Saturday, January 31, 2009

Black Is The New Black

Boy it's something how things change, huh?

It seems that all of a sudden being Black is the new thing for 2009. With Barack Obama getting elected and living in the White House it seems like the Republicans have now decided that they had better get on board with the new "trend" and have selected their first ever African-American person to head the Republic Party, Michael Steele. I guess they figure the writings on the wall and they need to show that they are down with the times. And it looks like this year's winning Head Coach in the Super Bowl will also be a black man (not the first though since Tony Dungy already broke that barrier). So we black men had better recognize that this seems to be our year and get going before the clock runs out on us. We're the hot thing. Black is the new black. I even heard Larry King say that his young son told him one night recently that he wanted to Black, that he thought being Black was cool. Well there you go. We are the hot new toy.

I better get going while the goings good before the clock runs out.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

We Are Not Post Racial Just Yet

I am cross posting this from my blog over at The Huffington Post (published on Jan. 20).

What a fantastic few days this has been. I am still on a natural high as John Denver would say. Now that President-Elect Obama has gloriously become President Obama we can finally turn our attention to the real work of getting this country back on track and into that famously promised "post racial America."

I, like most people, am realistic enough to know that President Obama cannot fix everything that is wrong with our economy and country. Sure there will be those who are looking for him to fail, waiting for those first missteps. But I think even they can't expect one man to fix in a few months or even a few years what has taken eight years to mess up. But I am indeed amazed at the number of people, in the media and that I know personally, who truly do expect America to be now and forever free of its ethnic, religious and racial differences. And this is not coming solely from White Americans who some might think are doing a bit of wishful thinking that minorities can now stop complaining about getting a fair shot. I have also come across some Black Americans who seem to believe that President Obama is going to make everything OK for everybody, or that all Black people's credit scores are now raised as one comedian joked... Doesn't Obama doesn't have enough on his shoulders?

But frankly I have to admit, I too used to think the success of one Black man (and I refer to him as Black since he himself chooses that descriptive) would mean that all Black people would rise with him, that when strangers looked at me from now on, they would think Obama and not Willie Horton or some other more recent negative association. I clearly remember the day after Obama's surprising win in the Iowa caucus, the win that caused most of us to believe that where we are today was possible, how when I was out in public I walked a bit taller, a bit prouder, feeling that everyone who saw me surely must be thinking positive thoughts about me and all Black people. After all, the Obamas proved that all of us were not bad, that some of us were even educated and people to be admired. But that feeling did not last long for me. As the campaign waged on and all the ugliness of the Jeremiah Wright affair, the rise of PUMA, the William Ayers mess, the Bill Clinton coded words after New Hampshire and in North Carolina, after all that, any notion that race was not going to play a factor in Obama's life, and mine as well, was washed away for the most part.

And still, like so many others, I couldn't help myself, there was still a bit of hope, of the belief that the oft-mentioned post-racial America Obama was supposed to usher in, was real. Is it real? Is it coming?

Well, I can definitely say that it is not here yet. But that doesn't mean that it's not on the way or that the inauguration of President Obama, and the multiracial coalition of people who helped him get to this day, are not signs that our nation is indeed moving on a path to that promised land. I do believe that we are undeniably closer to that ideal now than we have ever been in our country's history. And that is certainly worth celebrating.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Post racial we are not. Even President Obama has acknowledged that one man, one term of office, is not enough to change our history and the stain of race. The very fact that a whole new level of heated and passionate racial debate has arisen in the blogosphere related to whether Obama is America's first Black President or whether he is our first Mixed or Bi-Racial President is proof that race still matters to many people. To many the distinction is incredibly important, some believing the debate itself to be another example of those in the majority trying to take something away from Black people by denying that Obama is fully Black. But whatever one thinks about the debate, the fact that it is being waged is the key. And as I said before I have even encountered blacks who act like President Obama's swearing in and triumph means that they have the right to demand anything they want. I have seen examples of this on more than one occasion. The most recent involved a young Black man who was hawking his band's music CD to passersby on the street in downtown Burbank. When people, including me, wouldn't stop and heed his call to buy his CD, he actually invoked Obama to try to shame us into buying. He addressed me particularly, angrily actually, that times were different and Obama's election meant that I should feel obligated to support him as a sign of solidarity. The fact that he was being an ass or that I, and others passing, simply might not be interested in his music at that time weren't even considerations to him. All that mattered was his expectation that Obama's victory meant that we should all want to buy his album since he was, like Obama, Black.

It matters greatly that we now have, in The White House, a person and a family that has dark skin pigmentation, if only because it allow us to tell our kids that they too can be President some day and really mean it. We can now say America has indeed, at least in this case, in this ideal, lived up to its promise that anyone can ascend to the highest office. But incidents like the guy on the street and the recent police shootings of young black men in San Francisco, Houston and Philadelphia, are certainly proof that the mere existence of President Obama cannot lull us into believing that we have reached the pinnacle of racial progress in America. It is true that the only time we will surely know we have become post racial is when the election of a Black person, a Hispanic person, a Muslim, or a woman, is not really newsworthy by itself. Oh, do I look forward to that time.

But for now I am, like most of you, thrilled that we have at least gotten to where we are today, able to witness what we saw on Inauguration Day. We may not be post racial yet and Obama hasn't solved our economic crisis in his first days in office, but what we are witnessing every time we see him and Michelle and those darling girls actually living in The White House is a seismic shift that, at the very least, lets us know if we continue to work at it (and we all have to do our part as Obama said) that the America we want, that post racial America, will get here, and maybe even sooner than we expect.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

"The View" Debates Mixed "Race"

I never really watch "The View" but every once in a while they do have interviews that are newsworthy and that get my attention. Conservative columnist and author Ann Coulter was on this week promoting her new book. While much of the post show media attention has relelated to Coulter's argument that single mothers are to blame for most of society's ills (certainly a ridiculous assertion), the part that peaked my interest the most was the discussion around Coulter's segment of her book where she apparently takes some prominent Mixed people - President-Elect Obama, Halle Berry, and Alicia Keyes - to task for what she says is their convenient labeling of themselves as Black because it benefited them, even, as she put it, while ignoring their white mothers, who in each of their cases, raised them when their Black fathers were not around. Needless to say it is an interesting argument.

Equally interesting was the lead in to the Coulter segment when the hosts of "The View", mainly Whoopie Goldberg, Barbara Walters, and Elizabeth Hasselbeck, gave their own opinions as to why these prominent individuals and other Mixed people rightfully chose to call themselves Black, mainly because, as Whoopie put it, the world will view them as such, so that is what they are.

Now while I am not a fan of Coulter, as I think her opinion on this is based simply on arguing against anything and anybody liberal or minority, I do have to say that I also don't completely agree with the women on "The View."

I do believe Mixed people have a right to make their own determination about which part of their identity they most identify with and feel comfortable claiming, but I also think the opinion of "the world" has nothing to do with it. The minute we give in to the idea that "the world" is the decision maker on who and what we are, is the time we might as well accept all kinds of silly and often racist notions. And I do think there is something a bit wrong in walking around calling oneself as simply one thing, Black, all the while standing next to mothers, in these cases white mothers or grandmothers, especially if that mother raised you in a "white environment." Don't get me wrong, I do get the point made on "The View" that if Obama or Berry or Keyes stood up and said "I'm White" they would be laughed off the stage because they certainly don't look the part.

But therein lies the rub. Halle Berry, Alicia Keyes. Barack Obama, and many others, have as much right to call themselves White as they do Black. It would be equally true. Or equally wrong. Regardless of what they look like. And what of all the other mixtures - Asian and White, Hispanic and Black, Indian and White? And all the others? Are they all supposed to wait for society to tell them what they are allowed to call themselves? Regardless of reality or how they feel or how they were raised?

As for Ann Coulter's view, I think she got one key part wrong. I don't think our society ever makes it "convenient" or "advantageous" as she insinuates, to identify as Black. I'm not sure which world she lives in on that one. Our society, and world, doesn't give out too many bonuses for dark pigmentation, at least not compared to the ways we have been, and in some ways continue to be, penalized for it. So the fact that the three people she mentioned chose to call themselves Black may have a lot to do with the one drop rule being all powerful in most people's eyes, but it certainly wasn't a choice made of political or career expediency.

Well, I've been saying this issue was going to get a lot more attention thanks to Obama's rise, and this brouhaha is just the beginning. As I've said before, I welcome the debate. It can only help us move forward. Below are two key segments of the show. If you haven't seen it, check 'em out. Very entertaining, and a precursor of more to come I'm sure.



Friday, January 9, 2009

The "N Word" Resurfaces

You know how you can be doing and feeling so good some times and then one seemingly little thing can bring you down?

I had one of those incidents not long ago. My wife and I were walking back from somewhere to our condo, down a fairly busy street in downtown Burbank. It was, as usual, a beautiful day in Southern California and my wife and I were enjoying the weather, our conversation and life in general.

As we neared one local movie rental shop, an older homeless woman, I think she is Anglo-American, a regular in this area and probably the only homeless person we ever see around Burbank, was camped out at a bus stop in front of the store. We didn't think anything about her as we'd seen her before and though we knew her to be a bit grumpy, we knew she was harmless. So we kept on talking and walking on our path that would take us past her seat at the corner stop. To our complete surprise, she looked up as we were about to pass her and proceeded to yell quite loudly, "GET OUT OF HERE NIGGER! GET OUT OF HERE!"

Now imagine our shock. I hadn't personally heard anyone call me that directly since I was in junior high in Texas during some racial strife at our school. The last thing I expected was to hear it on a street in Southern California, and from a homeless woman no less. It's something when even a homeless person thinks they are better than any black person. You just have to shake your head sometimes. And the funny thing is Dianna thought the woman was talking to her, and Dianna is Mexican-American. So I'm still trying to convince Dianna the words were not meant for her.

Needless to say, Dianna and I kept on walking and didn't stop to say anything to the woman. What would be the point? She is clearly a bit not right in the head and there would be nothng to gain. But I have to admit, hearing those words definitely shook us up a bit and its hard to get them out of your head. Dianna and I soon went back to our conversation but of course the incident has remained with us. In some ways, I think it was more upsetting to my wife than to me. I'm not sure Dianna has ever really heard the word used so forcefully and so negatively, and targeted so directly.

The old woman is still on the street and we have walked past her since, though we take a wide berth and avoid going directly in front of her if we can. Some might argue why let her get away with that, even causing us to alter our path in anyway. But I think this is one of those sitations where there is nothing to gain in dealing with a possibly mentally ill person. Were it a different individual and a different situation, no doubt we would take a different action.

But you know since that happened, I do ask myself, how whould I have responded if my kids had been present when the lady said something like that? In that case, I think I would have had no choice but to confront the lady directly, or a least say something back to her, not name calling of course, but some comment to let her know her words were stupid and uncalled for. And of course I would have had to have a conversation with the kids about her words and action. But since it was just me and Dianna...

But it does make me think that though we have warned our kids about the existence of stupid people out there, knowing that sooner or later, they will definitely hear something ignorant said about and to them, can it ever be enough to prepare you. Like I said, Dianna and I are older and wiser and we were still literally shocked to hear those words directed at us/me.

Oh well, I take the incident as a reminder that we have to stay aware that ignorance is still alive and well and that it exists everywhere. But it is still so disturbing to have something like that happen to you.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

The Beauty of So Many Cultures

I was doing some people watching the other day at the mall here in Burbank and once again was struck by the wonderful mixture of cultures that we have here. It reminds me that we made the right choice of where to raise our children. And yet I still wonder if in a way they are getting a warped sense of what the rest of the country and world is like when it comes to the mixing of cultures in one area. Will they have a hard time if they decide at some point to move to an area or city that is more dominated by one culture? Will they then have a rude awakening?

Ultimately, I know I can't worry about all that. All we can do as parents, no matter where we live, is try to give our kids a strong sense of who they are, and a pride in their cultures. And at the same time I hope we are giving them a strong sense of appreciation for all the other cultures that exist around them. In that way, I hope they will always choose to live in an area with this kind of mixture because they too will come to love seeing so many people of so many hues and languages and experiences. Multiculturalism is such a beautiful thing.