Attended an event yesterday evening with Dwan and all three boys. (Maya was at her varsity basketball team's semifinal - they won, and the final will be this Saturday. This will be for the state championship, so we'll be there in Richmond.) Anyway the event was held at Sidwell (Miller's and the Obama's school, if I may be permitted to drop a name yet again on my blog, in case anybody doesn't remember this minor proxy claim to fame...), and co-sponsored by a local independent bookstore, 'Politics and Prose.'
Baratunde Thurston, the author of How to be Black, spoke to a full house. An alumnus of Sidwell, he writes for the digital Onion, does stand up, and co-hosts Jack and Jill Politics, among other things, which you can see here: http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/index.php?s=baratunde&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 A very dynamic speaker, he 'worked' the audience by walking up and down the aisles, gesticulating at one of two screens on which slides - and at one point a video clip - were shown. The venue was the Quaker 'meeting room' where silent 'meetings' are normally held. (Tangentially, I understand that the name Quaker was given to the original sect in England who would sit in silence - sans preacher or minister - until moved, or quaked, by the 'holy spirit' to speak, or otherwise bear witness to the power and glory of the _________ - name your deity or force or whatever here.) Baratunde spiced his talk with some small and tasteful bits of profanity - usually quoting somebody else in a vignette - and even once used the darkest profanity I know of, the 'n-word.'
I very much liked the talk, Dwan bought the book, and had it signed afterward. Our teens (even Eli joined us) admitted to having enjoyed the talk as well, but I think our stop at 'Z-burger' afterward was even more to their liking.
Were it not for the presence of the teenagers - and possibly also Dwan - I might have posed a question of the speaker, as at least half the time of the talk was devoted to Q&A. Why, you might ask, be bothered with what my teens would think? No matter what, any question I might ask would have been considered 'retarded' out of hand, and grounds for great embarrassment. And why a concern about my wife hearing what I might query? Well, perhaps I was just feeling a bit 'too white.' Let me explain:
Having been diagnosed with MS eleven years ago, and using a cane or walker for over half of that time, I am coming to understand how to 'be a cripple.' (And yes, I reserve the right to use the 'c-word,' at least as long as rappers can use the 'n-word' with impunity.) Furthermore, having turned fifty over the summer, and watched my hair and beard turn gradually from gray to white, I am beginning to learn 'how to be old.' (Going back to college, where the average student is less than half my age is also instructive in this journey.) I also know more or less when and how I feel supported or ignored by the young, or the non-handicapped. And approximately what I think I would like in regard to this, that is, how and when I would like to feel supported, or how and when I am happy to be ignored.
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, as I recall, chronicles, in part, how the author - an African American - felt virtually invisible, as if but a cipher in the eyes of a racist and segregated society. Though older and crippled folk are not disenfranchised in any way like African Americans were at the time this novel was written (and to a large extent still are), the 'invisibility' factor definitely speaks to me.
Because I can say when and how I might feel - or want to be - supported, or when I'd prefer just to be ignored, my question for Baratunde would have been: 'If I read your book, will I learn how to be white?' And if it isn't clear already what I mean by that question - the formation and explanation of which clearly would have outstripped not only my wife's and teen's patience, but probably also the esteemed author's - let me state it as clearly as I can: Given the troubled and violent history of white European enslavement of black Africa, and the enduring prejudice and racism that have been a part of this 'land of the free' ever since emancipation, how should the compassionate and concerned 'white', or non-African American, comport himself? As I type this, I can imagine my lovely wife - who is African American - jumping up and down in her seat, hand raised, yelling 'I know, I know the answer! Treat us as individuals, and not as representatives of some clan, class, or group.' In a word, not as an 'other.'
Or maybe that is not the answer, maybe there is more nuance. And maybe, just maybe, I will come to understand it over time. Maybe we all of us - regardless of 'race', gender, or creed - will come to understand it. With a 'biracial' (Baratunde's word) president in the White House, I believe there is reason for hope, even as the sound and fury of reactionary howls from the right-wing nut-job tea-party fringe crescendoes. Let us make these the last desperate gasps of a sorry sorry past.
