinne became a conservative overnight.  The old adage - 'If given enough time every liberal will become conservative' might be true, but some cases have been so hardened by emotional distress and febrile desires that the process is slowed. 

Corinne, however, as distressed and complicated by very feverish and persistent desires to fight the tide as she was, was intelligent enough to dismiss sunken costs.  The past was indeed the past, and holding on to errant, misplaced ideas did no one any good at all. 

So gradually and happily, she tossed out the old chestnuts, reveled in her new life, saw in her new political clarity that life was not so bad as she had thought - a house on Nantucket was indeed a possibility.