I Had A Dream…

This post was submitted by TNG Editorial Assistant, Gem.

I had a dream last night where my best friends from childhood (more commonly referred to as my “brothers”) were holding an alumni party for my high school with their dad. It was a continuation of a dream from another night where they did the same thing and in both dreams at the end of the night, their father offered sober rides home to people.

It was strange, first, because my “brothers” didn’t go to my high school and yet, here they were hosting an alumni party for my Alma Matter. It was also ironic because their family is fairly conservative and would never serve liquor in their house to anyone under the age of probably about 30. However, parents opening up their homes for high-schoolers to get drunk were not shocking occurrences at my high school by any means. (Which, to give you a better idea of who we’re dealing with here, was one of the three prep schools in which the Obama family considered enrolling their children.) I once went to a party my senior year where at the beginning of the night, our friend’s mother collected car keys at the door and made an announcement to everyone to not get too trashed and to keep drinking water.

Really, all of this is beyond the point, because the part of the dream that stuck out to me most was the fact that when my friends’ father offered us all rides, he mentioned two people he gave rides to in the previous dream. He didn’t remember their names, so he referred to them as “this white kid... oh, and a black guy, too.” Their race had absolutely nothing to do with them getting a ride home, but both in the dream and once I had woken up, I understood exactly why he phrased it the way he did.

I knew that the reason this man, a black man, stated that the first guy was white was because he simply wanted to describe the boy. I also knew that he mentioned the other kid was black as an afterthought to make sure he wasn’t coming off as sounding judgmental or assuming that the white kids at the party were the only ones who would be so irresponsible as to not be able to drive home at the end of the night. I realized after some reflection that the thought process behind these conclusions were very unique and probably not so typical.

First of all, as a black person, I find it interesting when other black people get offended when they hear a white person make a racial distinction for similar purposes. And I quietly find it amusing when I notice a white person stuttering to do so. If you ask a black person, “Who did you talk to at the front desk?” and he says, “This white guy,” it is often not as looked down upon as when the white guy at the front desk says, “I saw a black guy walk in the door.” For all of us, although we may not be saying something that is intended to be disrespectful, it is almost inevitable that we identify with our own whether we like it or not. So when we make statements like this, it becomes problematic because we come off as treating those we with whom we do not identify as the “other,” despite our intentions. Consequently, many of us avoid race description altogether and try to practice “colorblindness.”

I have come to realize over the past couple of years that my urge to ignore race and practice “colorblindness” was only my way of running away from my blackness as a kid. I grew up in Prince George’s County, and went to private schools there until high school, when I entered a prep school in Northwest, DC. Although Prince George’s County is the wealthiest black county in the nation, when it is mentioned to a rich white kid from Bethesda, as many of my peers in high school could be labeled, it was not looked upon highly. I was inadvertently taught to believe by the reactions of my peers that other than Bowie, MD (which would secede and become a part of Anne Arundel County if it could), Prince George’s County and where I lived in Largo, MD was seen as “the boonies” despite the fact that it took me ten minutes to drive to the MD/ DC border. It was seen as void of anything worthy to make someone want to travel out there, and nearly invisible. Not surprisingly, Bowie, MD probably has the highest concentration of whites that I know of in the county, which says a lot considering the Historically Black University I attend in Bowie. In retrospect, it has not been difficult to figure out what kinds of messages were being sent, whether they were intentional or not.

The other thing that makes my conclusions about this dreamt statement unique was the fact that he didn’t want to make the generalization that the white guy was the more irresponsible of the two he drove home. Having grown up in P.G. and having had the education I had in high school combined with my experience as a student at a Historically Black University has made me realize the standards that continue to be set for most young black people I’ve grown up with. For many of us, it has been expected that we are not to fall into the traps of drinking or smoking or drug use and to also have any expectation of success in the future. Many of my white peers and friends have been allowed to fall back into their privilege and are nearly expected to “experiment” and party in their college years, whereas perfection is expected from many black students who intend on ever making their families proud.

With all of that said, let me make clear that none of the above is absolute truth by any means, but let’s be honest, most generalizations and labels are not formed based on utter falsities. Honestly, I think that there are times when stating labels are important in story-telling because they clarify. The moment that label implies judgment or negativity is when the line is crossed. And really, we all have our moments of ignorance when we are unaware of crossing that line. Still, making mistakes is often how we learn the most important lessons in life. And anyhow, "Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist", right?

Now, I rarely identify with any stereotypes whether they have to do with the fact that I am black or the fact that I am a lesbian for that matter. Nevertheless, I can often understand why they exist, even when some of these generalizations have painful histories and offensive connotations. The subjects of both race and sexual orientation can be painful even when we don’t want them to be. At the end of the day, we have to learn to accept the fact that, especially in communities like The New Gay, what makes us different cannot be ignored, but should embraced.