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| Blogs > Letshavefun5711 > My Blog |
Is it hard to be black?
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Is it hard to be black? Tom is my best friend, one I've known for almost 20 years. He's also an extremely arrogant cuss on account of him possessing genius level intellect and a 6 figure salary without any (he was married once, but divorced long ago). We were discussing current events, and the recent Zimmerman trial came up. After we both expressed our opinions, he spoke told me and told me that I was one of the few people he respected (which is a big compliment from him) and then he asked me was it hard being a black man. My first reaction was to make light of it. At first I was going to use some appropriately black hand gestures and vocal inflections and say something like, " Shee-it, man! Being black is harder than making three Jaguar payments on a Sunday afternoon!" Cue the Sambo smile and the canned applause. That's when it hit me how easily I went into that mode - the grinning, funny mode I use to deflect uncomfortable situations or to avoid making whites nervous. Instead, I only said yes and we moved on, but I think I want to answer a little better now. As a young , I once asked my mother how she picked my name. Without missing a beat, she replied that she wanted a name that "people cannot tell if you're white or black on an application". Back then, I was too young to understand what she meant, but I thank her for her foresight now. My mother understood something that I believe all black men come to accept eventually - and that is we will never belong and will rarely be accepted. For those who want to understand where I'm coming from, I'm enclosing a link to a powerful and short article: http://AdultFriendFinder.com I want to start with another story. Japanese steel - katanas, for example- do not break. The steel gains it's legendary strength from being superheated, folding the metal over itself, being hammered down and having the process repeated over and over. Only true masters can achieve this: otherwise the steel breaks. That folding technique cannot be duplicated by any technology known to date. I am superheated every time I walk into a professional building and security stops everyone else with a word, but physically blocks me until my identity is verified. Every time I hear about Trayvon Martin, Kamani Gray, Kendric McDade, Timothy Russell, Amidou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Victor Sheen, Orlando Barlow, Timothy Standbury, Wendell Allen, Alonzo Ashley, Patrick Dorsimond, Shaun Bell or the dozens if not hundreds of other black men killed by cops that for the grace of God could have been me, my rage threatens to consume my heart and ignite my soul. If I break, I lose everything and becoming a statistic. So I fold over instead. I remind myself that I am a father and a contributing member of society. I tell myself that not everyone feels that way, and that there are good and bad people in every society. I use humor and laugh to avoid crying. Then I am hammered down by the woman in the elevator who tries a little too hard to not look nervous. Or the co-worker, who during a typical conversation assures me that she did a genealogy search and that HER family never owned slaves. I think my personal favorite is the white woman who thought having sex with me made her an 'honorary sista'. The fiercest blows, however, come from other black women. The ones who have filled the holes left in their souls by fathers,<b> boyfriends </font></b>and husbands that did not stay with bitterness and hatred. The ones who decide on one day I'm too black, and the next I'm not black enough. They are victims who have become attackers. But wait…didn't I say something about finding joy? You see, I find joy in love and I love this country. I served honorably in the World's Finest Navy and that fills me with pride and joy. I am fortunate to have two jobs I enjoy, and I watch people transform right before my eyes. Despite the odds, I have no jail record, I don't live off the state and I have an improving credit score. I've learned the world is more than just this society I live in, and that world is a beautiful place. So why try? At the risk of sounding indignant, I believe that as a black man, I have a right to this country. Black men helped lay the railroads to build this nation. Blacks picked the cotton, tended the fields, took care of and sometimes even nursed the white babies…this is my home; my land. That is why I continue to contribute to the same society that rejects me, because maybe I can create for my the world that did not exist for me. Being a black man, a REAL black man means learning how to find joy through pain and above all, never losing hope. It means possessing a strength that is beautiful and rare - that's why I lament that most women who profess love or hatred towards black men have never actually met one. It means enduring, sometimes for it's own sake and the audacity to be happy and successful anyway. Just don't mess with my . I will go katana on that ass. |
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i find it interesting as i work with children and one day one of the children looked after pointed out that my son was darker than he was (the child in question was white and my son is mixed race) but he also pointed out that he was not as dark as another child who is black. When i explained about my son's father being different he accepted this. I told the teachers about this and they were concerned about what he had said and whether it was politically correct. To me he had just been pointing out differences between them but he was not nasty about it just curious and i was honest within reason about why. Alot of people try to sweep thing under the rug when there is no need for it or see harm in something that is meant as innocent.
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The few times I have been openly engaged about my ethnicity, it was not a matter of what societal representation I chose to align myself with. More often, they had already decided how they viewed me, and wanted me to either prove or disprove their beliefs. If I crack a joke, I look like Chris Rock. If I sing, I look like Stevie Wonder. Over the course of my life, I have been compared to virtually every black celebrity and that let me know they were not seeing me for me. Despite the fact or culture is fragmented, I believe individuality is possible and when I say I am black, I am being quite specific in that statement. However, most do not realize black means different things to different people. So I do what I must - I respond from my own point of view, because I am the one to whom the question was asked. What I find even more interesting is that no one asks what black means to me. I cannot help but to remember what Langston Hughes once said. "I could tell you, if I wanted to, what makes me who I am. But I don't really want to. And you don't give a damn."
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