Black Is, Black Ain't

This post has been a long time coming. And then the special report aired. You know the one. And now Earl Graves is beefin' with Soledad O'Brien. And so I figured I’d get in on the action. Now I never intended to watch the program because I already know what it’s like to be Black in America (although I now know that I need someone to follow me around and chronicle my life story in spoken word so that it can sound deep, profound and rhythmic), but while I was out of town with the five, and we were flipping through channels we stopped at CNN and watched a few segments. Twas just what I expected so I dismissed it completely. And then I heard the comments on the morning radio shows. Some Black folk loved it. Some Black people hated it, but knew they weren’t the target audience. And some Black people just hated it altogether. I hadn’t given it much thought until my friend said, “I didn’t like it because they only showed Black people who wanted to be white or poor Black people, no one in the middle. What about us?” Ahhh what about us?

I grew up in a suburb of Washington, DC when it was truly Chocolate City. I grew up middle class with two professional parents who are first generation college graduates. I was surrounded by Black two parent families, Black lawyers, doctors, teachers, social workers, business owners, corporate America climbers, HBCU graduates, AKAs, Deltas, Alphas, Jack & Jillers, Martha’s Vineyard vacationers, movers and shakers, the whole "talented tenth" as it were. I attended a Black church and was in an all Black Girl Scout troop. Being around "successful" Black people who had advanced degrees, owned homes, and still ate chitlins and collard greens was my world and reality. And while I was in class with mostly white people, my mama always kept us grounded. Always a revolutionary, Mama Rum Punch kept it real. She taught us that Black was beautiful and something to be proud of. She taught us our history, and when I was in third grade during a field trip to the Capitol I argued with the white tour guide about how Lincoln did not really free the slaves. She and the teacher tried to hush me so that I wouldn’t ruin the myth for the rest of the class. But the seed had been planted. And I became outspoken Black girl in class, futilely trying to kick the truth to the young white youth. I then went on to an HBCU where I was surrounded by a diverse group of Black people who didn't fit into one identity. And then I entered the real world and learned how to straddle two worlds.

A couple of years ago I was at a bar in DC. As I was ordering a drink this Black chick asked me where I was from. "Maryland," I said. "You don’t sound like it," she said. "I try not to conform to stereotypes," I said. She was a little taken aback and then… "I love her," she squealed to her white friend. I knew instantly she was one of those black girls who had spent a lifetime surrounded around white people and probably had her "blackness" challenged by Black people. I had been there before when I was younger when people told me I sounded white. I wasn’t sure what that meant. And then I learned. And then I tried to change. And then I said fuck it. And I have been me ever since.

I don't feel the need to try to prove my Blackness, not prove my Blackness, be someone else’s definition of Black, or put all my energy into trying to change people's perception of Black. As a writer I write about the Black life that I know. I don't sugar coat, embellish or exaggerate. And when I present my work to my writer's groups, it's well received by people of all races. But I am noticing that there are some Black artistes who are on some: I don’t want to be the stereotypical Black person I just want to be me, but I want you to know that I know that I’m Black, I’m just not one of those Black people, I’m my own kind of Black person, but I’m still Black. Ok? Watch this and maybe you’ll see what I mean.

The whole thing confounds me. On one of the Black in America segments, one Black man had moved his family to the suburbs and was suffering from the 'white man’s ice is colder’ syndrome. What the hell is this all about, I wondered. What exactly is he trying to accomplish? Doesn't he know he's always going to be Black, no matter how hard he tries to be a different kind of Black person? What exactly is he trying to prove? And who is he trying to prove it to? Looking back at my life experiences, I realize that for me being Black was never this, or that, it just was. And even now, to me, it just is. We can try to bottle it or define it, but there will always be a difference of opinion or an anomaly that proves otherwise. To me being Black is the “worst” of us and the “best” of us and everything in between. The middle.

The middle which is often forgotten, an untold story, because it's just regular, normal, and everyday. It's filled with people who pay their bills on time, own houses and live in apartments, go to work, attend church/mosques/temples, get degrees, raise and marry off their children, get sick, make babies out of wedlock, celebrate golden anniversaries, travel the world, have cookouts, play bid whist, work in corporate America, the community & the government, get profiled by the police, have family members who made it to the suburbs and those still in the hood or the country, keep JET and Ebony on the coffee table, get perms or locs or keep it natural, live in cities and small towns, share inside jokes that the majority will never understand, make individual strides, fuck up, and have personal setbacks. Just trying to live the best life they can all the while being Black in America. Whatever that means.

That’s my time y’all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!

Singing A Different Tune

You know how the radio can beat a song into your head so that eventually you know the words? You’re not even sure how it happened. That’s how I feel about Alicia Keys’ song No One. Before I realized it, I knew all the words to that song and I don’t even like that song! Anyway. Because the radio plays the same 10 songs over and over, I caught myself singing I’m So Hood, not whilst it was playing in my car but whilst I was sitting at my desk. Goodness it’s a catchy little ditty.

So I’m sitting at my desk and then I randomly start singing, “I’m soooo hood…” and then kind of hum the next few lines cause I don’t know what he says after that, something about wearing your pants below your waist and walking it out and you ain’t hood if you don’t know what he’s talking bout. Hmm…so I do know the rest…ok…So then I stopped myself and was like “Rum Punch, (yes I call myself Rum Punch even in my everyday life) you aren’t hood, you are middle class”-and we know this because I used the correct subject verb agreement. Hmmm…but for some reason I’m sooo middle classs just doesn’t have the same ring to it, in a song or in life.

As a young woman who grew up Black middle class, not to be confused with growing up Black bourgeoisie and yes there is a difference. Don’t you just love how we as Black people put each other into categories? So, while I didn’t want for anything growing up (a true blessing), my mama maintained her Revolutionary, Black Power ideologies, so there was no Jack & Jill, no Links, no Boulé, no trips to the Vineyard, no attendance at my mother’s sorority or father’s fraternity conference-mainly because they didn’t pledge, no cotillion (although me being the diva that I am, I begged my mama to let me be in a cotillion but I was met with staunch resistance as my mom reminisced on the discrimination that she and her family faced by her own people-damn Black folk and our brown paper bag tests!). And if you didn’t experience 80% of those references, you didn’t grow up Black bourgeoisie either. But it’s ok. Like the King of Pop sang, you are not alone.

Unfortunately, I have seen many of my fellow middle class brethren fall prey to the ‘I’m sooo hood mentality…’ You know the ones who grew up in a two parent home, went to church on Sunday, did well in school (until maybe about high school) and then suddenly they became ‘hood.’ This led to them actually having to hang in the hood for authenticity and eventually getting tangled into things their parents would have never fathomed. Aaaah yes, the fallen ones. Because growing up Black middle class is some heavy stuff, and I mean literally heavy…I mean it’s like we are carrying the race on our backs with our successes and achievements, stumbles and pitfalls.

For me growing up Black and middle class was about more than my parents’ combined income, it was about exposure and opportunity. My parents wanted my brother and I to have every chance that they didn’t have. This meant that we learned foreign languages at an early age, were taught to love reading, saw plays about our people, were taken to museums just because it was Saturday and had countless other experiences that helped us see the world from a different perspective. We were raised and nurtured around people of a similar mindset, as we attended Kwanzaa celebrations (and other fun family gatherings), church on a regular basis and after school activities like our all Black Scouting troops. In every setting we were surrounded by people who cheered us on, encouraged us at every step and complimented our every success. And because we had received so much, certain things were expected of us. Attending college was a given, getting married before birthing a child was a commandment, joining somebody’s church was an expectation and giving back to the community was something you embodied…

There are many Black folk who have grown up quote on quote middle class and have seemingly strayed away from the values and expectations of their parents, families, community and apparently society as a whole. This Washington Post article really makes you go hmmm, or wtf, or a combination of both… Sometimes it seems that if you are Black and you grew up “regular”: in a two parent household (or just a supportive household for goodness sake), in a house (not a project building), took modest vacations, were pushed to succeed and be the best and were loved by your family, then seemingly, you are in a small minority. I once had a guy who after years of hustling finally got his first 9-5 job say to me, "I'm trying to be square like your father." Is that what going to work everyday, owning a home and raising a family is nowadays, being a square? I'll be that. But I understand how it doesn't make for a catchy song...


Because while you may know all song lyrics related to the hood, you probably can’t really relate to that lifestyle. But there is no song for you and how you grew up. We are not privy to see Black performers, entertainers or athletes recount their middle class lifestyle to the masses, not because they don’t exist but because it just doesn’t sell the b.s. ‘woe is me, I was Black and po’ but I ain’t no mo…’ one dimensional portrayal of Black life. I mean let hip hop and the media tell it (Mr. Bill O’Reilly included), the way I lived is just not real. Even August Wilson said the Cosby Show did not accurately reflect African American life. But I’m sorry, that’s how I grew up. That was African American life for me. That was my world. And I know that for millions of Black kids who are now Black adults, that too was their world. So I say that we Black middle class folk ban together and write our own song for the world to hear…I’m sooo middle class and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

That’s my time y’all! Happy Rum Punch Friday!