David, in your article , “Interracial Intercourse,” https://davidsaintvincent.medium.com/interracial-intercourse-13338e299cb6, you are most certainly a man of clear ideas and clear intent ! You do not mince words . You do not shy away from the harsh and difficult topics and issues particularly as these ideas relate to the very-current DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and woke discussions happening at the proverbial water-cooler conversations all over working-day America.
… You’re woke only because you want to be woke.
Yes, I stole a pop-psychology term that is sadly becoming more and more meaningless as time passes, rather than being utilized as a valid temperature gauge for America’s continued foray into racial and cultural degradation., devaluation and depreciation. Woke is not a bad word. Is Enlightened any better? The hope is that woke or enlightened refer to some positive MOVEMENT in an individual’s overall understanding and asking questions and having those really hard conversations about who we love (race/culture/backgrounds) where we live/love (neighborhoods), where we take our love to eat/play/entertain(where we spend our $$), where we invest/save our $$ ( which banks/Credit Unions we choose), where we shop (spending our $$ in black/brown-owned businesses), where we take the ones we love to get healthcare/medicine/mental health care, etc.
I honor what David is asking us, demanding from us as men and women of color who live in DANGEROUS times because of our DANGEROUS thinking ( or NOT thinking ) and consequential behaviors. David is asking us to turn the mirror around and ask more of what we see, of who we see, rather than projecting our fears , resentments and misplaced anger on each other. David is asking me : What can I do ? What’s my role as a brown brother … watching the madness unfold? … One of my job’s is to ask more of me , not as a compassionate bystander, rather more like someone who actively seeks to understand not just the actions and behaviors of others, but my own as well. ..
Danger #1 : The Love Judgment
One of these behaviors we’re engaging in is the : Love Judgment (who you choose to be intimate with). David made this very clear in his argument for black brothers and sisters to NOT judge each other (especially in terms of who we chose as our sex partners/and sometimes relationship partners). Sounds easy to understand. Sounds basic. But it’s true. And so is the inherent danger. The danger is that we are losing time, wasting time, spending time on an aspect of others’ lives over which we have no control (refer to : love is love. physcial atrraction is physical). The danger is lost time, lost energy and effort and passion that can be better spent on truly tending to our needs as a community of black brown brothers and sisters, to tend to our own, especially in these difficult times in which we live..
Danger #2: Allowing Others to Define Me
The other element of Danger is the danger of living up to a misrepresented cultural definition of ourselves : as defined by media (movies/FaceBook/Twitter/TikTok/Instagram/blogs/podcasts/award shows/reality TV shows, et al).
You can’t tell me that the sponsors of the Oscars award show where Will Smith punched Chris Rock weren’t high-fiving each other in the greenroom because : “This is good shit, man.! We’re gonna get the ratings. These two black dudes having it out on primetime! “ So .. here is multi-billion dollar media making money off of two talented black artists who are having a physical altercation on live TV . Will and Chris’ scenario plays right into the fucked-up narrative of the Angry Black Man. “You see: they can’t control their anger. They fight. They’re always fighting or finding violence as an option to words, to mediation, to discussion, to respect”, or so the narrative seems to say. I saw Will punch Chris and my heart sank! Black men, in and of themselves, are NOT a form of entertainment. People are not , in and of themselves, entertainment: particularly to a primarily white audience . Will’s gift is humor and acting and being able to tell a story with his movies and acting abilities. Chris’ gift , his art is his humor and connecting us to truths about ourselves and the fucked-up world we live in. So when these two talented artists, two black men on live TV play out a narrative that has ALREADY been living in and playing in the minds of most white America,… you can see where I feel the danger. The danger of our lost: selves. We can NOT, we should NOT, we will NOT allow others to define us.!!!
Danger #3 : The Danger of Doing Nothing
I read David’s article and the first thing I feel is : What can I do differently? How can I make things better? How do I NOT add to this problem. And I have only one response:
LOVE.
I am not a stupid, uneducated overwrought liberal who has eaten too many edibles (from the now ever-present dispensaries seemingly on every neighborhood corner) and has nothing but free time to worry about how much my loving heart can advance the cause of racial/cultural/economic/health-care/nutrition advancement for my brown and black brothers and sisters.
I am a son, a father and a grandfather who has seen so much sadness on the streets of my beloved Southwest Detroit. My father found a life on the streets by first using alcohol, then using & selling weed, meth and cocaine, moving from one bad habit to the next . All dangerous choices. Some of his brothers followed his lead. I was rescued by my mother who lead us away from these tough situations, this madness, for a while. So, the relevance here to David’s argument is : it was always my perception that the outside world .. looking in on my family… saw us as a bunch of Mexican-Americans who squandered their options and dreams for the allure of easy , fast money on the streets and a fun, flashy life-style with parties and all-night poker games and extended hours at the corner bars in our neighborhood. Yes. That was my father, two of his brothers , many of his friends, sometimes my very own sister and brother. But that was NOT all Mexicans in my family, in my neighborhood, in my city. I am NOT my father. He is not me. I make and made my own choices… that look so much different than his.
The point is PERCEPTION matters. I don’t want to be anyone’s misguided and mis-assigned definition of a Mexican -American, or even regular ole decent American citizen, just because my dad struggled so immensely, for so long. I don’t want to add to Dad’s losses and story of a life unraveled and out-of-control. Addicts are in every culture, every neighborhood. My dad happened to be Mexican. I am his son. I am Mexican, too. I am my father’s son; but, I am a man who decided to say no to using, selling cocaine and profiting from it in any way. This created dissonance and distance because Dad wanted me to do what he found joyful and enjoyable.Years later, after my college graduation , Dad approached me and said, “You followed your heart! You left Detroit, went to college, found your own scholarships and loans and paid for your BA in Special Education. Damn !” When I got my first teaching contract as a Teacher of Students with Autism in the Detroit Public Schools, my father hugged me and said, “I love you, kiddo.” Dad knew I was not him. He was glad I was not him, his choices. But our differences did not confuse our love for each other.
Will Smith is Will Smith. He is not all and every black man. Chris Rock is Chris Rock. He is not all and every black man. He is Chris. Chris and Will, however, are individuals who are black Americans who are responsible for their individual behavior as it relates to : their lives, their unique circumstances and situations. They do not represent the dreams and and hopes and mistakes of all Black Americans or Black men, just as my father , with all his unique struggles with self-esteem, drug addiction and jail time is not all Mexicans, is not me. I am of him . I am me because of my choices, my behaviors, good and bad, that define me and shape my life. I want my life to be mine. I want Will Smith’s and Chris Rock’s lives and choices and behaviors to be owned by them. That punch is frozen in time, never to be erased. Impossible. What’s NOT impossible : our ability to SEE more than what we saw, to look deeper at their mistakes and , maybe, see our own as well.
I chose a life of : love … that has carried me here … to the present. I don’t think Chris Rock or Will Smith’s lives are any different.
Let’s not confuse the situation. Let’s see each other as we really are: black and brown brothers and sisters … made from love, made of love, made for love.
We are love.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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