Different guys. Different thoughts.
In the last semester of my college experience , I took a course that impacted me in more way than I thought it would. The course was designed to reshape and challenge your thinking and encourage you to stretch your imagination in order to bring about social change. The course was called "Millennial Imagination", very fascinating stuff, but without getting into that much detail about the course I will say that there was a passage in one of the books that stood out to me particularly. It was called "Reclaiming the Language"". The concept basically was to take a term that is used and has a perceived purpose or definition and then assessing it and breaking down its meaning
be upset to read this but please "hear me out" (as Dead Mike would say). Why do I have to identify with an entire continent that consists of 53 countries? You hear any white people claiming the whole of Europe? Nope! Do we accept this terminology in order to pay homage to an unfortunate displacement brought about by ignorance hatred and laziness (slavery I mean)? If so, I'd rather not. Honestly I believe that because of the youth of our nation we all as Americans cling so desperately to our "roots" because we feel like it gives us a sense of cultural identity hence, the reference to African American. Africa is made up of countries who all maintain and continue there own individual cultures and for us to claim the ENTIRE continent I feel is frankly a little ignorant.
ion of ANY race...I would categorize myself as a waning militant. There was a time when a black fist was seen on everyone of my t-shirts, my favorite colors were black,
….
and more black. (I wasn’t the most original teenager)
And my walls were peppered with socialist (before I even knew what the word meant) leaders and black revolutionaries. Though I am still inspired by Malcolm X, Che is still see randomly in my screensaver, and I walk out of movies that offend me (case in point Transformers 2, which I regretted shortly afterward being it was an uncharacteristically cold night and I missed one of the best battles in movie history), I find myself waning on my Black Nationalist views that I held so long. And in some cases just being plain embarrassed by them.
For example, interracial dating.
I have never been against it, but I can still remember the days when I saw a black man with a white woman, and judged immediately about why the two of them were together. I did not hate, but I could not think of it being anything but a momentary fling, a sexual fetish that the two of them shared. I could not see beyond my own prejudice viewpoints.
It was true, it was prejudice. Which is why I am embarrassed now.
However, without noticing some of my best friends began to date interracially. Still my prejudice did not wane. In fact, even though my best friend who is black was in a long standing relationship with a woman from Pakistan, my mind did not click that they were an interracial couple. It was something about Black and White that seemed unable to mesh for me, even as my friends would date Asian, Latinas, Arabs, Persians, and even European women.
I remember what people used to tell me as a child about people who are dated outside their race.
They’ve either
1) Sold Out
2) Hate their race, and consequently themselves
3) Have issues with their mama or daddy
4) Can’t “Handle” a sista or brotha, or are generally weak people
5) Are Immoral people
And I succumbed to these beliefs as well, even used them as jokes, especially with sistas, toward my peers who dated white women.
I am under the belief that fear of interracial dating is embedded within the very fabric of Black culture. We immediately demonize anyone who participates in it, because at one point it truly was a very dangerous aspect of our lives. Interracial dating didn’t become “legal” until 1967. That is less then forty years ago. Up until that time people have been arrested, jailed, murdered, beaten, and tortured because of loving another race. Everyone knows the horror stories of black men who “winked” at white women and received a brutal lynching as a reward. Interracial relationships were seen as nothing more than rape in the eyes of the law. And still biracial children are considered the bastards of either race, a scorn that is swept under the rug and forgotten (a topic for another blog).
So we have crafted an undeniable fear in ourselves for pursuing another race. Not to mention, especially for sistas, we are constantly told by those around use (whether media or our peers) that we are not good enough, pretty enough, western enough, skinny enough, black enough, or human enough. And to think a black person is attractive is still perceived as a fetish that is often exploited by pop culture.
But these traditions need to change.
The friends I have who dated interracially are not the self-loathing, race hating people that people make them out to be. Many of them are just as politically and socially active as I am, and can quote the teachings of Martin Luther King and Marcus Garvey better than I can. The white girls who I know with black boy friends are not struck with bouts of jungle fever, but love their boyfriends and are as loyal to them as any sista would be. And the interracial couples I know are some of the strongest and loving relationships that I have seen in my short life.
I to have dated interracially, and I dare anyone to call me confused about who I am, or if I do not have an intense pride for me race.
Humans are meant to merge cultures. It is an undeniable fact. Look at music. Music only grows and expands when it merges with other forums of music. Beatles would not have been the Beatles without their love and cover of old blues licks. Jazz would be no where without George Gershwin orchestrating it. And Jonny Cash used to sing Gospel songs before he went to country.
If that is true for music, fine art, poetry, architecture, etc. then why not should we also merge as peoples?
If that argument doesn’t work then what about personal preference. You know how you just like black people; perhaps they happened to like all people. Or white people. Or Asian people. Or Indian people. So ask yourself, like I did. Why do you hate? Could it possibly be your own insecurities?
Maybe I am just not a believer in the myth of the “black family” anymore. Maybe because I find myself increasingly dating biracial women who have experience hatred because of their mix ancestry. Maybe because the people against interracial dating seem irrational and damn near racist. Or maybe because I don’t give a shit. Anyway I support interracial dating, and purpose a radical idea: let’s just call it dating. Might solve a few things.
Plus look how happy these models are. Clearly it’s because of interracial dating, and not because they’re getting paid.
I got the inspiration for this blog from the wonderful blog of Danielle Belton called Black Snob. Check it out click here.
I went to a fairly diverse high school. In fact, our principal, often boasted that our high school was a microcosm of the United States. However, despite the diversity, we still manage to segregate ourselves in to various factions biased on thought, religion, race, and social status. It seemed the main factor for these divisions at the time was musical taste. It defined who you were, and connected you to the members of your various social groups. For example the Emo kids listened to Evanescence and Jap pop, Theater nerds exclusively show tunes (or the occasional rock opera), etc.
Now being a black kid it was expected that I listened to one thing: Hip Hop. So when I reached high school I was immediately placed into a gallant of social stigmas biased on my knowledge of hip hop. Unfortunately for me, hip hop was banned from my home until high school. The first album I even thought of owning was Stankonia by Outkast, and was so shocked by the profanity that I immediately apologized to my mom for purchasing it. I myself was a little budding nerd, who dug Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn, Linkin Park, and the music of Final Fantasy. As an effect I was hit with a landslide of judgment, and public scoffing.
So what did I do? I faked it. I didn’t particularly like hip hop (with the exception of Outkast, Public enemy, and Eminem) so I forced myself. I believed that to be truly “black” I had to not only love this music, but embody it. Consequently when I entered college I was a hip hop head, to the point where it was in the very swagger of my being.
>But this became an issue. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t gangsta, quite the contrary. I wasn’t a playa. I was just a nerd, who was trying way too hard. As an effect I stuck out, having thrown on this mantle, and trying to fit into my own stereotype of what I thought hip hop was.
In college I found myself hanging in groups of radically different people, unlike in high school, and consequently listening to their various forms of music. It became insane the amount of music that I was exposed to. I listened to everything from show tunes, to classic rock, to blues, to jazz, to salsa, to even country. As an effect I began to form my own taste in music, that is truly and uniquely me.
I thought this would put me at odds with the hip hop world, whose forced exposure helped me form a resounding passion for it, and throughout college it did. What I listened to was not played by my black friends, and my other friends were perplexed and often openly laughed at hip hop. Once again I was at odds with myself.
Then I went to the Roots picnic.
