Black Future: Black Enough

I grew up in the Chamberlayne area of Henrico County, Virginia.  It was and still is a mixed-race, multi-class community ranging from white, black, Asian, Hispanic; low, working, middle, and upper class families.  An only child living with happily married parents in our modest but loving home, I played and excelled at baseball, enjoyed reading, history and social studies, and did very well in school.  I was in art clubs, the debate team, student government, and was in an honor or "talented and gifted" program every year of my formal education.  My second elementary school and my middle schools were predominately white.  All of this and more has allowed me to have a unique opportunity for exposure throughout my childhood years...which helped me gain the skills to communicate with people from a variety of races and socio-economic backgrounds.  I've had real white, Asian, and Hispanic friends.  By the account of many, many people I've associated with.....particularly from more urban areas than Chamberlayne, I wasn't black enough.

It could be because I didn't use slang around teachers or any other adults...I was raised to reserve that language for my friends.  Or maybe because I played baseball in a time (that still exists) where far more white kids played.  Or it could've been because I had nothing in style until I could buy it for myself.  Or because I openly had white friends.  Or because I was a "county" boy in a time where the City of Richmond was apparently the blackest place to be in nation...and Henrico (and other counties) was seen as the whitest.  Especially my part.  People who lived in Henrico areas like Glen Lea and Ratcliffe got passes, not because of there proximity to the city (Ratcliffe and Chamberlayne are no more than a couple miles from the city, respectively), but those areas were less diverse both economically and racially.  And because of Glen Lea's closeness to Richmond, they even believed they were an eastern extension of the notoriously known black, drug hotbed Highland Park (in all fairness, Glen Lea is formally referred to as East Highland Park...but it's not Highland Park by any stretch).  At any rate Chamberlayne was none of that.

I know very well what Ben Carson meant when he said that President Obama didn't "grow up black."  He wasn't just talking about biracial make-ups within the household, nor was he merely referring to people of African descent who's next to kin were born in Africa.  He was also talking about people who weren't raised in the negative assumptions of black American culture.  He was referring to the kids who spoke English properly, who had two parent households that were relatively stable, who didn't necessarily have to endure a "struggle".  He was talking about me.

Surprisingly though, I'm amazed that many of you acted like you didn't know what he was talking about.  Because you were the kids making fun of black kids who understood proper noun/verb agreement in the 5th grade.  It was you who said that the baseball, tennis, golf players, and swimmers were playing white sports.  You couldn't understand how a black person could listen to other forms of music than hip-hop.  The level of knowledge and diversity, and the articulation of such that's so attractive now was the same thing you considered acting white a very short time ago.  You attempted to make blacks feel inferior to other blacks in a country where any color of skin is unacceptable in several levels.  You were Ben Carson....just accept it.  Now, ask yourself why.

Does being black enough mean going to an HBCU?  Does it include a certain dialect and vocal tone?  Does it restrict you to a certain type of music, dress, style of worship, food?  Does it mean displaying a black fist every so often?  Civil Rights leader John Lewis made this quote in the early 1960s in response to young black adults coming from northeastern and western parts of the U.S. to help with the movement:

"They came with their afros and dashikis in an effort to affirm their blackness.  In Alabama, we don't need any of that, we already know we're black."

Still, that question is relevant today, as, for example, Tiger Woods was real black when he was winning tour after tour.  But when he got caught cheating on his white wife with [allegedly] other white women, he was then deemed not black enough.  I was laughed at by some of my militant peers for not attending an Virginia State University.  These individuals quickly forgot that founder of the Black Panther Party Huey Newton attended predominately white institution University of California-Santa Cruz.  Even today, I have associates who would consider me not black enough because I choose to move past the atrocities of slavery and Jim Crow that neither they nor I experienced.  However, when my work grows into a more public platform, I'm sure I'll be black enough then...at least so they can claim close association.

I believe the reality is that no black person has the wherewithal to tell another black person that they are or are not black enough.  Of course, statements and actions towards one's own people should be questioned to a degree...but more as an indictment against that person being against people.  Ask yourself this, do you think your ancestors in 1914 think you wearing Filipino and Brazilian hair....to hide your natural black hair...black enough?  Do you think they would consider you supporting music that drives home killing black people....black enough?  Do you think they believe financially neglecting your black community for fashion....black enough?  Honestly, they might...because even when we think that yesteryear was a period of being black enough, there was still a movement that housed the same life-strangling issues that we face today; confirming that the term black enough is non-existent.

Why isn't there an argument that people don't love enough?