What It Is
Tower of Power once said that hipness is what it is - but sometimes it is what it ain’t. Substitute ‘blackness’ for ‘hipness’ (and there’s a certain extent to which I think that was kinda the unstated point in the first place), and you got somethin. I ain’t gon’ lie, I’m always kinda surprised when I hear somebody espouse some notion of values-based Blackness - ‘if you ain’t/don’t/ [insert favorite item here], you ain’t really Black.’ I mean, I jokingly do it too. Just the other day, I was ribbing a friend of mine because she went to an HBCU and doesn’t play spades. I was all like, “You do like chicken and corn bread, don’t you?” But that’s nothing, because everybody at the table knew I wasn’t the least bit serious. There are some people who make that type of value judgment and mean it. I can’t quite understand that way of thinking, though. Personally, I think Blackness is existential. I mean that in both psychological terms as well as in a more ‘playing-with-the-word-exist’ way. Basically, my premise is that whatever Blackness is, it’s not something that can be measured and defined in the way that we’re used to talking about it. There is no ’standard’ to apply, no way to measure the some degree of Blackness. It is what it is. And it is what it ain’t.
What makes existential Blackness hard for some people to see is that they’re not really used to seeing Blackness as an entity unto itself; they’re used to seeing it as the contrast to whiteness. Obviously, if you use whitness to measure Blackness, the more something seems to be similar to what white people do, the less Black it is. Only thing is, that’s a flawed concept. If Blackness is existential, as I think it is, then it’s not measurable by anything other than itself. You can’t look at white to tell what Black is. Hence, while I know what somebody means when they say “talking white,” that phrase as a reflection (rejection?) of a person’s Blackness holds no meaning. (In a way, it’s like the term “Uncle Tom.” Yeah, I know what people mean when they use that term, but I don’t get how that literary figure came to represent handkerchief-headed obsequiousness. Tom died to ensure the freedom of the sistren. If that ain’t militant, I don’t know what is.) Really, the whole concept of “acting white” in general is antithetical to the idea of self-defined Blackness.
Now in saying all that, I can’t act like there aren’t some cats who I think might be happier if they weren’t Black. Obviously there’s no real way to know, so it’s just me projecting my logic onto their actions, which is a no-no. Nevertheless, when I hear Peterson or Connerly, or somebody who’s Black but uses ‘they’ when referring to Black people, my first inclination is to cast some aspersion on their Blackness. But I hafta check myself. Cuz as much as Blackness is what it is, it sometimes is what it ain’t.
March 24th, 2008 at 11:02 am
It happens on the flip side to a certain degree as well.
I by no stretch of the imagination fit into the image or behavior of a (W-Word)LOL,you know a wigger.
I think for me it is more a result of DJ/Music culture than just the “Rap culture”(Rap &Hip Hop culture are worlds apart these days)
However,I have,many times over the years been questioned and accused of trying to “be Black”,because of my choice of music,movies and the fact that I have taken the time and interest to learn about more than just my own culture and history.
Perhaps because I don’t “study”this all at arms length like a Anthropologist,gives people the mistaken impression that I am leaving my own culture behind in order to emrace another or somehow try to assimilate into it.
More than once I have had people,sometimes in jest and sometimes in outright ignorance,introduced me as “This is Bill,he wants to be Black”.
When in truth,it should be,”This is Bill,he wants to be Bill”.
I speak the same way to everyone(though there is a difference between my formal and casual speech),shake hands the same way,but follow the lead and am a shakee instead of a shaker and Daps is just confusing for me,LOL.
Not a lot of advance thought goes into all this and don’t have mental rehearsals of :
“Here comes Ave,ok,ok it’s What’s poppin’,what’s good and a power shake into a one armed hug,not a regular shake with a Hi, how are you?Good to see you.”
Depending on my mood and the setting,could be either,but more likely the later.
It’s not likely you’ll catch me Soul Clappin’ at the Opera,but not likely you’l catch me at a Opera in the first place.
If I did feel moved enough I would express myself however I felt and once again depending on where I was,could be a “Golly Gee Whiz!” or a “Sheeeeeeeee-it!”.
Same goes for all.
…see guys and girls dancin’
…Doowutchyalike
March 24th, 2008 at 11:10 am
i think you’ve happened on the key of the whole thing, though. cuz the whole process of understanding people is this dance between the individual and the collective. but then, the hardest thing to do, or not-do, as the case may be, is to not project my motives onto your actions. cuz that’s where a lot of the pejorative categorization comes from
March 24th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I think Malcolm and the NOI popularized Uncle Tom as a pejorative term. (Love that word, pejorative.)
Back when my family first move to Los Angeles in the early sixties, my father got his first teaching job at Mt. Vernon Jr. High. Two of his friends on the staff, one a music teacher, the other also an english teacher as my father, remain his friends to this day. (They do an annual Super Bowl Party in Carmel, CA, at the home of the former english teacher, who went on to become a successful playwrite-credits include an episode of “The Mod Squad” and “The Rookies.” )
I remember them when they would come to visit, and they would get political, engaging my brothers and me. We’re talking late 60’s early 70’s when James Brown (with a ‘fro) and Muhammad Ali were the true essence of blackness. One time, during one of those discussions, one of them, I don’t remember which, was describing the essence of blackness, and he used and inaudible body movement. I’ve never forgotten it.
All of that to say, I know it when I see it. Michael Jackson used to have it, but I truly believe he lost it (gave it away?) and does not have it anymore.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:24 am
hmmm…now THAT’S a good question: can you have it and lose it? especially using Mike as the extreme example: assuming it is possible to lose your Blackness (which i’m not sure about), what could he do to get it back? was his temporary affiliation with the NOI an attempt to do just that?
March 25th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Proof on MJ is the babies he had with that British woman. Clearly he went to a sperm bank and purchased the sperm of a white man. No way his kid wouldn’t naturally have that Jackson nose.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:35 am
And BTW,sorry for sidetracking.
“Us people” have a bad habit of trying to make everything about us,but was just talkin bout what I know.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
naw, that’s actually quite valid. cuz i think that if race is existential for one group, it’s existential across the board. and really, ultimately, i think the real case study for race as a social construct is “whiteness,” because it removes the physical component. whatever it is to be “white,” whatever the out-groups had to do to get that title conferred upon them, had nothing to do with their look. i don’t think. but that’s gonna require some study.