I came for the "blocking" article and stayed for the "blackfishing."

Talk about assumptions - I was all set to explore and explain why Black people might feel like white people were vacationing in their coolness then heading back to safety when the non-cool parts of being Black , you know, like, the systemic racism and random shootings, made their Blackcation a bit too close to the line. Only to discover* that you're Black.

*

“Discover”. Yeah, David. Like, literally, the first four words of her piece are “As a black female.” Well done, Nancy Drew.

JEEZUS.

Mansplaining and whitesplaining and discovering, oh my….!

OK, well now I have nothing to lose. It’s just a strategy I’ve worked out — I like to get the public shaming out of the way at the beginning, then I can relax. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

Oh, by the way, since we’re “discovering,” sixty-six-year-old white gay guy.

So:

I can see where a well-meaning whitey might adopt Black ways of adornment, hairstyle, etc perhaps unconsciously, as a way of expressing that they admire a certain type of Black attitude and - well, imitation is a form of flattery, they say.

And yet I'm thinking there is maybe a sense that the very attitude whitey is admiring was forged in a furnace of daily micro- and macro-aggressions, that it can also be a kind of armor, a way of surviving, a strategy. Sure, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but we've now bought into the idea that life is to be survived, instead of lived.

In that sense, whitey is taking on the trappings of the culture without the blood, sweat and tears of her Black model/idol/ideal.

I kind of feel this way about all the white boys I know who want to be hip-hop artists. And I am appalled at this goal. (“Appalled”? literally= “became paler”!) Because rap begat hip-hop and rap came out of a particular experience that was forced on Black men (also growing the narrative that Black men HAVE TO BE stars of basketball or music, that that's the only way out of the hood, which is itself a limiting narrative, like the technical high school version of a full range of opportunities available to whites.)

Black musicians created a fierce poetry of anger (and misogyny and bitterness) to vent their rage; instinct taught them to transform their experience into unmistakeable art, a whole new genre. THAT's creativity. Art that has literally saved lives. White people might say “lemonade from lemons” in that genteel way, but this is more like “a transfusion from bleeding wounds.”

But what do white boys have to rage about? Dad won't give them the keys to the Range Rover? They need a new mohair sweater? Is this a story we need to hear? These are “tragedies” air-brushed for the pages of GQ Magazine, where some preppy called Crispin, in Ralph Lauren cardigan and grey flannels, is interviewed about that terrible accident when he lost the tip of his finger to a Cuisinart.

So I think I could get and understand, however tangentially, the feeling of being a tourist destination, watching the visitors drinking the giant drink with parasols, then flying back to safety. I think maybe white people should think twice about this kind of appropriation. Then think three times, then just not do it. Or check it out with your Black bff, I dunno.

People aren't just concepts for your make-up table. If two centuries of oppression have created a kind of magnificence and beauty through the effort to survive with dignity, remember what's behind the surface.

Allow those who've survived their gift to themselves, something that no one else's hands have touched.

I may have said some shit clumsily and maybe inappropriately, but I hope you get what I mean. If there's something really egregious I've missed, I want to know. I really enjoyed your voice in the pieces I read. Looking forward to reading more.

DR