greasy hair and sideburns

This happened about two weeks ago. I was to infuriated at the time to actually write coherently.

Me and my friend were sitting eating dinner. Another guy joins up, one whom I've had brief conversations with in the past and we had some good conversations for about half an hour after he sat down. Well somehow we got onto the topic of Native Americans, he proclaimed he was 1/8Th Native American or some similar sounding fraction. Somehow we started discussing social issues then he brought up the question "Do you know why you don't hear Native Americans complaining all the time?", I responded "Because Americans killed enough of them to where they can be easily ignored". Well he then looked at me and said "No. It is because Native Americans have been taught since birth that they are not entitled to anything and that is WHY THEY ARE BETTER THAN AFRICAN AMERICANS". He said this while looking directly at me. He then went into a brief rant about how African Americans have gotten everything they needed years ago and all they do is think they are entitled to everything and don't have to work for anything. Well at this point I was on the verge of choking him to death at the dinner table, instead I called him a "fucking idiot" and left.

My friend tells me he wanted to apologize, this is good that he didn't, because that would have given me another opportunity to beat him to death.

Hey! Angela Davis!

On the first day of classes this semester, I decided to pick my hair out. This was more the product of laziness than anything else. I didn't feel like taking three hours to add twists so I just picked it out and rocked the full on fro. Now. I go to a PWI. Which means that I expected to garner curious/frightened stares. I did NOT expect to hear four Angela Davis references.

1. On the way to the other side of campus, I pass one of my close friends who comments, "Oh for real Fenix? You just decided to rock the Angela Davis today?" I respond with a raised right fist and keep it moving.
2. First class, my professor and I are very familiar and he's a jokester. He's scanning the crowd for familiar faces and his eyes settle on mine and shoot up to my hair, "Fenix, one of my favorite students, is now channeling Angela Davis." Again, I respond with a raised fist.
3. In the bookstore, buying my text books which include Elaine Brown's autobiography, and the lady ringing me up looks from the book, to my hair, back to the book, "Hmph, I would have thought Angela Davis before Elaine Brown. We have that one too you know."
   
4. That afternoon I'm with two of my friends. Friend one says, "Wow Fenix, you're really going for the Angela Davis thing huh? I can see you turning into her." To which Friend Two responds, "What? Is she supposed to be a lesbian who writes about the prison system?" Friend One rolls her eyes, "Or she could be an ICON, you idiot."

I guess I should take it as a compliment, eh?

Christmas Programs and Such

Last night, my sister performed in her first recital (she plays the French Horn) as a part of her school's Christmas Extravaganza. My entire family went to show Mini Me some support. When we finally got there and got settled, a white family sat a seat away from my younger cousin. The principal asked many times for people to close gaps between them so that the only empty seats were on the end of the rows. The little white girl looked up to her mother and whined, "I don't want to sit next to those Black people." I didn't hear what her mother said but the fact that the little girl didn't move into the empty seat let me know that it positively reinforced her worries. Well, not long after that, the principal walked around and asked her to move down before the program started. She slid into the seat apprehensively, watching my little cousin the entire time as if he was going to sprout an extra arm. To spare my little cousin from this incident, I swapped seats with him. The little girl watched me, almost amused for a while. After deciding that I was as normal as humans come, she turned to her mother and said in what she thought was a whisper, "Mom, I thought you said all Black people smell like pigs."

Ignorance and hatred begets ignorance and hatred.

30 questions

I could blog about all the times people make fun of my afro, proof of how Black natural hair is unacceptable and ridiculed in society. But those comments I get are a dime a dozen. Someone made an interesting joke to me the other day however, and as usual concerning my hair.

It went as follows:

"Hey Rob I really like your hair, it's so cool, it's almost worth the hundreds of years of oppression"

Immediately I was confused and befuddled. My hair is part of my natural identity. Is this a joke in the guise of a comment concerning his beliefs on how it's not worth being Black because of the oppression we've faced.

This remind me of the infamous racist white liberal essay by Neil Poedhertz in which he poses the question, is all the pain and the suffering [the holocaust] worth being Jewish.

All sick.

Point taken.

Out of all the blogs I have ever written for or started this is the one I want to continue. I'm going to try this time too. But just help me get into the habit of it first.

I located in August to the city of New Orleans. In part because of my desire to help in its recovery, in part because I had to escape the bastion of white ultra-liberalism at my previous college (Warren Wilson), and in part because the Black culture of this city gives me such pride and hope in us as a people that I had to get closer to it.

And so I am here...

A new journey?

Perhaps.

Or a new location with the same baggage?

Several white girls have grabbed my hair in astonishment this week. One person called my views "uncomfortable".  Perhaps what I once thought was an extreme is actually a norm? We shall see how bad it actually gets.

so yesterday we had this discussion about race at my school. there was this girl there who said she hadn't spoken to a black person until she came to this college. this wouldnt have bothered me except she mentioned it about 10 times throughout the entire discussion.

she also mentioned that her grandmother was puerto rican, yet she looked white and spoke as if, because her grandmother was puerto rican, she was having her own internal racial conflicts.

Huey P Newton's grandfather was white, I wonder if he ever thought he could call himself white. (sarcasm/joke/make what you will of that statement).

I just found this all very weird.

We were discussing Jazz one time in my U.S. History class, specifically how it was created by Black America, one student said "But I never saw Jazz as created by black people, I always saw it as something that White and Black people created together", my professor just look befuddled and stared and her and told she was wrong.

First post.

Well this is going to be my new blog. Adventures in White America. Where I will document the stupid motherfucking shit that white people say, maybe even non-white people, about issues regarding race. This will be a good read a promise.