What Does it Mean to Be Black in the 21st Century?

As a Black man, I often find myself being caught between being positive, and being myself.

Perhaps I should explain.

If you look at me, hear me talk, observe the way that I carry myself, you might walk away with the idea that I like all of those bourgeois high-minded pseudo-intellectual Black things. But I don't; I don't like the term African-American, I am not in love with Atlanta, I am okay on Harlem, I don't see what the big deal about Washington DC is. I do not read any of the Black authors; you know, not the "street lit" authors, but the Black authors that everyone can agree on. Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni; I respect these authors, and I love to watch movies that are adaptations of their work, but I never read their work. I do not follow any of the Black public intellectuals. I have not enveloped myself in those aspects of Black culture.

I know that this is a cardinal sin for someone of my intelligence. I am supposed to vote Democrat, unwavering, without question, I am supposed to follow Malcolm X, or Dr. Martin Luther King, or Louis Farrakhan, or Tavis Smiley, or Cornel West, or Michael Eric Dyson.

Should I stand in this pulpit from an authoritarian perspective and tell you that this is wrong and that is wrong and stop selling drugs and stop buying designer clothes? No, because I like my drugs, not the drugs that they sell on the street, but I still like drugs, and I like designer clothes, and it probably is not what you would wear, or how you would wear it, but I still like designer clothes.

Should I stand here like a hypocrite and speak out against Black women, as a lot of Black men seem to be doing these days? No, because I have dated those Black women before, or tried to, or aspired to. You have Black people that say that you have Black people, and you have n*. But I think that there is a little bit of a n* in all of us, in all races, it is not a Black phenomenon.

Why do we always have to be on our best behavior? Why can't we let our hair down? Why can't we like all of those boring things that White people like? Why do the things that White people like have to be boring? The myth about the "Black" experience, is that everyone thinks of themselves as an African-American because that is a term that we picked for ourselves, and that everything is colorful and everything has "soul". No, bourgeois, politically involved, conscientious Black people coined the term African-American; these are the same Black people who took Blaxploitation films away from us, the same Black people that did everything they could to stop hip-hop from taking over, the same Black people that do not want us to have fun on our terms. Not everything is colorful, and amplified, and aggressive, and overtly-sexual. Most times it is anything but that and a Black woman might be the hardest woman to get in between the sheets. It takes confidence and leadership to be with a Black woman, with the right type of Black woman. A lot of Black men do not have these qualities, or do not realize that they do, or are not working on the authority that those qualities make provisions for.

Back in the days of our Black leaders, they were not obsessed with being Black; it wasn't an option, it was a situation that you were forced to live through. So this is what I mean that I am caught between being positive, and being a "n". Because many times being positive is a farce, a front, a comfortable, polite way of saying that I am a proud African-American, and I have my stuff together, and that you should look up to me, and I am above you, and this and that.

Why does it have to be us against them? I don't mean us against White people, but Blacks against African-Americans? African-Americans against people of color. African-Americans against people of color that want to deny their African origins? Whatever. Why does it have to play out this way? Why am I supposed to assume some kinship with you, just because you happen to be Black, when I do not feel that same kinship with the African-Americans down the street? What are you some long, lost cousin? Do Asians feel something warm and fuzzy inside, do Latinos do Caucasians feel some type of kinship just because that other person looks like them? I doubt that is the case.

Your struggle is your struggle, it is your cross to bear. I love human beings, I don't love Black people, or White people, or anything or anyone other than that; I love women, I don't love Black women, or White women, or any other type of women because, you know, those other women over there, they don't understand me. You cannot suppose who will understand you and who won't; could be some of a different race does, and you never get any love in your own hometown. That is the way that it is. Under ideal situations, I would have met a Black woman back in Akron, OH and had 2 and 1/2 kids and plenty of money in the bank, but I met a Black woman somewhere I did not even realize had Black people. Life is strange like that, it has that type of humor but we have to lighten up as human beings and learn to laugh with life, instead of feeling that life is having a laugh at our expense.

So the definition of a Black person in this day and age is whatever you want it to be. Because that is the way that it is. Sometimes we get along and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we agree with the struggle and sometimes we do not agree that there even is a struggle and some days we see color but most times, most of us, do not see color. Seeing color is a luxury that some Black people have, because that is their career. The rest of us are not getting paid to be Black; we are just trying to make it day by day ...