Over the course of the past four days I have received many BlitzMail messages and even a threatening phone call for the editorial I wrote for the Thursday Sept. 30, 1993 edition of The Dartmouth.
I cannot figure out what all the fuss is about. The editorial was written in a sarcastic, satirical tone and I used stereotypes that are quietly held to illustrate a conception of interracial dating.
The task of "selling" the black woman to the white man is a task that illustrates the extent to which our national values are warped and perverted. The length that I would have to go to get any average white racist to consider dating a black woman illustrates exactly how perverse his values are -- in the essay are tidbits which imply a self-hatred (the "inadequate black man" lines) which, if the essay were not satire, would be useful in humbling myself before the "great white man," also known simply as "The Man."
There is undue flattery -- a gentle damning with faint praise: "you all (white men) have attained a level of sincerity and politeness that most black men are simply unable to maintain." In the essay are lines which imply my complete internalization of market culture (the supply and demand which leaves black women "on the market," so to speak. The "take your pick" attitude of the last paragraphs), and in the essay are unquestionably satirical lines like "Why would she (a black woman) need your credit card?"
Never mind the over-enthusiastic end quote from Dead Poets Society ("Make your lives extraordinary. Carpe Diem!"). But these are all illustrative devices for revealing what is appealing (the cost-benefit ratio is emphasized) to the men to whom I addressed the essay.
White women -- get over it and realize that I was not serious in my portrayal of all of you as salad-eating, credit-card wielding, divorce-seeking super-shoppers. It is a stereotype. You are upset about that, but did you notice the Aunt Jemima comment? Or did you think that I as a black man, was serious in calling all black women Aunt Jemima?
Black women -- a lot of you understood the tone of my essay. This produced the correct type of reaction -- prolonged laughter. For those of you who did not quite catch the tone of the essay, read the rest of it with as much sensitivity as you read the part about Aunt Jemima. You are upset about the mammy, but what about the "115 lb. waif" comment? Did you notice the sexism there?
For those men who were confused by my essay, I am sorry -- perhaps my skills are slipping (probably not). I attempted to write an unfunny satirical essay that would leave many of you (white) wondering whether I was serious or not. Whether I was serious about advocating interracial dating, serious about my contempt for middle-class white women who can afford L.L. Bean, serious about my contempt for the white men I addressed the essay to, serious about selling black women to white men in a manner reminiscent of slavery... .
These are questions that you did not consider either because 1) I failed to present the stereotypes in a manner which provokes thought, or 2) you hate the truth of these stereotypes, or 3) you cannot realize the healing power of bad words. I did promote thought, but I suppose you would rather me present them in a very didactic, straightforward, comfortable way that you could dismiss as easily as Matt Berry's "In the Right."
It is easy to criticize me for racism or sexism, but if you did, it is a direct function of your own ignorance. If you felt implicated in what I had to say, you were.
As KRS-ONE said, "If any of y'all still got beef, don't complain to me about it. Take your awesome, God-inspired, self-righteous, liberal indignation to the white men I got the stereotypes from. Or just throw it up."
