McDonald's and my Struggle with other Black People
This post was submitted by Tyrone Hanley, a "black snowflake."
Last night after a couple of drinks at JR's, I decided to go to McDonald's on 17th St. with two of my friends to get my standard – a McChicken, small fries, and a sundae. As soon as we walked in the doors, I noticed a group of black women with children. They were not the typical group of people for that McDonald's – people who are homeless and (drunk) gay people. However, they did fit many of the stereotypes of "ghetto" black women with their loud and aggressive voices commanding their children around.
When I saw them I had to fight going to that place in which I thought "oh god, these women are so embarrassing to me as a black person with all of their stereotypical ways." It is the place that many minorities go when they see people of their minority group meeting stereotypes, especially in environments where people not in their minority group are surrounding them. For example, LGBT people who feel that leather daddies and drag queens marching in pride parades do damage to the gay cause. Or, when homos hate on femme gay guys and/or butch lesbian women for fitting stereotypes. It is so easy to go to that mental place – shame and disgust for your people. After all, these feelings are two of the defining characteristics of oppressed people. Not wanting to give into to the battle of the "good blacks" versus the "bad blacks," I wondered how I should see those women and children. I left McDonald's with this question mark looming over my head.
It was not until this morning that I know how I should see them. I am to see their humanity – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beauty. It was okay to recognize and be frustrated that some of the women were unnecessarily mean to their children. At the same, I can rejoice in having seen women spending family time with children, who I presume to have been their own, and smile over the gentleness that all of the children displayed. I cannot disown that group of people, because their presence made me uneasy. They are a part of my black people as well as all Americans. As someone who firmly believes in human equality and dignity, I cannot further marginalized people who already are by American society. Moreover, I must release those women and children from the unfair burden of me appointing them as representatives of all Black people.
It is frustrating for me as a progressive, black, and gay man that I am continuing to struggle with these sentiments. I guess it is simply a part of my own humanity. At least I do struggle with these feelings. I refuse to become comfortable with my unease.
5 comments:
I love the last sentence of the post--"I refuse to be comfortable with my unease."
(By the wayThe "black snowflake" sobriquet reminds of a beautiful poem by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay called "The Snow Fairy." You should check it out!)
Tyra - I think I am becoming an inspiration for your blogs ;) haha.. firstly the snowflake and then McDonalds.
I really loved this one though. Very well thought and said.
Kisses
Thank you for sharing your process. Your insights are greatly appreciated :)
-Sharon
I wanted to bring up a point that seems to always be ignored to respond to this post: the slave mentality. By slave mentality I mean an emotional mindset of a group of people, embedded generation after generation. Since the subject is African American people, I will use the marginalized group as an example. It is a common perception that a group of people are weak, dependent, helpless, and subservient: an internal voice that says, "I need help, your support, because I can't do it alone." As a result, this perception becomes a contradiction to America's conventional idea of freedom, independence, or "progressivism".
In my own experiences living in SE/NE DC, I have experienced the lifestyles of this group of people, African-Americans, and it was the same perception of a helpless, hopeless, dependent lifestyle of the poor. However, if you are to believe that many years of "freedom" in this country have had an altering effect on the slave mentality, I consider it to be extremely detrimental and a misread of the dynamics of social psychology. The slave mentality is a very complex issue that has not been challenged in its entirety amongst African-Americans as a whole.
This comment is not to say that I don't believe that there aren't any African Americans who are successful, bright, and progressive. Nor am I saying that there aren't any Caucasian people who are dense, ghetto, and irresponsible. The point to be made is that your skin color does not determine anyone's relevance on a social scale. Family, mother, father, relatives, upbringing, education, and ability to commingle are all variables to escape from a slave mentality; images of desperation, dependence of government, complacency of being poor,anger and resentment of your past misfortunes, and subservient to the assertive.
Pictures of the slave mentality will always inundate us in our daily lives if we do not address the criminality of it.
You raise a very important thought about the tension between stereotypical conduct and acceptance. I find that I struggle most with these type of issues when I view the stereotypical conduct as inherently bad (such as treating children in a way that I view as unhealthy for them). In other words, the conduct really has little or nothing to do with the person's minority status, per se. But at the same time, I do not want to be perceived as "preaching" to someone based on their race or other minority status. For example, shouldn't being loud and harsh toward children in public be unacceptable, regardless of the parent's race/socio-economic status? Is there a distinction to be made between different types of behavior--such as that which could harm someone else (a child?) and that which only has a personal effect on the individual? In other words, is there a difference between criticism directed at someone who is mistreating a child and someone wearing a leather harness in a Pride parade? It seems to me that there is. And how would you expect that Black parent to react to criticism from someone of a different race/socio-economic status? Are these issues that should only be addressed from the "inside out" by the community to which the person belongs? I don't have an answer, but these are thoughts I struggle with.
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