"After the literary critic Anatole Broyard died in 1990, his family arranged a memorial reception at a suburban Connecticut yacht club. It was a club that claimed to have no black members until, after Mr. Broyard’s death, his mixed racial lineage was made known. After that, the club cited him as evidence of integration." Don't you love the many levels of racial commentary and irony rife in this passage from Janet Maslin's review of Bliss Broyard's One Drop? That's in the NYC glamour millieu, between Sex and the City's Kristin Davis (who is an honorary sista owing to her ample butt) and Ethan Hawke (who became an honorary negro in Training Day). ;-) The perfidity of the club in that quote is truly inspiring. However, if you're "black," then the club's response is also carries a whiff of well, banality. Some white folks would shrug and say "Huh? How is that banal?" I wonder what mixed folk would say? Would it be an ambivelant tug: confusion, yet mixed with an uncomfortable, knowing twinge?
Switch gears with me on my offense rant-mobile for a sec. See, one thing more annoying than snooty insouciance, limousine liberalism, hypocrisy and smarmy tribalism of Hollywood is the snooty insouciance, limousine liberalism, hypocrisy and smarmy tribalism of the book world.
Bliss Broyard is a critic and used to be an editor at the New York Times Book Review. The NYT Book Review is Mt. Olympus, Asgaarde, The Happy Hunting Grounds for lit types; oh to have wink or nod or blurb directed at you as an author you've truly arrived. Might not translate into sales from the sweat pants and flip flop crowd who now make up the book buying market at Costco, but it'll get you noticed by the insiders. Bliss's colleague, Jant Maslin, truly bites cheese: "[Anatole Broyard's] smart, tough-minded daughter, Bliss Broyard, [wrote] “One Drop,” an investigative memoir about her father’s life. (Mr. Broyard was a longtime book critic and editor for The New York Times and an essayist for its Book Review.) As this fascinating, insightful book makes clear, Mr. Broyard left a legacy of racial confusion and great autobiographical material, not necessarily in that order..."
I wish I had friends like that, enabling my manufactured self-examination and family hypocrisy and allowing me to make some bucks off of it. See, her daddy was a sorta mean, sorta siddity fellow who passed for white and sprinkled his family with the best the elitist literati millieu the Manhattan-Hamptons-Connecticut axis could offer. Here's what Bliss says, now she's a sista, fo' sho': "At first, I felt a lot of pressure to give the 'right' answer. Now I think there is more than one way of being black. Look at Barack Obama." Jesus Christ! Of course then she goes on to say she's actually "mixed." And in interviews she does the usual "mixed is exotically cool...but race doesn't matter anymore" dance. Sort of the way Halle Berry does, or crazy-ass Mariah Carey, or ambiguous Jessica Alba.
Well then, if it doesn't matter, Bliss, then why'd daddy try so damn hard to squelch it? Y'all weren't living in Tennessee in 1898 and tried to ride the white car on train with Mr. Plessy, after all! If the blackness part is uncool and unexciting, then why write a book and promote that dark (hahaha) angle? White folks are buying it so there must still be something to this black thing despite it being passe or not important anymore. Like Halle's thing. Oh this race thing doesn't matter, she says on Oprah to the applause of the chunky white housewives in the audience. Yet in the same breath she says producers never think of casting her first. She always has to come in and audition while a dingbat blonde Cameron Diaz type gets the part automatically. Oh yeah, the blackness thing.
Look, we're all mixed with something. And according to the genetic history of the human race, if you trace our mitochondrial DNA back far enough all homo sapiens are more or less cousins. Screw science. Let's talk real life. I'm the last person to begrudge or bemoan bi- or multi-racial people...despite what I say above hahahaha. I clearly don't look black (to a lot of silly whitefolks); I am thus mixed as you can get. "Light-skin-ded wid dat Good hair" as Richard Pryor's "Mudfoot" once expounded. And I'm proud uncle and second cousin to a whole slew of our family's own little brood of kids who carry the blood of many cultures--my sister in law is white, as is my cousin's hubby. But this makes me cringe: people who to prattle on about their mixedhood, or identify themselves, disingenuously or selfdelusionally (n.b. Tiger Woods) so to a cloying degree. Indeed Tiger and may of these folk often play into the hands of racists: not black folks who are insance, but old fashioned white right wing clowns with agendas. And don't tell me blackness doesn't matter when you loak yourself in the profits and attention you get by exploiting this thing that supposedly doesn't matter. Tiger'd just be a phenom if he wasn't BLACK. Now he has that extra dimension that made him the stuff of ratings and readership. In the film Things We Lost in The Fire, why couldn't Halle have beenmarried to a successful BLACK man. Why my Princeton classmate (who snarkily missed our big Reunion) David Duchovny? Oh, because race does matter. Then it would be a Tyler Perry-bamma-esque flava'd romp that just happened to include Benicio Del Toro and we in Hollywood, just like we in the book world, have a marketing and stereotype template for that, so let's NOT mix it up. I can see the producers eeting over soy lattes now: Let's fit Halle in somehow but still keep it a white movie. Ahhhhhhh. Now I see...
Okay, so I cringe at that. I FALL-OUT at folk like Bliss who says she's an "Obama" negro. I wonder what Barack's saying to that?I guess he feels a little less "black" and more mixed based on that analysis. Outside of Hollywood and the hip hop world run by white institutional investors by the way, or the literatti orbits in Manhattan, it's still a burden to be black. if you're mixed I can understand the allure of not totally commiting to the bruvahs. Yes, there is history, both brutal and beautiful. There is heritage, both inspiring and horrid, or in some instances utterly embarassing. We have our dirty laundry in that vein and thus it becomes YOUR dirty laundry too, mixed folks. By declaring and profiting off you mixedhood, that doesn't erase the history and the heritage, or you obligation to clean the dirty laundry. Indeed, you ARE part of the dirty laundry when you point out, as Bliss does, that her father's folk were "Creoles" a la Jellyroll Morton, and thus had this paperbag test disdain for the evil blueblack liver-lipped crowd, I suppose. Well even as flawed as he was, Jelly contributed to his peeps' (where they then, is peeps? This is soooooo confusing!) culture and in the process gave black folks and in turn the world, the only truly American art form: Jazz. And back to my thesis--then you turn around and make money off of it? Jelly made a living not from running away from or minimizing or exploiting his "black" blood. He embraced it. It drove him nuts, but he did it. He tried to understand what it meant to be the descendant of slaves in the New World. It was reflected in his passion and pain. I just want Bliss to immerse herself in that passion and pain...yes and conflict, ambivalence...just for a little while. Then go call yourself whatever you wish and I'll buy your book and applaud you.
I dunno...now's about the time you should really be calling me an asshole. But isn't it better to get folks to stop bullshitting each other or themselves--even if that bullshit is accompanied by a wink and nudge? And please don't show me true temerity by getting PAID for this bullshit. Don't softball your colleague, as Janet Maslin did for Bliss. Hell, I say let "Skip" (Prof. Henry Louis) Gates, who "outted" (and that's the term Bliss and white folks use) Bliss's daddy and God bless him for it, write the review! Yeah, a BLACK person, or someone who identifies him/herself as so in their hearts, if not in their blood. Think of the insights. The debate. The passion. But alas, most of these essays on race are not truly written with "blacks" in mind as the audience. After all, it's the New York Times Book Review. Us niggahs don't read no New York Times! Wez snatching The Source off the newstand with that copy of King whut got dat bitch Megan Goode's titties 'n ass on the muvf*ckin' cover, and then we gonna play HALO all muvf*ckin' night till we roll out to da club...and then go to church on Sunday...
Be yourself. Know yourself. Just don't play. Don't believe one thing, hide behind those beliefs, then create a whole 'nother ethos that you profit from. That's just plain Mixed Up...
Switch gears with me on my offense rant-mobile for a sec. See, one thing more annoying than snooty insouciance, limousine liberalism, hypocrisy and smarmy tribalism of Hollywood is the snooty insouciance, limousine liberalism, hypocrisy and smarmy tribalism of the book world.
Bliss Broyard is a critic and used to be an editor at the New York Times Book Review. The NYT Book Review is Mt. Olympus, Asgaarde, The Happy Hunting Grounds for lit types; oh to have wink or nod or blurb directed at you as an author you've truly arrived. Might not translate into sales from the sweat pants and flip flop crowd who now make up the book buying market at Costco, but it'll get you noticed by the insiders. Bliss's colleague, Jant Maslin, truly bites cheese: "[Anatole Broyard's] smart, tough-minded daughter, Bliss Broyard, [wrote] “One Drop,” an investigative memoir about her father’s life. (Mr. Broyard was a longtime book critic and editor for The New York Times and an essayist for its Book Review.) As this fascinating, insightful book makes clear, Mr. Broyard left a legacy of racial confusion and great autobiographical material, not necessarily in that order..."
I wish I had friends like that, enabling my manufactured self-examination and family hypocrisy and allowing me to make some bucks off of it. See, her daddy was a sorta mean, sorta siddity fellow who passed for white and sprinkled his family with the best the elitist literati millieu the Manhattan-Hamptons-Connecticut axis could offer. Here's what Bliss says, now she's a sista, fo' sho': "At first, I felt a lot of pressure to give the 'right' answer. Now I think there is more than one way of being black. Look at Barack Obama." Jesus Christ! Of course then she goes on to say she's actually "mixed." And in interviews she does the usual "mixed is exotically cool...but race doesn't matter anymore" dance. Sort of the way Halle Berry does, or crazy-ass Mariah Carey, or ambiguous Jessica Alba.
Well then, if it doesn't matter, Bliss, then why'd daddy try so damn hard to squelch it? Y'all weren't living in Tennessee in 1898 and tried to ride the white car on train with Mr. Plessy, after all! If the blackness part is uncool and unexciting, then why write a book and promote that dark (hahaha) angle? White folks are buying it so there must still be something to this black thing despite it being passe or not important anymore. Like Halle's thing. Oh this race thing doesn't matter, she says on Oprah to the applause of the chunky white housewives in the audience. Yet in the same breath she says producers never think of casting her first. She always has to come in and audition while a dingbat blonde Cameron Diaz type gets the part automatically. Oh yeah, the blackness thing.
Look, we're all mixed with something. And according to the genetic history of the human race, if you trace our mitochondrial DNA back far enough all homo sapiens are more or less cousins. Screw science. Let's talk real life. I'm the last person to begrudge or bemoan bi- or multi-racial people...despite what I say above hahahaha. I clearly don't look black (to a lot of silly whitefolks); I am thus mixed as you can get. "Light-skin-ded wid dat Good hair" as Richard Pryor's "Mudfoot" once expounded. And I'm proud uncle and second cousin to a whole slew of our family's own little brood of kids who carry the blood of many cultures--my sister in law is white, as is my cousin's hubby. But this makes me cringe: people who to prattle on about their mixedhood, or identify themselves, disingenuously or selfdelusionally (n.b. Tiger Woods) so to a cloying degree. Indeed Tiger and may of these folk often play into the hands of racists: not black folks who are insance, but old fashioned white right wing clowns with agendas. And don't tell me blackness doesn't matter when you loak yourself in the profits and attention you get by exploiting this thing that supposedly doesn't matter. Tiger'd just be a phenom if he wasn't BLACK. Now he has that extra dimension that made him the stuff of ratings and readership. In the film Things We Lost in The Fire, why couldn't Halle have beenmarried to a successful BLACK man. Why my Princeton classmate (who snarkily missed our big Reunion) David Duchovny? Oh, because race does matter. Then it would be a Tyler Perry-bamma-esque flava'd romp that just happened to include Benicio Del Toro and we in Hollywood, just like we in the book world, have a marketing and stereotype template for that, so let's NOT mix it up. I can see the producers eeting over soy lattes now: Let's fit Halle in somehow but still keep it a white movie. Ahhhhhhh. Now I see...
Okay, so I cringe at that. I FALL-OUT at folk like Bliss who says she's an "Obama" negro. I wonder what Barack's saying to that?I guess he feels a little less "black" and more mixed based on that analysis. Outside of Hollywood and the hip hop world run by white institutional investors by the way, or the literatti orbits in Manhattan, it's still a burden to be black. if you're mixed I can understand the allure of not totally commiting to the bruvahs. Yes, there is history, both brutal and beautiful. There is heritage, both inspiring and horrid, or in some instances utterly embarassing. We have our dirty laundry in that vein and thus it becomes YOUR dirty laundry too, mixed folks. By declaring and profiting off you mixedhood, that doesn't erase the history and the heritage, or you obligation to clean the dirty laundry. Indeed, you ARE part of the dirty laundry when you point out, as Bliss does, that her father's folk were "Creoles" a la Jellyroll Morton, and thus had this paperbag test disdain for the evil blueblack liver-lipped crowd, I suppose. Well even as flawed as he was, Jelly contributed to his peeps' (where they then, is peeps? This is soooooo confusing!) culture and in the process gave black folks and in turn the world, the only truly American art form: Jazz. And back to my thesis--then you turn around and make money off of it? Jelly made a living not from running away from or minimizing or exploiting his "black" blood. He embraced it. It drove him nuts, but he did it. He tried to understand what it meant to be the descendant of slaves in the New World. It was reflected in his passion and pain. I just want Bliss to immerse herself in that passion and pain...yes and conflict, ambivalence...just for a little while. Then go call yourself whatever you wish and I'll buy your book and applaud you.
I dunno...now's about the time you should really be calling me an asshole. But isn't it better to get folks to stop bullshitting each other or themselves--even if that bullshit is accompanied by a wink and nudge? And please don't show me true temerity by getting PAID for this bullshit. Don't softball your colleague, as Janet Maslin did for Bliss. Hell, I say let "Skip" (Prof. Henry Louis) Gates, who "outted" (and that's the term Bliss and white folks use) Bliss's daddy and God bless him for it, write the review! Yeah, a BLACK person, or someone who identifies him/herself as so in their hearts, if not in their blood. Think of the insights. The debate. The passion. But alas, most of these essays on race are not truly written with "blacks" in mind as the audience. After all, it's the New York Times Book Review. Us niggahs don't read no New York Times! Wez snatching The Source off the newstand with that copy of King whut got dat bitch Megan Goode's titties 'n ass on the muvf*ckin' cover, and then we gonna play HALO all muvf*ckin' night till we roll out to da club...and then go to church on Sunday...
Be yourself. Know yourself. Just don't play. Don't believe one thing, hide behind those beliefs, then create a whole 'nother ethos that you profit from. That's just plain Mixed Up...
23 comments:
You just love to cause trubble...
Interesting (and amusing) post.
Uh-huh, something really bothered me in that Obama quote, and there is a self-important self-righteousness in the tome of that book. (OK I didn't buy it. I just skimmed it over coffee in the Borders cafe.)
By the way I applaud Tyler Perry for this latest movie, for at least you see educated, successful black people. I know there are many bows to stereotypes or you favorite word "bamma" moments, but at least this is something. Certainly it is more real to us at least than David Duchovny and Hale Berry, or Billy Bob and Halle Berry. Hey what about Terrence Howard and Halle Berry? Why isn't that something considered?
Mixed sells. White is boring and black is scary!
Until the polarization between Blacks and Whites is further diminished in the US, the navel-gazing by mixed-bloods like Halle will continue. Sheepishly apologizing to the "darkies" for the privilege of their café au lait skin and wavy hair, while revelling in the specialness of being used for the "token one drop" in the midst of all that Whiteness. Please!
In the Caribbean where I'm from, there are barefoot, poor, little White children with blonde hair running around in ragged clothes, and a whole host of mixed-bloods who are special only if they have some money. A country where mixing is as normal as breathing, and where Halle would die from shock over the revelation of her ordinariness.
I've actually read the new book about Broyard as well as the Gaines/Reich biography of Mr. Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe, late of Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny, but I suppose this puts me at a disadvantage in this discussion.
Oh yeah, I also read Norman Mailer's 1956 (or was it fifty seven?) essay about hipsters called "The White Negro," which James Baldwin replied to in a 1962 essay titled "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy," in which he claims that Mailer's piece reflects his infatuation with the Beats, however, I think Baldwin got it wrong; it was not about the Beats. I'd have to reread it to find out for sure, but in reading this book I realized that Broyard had written about hipness, and more accurately, long before Mailer, in his 1948 Partisan Review piece called "Portrait of the Hipster."
Similarly, in 1948 Jean Paul Sartre published a piece in Commentary called "Portrait of the Inauthentic Jew." In 1952, the same year that Ralph Ellison published "Invisible Man," one of Sartre's followers, Frantz Fanon, published a reply to Sartre's piece in an essay called "The Fact of Blackness," chapter five in "Black Skin, White Masks." But again, Broyard had already beaten him to the punch in a 1950 Commentary piece, "Portrait of the Inauthentic Negro." Nobody was publishing stuff like this at the time, especially in the influential literary journals. He also ghostwrote an essay about jazz for a Partisan Review writer named Milton Klonsky, who was looking for a Trotskyist angle on jazz. Ellison didn't agree with it, but he did respect Broyard and so did Albert Murray.
Before Plessy, Louisiana Legislative Code No. 111 of 1890 designated that anyone of any African ancestry was Negro. This is the Jim Crow law that's usually cited as the cause of the Creole-Black musical integration that produced jazz. Joe "King" Oliver crossed Canal St. to play "modified lead" trumpet with Manuel Perez and the Onward Brass Band, a precision Creole outfit, which required Joe to get his reading together first. Louis Armstrong worked on his reading when he played with Fate Marable's band on the Streckfus riverboats, after which time he, like Oliver before him, joined Oscar "Papa" Celestin's Tuxedo Brass Band. Louis said he felt like he was playing with John Philip Sousa.
Freddie Keppard, a Creole from downtown, was one of the first brass players allowed to perform in Storyville, which, in symbolic terms, meant crossing Canal St. in the other direction. Now there may have been a few whites playing the music at that time - mostly Sicilians like, dare I say, Joe Lovano? - and maybe in about 75 more years somebody'll be able to say that.
The point is that although Jelly's contribution to the music is enormous, he denied his African ancestry. But there was a pattern of dissemblance about racial identity from the Creole musicians of Louis Armstrong's day.
Isidore Barbarin (b. 1872) told an interviewer, "I didn't know I was colored until, I mean, well later years -- I didn't know I was colored." Don Albert (b. Albert Domingue in 1909) was asked what a Creole is. He thought that "it is debatable," but, in his view, it is a "mixture of races, Indian, Philippinno, Turk, Italian." Barey Bigard (b. 1906), who, after acknowledging that both of his parents were Creoles of color, defined the term: "Creole of color...was essentially a mixture of Spanish and French." As far as Jelly Roll Morton's denial, he could have been raised with the idea that he was French and only French.
The Janet Maslin quote is designed for maximum tweakage, that's true, however, it doesn't mention that Phil Donahue and his wife Marlo Thomas were denied membership in the same yacht club, not for racial reasons, but because they didn't have the right kind of yacht; their's was apparently motorized. If I remember correctly, Broyard's wife is actually a sailing enthusiast, and his reputation as a TBR critic apparently made them desirable, and besides, I don't think they claimed him as proof that they were integrating until Bliss informed them when she went to interview them. No prospective black members had ever applied for membership. It's like the town in Stephen L. Carter's latest novel, "Uncle Tyler's Landing," oops! I mean "New England White."
Sunrunner, we gots ta meet in cyberspace or in person!!! My email address (for the public) is christopherC at chrischambersbooks.com
What's different about these bad old days as opposed to the old bad old days is that the dissemblance of Jelly is actually being used as a pitch or gimmick in some
instances. And thanks for the tip on the La. statute (and that Plessy was in La. as well--I knew the complainant was a light skinned black man, but for some reason I said Tennessee...I am ashamed because I am supposed to remember this stuff!).
Anonymous: I love that. Navel-gazing!!! My dad's side of the family is Jamaican; the only "issue," and it isn't even an issue but rather no big damn deal, is the interplay among white, black and Coolie blood (the coolies being the sources of my luxorious long black silken hair, like Akpu on The Simpsons).
Half white scrapes the black board for me.
This post needed to be said.
Great post. I really enjoyed it, and you nailed it all.
Actually I think you were ranting and raving, and you disrespected your family.
Its funny how alot of mixed people try to be ambiguous until they get in trouble. Halle and Mariah both had to embrace the black people when the white folks put them on blast. The mixed card only goes so far until white folks get tired of hearing it. They still call mixed people niggers no matter what. As far as Bliss goes she looks like she has black in her to me( I googled her pic.) Christopher as always your blog entries kick ass.
YOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYO YO
wAZ'UP!!!
Chris, you are on point.
I work in Hollywood and I can tell you that I am sick of the casting b.s. that goes on here. It's like the 50s. The paper bag is not physically in the room but the mindset is. It's not just white men making these decisions. Remember the BET list of the top 25 beautiful black women of the last 25 years? Nuff said!
My parents are from the islands and it is true Halle's situation would just be ordinary. I don't know why she goes on and on about being bi-racial. Who cares?
In my family no one singles out the "mixed relatives" as being special, they are just part of my family. None of them live in States so they don't have the hang-up that some (not all) mixed people here have. I do want to read Bliss' book because I find the fact that her dad was straight up passing unbelievable.
Bliss was raised white and had no idea that her dad was black until he was dying. WTF?
The "navel-gazer" anonymous here, again... Chris and nyc/caribbean ragazza, the difference between the US and the Caribbean when it comes to colour, is most telling in its attitude to those of mixed race. As you both have seen, in the Caribbean it ain't no big deal.
Yes, there is all sorts of "shadism" that goes on in families ("You remember Cousin Mary? Not de coolie-lookin' one... the one wid de harder (coarser) hair but de clear (light) skin"), but in general, mixing just IS.
In the US - if I may be allowed to comment on a country I used to live in - White and Black are like two sides of a war, and those that cross to the other side (like Broyard) or manage to stay firmly in the DMZ between (Halle and Tiger), somewhat view themselves as heroes and different in a very special way. This will stay the same until seeing a Black family out walking their dog in Brentwood, is no more as big a deal as Cousin Mary's hair texture. I guess it will happen when the mixing has been going on for 400 years like in the Caribbean.
If you're interested, there is a book by a Canadian writer, Lawrence Hill, which deals with his upbringing as biracial (he hates the term) in Canada. It's called "Black Berry, Sweet Juice" (HarperCollins, 2001). Lots of humour in it as he pokes fun at the combatants on both sides of the "war", and interviews others of Black and White heritage.
Hey, thanks Christopher. I know that the NY Times book review policy is not to let friends (or enemies) review one another and that's supposed to include professor and mentor relationships, so since Henry Louis Gates more or less provided the impetus for this book and also beause Bliss will be appearing on his upcoming PBS special, I think that it ruled him out as a reviewer.
In Bliss's defense I will say that she doesn't go that easy on her father, but for me personally, as someone who's studied some jazz history in college (though not at Rutgers or Tulane, the schools with the extensive jazz archives), the most fascinating part of the book is the approximately 200-page middle section which traces her family's history and in doing so describes the social history of the downtown Creoles in N.O. It provides a different perspective than one gets from reading only about the jazz musicians, who, after all, were the ones who did manage to integrate. And she did her homework, the bibliography includes about 150 books.
The one book I would highly recommend is called "Louis Armstrong's New Orleans" by Thomas Brothers.
As I'm sure you know, the "one drop rule" grew out of the practice of hypodescent, which dates back to colonial America and did not apply in Latin American colonies where "hyperdescent" was the rule.
The early French settlers of Louisiana, on the other hand (to paraphrase some the history provided in Brothers), were not as troubled by the idea of parterning up with "other" types of women because of the example of the French Canadians, who, according to the "one blood" theory advanced by the government as an extension of French mercantile policy, were encouraged to select women from the native population. The goal was to bring the colonized population closer to French culture rather than push them away, as the English tended to do. The first presiding cleric in Louisiana, newly arrived from Canada, declared that "The blood of the savages does no harm to the blood of the French." This led to the system of plaçage and eventually to Storyville, the greatest prostitution district in the world outside of Paris.
The Civil War destroyed the intermediate caste position, the pullout of federal troops created political splits and economic difficulties which proved explosive in white and nonwhite communities alike (tensions between Italian and Irish residents climaxed in the 1891 lynch murders of eleven Sicilians after their exoneration in the death of an Irish policeman).
According to Brothers, the redefinition of race or the black/white duality, created suspicion toward all Creoles and inspired white Creoles to align themselves with white Americans. He writes, "White Creoles began to move from their historic downtown wards into distant uptown neighborhoods that were securely white."
The Broyards, became "colored" when Bliss's great-great-great grandfather Henry declared himself colored in order to marry a free woman of color. There's also a Creole activist among her ancestors as well as great-grandparents (not Broyards but Cousins) who as children were refugees from St. Domingue and eventually owned two slaves in N.O. Like many of her ancestors, he was a shoemaker by trade, and all lived in the downtown Creole wards.
Thanks for the forum, man.
Christopher writes: "Bliss Broyard is a critic and used to be an editor at the New York Times Book Review."
Christopher, Sorry for misunderstanding the very valid point you're making (I'll be alright with some rest!)
I sometimes post on Paper Cuts, the NY Times book blog, and I will raise the question with the senior editor next week. If he replies, I'll get back to you. Sorry about that.
Bruh, it appears you are hitting us with many different issues--the one that's more arcane and lit oriented is the self-contained world and mutual masturbation within this "literati" (spelling?) circle.
I for one couldn't give a darn about that, but frankly, do they even know there's a whole world outside New York? That leads to one of your other issues: the only other "world" they seem to want to explore is the world of ghetto books among "us" people, n'est pas?
argh...I couldn't believe exist a whole website or two out there is the cyberworld that caters to mixed race folk who disdain their black ancestry, every other post begins and ends with wishing to eradicate the black identity and blame all the racism they suffer the result of blacks refusing to let them leave the black box. WTF???
Good post.
Chris, I have not read Broyard and cannot comment on that. As for the portion of your blog which rants about mixed-race people, I believe you are off-base. Actually, I will state with certainty that you missed the point. I'll throw the gauntlet down and say that mixed-race people are just that: mixed-race. You might not like it, but that's the way it is. As you know, I'm mixed-race and I've been fortunate to travel the world. I've been called or considered just about every race out there. Does it matter to me? Nope. Do I care when someone considers me white? Nope. If the occassion arises, I'll let them know I'm actually half-white and mom's black. If someone considers me black, I don't care either. If the occassion arises, I'll let that person know I'm half-black and that my father is white. I love both sides equally.
What I don't like is ignorance. When a person (regardless of color) attempts to deny my whiteness, I clarify that I am indeed half white and I love and respect that part of me. It will not be denied. If that is ever made of my black half, I stand up for it as well. No one will ever deny me of that half, nor will I ever shun it. I am mixed and proud of it.
When Halle Berry (who should be my wife if I wasn't already dating a wonderful woman) gets on Oprah and says race doesn't matter, well of course race matters particularly in the US. You've made a good point about not getting the best roles. It took a while before she finally landed Monsters Ball and some could argue she hasn't gotten the roles to match her talent. I won't argue that. But what you and others seem to miss is that when she says race doesn't matter, she means it doesn't matter to her. Why do I say this? Because race doesn't matter to me either. Sure there are people out there who might sneer at me or might prejudge me by my skin color (maybe not so much in Miami since I match the Latins) or might look at me in disdain because my girlfriend is white. But I don't care. Race still doesn't matter to me.
Ah, Tiger Woods. That great black golfer Tiger Woods. So many in the black community up in arms when he said he didn't think of himself as a black golfer. Well of course he didn't, he's not. He's a mixed-race golfer. He never denied being black, he greatest mentor was his father who is black. But he did not want to deny his Asian half. Why is it that when a mixed-race person does not want to be labeled 'black', the community gets bent out of shape? I actually know the answer so perhaps I should rephrase it: why is it that in this day and age when the black community is (or should be trying) to move forward, there's still the petty inferiority complex? Yes there ARE certain individuals who deny their blackness and are ashamed of being black (or part-black). That's their loss and recognize it as their loss. And don't confuse them with us mixed-race who correctly feel a part of ALL of our races. BTW, if you think Tiger Woods is black, I'd like to see you go to Thailand and find one person who agrees with you.
For those who might be thinking "One drop", please get your heads out of your asses and start thinking for yourselves. Slavery and property rights are long gone so drop the shackles. I don't follow the masses, I actually think for myself. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, guess which one I took?
We are what we are (mixed-race) and that's that. We aren't to be pigeon-holed as black - because we aren't 100% black. It's not a lack of love or denial, because we do love all our black heritage. It's just fact.
I also want to add that reading the "Caribbean Anonymous" post kinda saddens me that the US is behind. Particularly since we are the melting pot.
Tchaka--points taken not only to head but to heart. I am indeed ranting but I also wanted to spur debate.
One thing. Tiger Woods. I sincerely believe he does NOT fully absorb the heritage and history of his blackness. Sorry. He denied it so vehemently at first that I wonder what was said to him as a child. Look, this is a forum for being frank. No PC crap. No fooling about. Many black servicemen specifically and many black men generally have hooked up with Asian women and whether it be conscious or unconscious, they seem to like the qualities of these women that are so very Un-sista. Conscious or unconscious, sista and un-sista. You see where this is leading. I couldn't give a damn about what they say in Thailand, because they in Thailand have been feeding off the same cultural nonsense and crazy images white people, often with our ignorant blessing have been spreading for, well centuries, in one form or another. And when an Eldrick Woods Sr. hooks up with a Thai wife I say Eldrick Woods Sr may or may not have a reason not to impress upon his son what it means to be a black man in AMERICA. A black man. Because even if part of you is white...or Thai or Vulcan like Mr. Spock (the most famous mixed race dude of all time--and HE LIVED AS A VULCAN), there is still a part that IS a black man or woman. And the history is too painful for Tiger to blithely take Elin Nordegrin--the quintessential, iconic blonde prize of legend and stereotype--and expect not a single black woman, or perhaps envious black man hahaha, not to scratch their head. Yeah--he's supposed to give a shit about that. I don't let him off the hook, and screw him if he feels his money and endorsements put him above it, because within his lifetime, not his dad's a BLACK man would be shot for trying to take tee shot at Augusta. A Thai, hey maybe they'd let him on forthe sake of being exotic.
No one is asking anyone to deny their whiteness. But as the "majority" the "powerful" with all that history entails. It doesn't "pay" to be black. My issue is with folks who whip out either their negritude or play the "exotic" mixed card when it suits them, or depending on the situation.
It's a complex issue yes. All issues of self are complex. But damn it, that black part it immutable, and that one DROP was important enough for WHITE people to decree it so back in the bad old days. Nowadays, there's so, so much contained in that one drop...
It is better to air these things. However the initial subject was Bliss Broyard's book, her father's attitudes, and the New York Times.
I look forward to reading Bliss's book, but from what I've read from previous articles, she's struggling over the fact that she too was denied a part of her heritage by her father's decision to assimilate into the white world and dismantle his creole/black identity.
Bliss never found out that her father was a black man per se, she found out that he was a man with black ancestry that he chose to deny. As the result of such, his children were denied family and history.
Chris, I appreciate that you air topics that others are afraid of or prefer to keep quiet about. And we don't have to see eye to eye, it's still good debate.
I understand your frustration with those who play the mixed card when necessary. I don't buy into that one bit. One has to accept one as one was created. Admittedly, I chuckle at your use of "exotic". Yet another label commonly placed on us. Don't get me wrong, I'm an amazingly awesome person...but that's cause I'm so cool. It has nothing to do with race.
Chris, amazing post, funny, right on target. Thank you.
Now I know why Beyonce keeps reminding us 'bout Creole heritage and wishing she was born Latina. It really pays to be mixed!? (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, tongue in cheek)
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