Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims and all other Americans share American culture. We have our enduring creation myths: George Washington cannot tell a lie; our Founding Fathers, “with liberty and justice for all” to name a few. Regardless of the degree to which we accept these myths, they bind us. The history surrounding them is part of our public education. We pass this knowledge from generation to generation.
This knowledge, this culture belongs as much to me, a black man, as it does to any white man or woman. To thrive in America, Afro-Americans must be of this culture, must know it inside and out. Joni Mitchell and Charles Ives are mine as much as they are any other American’s. But then, I also have Mingus. If whites want him, he can be theirs as well. He is part of their culture too. But with that great man I share a history that will forever be out of reach for most whites. That shared history, that likeness, that connection gives me unique access to musical spaces that will probably forever be unreachable to those who are not Afro-American. Let me explain: I, for instance, will never know what it means to be a Native American and watch a typical Hollywood Western. I can appreciate the lie of the Hollywood product. I can distantly appreciate the pain that it could inflict on a Native American, but I will never have the experience watching that film that a man or woman of that culture will have, because I am not of their culture. Similarly, there are experiences of things Afro-American that will forever be out of reach for most others. I have a friend who is obsessed with R&B. Knows it backwards and sideways. Yet, he never understood Aretha Franklin’s place was not just musical—it was cultural. Hollering “Freedom” in 1967 through every radio in America meant infinitely more to Afro-Americans than it did to him. To us, it was visceral, political and personal. To him, it was great music. As Afro-Americans, we share a slice of America that is unique to us. Yet, mainstream America and its culture are ours as much as any white man or woman’s. The only thing of theirs, as Americans, that we cannot claim, is their historical contempt for us (and in some ways we come frighteningly close to that as well).
So we’re back to DuBois’ conundrum, the “double consciousness” of the Afro-American. It means that we have the additional “burden” of learning our own history, comings, goings and the ways of being they have bred in us, in addition to learning all that the majority learns. But it also means that the additional benefit of knowing our own history, comings, goings and the ways of being they have bred in us. It is our leg up. It is our superiority.
People like Bill Cosby ask the extraordinary of Afro-Americans. Where he too often fails is in acknowledging that it is extraordinary, acknowledging the bravery and smarts required to accomplish it, and expressing his belief that Afro-Americans are more than capable of it.
This is about accomplishing the extraordinary. It is about nothing less than codifying a cultural experience, advancing it from the vernacular, to the formal. To do so, you must first dispel the fear and humiliation borne of hundreds of years of the constant threat and too-frequent reality of this…
And this…
Rational fear born of experience has led so many blacks to be repulsed by the majority that we reject crucial pieces of our own past as well as American “things” that we feel reek of “them.” How do you acknowledge that there is something poisonous in the very culture that literally helped create you? How do you acknowledge that the existence of your cultural being is due to the hatred of your countrymen? How do you reconcile your fear, and yes, sometimes, hatred of the majority culture for what it did and tolerated for so long, with an embrace of the majority culture of which you are a part?
There is an extraordinary amount of thinking, and heavy lifting we must do.
I can hear, and understand the complaint. “But white people don’t have to do that. Why should we? That’s not equality. White folks don’t have to work harder.” No, they don’t. That’s because they were born white and a majority in this country. That is because they are less than we. We were born minorities here, thus we bear that extra burden and the ultimate cultural benefit of dealing with the crimes and the hate and the fear and the legacy, half-embracing, half-rejecting, and pulling from all of it a rich and gorgeous subculture that sustains us. Is it fair? No. It is not. But if the Afro-American experience has taught us one thing, it should be this: “What has ‘fair’ got to do with anything?”
