Weird

I feel a little weird even as I write this, but I know that I need the page to help me sort through my thoughts as much as the page needs me to organize the words in logical order on it, if not more. So I write, even against my better judgment.

I started to research the history of African-American values, culture, and literature about a week ago, as part of a class assignment to find out and present to the class how the three are linked. After just a few minutes of looking at some online sources, I began to feel weird. At first, I was happy the sites I looked at recognized African-American people who lived and wrote before the 20th century. But then I realized that a great many of the first African-Americans who wrote in the 19th century were still slaves at the time. And that made me feel a little sick, a little like crying, and a little like being someone else, who didn’t have so painful a history to examine.

When I think about African-American values, I put out of my mind what mainstream culture would have us all think: that all black people really do is drink, smoke, fornicate, rap, steal, etc. I know plenty of people in my own little world who are black and do none of the above. They are my family, and they are my friends. I know what they value, and they are the same things that others will value when they are old and know better than to do the things they do now: family, education, honesty, equality, justice. They are all very American values, and this is fine. I see it as a sign of progress that the things African-Americans value don’t have any race associated with them. What saddens me, what makes me sick, what makes me feel weird, is why – at least in my own eyes – my people value what they do.

We were slaves. For far too many years, we were slaves – first in that very literal way which left us with whip lashes on our backs, then in that more subtle way which left us indentured servants to masters who still beat us, then in that even more subtle way which moved powerful white men in the south to make special laws just to keep us from feeling completely human and thereby getting out of line, then the laws disappeared but the spirit remained, and it still does in some places.

Please do not misunderstand me. I did not grow up in a place where the schools and water fountains were still segregated; I went to public school in Dallas, TX. I had friends of all colors – once, that is, I found myself at a school with a diverse population. I cannot stand, though, to think of the history of black people now.

It really just kind of snuck up on me; I didn’t intend to be hurt by slave narratives. I used to read about this stuff all the time in high school history books. I know the story of slavery. But only today did it start to feel personal.

I am not militant; I am not even angry. I am only sad and sick and feeling a little weird.