Random Thoughts: My People

Instead of only posting stories about current events, I'd like to share some of my opinions on various issues as they occur to me. Today is the first installment of my Random Thoughts.

On My People: I have been struggling lately with the term “my people”. It feels illogical and like a tip of the hat to segregationists to reflexively call all black Americans my people. I mean, are they all really “my people”? Do we hang out?

Generally speaking, “my people”, the ones I hang with, are mostly well-educated, socially progressive and live in urban or suburban areas of major metropolitan cities. Most of them are not black. My boyfriend is black and he’s a tight-fisted conservative, but that is neither here nor there. My upbringing was incredibly integrated, so I think I tend toward integrated groups of people.

In the alternative, my people could be all people of Hispanic and/or African heritage. But that definition is too broad to have any meaning. Paring it down to the U.S. makes it more manageable. Though one of my parents is from Latin America (and looks nothing like Memin Penguin), I was raised in the broad cultural tradition of black America. Dark skin and decidedly nappy hair has always made it difficult for me to convince others that I am anything but black, so perception becomes reality. I look like a black girl; I live like a black girl.

Are my people then American blacks? Probably. It is with them that I most deeply identify. Culture is what connects us. Though we are all very different from each other in habits, religion and opinion, the culture built over a history of isolation and denial is one thing we share. This may explain why blacks, more than any other ethnic group I can identify, use language about ejecting people from the race based on actions that are alien to the culture. The reason some black conservatives are so vilified is not due to lack of color, but lack of care. We cannot connect them to our parents’, grandparents’ or pastors’ conservatism. Whereas traditional conservatives in the black community are plentiful, exhorting the young to get jobs, stop acting so fresh, pull their pants up, cut their hair, be ever prayerful, etc, the black conservatives who get book deals and television shows seem heartless and willfully blind to the real circumstances confronted by black people on a daily basis. They don’t seem “white” as they are often derisively called. White people, we know; these black neocons just seem foreign.

One prominent black conservative who holds a lot of respect in the black community is Colin Powell. He is conservative, but one can connect him to the black conservative tradition. Most of our famous pastors are all very conservative, yet they seem to understand what the common man suffers and they do not look down on him. Condoleeza Rice, Glenn Loury, Armstrong Williams, Larry Elders and Clarence Thomas, all give the impression of being foreigners with no grounding in the black cultural tradition and no feelings of empathy for everyday people. A black minister, for instance, may disapprove of a wide range of behavior, but he will likely have feelings of sympathy for the poor. A conservative black businessperson might be disdainful of the actions of poor people, but will still think that with proper training they are not beyond redemption. Neither of these people would cut themselves off from black people for personal gain.

I belong to at least two sets of people. One set are “my people” by conscious choice. We chose to become educated, become professionals, be politically aware and be travel junkies. The second set of “my people” were thrown together by accident of cultural similarity and a shared history. We may not always hang out, but we ought always try to hang together.