Black

Hey Jamal, isn’t it refreshing to hear "black" as a racial category and not as a synonym for all the worst things in the world? Now that racism is over, people no longer use the world “black” to mean “evil,” “wicked,” “ugly,” “dirty,” “bad,” “looming,” “sinister,” “psychologically twisted,” “disturbing,” “Darth Vaderesque,” or as a descriptor for all things negative? No more black comedy, black magic, or black spots on your soul. Gone are the “dark sides” and “dark moods.” Of course that means that “white” no longer means all things good, as in “white magic,” “white lies” and “white supremacy.” Now people use real English vocabulary to describe things with actual specificity. Having to find the words to say what they really mean, people are re-engaged with actual communication skills. Thesaurus sales have increased ten-fold! It’s created a real renaissance of language. Who knew we had so many useful words at our disposal?

I’ve also noticed that now that people don’t think that black is a bad word, so that when referring to a black person, people no longer whisper "black" like it was a life-threatening disease. Remember how people used to stutter when they try to say that someone is “b…b…bl…black,” often becoming so scared to say the b-word that they stumble into some other b-descriptor to put before it, which I suppose makes the word “black” easier to say. You know what I mean, right? White people try to describe a black man walking down the street, they start to say “black” but then get nervous and say something like:

“I saw this b…b…big black man walking down the street. Oh, did I say big? I meant beautiful this… uh, b…beautiful…black man, yeah, that’s what I meant.”

It would take them so long to get “black” out of their mouths, that by the time they did they were so traumatized that they forgot why they brought up the big beautiful black man in the first place. This precipitated many blank stares from white people, I guess waiting for me to either approve or get offended at their description. When I stared back at them, simply waiting for them to finish their sentence, panic often ensued, resulting in the frequent comment “you don’t’ think I’m racist because I said that, do you?” Awkward.

Kindergarten and elementary art school teachers have also stopped proclaiming “black is not a color!” at the top of their lungs. They recognize that this has confused children for decades and became a frequent playground taunt used against African American children. Ugh I hated that! Especially when it made its way from the playground of my childhood to the office staff meetings of my adulthood. People really hold onto that stuff they learn as kids. Now the teachers leave the dynamics of color theory for a time when students can understand it, (like in art school) and let kids be kids and just play with their paint.