For all who believe and wage your hopes and bets for America on the realization of post racial millennials, just remember, the hippies were similarly perceived. When the rubber hits the road and the time comes to share or relinquish or for some, to even acknowledge that which comes with the mere designation of white skin, attitudes will change.
Just a few days ago, I was sharing with some folks that I attended a mostly White school. During grades K- 8, I was the only or one of two, three if I was lucky, Black students in my class. We were unceremoniously and unashamedly grouped according to academic standing ("A" Class, "B" Class, "C" Class, "D" Class). Who are the educators who did this? I need not ask why. The reasons are obvious. It is disturbing because it was intentional and deliberately divisive on so many fronts...
All through school however, I got along well with my peers, both Black and White. The intended barriers had no effective or lasting affect on my experience. While they joked that I sounded or talked like a White girl, Black students did not jeer me or call me a sell out, uncle tom or ban me from their circles. I think they mostly celebrated in our own way, that I represented for US in the "A" Class. "The Higginbothams were [Black and we were] smart". My White peers also liked me. Many still think I was Senior Class President, because always I have been vocal and present. For sure, I was voted Homecoming Queen [I was shocked my cheerleading braggadocious Mom was not - Love me some her!!!], only the second in our school's history. It was a popularity contest. So in other words, even though some grown ass and likely not so happy photographer failed to have a decent photo of my victory for the yearbook (oh there was prejudice) they, my White peers, got me and I got them. We were together in some capacity for 13 years; K thru 12. We grew up together...
For as long as I remember, and certainly by middle or high school, I have always celebrated my Blackness, never shying away from who I am or trying to be something or someone I am not. I do not recall ever trying to or feeling the need to be or act White to fit in. I remember that as early as 3rd or 4th grade, a cousin who had teenage cousins shared with us that the older kids had told him that we did not have to salute the flag. We were only required to stand. So as early as that I only stood. I stopped saying the words and crossing my heart. The words did not ring true or pertinent to me, not even as a child. Something about that "justice for all". It was the 60's... I remember too that long before Martin Luther King Day was a holiday, my Mother allowed that in a show of support for it to become a holiday and in solidarity with other Black students, that my siblings and I did not go to school.
So for as long as I can recall, I have found my way to be my authentic self and still remain credible in both worlds, Black and White. I was under no delusion that I straddled two worlds. We went home to very different communities. My neighborhood was 100% Black and had been so for at least two generations. My Mom grew up there. It was familiar and I liked going home. In retrospect and very gratefully, I think I learned early in life that people appreciate realness. I learned early to unapologetically be my authentic self...
Fast forward to my 10 year high school reunion. Things changed. Some of my peers had changed. The "cool" kids did not seem so cool. We were no longer children in the protective environment of academia or the innocence of youth. We were now grown, had gone off to college or whatever it was we decided to do. We had significant others and had been exposed to politics and who knows what other kinds of influences to change us. As children, I do not recall our ever discussing politics, religion, income or even race (beyond some really superficial innocuous comments). We might have known that someone was Catholic, who was Italian, Polish or Irish, Black or Puerto Rican or who were the families more well off but we did not have deep discussions on any of these topics, certainly not politics and race. Some were certainly regarded prejudice, especially some of the teachers and administrators, but they were few and mostly covert. There were no known skin-heads or honorary kkk members amongst us, not as far as we knew... Don't get me wrong, we were conscious of race. It was not Utopia. There are stories to tell but mostly, we got along...
I was happy and excited to go to my 10 year reunion. I had been with these people for all of my child life. I wanted to see them and catch up on what we were all doing. My graduating class of less than 100 was 10% or so Black. Only me and my Black boyfriend showed up. LOL! No real surprise there. Some of the "cool" White kids did not come either. It has been 40 years and I have never seen some of them again as they have also rejected subsequent reunions. I get it. It is based on experience. Mine was mostly good...
I remember some of the students I felt most close to in high school and looked forward most to seeing, were now very standoffish and not so excited about seeing me. It was a wake up call. I learned that day that life had shaped us. These were not the kids I grew up with who were innocent and not fixated on race despite what their parents might have told them about Black folks at home. They were not the kids who voted me Homecoming Queen and who would have shared their marbles and their privilege with me. They had been touched by the world and like the hippies before them, had become their parents whose ideologies they might have previously rejected or not been aware of as children. The hippies before them became the establishment they rejected as will they... My peers had come to know their standing, what had been preserved for them, they wore it proudly and stood ready to accept and even if unknowingly, protect it for the next generation as their parents had done for them. Although I did not understand it as such then, I have come to realize now that what they were protective of stood fully prepared to preserve was their privilege. Helen Who??? I heard them...
So post racial millenials will be so until such time they come to know and really benefit on their own, not through their parents, their privilege and entitlements, better described as their standing of preferential treatments in life. History tells us that they will not relinquish or share their marbles or privilege with their "good friends" either... They too will deny the existence of any such privilege
especially if they knew hard times or grew up poor. They will deny how societal systems are structured to benefit them. I optimistically hope to be wrong about my pessimistic views regarding our youth but I would not bet one single of my marbles that I am...
especially if they knew hard times or grew up poor. They will deny how societal systems are structured to benefit them. I optimistically hope to be wrong about my pessimistic views regarding our youth but I would not bet one single of my marbles that I am...
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| See What I mean? Data Source: National Longitudinal Surveys |
James Weldon Johnson said it best, Black folks, not because we want to but as a matter of survival, understand White folks [better than] even when they don't [want to] understand themselves. Try as they may, White folks alternatively, still do not understand us. Their life or existence does not dictate to them that they have to... To borrow a term, Black folks are "Caucasian Anthropologists" who have become successfully schizophrenic as we have learned to naturally adapt our presentations and even our thinking according to the situation at hand. Call it Black survival in a jungle of whiteness...
