White Hands

"I looked down at my hands folded on my lap and suddenly noticed my hands are white," said the woman from Australia.

She was describing to me her experience riding a New York City bus during her visit to the U.S. Her bus, the B41, was lurching down Flatbush Avenue delivering dreary commuters home on a cold Friday evening.

"It was the first time I actually felt white. I mean, I know I'm white but I was the only white person on the bus. And at that moment looking around at all those brown faces, I felt white. My white skin seemed strange to me."

Dorthea is from Sydney. She's in her 60s and that bus ride was the first time in her life that she experienced being the only white person in a large group. (Welcome to my life, I thought to myself.)

I listened to her story and smiled. This was a moment of enlightenment for her but I had to explain that what she'd just experienced was an everyday occasion for me and millions of other Black Americans. For my entire life at some point, I've been the only black person in a classroom, a room, a bar, a newsroom or a board meeting ... the list goes on. Here in melting-pot New York, I'm always amazed at how you can walk into a certain neighborhood or trendy bar - even in my beloved Brooklyn neighborhood  - and be the only black person. It's just something you get used to ... either that or you end up paranoid and hateful.

She'd come to NY to study the philosphy of Pragmatism http://atheism.about.com/od/philosophyschoolssystems/p/pragmatism.htm with a professor here in the States - William James. Turns out he'd discovered this form of philosophy, which deals more with the realism of what "is" and less than the mental pondering about why things are what they are. So, Dorthea was dealing with the realism of being white for the first time, she said.

This is a fairly new philosophy, discovered in the 20th century. But it seemed like lots of black folks I know have been practicing "Pragmatism" since we arrived in this country. Dealing with our very real life situations is the best hope many have of achieving any measure of success.

As I listened to her story about riding the B41, I couldn't help asking her how in the world she was just noticing her whiteness. I mean this is a very white woman - Aussie accent and all. She told me that she had never thought about it before, never had to in all her years.

She told me that her whiteness is not a part of her but just something that is.
"It's separate from my "self," she explained, pointing to her heart. They are two different things.

How do you explain to someone like Dorthea that for Black Americans, being black is not separate from our "self." And that not a day goes by that I don't wake up or walk down the street or sit in a corporate board room at work and know that I'm black ... and a woman. It's the two things that are always with me. And on the rare instances I've dared to forget for a second someone is always around to remind me. Now, of course, they don't have to blurt out: "Hey, did you know you're black?" Nah, that would be rude.

Instead, I get reminded with comments by my mostly white peers like: "Oh my, you are such an intelligent, well-spoken woman." or "Oh my goodness, I can't believe you've accomplished so much ... and your a vice president! How wonderful!" (Okay, it is pretty nice. but it's not a miracle and it took a lot of hard work and sacrifice. And it's not like I'm running The Company - yet, anyway.)

We black folks also like to remind one another that we're black. God forbid one of us get a little too uppity or multicultural for our own good. Like our President, when he had the audacity to think he could run a nation. It took many in the black community a long time to stop being mad at him for thinking he had a right to go after his dreams. Good thing we have a few folks who know that where you're from should never limit where you can go.

Dorethea tried to understand what I was telling her about why it's nearly impossible for me to ever forget I'm black. And I got the feeling that she felt sorry for me in some way, especially when she started apologizing for historical atrocities like slavery and the treatment of the Aborigine people in her country. But I wasn't asking for her sympathy, or pointing blame.

What Dorthea didn't quite understand is that I don't ever want to separate my "blackness" from my "selfness." Being a Black Woman is my greatest strength - a blessing. And it's a part of me that I wear proudly every day of my life.

###

How do you define "relationship?"

"Exactly, how many times do we have to have sex with a someone to call it a relationship?" my friend (a guy) asked me this today.  It's a tough question - at least for me it was.

My friend happens to be gay but after we debated for a few days we came to the same conclusion. Neither of us could come up with a word or phrase for what to call it when you have a friend whom you like and respect enough to have sex with and even hang out with often - maybe even over a long period of time.

Once, twice, twenty times. Should the number of times you've had sex with a person determine if the partnership should be called a "relationship?" I don't know, anymore. Maybe it's because for a long time I was married, which is definitely a relationship, and to equate dating or seeing someone to a marriage is ludacris. I know some people think it's the same but it is not, not at all.

In my single life, I was seeing a guy for more than a year and whenever he said he wanted to talk about our "relationship" I admit that I cringed, thinking to myself: "that sounds way too serious." And when I told him this he agreed, kind of, but asked me what exactly I wanted to call our friendship. I never did find a good term before we called it quits. But I'm wondering what's wrong with saying we're just friends? Why not just be honest and admit that that you are enjoying one another for now because that's what you both want at that moment.

Relationship is a big word. It's a serious word. And I think I'll reserve that for my closest friends and family (women & men) and discount the sex question. Oddly enough, my deepest relationships don't have anything at all to do with sex.  But I'm wondering: Is that just me??

Growing up on Hate

"The White Man is the Devil," she used to always tell her kids.
"Don't trust those blacks, they're all criminals," their mother warned them ...
"Jews cannot be trusted," their father cautioned.

Why do some parents think it's okay to teach hate to their children? Growing up I heard all of these things from an adult around me at some point. Thankfully, my mother knew better and set the record straight. She raised her children to see each person as a child of God. And taught us to judge for ourselves whether someone was to be trusted. And seldom, we learned, did a person's character have anything to do with their skin color, religion or sexual orientation. My siblings and I had friends of all persuasions and shared our lives with many. We are lucky.

Recently, I heard a sad story about a mother whose son is now accused of murder and other heinous crimes. And I can't help but remember him as a boy. Her sweet son had all the promise in the world: smart, cute as a button, curious and excited about the world around him. He was always playing games and tricks on his siblings. And his smile was infectious. Everyone loved him.

But I also remember the hateful and just downright ridiculous things his parents believed. No matter what group of people they were targeting at the moment, it was all hate, all the time. Whites were againist them, women were lose and after their men, those outside their religion were living wrong ... On and on it went and I never could understand why otherwise, good people living an upper middle class life were so filled with venom. They scared me.

Well it turns out, at least one of their children took their hate to heart and is now accused of acting on it by another's taking a life and injuring many others. That fun-loving child grew up to embrace all his parents' hate and as a man he followed other poisoned souls who blamed the world for their problems. Instead of being equipped with the skills he needed to go out and do some good in the world, the boy acted out his hate.

And now everyone is asking, "how could this happen? He was such a nice boy?"

Apparently, it's bad manners to remind misguided, grieving parents that if you raise a child up on hate you shouldn't be surprised if some of it sinks in and you get a monster back in return. Sadly, these parents and his family now have a lifetime to wonder what went wrong. But it's too late. The damage is done. Hopefully, they can find the courage to look into their own dark hearts and examine their hateful views. And maybe, even in their despair they will learn that love is strongest thing we can ever teach our children. It is the only thing that can give them the strength they need to make it in this crazy, confusing world.

So I'll keep that sweet boy and his victims in my prayers and hope that love will grace their families.

Whew! I've wanted to get this blog going for almost three years now. Don't know what took so long but I'm home sick (bronchitis) and bored so it's a good time to start ...

Orginally, this was supposed to be a Dating blog with one of my best friends who is an openly-gay man. We're both dating and after sharing a few crazy date stories, we found out that we have had exactly the same experiences. And we have the same issues with men, oddly enough. Ladies, if you're not talking about love & sex with a guy who's just a friend, you are missing out on some good information. ... But I'll get to all that later.

For today since we're talking sex, I want to ask:

Is it okay to use a guy/girl just for sex?

Recently, my girls and I were having this conversation over drinks. They wanted to know why I'd broken it off with a guy who was 17 years younger than me. They think it was a bad move. And insist that I should have just keep him around just for a good time ...

Now I can't lie, the sex was great and he was fine! Great bod, fun, and pretty interesting. That's why I kept him around for so long. We'd been hanging out for nearly two years but it was just that, hanging out. I liked the guy but the "like" wore off and I had to end it. Just couldn't get past the age thing on an intellectual level. (this was the first time I dated younger!) He was happy to keep things going just as they were, but as I told him: "I can't use you for the sex, we've got to connect on more levels than that." Just didn't feel right to me.

Now, I'm missing the sex sometimes (I admit) but think I did the right thing. What do you think?