THE BLACKENING of AMERICA

In today's mindset, Blackness is a thing to be emulated. We see it in the malls, on television, at the movies, and on youngster's feet in
the form of the latest tennis or clothing fad, which of course is endorsed by the top hottest and black athlete or rap celebrity of the moment.

Outing your inner blackness can be genuine if you were born black, or if you were born black and lived white, you can still find that inner spiritual point where the "n" in you can come out. But for the others more racially challenged individuals who don't know don't have a trace of blackness in them, or just don't "get it", let me clue you in the run down on the low down and I don't mean down low.

"Showing your black" has nothing today with actually being black. You can be the middle class geek from up the way and still "show yo black" to the world in many ways.

First skip the nerdy clothes your mama bought you and get quick to GenerationX or another hip hop place that has the style you see on BET, MTV and SCTV and a few ideas from the Sci-fi channel "ain't gonna hurt your sock either, with some of that filthy futuristic shit they be having." Notice the vernacular as well. You see how I dipped into that slang right there? Well, while you're finding your inner black, you're going to have to learn how to "get your blackness on" outside as well as just bringing out your inner one.

People can see a phony and a dressed up monkey is still a dressed up monkey. If you want to be fresh with it, then by all mean learn to speak so you don't end up in somebody's trunk. We all have seen those movie clips where the black man imitates a white one speaking like they supposedly sound or mimicking the educated black, "Well my dear sir, I think that we are experiencing a small problem of semantics here, and you, I assume, do not understand the properties of which you speak." Or some other gobbledegeek. Speaking like that is not only likely to get you thrown in the river, but have the weight tied to your tongue instead of your waist. Not that anyone is going to be so drastic in their displeasure of your speech, but it'll help if just have a small understanding of how to get around once you have yourself all spruced up in your new ghetto goods.

But wait a minute you say? Weren't we talking corporate? How does all this apply to that world with the hip-hop and the fast talking?

Well my friends, believe it or not, the boardroom has started boogying and most corporate offices now sport the latest fad material to attract the latest fad manuverer or young money making producers into their offices.

Remember the Dashiki? It was all the rage in the 1980's, came out with the flower people in the sixties and stuck around with Negro culture and has transcended into still an item of pride to many African Americans. With a good physique you may still be able to pull one off but that's pretty shaky cause you could just end up looking like a white boy trying to look black and that's not what we want. We want to express our inner blackness not stifle it, or have it shoved down our own throats.

Now the walk, you' got to slide into a room. The easy glide moving bebop head bobbing walk that you see black street men do. Almost like one of their ankles is broke and they have to drag that foot. But you have to refine it for your whiteness. A rapid move, not too jaunty and a little less dip, shoulders swaying not quite to a swagger but confident. Go to the mirror to get it right. Stand there swing your shoulders in an almost Bogart type movement swinging them one forward then the other, then walk forward; slide one foot forward with a slight dip, and then move the other one up to complete to step. Keep on and you're "walking the walk."

In the boardroom, of course you do not want jeans and tennis shoes, to this day but Dockers and an oversized shirt is the uniform for many young executives in the fast lane. The tennis are designer and cost anywhere from $250 to $10,000 so it's a little hard to deny some athletic shoes in the work place. Air Jordan are a good way to go to be safe if you don't know the style, but get a pair that goes good with slacks and nice sport coat, cause even though you got the big shirt, if you watch TV you see that many time even with the tail hanging, it's covered with a jacket to give that "business" look of today.

The baseball cap is an iffy situation. You have got to have a lot of confidence to pull that one off in the boardroom and you probably have already made the company oodles of money so it doesn't matter. But if you are just changing up and bringing out your blackness after a long period of nerdiness, then let that be something you hold off on for a while till people accept the new you and the new look. Baby steps people... baby steps.

First a little lesson on why all this is happening and allowing you find your inner blackness in the first place.

Society has accepted this change in its view of racial identity slowly at first denying that African Americans had anything to do with market trends and were becoming something of a purchasing choice in the mid to late 80's and early 90's, yet the moment that black athletic gear endorsed by hip hop stars and major player in any field of athletics showed a profit on the Dow, it wasn't only little blacks who were running to the stores, now little white Johnny had to be in on the madness and his parent became inundated with request for the same great gear that they had in the ghetto.

It was a marketer's dream. The shelves were full of Afro-centric items that had nothing to do with Africa or many time even black entertainers or sports figures. They had no connection to the black community or its people. It was just some item painted in what was perceived to be African colors or had a picture of a hot car with rims or some other depiction of the items that African Americans craved in the so called ghettos around the world.

In Eric Lott's book, Love and Theft Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class he states how white have always emulated the black lifestyle and unique ways and attributes of color incorporating them into their own cultural imagery and methods of behavior. To quote a passage; "For over two centuries, America has celebrated the very black culture it attempts to control and repress, and nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the strange practice of blackface performance. Born of extreme racial and class conflicts, the blackface minstrel show sometimes usefully intensified them." ISBN13: 9780195096415ISBN10: 019509641X paper, 328 pages Apr 1995, Price:$29.95 (04)

So for more years that many remember the association with the African American culture has been fraught with tension yet envy by the middle class. The evolution of slave to cultural icon has changed the face of human interaction. It is not uncommon to be greeted by a young middle class white man garbed wearing the latest urban ghetto gear with a, "Yo brothuh, wass up?"

You may take this as an affirmation of the lifestyle and go forward extending your inner blackness out into the world because it has become an accepted concept and mode of behavior. The market caters exclusively to that aficionado who wants to be black for a day and even plants stores in white neighborhoods that sell only black material and hip hop items so you can find them that much easier.

So go forth and be Black! Spread your inner blackness, make it known that you want to get on the side of the shape of things to come. Bring out the black man or black woman inside yourself and show the world that you are as hip, slim and mac nasty as the rest.

Show your blackness white world, and push us further into the limelight cause soon we'll be ready for the white house even if you're not yet. Just keep on making it the thing to be black and where we are, and where we've come to, will be all in the past as we find a black man running the country, and things suddenly being the way they were meant to be, and that folks, will be the true blackness coming out!