My therapist questioned my black authenticity simply because of the color of my skin. I tried to explain postmodern polymorphic identity.. and that race has to do with “ethnic identity” and I therefor could be black if I wanted to be black!
I first discovered my blackness from while C-Span. I don’t know what the show was.. some kinda black politics thing.. lots of Cornel West goodness…
See, what I noticed was that every one of these “black issues” were issues I had suffered from!
You look at cycles of abuse.. how abused becomes abuser.. getting passed on through the generations.. And then you got a whole group of people who lived through all the evils of slavery.. of people thinking taking pictures of your self next to a dead man hanging from a tree is a great thing to share with the whole family… I mean what exactly do you think is supposed to come of that?
And what I saw was people rising up from that yoke.. transfiguring that pain.. I saw people wrestling with the shadow side of the American soul. I saw people I could look up to.
I’m a victim of abuse, on some level we probably all are, and so I just identified with it.. I mean I understood that the social toxin’s that were behind racism where the same toxins I was suffering from… It’s just a whole lot of canary in the coal mine..
and I think what separates us, in our own individual identifies.. is illusionary..
So.. to rhyme with Odysseus who said to a certain cyclops “I am the no man who is every man” I say.. why yes, I’m black. And anyways..
That and I wanted to get my hands on that there antibiotic West and the boys were cooking up for the toxins.
In response to “Has Anyone Ever Questioned Your Authentic Blackness?”
I’m an African who grew up mostly in Africa. But because I was educated privately in England that somehow means that I’m ‘posh’ and not fit to represent my race:
“Why do you speak like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re talking to the Queen.”
This gets really old, and really exhausting. And it infuriates me that by extension these ‘real’ black people are implying that to be truly black you have to speak in slang and have limited vocabulary.
I guess the fact that I’m going to the NKOTBSB concert this month doesn’t help matters much, hahaha. (That’s New Kids On the Block and Backstreet Boys for those of you not in the know). I should probably mention that I’m 26 years old and this is probably not acceptable irrespective of your race. I don’t eat chicken on the bone and I’ve probably been to KFC like twice. Having said that, I speak my language, I know my culture, my dad was a chief (surely I get black points for that!) and I like the word ‘free’.
The older I get, the less concerned I am about what other people think I should be. I’m now comfortable with my own definition of blackness that I’ve created through my own experiences. Like this hybrid identity. And it suits me fine.
In response to “Has Anyone Ever Questioned Your Authentic Blackness?”
WHAT ARE YOU?! I am a lighter skinned black woman. I would say golden brown, some would say yellow. I get this question from black people mainly, the other races dont care what kind of black person I am they just know I am black. My own race feels the need to have a category for me. According to them I dont have the features of a “regular” black person. My hair can be tight and curly (still not easily managed), to long and straight. In regular black people world that is not normal, or so they think. The fact that I find other ways to straighten my hair without a relaxer is also not normal according to them. My eyes are also shaped similar to an almond, or according to them they are Asian like. And when you add all these not “normal” features of black people together I must be of another race.
I find this disturbing because most black people in America don’t know where they came from, but interrogate me often because of my appearance although we are all the same people.
In answer to the Day 9 Question “Has Anyone Ever Questioned Your ‘Authentic Blackness?’”
I believe the quest to find/be part of a tribe is something that’s basically hard-wired in humans. The Internet has made it SOOO much easier for everybody, but especially young people, to find a tribal home or homes. I really don’t think today’s young people know how lucky they are. I remember watching “Afro-Punk” a couple of years back with a mixture of pride, wonder, and a little sadness: Where were these people when I was a kid growing up in Ohio in the 70s and 80s?
I grew up in a very pro-black household but it was in the sense of our parents putting up a good fight against any potential “de-authentication” resulting from our living amongst whites in an integrated suburb. Doing well in school, reading lots of books, speaking “proper” English, etc. — in our house this was just what we did and it had nothing to do with race. It was outside our house, amongst other black kids (mostly), that I learned that these things labeled me as inauthentically black. For better or worse, my parents had put the fear of God into us at a very young age so peer pressure never really had a chance: I continued to do well in school, read a lot, etc. and isolated myself from most of those peers.
The few friends I had, literally from fourth grade through high school, tended to also see the world in bigger, more expansive ways than those other kids. One had a habit of restlessly flipping the radio station dial; thanks to her I discovered all kinds of “white” music, including 20th-century classical music that was a far cry from the Bach etudes I was required to practice every day. Another (now deceased) was big into science fiction and introduced me to several different authors and magazines. Keep in mind we were all black girls and this was the late 70s and early 80s. We barely had computers, much less the Internet!
Currently I live in a very white part of the country (not quite like Vermont, but close). It has been years since anyone of any race has challenged my blackness directly but when I talk about how I grew up, the places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, etc. I sometimes get dubious looks from white people. It’s like they can’t quite comprehend what they’re seeing/hearing and it betrays their conditioning about what they believe an “authentic” black person is. I could write a whole other essay on this but I’ll just say that, at this point in my life, my skin is my Black Card, and everything I do in this skin I declare to be authentically black.
In answer to the Day 9 Question “Has Anyone Ever Questioned Your ‘Authentic Blackness?’”
I work at a public school that serves mostly Black and Latinos students so obviously I’m not Black enough for them. I don’t speak enough ebonics, listen to enough hip hop (though I would argue I just listen to a different type of hip hop) or wear the right clothes. I would love to think that the fact that I grew up in the projects and was raised by a single, Black mother would be enough to earn my Black card but as the kids will tell you: that don’t matter. Also, I wish that I didn’t have to authenticate my Blackness at all.
