Notes from a Boy @ The Window

2 Responses to Soledad O’Brien: Jesse Jackson Told Me I ‘Didn’t Count’ As Black

1. Catherine Lugg says:

   November 10, 2010 at 10:08 pm

   Feh….I hate the crap. Long ago, when I was a doc student, in the span of 3 days, 2 of my buds and I were told:

   1. Barbara wasn’t Native American enough.
   2. Marie wasn’t black enough.
   3. I wasn’t queer enough.

   We discovered our identity failings at a shared lunch, where we had a good laugh and decided some folks were totally full of crap.

   But before that lunch, that assessment did cut me to the bone. Now that I’m older and wiser I will tell any would-be “assessor” to shove it.
   • decollins1969 says:

     November 11, 2010 at 7:33 am

     I’ve been hearing it at least since ’77. Having to write about it in the manuscript had dredged up old feelings of inadequacy, at least in the first drafts. But then someone who had cut in front of me at the CVS in Silver Spring a couple of years ago tried to pull the same thing on me. I politely told her, an Asian woman, that I was in front of her and that she was downright rude, and she told me that she didn’t have to move because I didn’t sound Black to her. Then I said

     “We’re not all stereotypes.”

     “I know better. I’m married to a Black man,” she said.

     I got mad, and I stooped to her level. “So, you married a Black guy for the big dick? Is that what you’re saying? Are you happy now?,” I asked in quick succession.

     The other people in line and the CVS cashiers, who had watched this exchange throughout, were silent after I said that. The Asian women’s jaw dropped, and her face was flush in rose colors. I walked past her to the cashier, who finally started snickering, paid for my stuff, and left.

     It amazes me that anyone of color, queer, biracial, young-looking, articulate, or with a brain that used for more than making money and scheming in relationships has to go through this. But this is the state of a world trapped in the hypocrisy of all its own -isms.