What makes me Black? Adorning baggy pants and brand-name footwear? An affiliation with the NAACP? A blind allegiance to Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakahn, and/or Colin Powell? The exclusive privilege to use taboo words that begin with “N”? A fluency in urban jargon? A supernatural sense of rhythm? Naturally enhanced athletic prowess? A love of “red” Kool-Aid? An obsession with all things shiny and costly? Possessing an intimidating, close-knit entourage? Playing the award-winning role of the Angry Black Man? The predatory pursuit of white female affection? An appreciation of loud, bass-heavy music, limited, of course, to rap, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, reggae, and soul? A culinary gravitation towards hot and spicy foods? Residence in public housing? The need to decorate bicuspids with expensive minerals? A fetish for curvaceous females with well-developed derrieres? Gang membership? Perpetual dependence on governmental financial assistance? Having a criminal record? Intentional and unapologetic laziness? Support of affirmative action and slave reparations? Opposition to the Confederate flag and racial profiling? Contradictory spendthriftiness (with inane purchases) and frugality (with the essentials)? An unjustifiably hostile attitude? A legendary, larger-than-life penis?
None of the above characteristics, individually or together, aptly describe me. If I, perchance, happen to fall into any of these categories, my racial status is not reinforced. If I fail to fall into any of these categories, my racial status is not negated. Physical traits exist which may provide a partial answer to what defines race. But these defining traits are debatable, as we are all essentially varying percentages of diminishing pure bloodlines. What then is left?
My blackness is comprised of a shared resilience, ancestral pride, and communal strength, not unlike that which sanctifies Yellowness, Whiteness, Redness, and Brownness. To all of you outside my race and to all of you within: assume nothing.
