Questioning My Blackness.
Okay, I don’t want this to come off as an alt-blacks cry for attention while he/she/they do everything in their power to avoid Black people, but this is an important piece. Part of why I write these pieces is to speak for those who either feel like they don’t have a voice or they feel they cannot express their thoughts or are too afraid. Like all instances of someone questioning my Blackness in my adult life, I just shrugged it off, but this rare, yet recent occurrence was too good for me to shrug off. A poser questioned my Blackness and although it is not as deep as a 4th grade classmate calling me an Uncle Tom because my father dropped me off and picked me up from school every day, it’s still something I wanted to write about because think-piece culture. I’m not going to put a meaning on Blackness, but it does make me feel a way when someone who just discovered “their Blackness” in 2012 makes backhanded remarks about my Blackness because it doesn’t follow the Black-blueprint given to them during the Obama years by ratchet reality tv and white funded, therefore white owned HBCU’s. Assuming this Black man from Boston, one of the whitest metropolitan cities in the nation, doesn’t know anything about Black culture isn’t a fair assumption, but I understand why anyone would do so. Hell, I’d do the same to me if I found out I was from Boston. What I do expect is when you finally recognize a Black King/Queen when you see one you give them their props for keeping their soul in an extremely cold pale place instead of shutting them down because you refuse to believe anyone Black is Black if they don’t do the same “Black things” you do or come from the same “Black” place as you.
“This is a Black household” said the person who wanted to throw away all of the plastic bags I stuffed in a drawer because the drawer was getting hard to close (I shut that shit down with the swiftness by the way). This is my current experience living with someone who believes creating the “Black aesthetic” is how one truly lives in a Black household. She even brought sage, but didn’t buy a lighter or matches because she didn’t know how to use sage. All she knew was Erykah Badu and Solange Knowles are Black women and taking bits and pieces of Black “hotep/woke” culture is the craze right now for new Blacks. I have no problem with people discovering or re-discovering themselves. I encourage it. It becomes a problem when that person wants to impose their practices onto others or somebody who is clearly a poser. It’s quite easy to spot a Black poser because they act in ways a non-Black person would when it comes to Black trends and Black culture. They claim to be into the same things other Black folks are into and try to make you feel like you’re not “Black enough” if you’re not into something or are repulsed by something Black people are into like trash reality TV shows, petty drama, white owned designer brands and falling under the spell of the Democratic Party.
If you are reading this and the shoe fits, I hope you are not offended. I had to clap back the best way I know how that doesn’t result in anyone of us bleeding. With my words. I had to let the people know that I still love their Black asses even though they’re looking real ashy right now. The next time you challenge me to a game of Black Card Revoked and lose to me by 200 points or more, I won’t be such a good sport about it. This doesn’t constitute what makes a BLACK person black, obviously. Just like watching trash “reality” TV, knowing every church hymn, watching and liking every Tyler Perry play and blindly voting for the Democrats doesn’t make one “authentically Black” either.
Before you go, check these dope links out. Spread the word as well.
“Black is a Blessing” shirt by GOD IS DOPE. (A Black owned clothing brand). https://www.godisdope.com/collections/tees/products/b-i-a-b-tee-front-back-white-black-green-red
MY BLACK OWNED CLOTHING BRAND: https://www.bonfire.com/store/badforbusiness/
GET TO KNOW ME MORE BY SUBSCRIBING TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0aUXyeC_Cf3rzt9IL8J8-g.
My latest book “Late Nights on Broadway” https://www.amazon.com/Late-Nights-Broadway-Ernest-Sandefer-ebook/dp/B08QDVN1SF/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&
