I had never heard of the term “respectability politics” before this video, but it is grossly prevalent in our society whenever race is involved.  The context here is that Don Lemon, a CNN anchor, was taking about the Trayvon Martin shooting when he started talking about black people needing to pull their pants up.  That’s respectability politics.  Bringing up superficial issues of respectability when the issues at hand have nothing to do with it.  Trayvon wearing a hoodie was another example of respectability politics at play.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdlMlRdt7Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player]