White people it seems will not quit it with the post-racial conversation. We as a society have moved past racism, while we literally watch as our president bans Muslims from the country, but oh ok. We would be playing ourselves as black people if we accepted the opinion that when we stopped being slaves, we became free.
Duh! You're saying.
I'm woke!
I know this!
Well, your lovely and wonderful woke ass must face that there are quite a few of our brethren who believe the hype. Moreover, there is an entire Costco sized mayonnaise container of white people who are carrying the torch proclaiming that to be the case. Alongside them, lurking in that container, are white folks who are carrying out microaggressions some knowingly and some simply because society has always allowed them to. The black servitude that I wish to address is the mental and emotional servitude that we must put into every encounter with white folks.
But first, a story:
The other night myself and my white girlfriend (yes I am one of those brothers dating a white girl — and she does care about my people) sat down at one of our favorite bars and were having quite a lovely time. That was until two flat white lattes sat their asses next to us and decided to give us a running commentary on our relationship. They relentlessly complimented her beauty to me while ignoring her existence (misogyny y'all) and proceeded to be the most obnoxious drunk hillbillies on the planet. As a queer black person, I am more than used to white dudes invalidating my relationships; what I realized in that moment though was that I had to keep calm. While these men were being vulgar and making me question if evolution did, in fact, happen for the entire human race. They were being "nice" or chummy or whatever the fuck, you know in that perfectly condescending but "innocent" way.
They were being white men.
While I wanted to take my beer and pour it over their heads while telling them exactly where they could go, I couldn't. It was one of those situations where you as a black person understand that if you don't humor the two whites, they will become two KKK whites real quick.
And that is the servitude we are stuck in.
While these men didn't come right out and call me a nigger or my girlfriend a nigger lover, every comment, pass at her, and look said it for them. While they didn't call her a housewife, every remark they made alluded to it. And what the fuck was we to do? To any outsider, there sat two gentlemen, engaging with two young strangers at a bar, offering to buy them drinks and talk about what they did for a living. A jovial time to be had indeed! But to anyone versed in the racial and sexual orientation that Olympic cishet white dudes love, they would depict a very different scene.
Their "kindness" was not genuine. It was showboating. It was charity. It was misogyny. It was racism. It was a trap. How much can we touch his girlfriend, question his career choice, chastise him for not marrying her, all before he snaps? How much can this black boy take before he becomes the brute we know he is? I'm not easily baited and thank the lord for that because I would have woken up in a jail cell.
It is no longer socially acceptable to call a black person a nigger. White people have had to get crafty. Whenever an older white person calls me "boy" in 2017, I am fully aware that 1964 them would be calling me a mirage of colorful things while pushing me towards the back of the bus. It is these tiny ways that white people can assert and hold on to their privilege whilst leaving no evidence of their prejudice.
What genius bigots.
It then falls on us as black folks to know when we are being called a nigger without being called a nigger. It falls on us to realize when we are being had. It then falls on us to carry along the tremendous weight of invisible racism. The racism that so many can not understand because it is so subtle. Its delivery is cloaked in a G-rating and its reception must be as well. But the wound it creates is the worst kind of R-feature. It lingers.
This is exhausting. It negates how, even though we are free to be black folks, we must constantly check ourselves in the presence of whites. It requires us to both have enough pride to know our worth and enough common sense to know what battles are worth fighting. It means biting our tongues in certain spaces as to avoid being made into targets. It means constantly questioning white people’s intentions: Is this a genuine person who is, in fact, woke enough to not be racist while jointly being able to understand that their very whiteness dims my black existence?
When an older white man buys me a drink at the bar, I am not seeing it as an olive branch. As he watches me drink it, I am not feeling like a comrade. I am feeling the eyes of his ancestors. While he may have evolved past slave owner, KKK member, or counter-protester, he still holds on to his privilege. Each sip I take, he owns and in that he watches me digest his power. Tasting it. But never holding it for longer than a gulp. To him, every drink I refuse is me being disrespectful. To me, it is maintaining my dignity. I may not be able to punch him in the face. But I can refuse to swallow his modern day attempts at owning me.
*Writer’s note* I wrote this while listening to DMX, and I must say it was extremely cathartic.*
