shellacking

[Wilson Gray]

On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu> wrote:

> I was
> reminded that I was white, by whites and _blacks_ and Asians.

Paul, the colored are very easily manpulated. At the '72 LSA Summer
School at UNC, I noticed around a guy that, had anyone asked me to
guess "what" he was, I would have guessed "Lebanese,"
primarily because he was wearing a stereotypical, Saudi-styled "Son of
The Desert" mustache-cum-beard. But his complexion was somewhat
fairer, indeed, *much* fairer, than that stereotypically associated
with peoples of the Near East in my mind. I can't speak for all
Americans, of course, but it is the case that my stereotype of the
"standard" individual from the Near East is based upon what I've
learned to expect as a consequence of having grown up in the United
States.

Be that as it may, because his skin was so fair and the the only Arabs
of such fair complexion that I happen to know are Lebanese, I
unconsciously decided that this particular foreign person was a
Lebanese Arab, hence "white," this despite the fact that I know or am
acquainted with a sufficiently-broad spectrum of Lebanese to be fully
aware that many Lebanese have such dark complexions that they could
well be Saudis, Iraqis, Egyptians, or even black Americans.

IAC, at a meal, a group of people, including this person and your
humble correspondent, were, as usual, discussing various aspects of
American racism. Suddenly, this person dropped his unsolicited opinion
into discussion in some strangely-accented attempt at English.
Naturally, he was immediately challenged: "Who are *you* to dare to
offer *your* opinion as though it could possibly have any significance
or be of any concern to *us*?! What's makes you think that you can
speak to this matter?" (It's astonishingly common for white Americans
to feel free to interject themselves and their opinions into any
conversation about anything that has to do with blacks, without any
idea what kind of assholes they're being. They have not the slightest
idea that, by unconsciously displaying their feeling that it is their
natural right to join any group of blacks and freely express their
opinions, positive or negative, WRT to anything that the coloreds
might be discussing, they are thereby continuing the master-slave
relationship. As a consequence, a lot of "good" white people find
themselves and their opinions dismissed out of hand and they have no
idea why. Unless it's <choke! gasp!> *reverse* racism! The problem is
the inability to drop the "white rules" attitude so unforgettably
(dis)played by Jenny Agutter when she sternly addressed the aborigine
boy, telling him in no uncertain terms, "We want water!" White people
been up so long, up seem like down to them.) He replied simply, "I'm
block [sic]."

Well, from that moment on, he was regarded as a stone soul-brother,
merely on the basis of his having publicly asserted that he was black
"before God and four other white men." The fact that he was still no
less a foreigner in his lack of ability to walk the walk and talk the
talk and the fact that his phenotype still revealed no outward
evidence of sub-Saharan African ancestry mattered not.

All that you had to have done was to "white" yourself into any
gathering of blacks and publicly assert to them that you yourself were
also black and, just like that, you would have been accepted by blacks
as being also black. Shortly after that, as the word about your black
"blood" spread, no one would have had to remind you that you were
black. You would have been fully aware of it at all times.

I once read a novel by a white - naturally - author who wrote that his
token black character was so thoroughly integrated <har! har!> into
his otherwise-white social milieu that he would forget that he himself
was not white, unless he happened to catch a reflection of himself in
a random shopwindow or mirror.

Unreal. Illogical. Ridiculous.

Once upon a time, back in the '60's, it was considered cute to say of
an animal, "It thinks it's a people!" That an animal should consider
itself human is more likely than that a person who knows himself to be
black would or could forget that which is the defining characteristic
of his existence, above anything else. It would be a lot easier, IMO,
to go to a foreign country and forget that one was an American,
accustomed to toilet paper so soft that it could be used to "wipe a
baby's bottom!" as a Dutch friend once exclaimed, upon first
experiencing a luxury that no American considers to be a luxury, but
simply the way that things are. (That was when I was in the Army and
anyone going on leave, knowing better than to trust his spoiled
American asshole to the rigors of European sanitation - No wonder the
Germans almost won The War! They wipe their asses with sandpaper! -
always made sure to hit the PX for a couple of rolls of genuine
Made-In-USA first.)

--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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