Be Bwave Fursday or Be Bwave Fwyday: Obama=O.J.

maybe I'll start a trend

if it's only me, is it still a trend?

be bwave fursday or be bwave fwyday

depends on how my brain's feeling

maybe we need a button

Let me say, I'm not a fan of Israel or our country's relentless support of its policies and actions. But I am not anti-semitic. By any stretch of the imagination. Israel doesn't define individual Jews. Nor does Israel define all groups of Jews. Nor does disagreement with Israel necessarily equal bigotry.

And *race* is about as general a term as *germ*.

Obama doesn't define individual blacks forget the african american euphemism. Nor does criticism of Obama necessarily equal racism or evidence that those same critics use the *n* word at the dinner table. I'm sure there are plenty of folks who hate Obama just because he is black. Just as I'm sure there are folks who blindly support him just because he is black. And I think there are folks who have a lot of influence and power who use the black and white opinions so to speak to further their own agendas.

I'm thinking that our feelings about race are so connected with our experiences from birth, that it's a mucky muck task to see the issue clearly. I know my feelings and views about being black in america are based solely on my experience as an arguably black girl growing up here. That's how it is for each and every one of us. We can really only see through our own eyes. I say arguably cause I don't fit the mold. Because in order to classify and generalize, there has to be a mold. Black west indian father. White mother. So maybe father's not really black because he has a charming accent from the islands and he's a surgeon...

I don't think of you as black.

what the fuck does THAT mean?

Your father reminds me of Sidney Poitier or Bill Cosby.

hmmm...

We lived in a relatively exclusive NY suburb. And we had a big house and fancy vacations and a sports car. But we were also like the only black family in our small town who didn't live in "the projects". Which were obviously not projects. It was just an apartment complex. But most of the black folks in our town lived there, so... projects. And in school, whenever slaves were mentioned in social studies, it felt like all eyes were on me. Guilty by complexion. as though I should be embarrassed or ashamed, and god knows I was. And if everything on TV in the 1970s was white, except for jokey JJ, or pimps and robbers, where do I fit in?

All I can do is assimilate all my experiences and form a construct to try and understand. And as humans, I think those constructs are formed very early on, when the pathways in the brain have not yet hardened into concrete. At some point we're all just kids trying to understand how the world works. And if we're lucky, at some later point of relative maturity, we can decipher the roadmap and understand why we feel the way we feel, and think the way we think, and react the way we react.

I'm guilty of categorizing too. I'm guilty of sometimes not separating the individual from the symbol.

I remember walking into an exam room a few years ago, and seeing a 14 yr old, a young black manchild, shackled. This boy had been a patient of mine for 10 years. Raised by his grandma. My patient. Shackled. Escorted by a white police officer. I was too shaken to ask why or what. All I could do was examine him and give him a clean bill of health. I couldn't trust my voice, but I must have had quite a look on my face cause the cop looked at me, and kind of gently said we're not the bad guys. I sobbed in the bathroom. Even though this kid must have done something pretty bad, all I could see was white man and shackled black boy.

When OJ was acquitted, I wept tears of joy and relief.

Now don't get all crazy on me... just hear me out.

For me, OJ became a symbol of all the black men who had hung from trees or been whipped or beaten to death. Or denied basic human rights. Or jobs. Or, post civil rights, had the white collar job, but still took to wearing a suit and tie every day even on saturdays as protection against being arbitrarily pulled over by white cops. OJ became a symbol of vindication for me. yes, I know he was the defendant. justice is subjective. And I'm sure he was a symbol for others. Though I don't recall too many admitting that at the time.

I'm only human.

So it's kind of the same with Obama, I think. Michael Moore doesn't want to criticize him during a Charlie Rose interview. People hem and haw about the Nobel Peace Prize. He was supposed to save us. Says who? There's a saying among some black folks. You have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. Seems like President Obama is under a super electron microscope. Why is that? Why is he being held to a different standard than any other president?

But I'm holding him to a different standard, too.

My 9 year old told me that the New York Times ran an article outlining Michelle Obama's family tree, and that she's not all black. I had to laugh. Granted, I don't know the source of Ty's information, or it's accuracy, but my mixed mixed mixed race kid who has grown up in our mixed mixed mixed race extended family can still recognize that if Michelle Obama's heritage is New York Times news worthy, then race sure as hell does matter.

I think the race issues in this country are as complex and varied as individual Americans. And sometimes I think that opinions or attempts to generalize and categorize race issues in either an attempt at understanding or an attempt to further a cause can be misleading. Or inaccurate. Or maybe destructive. Destructive if people react rather than reconsider. Sometimes it's hard not to react until you've honestly looked at where you stand on an issue. And why you stand there. Maybe all we can do is compare our own experiences. Good or bad, proud or ashamed, judgemental or tolerant. Whatever. It is what it is. As long as it's honest.

We're only human.

And as humans, I believe we're pretty much still functioning in the time of the woolly mammoth. Fight or flight. We need to size up what's safe and what's not pretty quickly. It's in our genes. And other is a threat. Different is a threat. And I think this is where racism/intolerance/bigotry is born. It's in our DNA.

But somehow, as humans, we have the capacity, sometimes, to overcome evolution and DNA and our ancient instincts. Sometimes we're able to reason ourselves out of the primordial goo. But the goo is pretty fuckin sticky.

The older I get, the less I know. It seems like I could find all sorts of studies, or publications, or programming to support and corroborate absolutely any opinion I want to justify. With all the info that's at our fingertips, anything can be rationalized. I don't trust any of it anymore. Now that I'm over the hump of my 4th decade, I'm feeling like all I can do is examine my own thinking, motives, and actions. And know that I know nothing. Cause many things I thought to be true, maybe aren't that true after all. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's kind of a relief.

So yes. I cheered when OJ was acquitted.

even though he's pretty much a scum sucker.

And if Obama was white, I wouldn't have been so swept away last fall.

OJ, Obama, my patient, they stand as symbols.

All I have between my ears is a tangled roadmap that I'm trying to decipher. Just trying to understand myself, and then maybe I can understand others better. And I'm trying to get the goo off my feet.

You feewin bwave???