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January 25, 2003
I Didn't Raise 'Em
George has hipped me to some whithering contempt for Condi Rice.
On days like this, it's hard to be black. That is particularly because being black is all about unity. Well, that's not what it was all about, but it was a major factor. It seems we need to go back to the roots. But, you know, why bother? Oh well, now that I've started it, I may as well finish. It really isn't too hard being black, once you understand your place in the black world.
I've always said that being black has everything to do with growing up in a black neighborhood. The two extraordinary things growing up in a black neighborhood teaches one, if one is inclined to learn, is appreciation of diversity and hatred for racism.
You will come to understand quickly, when you grow up in the 'hood, that you have very little in common with your neighbors. On your left is a medium brown skinned family with eight kids from Dallas whose father drives moving vans, on your right is an elderly chocolate brown skinned Methodist minister who drives a Lincoln Continental and can *never* be seen not wearing a suit. Across the street is the high yellow busybody always peeking through her windows, next door to her is a woman who never leaves her perfectly manicured house. A couple doors down in the apartment building are the thugs and the drug dealer, next door to the apartment is the old lady whose house is the regular polling place. Just down the block is the family whose kids are in Ivy League colleges and they built a swimming pool in their backyard. The only reason you are all in the same place is because you are black, and this is where black people are allowed to live, period. This is the 'hood. 10 years before you moved here it was all white.
Racists have manipulated the system to put people with nothing in common but skin color in one place, which oh by the way, is patrolled by helicopters and cops who don't get out of their cars without weapons at the ready. Yet somehow you manage to make this place a neighborhood by becoming neighbors. That's what blackness was all about, forced unity, turned around and converted into community.
It is inevitable that men who come home from killing the enemy at war understand a new level of independence. There are certain things an ex-soldier will not put up with. Likewise it is inevitable that one who bridges the gaps of interest, background, experience and ability in the polyglot 'hood of dark skinned denizens, learns about human nature. In our argot, we would say I Didn't Raise 'Em in response to "There go your people." In short, you learn to live and let live; you understand that old saw that good fences make good neighbors, all relationships have their limits. And so when the shackles of restrictive real-estate covenants were broken, when affirmative action jobs meant more than 3 of the college education adults on the block had real jobs, when white radio stations started playing black music, when McDonalds started putting black children on their television ads, it became inevitable that the ghettos would start bursting at the seams. It became inevitable that ‘the’ community which loosen its grip.
We knew it all the time. We knew that reverend Robinson couldn't stand Mr. Arnold. We knew Mr. Green would never let any of the neighborhood kids on his lawn much less in his house. We knew it was Rixter who broke into our house and fried our goldfish in the skillet. We knew it was Frankie who got Theresa pregnant when she was 14. We knew Mrs. Burton would never invite us to her daughter's cotillion. We knew Mr. Pickett hated all of us, especially the drug dealers in his apartment. We knew each and every one of us every thing that separated us, and as soon as the big white foot was lifted off our heads, we would spread out. Get out of this goddamned neighborhood, go where there were more people like us.
Some people, however, needed the company. They knew that if it wasn't for the fact that most of us didn't have any place to go, they wouldn't have us around. The crabs. “You ain't never gonna make it.”, they said. “You'll be back. I couldn't make it, what makes you think you're going to make it?” The best place for a crab is on the bus. Because no matter how proper your English, no matter how thick that Physics book you're reading, no matter how sweet your threads, you still ain't got no car, and you are still riding the bus with the rest of us.
They say that you never know how American you are until you find yourself in another country. Well, you never know how black you are until you’re outside of the ‘hood. (Or the ghetto, or the projects, or the hill, whichever class of black place you come from.) So having been on the outside, you need to redefine what’s on your insides, and blackness gets refined. Suddenly, all those things you thought were just black things, because Mr. Green or Mr. Arnold did them, you suddenly find in Ralph and Pierre. Suddenly, whitefolks and Europeans, aren’t so mysterious. In fact, we knew it all the time – we just didn’t have first hand confirmation. So what was really black about me? Plenty, in fact so much that it’s impossible to cover in a blog in a year. Nevertheless, there are some old neighbors who still view the world through their kitchen curtains.
One of those crabs has come to dis Condi Rice.
Now all I really had to say was ‘The Black Commentator’ is a crab. 36 Million people from black neighborhoods would have immediately known what I was talking about. But I don’t presume that everyone is, nor that everyone who was remembers the way I do. That’s why I took a pleasant trip down memory lane with you, gentle reader.
Being black has everything to do with growing up black, and staying black has everything to do with staying strong. But speaking out as ‘the’ black commentator instead of ‘a’ black commentator, has everything to do with the delusion that the big white foot is still on everybody’s head, and that every ‘hood is just like Compton. Guess what, we ain’t all on the same bus. But I am not losing a moment’s rest over blackfolks who can’t abide Condi Rice, nor over blackfolks who think she is heaven sent. I dissed her once myself, and probably will again. And I don’t need to spend a whole lot of time getting bent out of shape about fools whose politics reserve their greatest condemnation in terms like ‘race traitor’. Why?
I didn’t raise ‘em.
Speaking from the progressive old school, 7th generation free people of color on the Louisiana side, confirmed Episcopalian by the Archbishop, this is Cobb, most noble greek brother of A Phi A, post-soul boho cusp bap reporting from the geographically desirable zipcode of 90277. Represent. What? What?
Posted by mbowen at January 25, 2003 10:51 AM
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