Not Black Enough

Back in the mid 1990s, the black community rallied around a man by the name of OJ Simpson. I was ten when his ex-wife and her friend were found murdered. But I distinctly remember the ruckus not dying down for years it seemed to me. Yet even at ten years old, I noted that when news reporters would interview people on the street all the white people thought he was guilty and all the black people knew he was innocent. Strangely, none of them seemed even slightly concerned with who did murder Nicole and Ron. They were simply sure it couldn’t have been OJ.

My father, who is black, would spend time on the phone with his relatives back east telling them that OJ was the murderer. They didn’t believe him. “He couldn’t have, he couldn’t have!” they insisted. He would get off the phone and relay the conversations to my mom who would either shake her head or laugh. OJ had approval ratings in the black community upwards of 90% according to some polls.

Fast-forward a decade. An articulate, youngish, (half) black former Constitutional Law professor arrives on the scene, making a crazy attempt at the White House. And what’s the first thing the black community asks?

Is he black enough?

(Insert pause while I scream, swear and beat my head against a wall….
Ok better.)

What?

Not black enough?

According to whose standard? Where’s the Blackness Aptitude Test (aka BAT) and who wrote it?

What sort of mental depravity does it take to make such a statement? If race doesn’t mean anything and we’re all equal that’s like saying “you aren’t green-eyed enough” or “you aren’t Aries enough”. Since when does the color or your skin matter any more than the date of your birth? It shouldn’t. Yet, if you articulate yourself in a manner becoming of a future head of state, or even according to the rules of the English language and proper etiquette you’re no longer truly black.

If, as a black person, you don’t put black people above all others, you are considered a sellout. Selling out to what? Humanity? The greater good? What is being sold out? Backwards, insular, defensive thinking? Bitter, selfish, elitist attitudes?
Do black people realize how racist they are when they make these mentally lacking statements? White kids don’t tell other white kids to “act white” if they happen to be into Anime or Bollywood, do they? But a Negro getting good grades in school? Only white kids do that. (Because only white kids are smart? Wow. That’s stupid.) I’m not sure it benefits the black community when they tell their scholastically achieving brothers and sisters “why don’t you just get Ds and smoke pot, Negro?” Now there’s a surefire action plan for staying in the projects, if I ever heard one.

But back to our story.

Eventually, Barry got the black community to rally around him. Not sure what he did to authenticate his blackness, but somehow he managed to pass BAT and receive 96% of the black vote. The white guy only got 50% of the white vote.

The liberals I have talked to lately break that statistic down like this: the 50% of the white people who voted for the white guy did so because they don’t like black people. No one ever points out that the 96% of blacks who voted for Obama did so because he passed BAT. The 50% of whites who didn’t vote for BHO are racist, not conservative like they were went they voted against Clinton, Gore and Kerry. This breakdown would be funny if Democrats didn’t swear it was true.

Yes, there are racist Republicans. Some of my friends and I joke that we voted for McCain (we didn’t) because he was the only “viable white candidate”. But it sounds a lot more like racism that 96% of black people voted for the black candidate, doesn’t it? I think so. This “for us by us” attitude (as opposed to promotion for everyone) is backwards as all get out. It’s the exact same mentality of Nathan Bedford Forest, Jimmie Davis, Marvin Griffin, Allan Shivers and more. The only difference is the color being promoted. Yet, no one calls these people out on it.

Anyway, if you happen to hear of someone offering the Blackness Aptitude Test would you let me know? I’d like to take it.

Honestly, I don’t think I’d pass. Because, contrary to what the black community and the BAT will tell you, blackness is not contingent upon the way that you behave.