Tag: Black in America

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Starting Over

 New day, new start over Navy Pier.

Is it ever too late to (re)start?

So, after seeing the depressing latest Avenger’s movie (don’t worry, no spoilers), and living with someone who is generally always depressed about turning 40, I got to thinking about life and why death can be such a preoccupation.  Ok, so we all have to die, unless Christ comes early and sweeps the believers away, but if not  we all have to die. I get it. But maybe because I am perpetually optimistic, to a fault sometimes, I don’t think thinking or worrying about death has to be all consuming. Take my husband, for example, turning 40 for him has almost been a death sentence. He complains his life is over, his youth is gone, he can’t do things anymore (like dunk a basketball, umm, ok), he’s old and he’ll be dead soon.  I live with his dread everyday and it can be quite oppressive. So, being the mother of a toddler, I have mastered the art of redirection and I apply it to my husband. I tell him how great his life is (he’s a lawyer like he always dreamt!), he’s not old (at 40 he doesn’t have to worry about the superficial things of his 20s like clubbing, not having money and having random sex, which aren’t valid arguments to him), he maybe can’t dunk a basketball, but he can learn to golf, and generally that his life is good because he has a family, a house, decent clothes, good friends, and a comfortable life. But still for him, he wishes he had accomplished more by 40, more traveling, more episodes of random sex, and now it’s all gone. However, with the exception of the random sex (while married to me), I believe that whatever he wants can still be accomplished.

Take me, for example, I’m a few years from 40, but I’m not worried about it. Sure, I haven’t accomplished everything that I have wanted, my job is super, super stressful, my post-baby weight is ridiculous, and I haven’t been the most attentive friend post-baby, but generally my life is good. I have a family and home I love, friends who are supportive and a job which does offer a good amount of flexibility as a trade-off for all of the stress. And now, because I believe if you don’t like your life you can change it, here I am writing. I don’t know where this will lead, but I do know wherever it does lead, it will be good because I am finally doing what I have dreamed of and what is God’s purpose for me. So, this is what makes me encourage my husband to get up and change the things he doesn’t like despite his age. Death will surely come, but it doesn’t have to come and the expense of us forgetting to live. If there is something out there that you always wanted for yourself, why not go after it? Whatever it is. And if you are too old, like becoming a NBA star at 45, then try for the next best thing. Be the best 45-year old in a basketball league for your age and if you want to be famous, find a way to monetize it. If you want to be an actress, but think 36 is too old to start, get over it. Get a headshot, take some classes and go on some auditions. Tyler Perry always seems to be hiring. I’m not saying walk away from your day jobs to follow your dreams, unless of course you can afford to do that, but find a way to make your dreams work in your current life until a time comes where you live them full-time. Of course following your dreams or changing your life will not be easy, but if it is something that you want to do anyway, you already know it will be worth the determination, trials, and setbacks for all the success in the end. All it takes is the courage to take the first step. So, go out there, dreamers. Live that life, go get that bag, walk it like you talk it, be a trap star or whatever, but don’t waste any more seconds dying without living. And because I firmly believe in the prophet Jay-Z when he said, and I paraphrase, don’t waste my breath, I don’t know how many more of them I got left, I intend to live on purpose. Death will come, but I’m sure as hell not waiting on it.

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On Being Catholic

 The little chapel.

I grew up in a religious household with one foot in each of my parents’ denominations. My mother grew up Catholic, attended Catholic school her entire life and even went to a Catholic college. I don’t think devout is an adequate description for her upbringing. My father on the other hand was raised Baptist, and always looked to attend a free-spirited, diverse Baptist church. This meant that I was christened Catholic, but baptized in a Baptist church and floated between attending the two my whole life. While they both have their attributes, I have mostly ended up attending a Baptist church as an adult. There are times however, when I miss the certainty, quietness and stoicism offered from a Catholic church. Maybe it’s because they tend to be in older, massive buildings steeped in history which provokes awe, but genuflecting in a Catholic church immediately makes me feel like I am in a most holy place and realigns my spirit.

Earlier this year, I felt like my life was going down the road of chaos on what happened to be Ash Wednesday. So during my lunch break I ran down the street to the local Catholic Church for Ash Wednesday service to get a spiritual tune-up. While there, I got everything I bargained for and walked out feeling invigorated with an ash cross on my forehead to boot.

I understand that not everyone knows about Catholic traditions/rituals in the South as Catholic churches aren’t as prevalent as they are in the North, so I was unnerved by the stares that I got because of the ash cross on my forehead on my walk back to work and into the building. I brushed off the looks from people who work in the building who I have seen before but don’t really know and focused on the fact that my sprit had been renewed. It was not until I got back to my office and stopped by the restroom that I discovered that what I thought was the usual wisp of ashes smeared across my head turned out to be the biggest, blackest cross that has ever been made. It looked like God himself had drawn a cross from the top of my forehead to the bridge of my nose with black magic marker. In that bathroom, I must admit that I had a crisis of faith. I debated whether I should wash the cross off of my face and keep my Ash Wednesday service attendance to myself or just proudly wear it as a mark of my dedication to God. Eventually, my Catholic guilt won out and I emerged with the cross from a medieval crucifixion still affixed to my head.  I managed to stay in my office the rest of the day, so the stares died down but I had to make a stop at the grocery store on my way home to buy my requisite organic groceries (see here) and prepared myself for more peering. I soldiered through my shopping, scurrying down the lanes and picking up things as fast as I could, telling myself that at least I didn’t rinse it off and I must be making God proud by not being ashamed (I was hoping embarrassment wasn’t frowned upon by God though). I almost explained to the checkout girl the reason for the cross when she refused to look at me during check-out, but I didn’t want to come across as doing any religious grandstanding. And so, I scuttled my cart to my car, threw in my groceries and pulled out of my parking space happy that I was done with the day.

Once I began driving in the parking lot, a friend from high school and her seven-year old and five year-old daughters walked in front of my car. Without a thought I rolled down my window and yelled “Hello!” I will never forget the faces of those girls. Usually the girls are so happy to say “hi” when I run into them and tell me about how school is going, but when they saw me that day, or really the gigantic cross on my head, they froze in terror. When my friend also looked at me slightly scared and quizzically like I had lost my mind, I figured it was time to cut the pleasantries, roll up the window and just take the cross to the house. When I finally got to my mom’s house to check-in with her, I was frazzled but happy to be around another Catholic who would understand my day. That was until my so very Catholic mother told me that with St. Peter’s cross hanging on my head and wearing a black dress, I looked like I participated in an exorcism. Then she asked me why I just didn’t wash it off. And that’s how a  part-time Catholic Baptist does Ash Wednesday.

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Black in America

 My white black dad.

I’m black. I live in America, so that makes me African-American. However, I say I’m black, because I also contend that Charlize Theron is African-American because she’s from Africa but she’s white and well that makes my head spin and question the African-American label. Further, the label African-American overlooks the country of origin of black people as Africa is a continent, not a country. I mean does anyone run around saying, I’m a South American-American, instead of I’m Brazilian-American? And I understand that the African-American label gives a nod to the fact that most blacks in America don’t know their countries of origin because of slavery, but still. Anyway, I digress.

As a black person from America, that means most likely I am a combination of ethnicities thanks to the evil design of slavery. However, growing up with a father who looked very much like a white man and a mother with roots from the Bahamas, I often wondered what exactly that ethnic mix would turn out to be. Also, because I watch a lot of PBS these days (see being in my thirties with a family), I secretly wish Dr. Henry Louis Gates would do one of the big, black book of family trees for me like he does for the celebrities on his show Finding Your Roots. But without access to Dr. Gates, I did the next best thing and opted to do genetic testing.  Since my father was considered black, but looked white, I set out to start with his genetic make-up first. Since my father has been dead for awhile, I turned to one of his brothers, my favorite uncle and used his saliva. (This does presuppose that my grandmother wasn’t running around and that they have the same mother and father. But they look alike, so I’ll go with she was faithful.) When I got back the test results, I found out that my father and his siblings are almost 70% white, with the remainder being African, Southeast Asian and Indian. With that my father went from being a light-skinned black person to a dark-skinned white person. Upon learning their genetic make-up, my uncles and aunts brushed it off and said that they will always be black. But really, are they? My mom’s genetic make-up was less of a surprise with her being 90% African and the rest Portuguese, what seemed like a direct result of a slave ship from Africa sailing to an island in the Bahamas.

So, with that, I wondered what did it make me? I’m not delusional enough to believe that in America I will not be accepted as 100% black even if my genetic make-up doesn’t reflect that.  Just look at Meghan Markle or Tiger Woods, for example. They both try their hardest to give a nod to their non-black side perhaps even more than their black side, but no matter what they do they still are categorized as black by both black and non-back communities. I argue if they weren’t categorized as black, they wouldn’t have gotten as much press as they have. Being thought of as 100% black is what makes people take interest in them because they are operating in what have been traditionally white environments. Not because they are thought of as 50% black. Again, I’m digressing; back to me.  If my father was mostly white and my mother is mostly black, that makes me a mixed race person, no? And if it does, am I entitled to say that I am mixed race like someone with a 100% white parent and a 100% black parent? And if it does entitle me to say that I am mixed race, is there some percentage cut-off point where a person could no longer say they are mixed race? Say if someone ended-up being 15% white and 85% black, does that still count? My point is, that being labeled black in America doesn’t really care about the hue of your skin color on the black spectrum or your genetic make-up. Being black really is based on your identifying cultural upbringing and experiences. Again, my father didn’t look black at all so he wasn’t openly discriminated against in some situations like my mom was, however once certain people learned that he was black their attitudes toward him changed. And so, being black is about having the one drop of black in you that makes you a descendant from someone in Africa and a recipient of some form of acknowledgment that you aren’t white in America. It’s about a communal acknowledgment of being a descendant of people who were mistreated in slavery and its aftermath, not ever given equal standing or footing and still attempting to make a patchwork quilt of the American dream with jagged scrapes from the throwaway pile. It is about overcoming an attempt to erase your native tongues and histories and mass extermination to building business, social and political forces. It’s about being made to think that you were less than something in America to acknowledging that there is no America or American wealth without the head start of free labor given to many white Americans off of the backs of blacks. Being black is simply about knowing how it feels to grow up as an underdog and learning how not to just survive, but to live. I’m not sure if blacks in America will ever live as freely as whites in America, but I do know that blacks in America are a beautiful product of many ethnicities, struggles, achievements and experiences that make us vibrantly unique.

So, regardless of the fact that neither I nor most blacks in America are 100% black, we’ll always be considered black and that label should acknowledge our varied ethnic mixes. It also should acknowledge that the construct of racial discrimination specifically against blacks is ignorance at its finest and relies on a lack of imagination and disregard of history from its proponents. Being black is more than just one thing. It isn’t a label that should be rejected or shunned. It’s a result of cultural descent and shared communal experiences. No matter how black you are, or aren’t, on the outside or the blackness of your genetic make-up on the inside, as any financial expert will tell you, being in the black is the best thing to be.