Some time ago I was hanging out with a Latino friend of mine, and for some reason we began to talk about different people and their attitudes. Right now the specifics of the conversation are a little blurry to me, but I know my friend began to speak about African-Americans being too sensitive when it came to race relations, she mentioned something about letting things go, that things weren’t as bad as they were. Needless to say I began to explain to her some things about internalized oppression; statistical data that reveal how much lower minority incomes were compared to European- Americans. I talked about the institutionalized oppression and how our prisons are overpopulated with brothers doing time for pity crimes; I also spoke about how much more we spend on building maximum security prisons than on good educational programs that would intern give young people more options before turning to crime. The conversation got deep, and my friend asked me why I was so passionate about the subject, I replied that the subject was part of who I was, and that led to explaining to her about my background, how I was raised Puerto Rican, but in reality I was African-American. This revelation took my friend by surprise, for one, she was amazed at how good my Spanish was, but until then, she wasn’t quite getting why I was so high strong on speaking about race relations.
A week went by and I hung out with a larger crowd of Latino friends, so that night at the party, one of topics of conversation was my race; evidently they got to talking about it in my absence. So another one of my friends comes up to me and tells me, “Yo Jay, I didn’t know you were black, I thought you were Puerto Rican”. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t trying to be nasty with me or anything, but the news seemed to surprise everybody, so instead of introducing me as usual, they began to introduce me as: “this my friend Jay, he’s black, can you believe it?, and he speaks better Spanish then me” So the party went on, the introduction took place a couple of more times, and the fact that they were mentioning it so much began to bother me, I just felt like suddenly they had a different perspective about me after learning about my roots, I didn’t know what to think about what they were saying and how they were going about the whole situation. Later on, after sobriety went out the window, we were all having a good time, and one of the people in the party was chilling with me, cracking some jokes and what not, when she said to me that it didn’t matter where I came from or if I was black or whatever, that I was still a cool guy.
The next day I woke up with a lot on my mind. For starters, the night before showed me once again how race changes peoples perception, sometimes for the good, a lot of times for worse, what a power lie the notion of race still is. But more importantly, I was racking my brains trying to figure out why their comments about me being black bothered me. I felt like after knowing these people for some time already, it was like they met somebody completely new just because I was black and not a “pure Puerto Rican” whatever that means. Let’s keep in mind that I was the one who opened up this whole race door. After some more reflection, I was able to see that they weren’t really trying to hurt me, and their friendship and affection to me is still to this day unchanged; these people are truly good people who I consider very good friends. But there was still something bothering me, what was it? Why was I upset about this whole black thing? So I literally looked at myself in the mirror, did it for a long time, thinking about this whole thing, until I finally saw what I needed to see. I saw a black man, a handsome one I might add, lol. You see, you can tell yourself all kinds of lies, some lies you’re taught early, other lies you hold on to because they are more comfortable for you, because you have an excuse, because you didn’t have a say, you were just born into a crazy world. Sometimes you just don’t know where you’re going to wind up, a maze sometimes. But the truth is the best way back into sanity, if you’re strong enough. For a long time I stood on the fence, what am I? Back? Latino? Asian? Which is better? Hmm….. Through lessons, hard knock lessons, sweat, tears, scratching for some room to breathe, I’ve come to understand who I am, how does society look at me, and grown some pretty tough skin. So I looked at myself in the mirror and finally came to terms with myself, I embraced my blackness, it’s who I am no matter where I was raised or how many languages I can speak. A black man is black man here, in Puerto Rico , in China Nigeria
Later on I began to think about my younger days, and I was able to see how differently I had been socialized. I mean, I grew up worshiping Latin girls, and that’s understandable having spent some time in the island, but what was amazing was that yeah, I can remember having crushes on white girls too, and those Playboy magazines where some of my favorites, occasionally I would see a pretty black girl, but for a long time I never even dated black girls. My first sexual experience with a black woman wasn’t until my mid-twenties. What I’m getting at is that I was never taught that black was beautiful, never; all I liked was always lighter than me. I guess that would’ve made me invisible when I looked at myself as a young man, that’s pretty fucked up, what can I say, ok you’re influenced to think one way, and then on the other hand from time to time you get treated like you’re less than dirt, that can be very confusing for a teenager you know.
So now, as a grown up, I’ve come to terms with that man in the mirror, and I see exactly who I need to see, me, and I love everything about it, and love my sisters, and I’m sorry I ignored them for so long, that was really my loss, black is beautiful, feel me, and I’m not just saying this, I mean it with all of me. I’ve learned so much about myself, that in all honesty, I wouldn’t want to be anything else but black, if I come back in another life, I hope I’d come back black again, that’ how rich this is……..More on this later……
2 comments:
Damn, Jay. You're really doin' it. Great post. And this is stacking up to be one helluva blog. Not that I'm surprised. :-D I'm proud to know you.
This is really working out for me, keeps me sharp. As always Prof, thank you. Oh and I read you're last posting and the rest of the feedback from "United We Fall". I gotta tell ya hun, you have quite an audience. I know you won't win them all over, but keep at it hun, we need people like you. See ya later
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