Black, Black, White
2007-12-11 5:04 a.m.
Just finished a long email conversation with an old friend who was in town this weekend. During casual drunken conversation, he dropped the old "You have your blacks and you have you niggers" dichotomy. There are, in fact, some people in this world who say such things that I would ignore. That group is tiny and happens to include my own impenetrable and hence unrelatable father and my long dead grandfather (who hated each other due to racial differences). That group does NOT include this friend. I painfully held my tongue for that drunk-in-NY-weekend moment up until this afternoon.And this afternoon, I laid out a detailed explanation of how such a thing was below him. Who the fuck am I to attempt to hold North on someone's moral compass, right? Well, only the dirty can keep the dirty clean. I hadn't written an intelligent rant in some time, so it was somewhat liberating to go on and on about black, black and white - to portray the obviousness of ignorance in the statement - to offer an exit from a harsh and easy judgment.
The hard part is that this man was incredibly similar to me in our past. Open and honest. Privy to the best and worst of people in our melting pot of a city. Our economic differences always obvious, but our similarities were based upon our human rainbow of friends and associates. I was amazed the words had actually come to him in conversation, and especially in my company.
"I knew what you were trying to say, but I didn't know what you meant, and I was surprised you thought I might."
And he took that exit...
He was quoting Chris Rock and figured I'd catch the reference.
As a grown man. As a Section 8 landlord on the West Side of Chicago. As a white MBA in Philly. He's seen black prejudice closely and it's hurt him. Personally and Financially. It's not mixed words at a house party or hip-hop show these days. It's bad tenants and mistreated friends. It's memories of horrible situations of the past. It's chasing his tail through a social and economic breakdown of the world around him in attempt to understand. But those words were still not his own. He explained his hardship with the opposite race and explained his frustrations. His long and intelligent response showed a weathered and honest experience.
I caught the reference immediately, by the way, but chose not to allow it as simply as his current circle might. It was not his reference to make. As it was not in my father's best interest to call my best friend a nigger or ex girlfriend the same a decade later. As it was not in my belated grandfather's best interest to call my best friend an stupid Indian (he's Mexican) or me a spic when I was too young understand why.
"First of all, let me just say that I really appreciate the e-mail. It takes a lot of balls to give a friend constructive feedback and I just want you to know that I appreciate it. It takes a real friend to tell you when you are wrong, so I appreciate the thought that went into your note."
I love being an adult. But this is one of the reasons growing up sucks. It was no sweat off my nuts to tell a good friend how I felt about some bullshit remark. It shouldn't be considered brave. I would hope he would do the same for me.
On that note - just finished watching WarGames, which came out when I was 4. Hooray for the geeks of my youth.
And Meta... I'm really sorry about the bad news. I hope all is well.