April 4th, 1968

In addition to Dr. Tatum's book, I've also been reading April 4, 1968 by Michael Eric Dyson. Its a quite different take on Dr. King as it focuses on the role of death in Dr. Kings life. While I ahve not yet finished, I'm about halfway through, and it seems in the first to focus first on Dr. King's own awareness of death's inescapability and the fact that he would probably die at the hands of someone who hated his work against injustice. Dyson also focuses on what death means to black people and black culture as the mortality of black life. He then discusses the affect Dr. King's death had on America and how it sparked a lot of new thoughts on racism and many people became more sympathetic and open to his position as a great purveyor of justice and equality after his death. However, Dyson also writes on how Dr. King's image has been so watered down that many don't realize the depth and difficulty of the message he shared with countless people.

Mainly, the book has made me think about death, not in a morbid way, but more in way of pondering what I am willing to lay down my life for. What am I really convicted about and what would I be able to give my life striving towards?

A No Win Situation?

One of the areas explored in Dr. Tatum's, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria,” is the need for racial solidarity that comes with a conscious effort to establish a peer group of blacks. Although I like to think I come from a diverse background, having lived in New York with mostly white friends, to Miami, having many Hispanic friends, and all the while attending black churches, I feel I have been taught how to move between different racial lines with more assurance and ease than many others I know. While I have had a exposure to a lot of racial issues, I was still raised as a black member of the middle class in a white world even though whites weren't very visible in Miami. I grew up reading mainly white authors, and though my parents tried to intersperse some black children's literature in the mix, it was but a drop of ink in an ocean of whiteness and did some, but not a lot to lessen the effects of whiteness on my psyche. I listened to “white” music in an attempt to counter the stereotypes that black people only like hip hop and r&b. I was prone to make fun of or mimic poorer blacks in an attempt make myself feel superior to those who just didn't work hard enough to escape poverty, who couldn't speak proper English, and who dressed like thugs. But the fact of the matter is, no matter how hard one tries to repress one's connection to the black community, it always comes to the forefront as one continues to live and grow and is confronted with the reality of racism and the inescapable reality of black people's plight in America. While I was always aware of black people's experience in America, of black people's ability to laugh at oblivious whites who just didn't know anything about anyone outside of their whiteness, and black people's sense of community, none of the understanding or awareness was really mine. I had lived a sheltered life in some ways. Being homeschooled, I didn't have to deal with overt racial prejudices or tensions that might have arisen in public schools, I didn't have to deal with teachers treating me differently or lowering their expectations of my intelligence because of my skin color. I didn't have to confront racial realities beyond television documentaries like “Four Little Girls” (a documentary about the 16th street church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama) and “Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry,” (which is an excellent young adult novel, by the way), so while I understood and was aware of what black people had gone through, I wasn't nearly as aware of how that history had anything to do with my life. “If I just work hard, and try to fit in—if I don't bring attention to my blackness, maybe I can get a long with everybody,” was how I thought racial tensions could be healed.

But I didn't realize that ignoring the problem doesn't make the problem go away, and entering college I was confronted with the realities of my different upbringing and knowledge and experience. As much as I wanted to be the same as my white friends, I wasn't. In fact, I was quite different in the sense of what was becoming important to me as I learned more about my identity and what it meant for me to be a black woman. For this reason, I am probably not close with a lot of the people I knew my freshman year, though I still think they are good people. But being a good person is not really enough--I really couldn't build substantive friendships on lies founded in ignorance and repression. I had to remove myself from relationships that had walls in place to restrain my blackness. Those who I couldn't converse honestly and openly about race with wouldn't really be able to know me or understand me, and so the intimacy that I thought was there disappeared. While I have been blessed with several friendships with white people where we talk about race, I still am becoming more jaded towards the ability of most white people to take responsibility to actually become self-educating allies. I don't desire for every white person to make race and combating racism their main issue, there are many injustices and inequalities that we have to combat—but I do think race is a central part in understanding key issues in other injustices. And so I desire for white people to come to an awareness of their identity as white people that allows them to move beyond the blindness and guilt of white privilege into community with people of color who are fighting against racism and other injustices.
And so, while it seems that it is a no win situation for me at times, either having to repress who I am or separate myself from harmful relationships, Having faith in humanity and God, hope for the future, for education and resilient people fighting alongside each other, and love for all people, but too for white people that causes me to want to see them exposed to the truth and be converted by it.