Quote:
Originally posted by DoggyStyle82
Defining "Blackness" is becoming increasingly more difficult because the range of our experiences as individuals have increases exponentially in a relatively short period. My friends and I have pondered how to best raise a child with a sense of "Blackness" when a great deal of their acculteration will be in white schools and white neighborhoods. How does one give a sense of something that cannot be defined.
It can't be defined because "Blackness" is innate. It is something that has to be lived and experienced. There were five Black students in my graduating class in high school, but when people ask me how many, I usually say "3" because the other two were racially "Black" but not culturally "Black". "What is that?" you say. I don't know. I just know that the other two never felt comfortable around us. Never spoke to us. Usually avoided us. Anything that would have been pertinent to a Black person never seemed to matter to them. It wasn't about speech patterns, complexion, or superficial things.
They didn't live in Black neighborhoods, have Black friends, go to Black churches, eat "Black foods" or otherwise live the "Black Experience", they didn't even associate with each other, yet racially, they were Black. They couldn't tell you what Kwanzaa was, nor did they care. Harlem Renaissance? Join school NAACP chapter? Sit with another Black person at lunch?
Is there a universal Black Experience or Culture anymore? Not with this second generation of intergration. Some people don't want to be Black and that's their perogative.
"Blackness" can't be defined, but you know it when you see it
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I have had a very similar experience. There were three black people in my graduating class, or four depending on how you count.
The problem is that more and more, people do not know it when they see it- in great part because of the increase in diversity within our community. This is widening the ever-increasing gap in the haves and have nots. One of the strengths of the black community that came out of past oppression was our lack of concrete economic boundaries.
In the past, because of segregation black neighborhoods were very different. You were just as likely to have the doctor and the town ditch-digger or maid in the same neighborhood because there wasn't anyplace for them to go. Now that they can, the black professionals have moved out and that has had a great effect on the black poor. They do NOT live the life or even have any inkling of the opportunities that can be open to the black middle class (in terms of schools, scholarships and employment opportunities). The economic divide in our communities is increasing greatly because of this - that is why you get this idea that black=ghetto, or that black=bougie or whatever a given concept is.
The only way we can defeat that is through community sercvice and a willingness to acknowledge a blck identity, something fewer black people do because frankly, fewer people have to. You can choose to ignore that you are black. IT is an act of pure blindness and COMPLETE abandoning of your community, but it can be done and more and more is done.