…Yet the belief endures, from Armstrong’s time and before, that visible, affluent African-Americans entertainers are obliged to adopt a pose of ceaseless gratitude—appreciation for the waiver that spared them the low status of so many others of their kind. Stevie Wonder began a performance in Central Park last night by taking a knee, prompting Congressman Joe Walsh to tweet that Wonder was “another ungrateful black multi-millionaire.” Ungrateful is the new uppity…
From Louis Armstrong to the N.F.L.: Ungrateful as the New Uppity
Sixty years ago, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, became a flashpoint in the nascent civil-rights movement when Governor Orval Faubus refused to abide by the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Faubus famously deployed the state’s National Guard to prevent nine African-American students from attending classes at the high school.