Why black people and white people can't get along.

I've been in a funk since before I wrote my last post. The funk came, then it went away, then it came back, and now it's gone again. I think that is typically how it works (at least with me anyways.) I was trying to think about what was causing it, and as far as blog related reasons, I came up with a couple ideas.

I am bummed because Google is planning to get rid of Google Reader this July. I think that is a way that a lot of my readers use to track this blog, and I know that I use it to follow a ton of other blogs that I read. Also, ever since Facebook changed the way they display posts from pages (in an effort to get page administrators to pay,) the number of people that have liked my facebook page that actually see what I share on Facebook has gone way down.

Am I whining? Probably. But what's that saying? Whining will set you free? Yeah, I think that's it...

So if you're a fan on facebook, know that the more that you comment or like my posts that you do see there, the more likely you are to see other things I post. And if anyone has a good (free) alternative to Google Reader they'd like to tell us about, please leave me a comment. Finally, if you want to sign the petition to try and save Google Reader you can click here.

Ok, onto the race and inequality stuff. I have to say for the record that I do believe that black and white people can get along. Some already do on a small, individual friendships level. But if we're talking on a societal level, I just think that it will take a lot of work. Like, putting a man on the moon amount of work. But I picked that title because I think that it is something that an internet user interested in race might search for, and also because I have a little story from my life that I think will help illustrate why some people might think that we can't.

So, in keeping with the making sure our kid's not a weirdo goal of parenting I wrote about here, my husband and I decided to enroll our son in some toddler music classes. They're once a week and we sing songs, bang on drums, all the usual toddler music class stuff. Sometimes the teacher (I'll call him Dave,) lets the kids strum his guitar.

So our son was strumming Mr. Dave's guitar. I realize now I never made up a name for our son. Let's call him George.

Little George was strumming Mr. Dave's guitar. Oh, I should mention that Mr. Dave is white and all the other kids and parents are white too. But you probably already knew that, right?

So George is strumming the guitar, and Mr. Dave says, "George, you have great rhythm!"

Mr. Dave didn't say that to any of the other kids in the class. But it is certainly possible that in addition to being the cutest and most charming participant in the room, George is the most musically inclined as well.


But one of the first things I thought when I heard Mr. Dave say that was, "Oh, you're just saying that because you think that all black people are great at dancing and music and have great rhythm, don't you--Mr. Dave,?!?!!" ::grumble grumble:: white people.

Ok, I am exaggerating; I didn't think all that. But I did think that I was 99.99% sure that Mr. Dave just said it because it was true, without any racial undertones. And if you asked Mr. Dave, he would most likely say that he was 100% sure that he said it because it was true and without racial undertones.

But the reality is there is the .01% percentage in my mind that there was another reason for saying it. And the other reality is that even if Mr. Dave did think there was a possibility that there was a racial element to the comment, he wouldn't admit it, because that would open him up to being labeled a racist because the limited education that he has received about race as a white person is to say that he never sees or notices race (even though he has functioning cones in his eyes,) and to no matter what--avoid being called a racist at all costs.

And that my friends, is why we have such a hard time getting along. A different black person (or me on a different day in a different mood,) might have interpreted Mr. Dave's comment in a different way. And even if we're not talking about rhythm, we could have been talking about athletic ability or being punctual or being articulate or being aggressive or being loud or being exotic or any number of other things. It's like black people have a completely different frame of reference that they use to filter all the stimuli that they receive from the world. The was that racist? filter.

And, at the same time, there is little to no chance that Mr. Dave would ever admit there was a racial element to his comment, even if he knew there was. Because white people's filter is set up where they can't or don't want to entertain the entire race question. They don't want to examine the messages that they receive from the outside world about race, they don't want to admit the negative beliefs that they hold (for whatever reason,) about black people, and they see all these problems around them that seem to disproportionately affect the black community, but there is a hesitation to have an honest dialogue about what the causes of these problems are. Because when most white people are honest, they get called racist.

It's like we've got these two diametrically opposed ways of looking at the world. And nothing is ever going to change until we can both start to see things a little more from the other filter. It's like I said in one of my earliest posts on this blog: white people need a lot more truth, and black people need a lot more reconciliation.

So that's my story. George has finished watching Sesame Street, so now we've got to go and listen to Pandora while we get ready for the day. You know that I want to hear what you think, so as always--feel free to leave me a comment.

The song of my people...

Here's a song for Music Thursdays. I love this song. I am going to post it twice, but the first time you only need to listen to it for about a minute and a half, so you can hear him singing. But it's such a great song, you may just want to listen to it the whole way through twice.



I first heard this song on one of my Pandora stations. I then went to youtube and found the official music video that you can watch below:



At about 23 seconds is when I yelled to my husband, "Wait, this is a white guy?!"

Did you have the same reaction? Sam Sparro sounds like a black guy to me.

So, what does it mean to sound like a black guy (or a black person?) I've been thinking about this quite a bit in preparation for writing this post, and I've narrowed it down to two things.

You can sound like a black person if you talk like our friend Antoine, meaning you pronounce your words a certain way or have a distinctive (usually Southern sounding) drawl. Click the link if you don't know who Antoine is. You can also sound like a black person if you structure your sentences in a distinctive way (think Ebonics.)

But, you can also sound like a black person even if you enunciate the endings of your words, and structure your sentences in the way that we are taught to in school. Black people's voices seem to be generally deeper than white people's. Or maybe they just have a different timbre. Maybe black people's vocal cords are longer or looser or something. I have a theory that some white women artificially increase the pitch of their voice in order to seem happy, non-threatening or something similar. Not basing that last statement on anything other than my own personal experiences; not trying to piss anyone off.

So, is it bad/racist/racish to think that you can tell a someone's race just from hearing their voice? Is it bad/racist/racish to say someone sounds black or sounds white?

Well, I wouldn't have a problem with someone telling me that I sounded black if it were for reasons related to the quality of my voice. And I don't think that anyone would ever say that I sounded black because I don't pronounce the endings of my words. As I wrote here before, I'm sure there are many people who think that I probably talk like a white person.

But this is the problem: a white person telling me that I sound like a white person is not a compliment, and a black person telling me I sound like a white person is not an insult (even though that is how each comment is intended.)

I talk the way that I talk. And since I am black, I would say that means I talk like a black person. Antoine talks the way that he talks, and since he's black, that means that he talks like a black person too.

Do more black people talk like Antoine than talk like me? I don't know. But I do know that Antoine's manner of speaking is much more commonly accepted as the black way of speaking than mine is. That is troublesome to me because it serves to create division among black people about who is truly black. Time spent on that is time not spent on changing the things in that documentary I shared my last post.

Are Antoine's professional opportunities limited by the way that he speaks? Probably.

And who shoulders the responsibility for that--Antoine? Or the person doing the hiring? Should he change the way he speaks (something that is a big part of a person's identity,) if he wants to get a job at State Farm? (that was just the first corporation that came to mind.) Or should corporations embrace a wider range of ways to speak, in an effort to celebrate diversity?

All right, I feel like I am kind of rambling now. But I wanted to leave you with a few more questions.

Do you feel like you can tell a person's race just from hearing their voice? Like, if two people read Mary had a Little Lamb, could you tell who was white and who was black?

If you're not white or black, can you tell if other people are the same race as you, even if they don't have a stereotypical accent? If so, how?

Have you ever thought someone was one race, and then met them in person, and found out they were another? What happened? How did you handle it?

Feel free to answer any, all, or none of my questions in the comments. You can even ask some of your own.

Laters.