Interests:race, culture, politics, African Americans, assimilation and ethnic identity Expertise:Interracial relationships (specifically black woman/white man), writing Occupation:Writer. Author of four novels Industry:Entertainment, academia
When it came time to spend the money we'd been setting aside for the past year, my husband and I had a bit of a disagreement. I wanted a kitchen remodel-- you know, new cabinets and granite countertops. Something I would use every day. He wanted to sail the Mediterranean-- the kind of thing you do once in a lifetime. We discussed it and I (reluctantly) conceded when it became apparent that if I won, I'd have a new kitchen populated by one very unhappy man.
But now that our 14-days in Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt are behind us, I'm going to say the words that every husband lives for, and every wife hates to admit:
He was right.
The trip was amazing: a truly once in a lifetime experience that I'm thrilled to have had the chance to enjoy. I loved every second of it: winding through the narrow streets of Positano, Italy admiring the handcrafted tile and the Sorrento lemons; visiting the incredible ruins of Pompeii and catching a glimpse of life 2000 years ago; walking the streets of Mykonos and eating seafood straight from the sea, seeing the Acropolis in Athens and the pyramids and the Sphynx in Egypt. In Turkey, we visisted Ephesus-- the ancient city of the biblical Ephesians. It was the sort of experience that gives you a new way of looking at the world and a new way of looking at one's self, knowing that your life is just a flash in the ages of human history.
Our fellow passengers on our cruise ship came from all over the world, too. We met Canadians, Britons and Germans, Italians and Greeks, South Americans and Dutch. And of course, we met other Americans. But only a handful were black Americans.
By contrast on a typical Caribbean vacation, however, you'll see many African Americans. Why were there so few on our Mediterranean cruise?
Some will immediately jump to economics for the answer-- the Caribbean is closer and cheaper and more easily accessible-- and while I certainly can see that argument, I don't think that's the only factor at work here. After all, middle class black folks who have the money for vacations can choose to spend it anywhere-- the decision is made to travel. There are deals daily to destinations world-wide. As one of my globetrotting friends likes to say, "A black woman can fly to Europe for about what some of us spend on single pair of shoes!"
And everywhere we went, English was spoken, so language really can't be said to be a barrier.
In doing the research for my upcoming book "Don't Bring Home A White Boy (and other notions that keep black women single)" I interviewed a young black woman who told me about her family's reactions when she was offered to study a semester abroad. Her parents weren't impressed and her grandfather even said: "What you want to do THAT for? Ain't no black people in Europe."
Fortunately, this young woman ignored her family's skepticism and headed off to study in London, Paris and Amsterdam. Every where she went, she met black people, people of color who were citizens of those nations and-- with their permission of course-- took pictures of them and sent the home. "Black people... in Europe," she wrote on each photograph until the message was clear to the folks back home: look beyond your limited black American experience. Look beyond North America and the Caribbean. Find out what it means to be a person of color in a wider experience.
You can't view slavery in the same way once you've thought about it in terms of the Roman empire or of the Jews held in Egypt or the centuries old struggles between the Greeks and Turks.And, however cynical you are about what it means to be a black American, I doubt you'll feel the same after you walk the slums of Cairo. There's a lot wrong in this country, but there's a lot right here, too. Touring the oldest Mosque in Egypt, I found myself thinking of Malcolm X-- who left the United States a black nationalist Muslim but returned from his haj to Mecca just a Muslim committed to justice for all mankind. I think I understand.
If you're broke, of course, now is not the time. But if you're not, I hope you'll consider broadening your vacation horizons. The Caribbean is lovely-- but there's whole world out there, a world that technology makes smaller. A world that, if we're to thrive in as a people, we must explore and understand. It's worth saving money for, and worth spending it on. Black Americans have to reach beyond North American and become a bigger part of that broader world. We have to be willing to reach for more than the limits we so often perceive in this country-- not only for our own sake, but for our children's. While it might have taken me 45 years to set foot on the continent of Africa, I'm glad my daughter did it for the first time at 13. I'm glad she's been bitten by the "travel bug" at a young age... and when she told me she wanted to visit Japan next I couldn't have been more pleased.
Money is certainly an issue, but I've noticed that most people manage to find money for the things they value most: cars and computers, cell phones and, as my friend Nikki put it, shoes. Travel is now something I'm willing to put at the top of my list-- even if it means living without granite counter tops for the rest of my life.
I spent an hour or so yesterday completing the forms necessary for my family to travel on our Mediterranean cruise next week. The cruise line asks that you send in your passport information--- as well as certain details like your travel plans, your emergency contact and of course, your credit card number for on-ship spending. What I hadn't expected them to ask was for the primary racial identification of all of our travellers.
It's funny, I had completed that section for my husband, myself and my older daughter without really thinking about it. White, black, black... and then I came to my baby, who is bi-racial. I couldn't call her primarily white any more than I could call her primarily black. If she were old enough to ask, I would have written whatever she said. Experts on the subject say that it's normal for bi-racial children to bounce between racial choices: black at one stage of their growth, white at others. They may also insist on both-- or neither, claiming themselves to transcend classification. I've read enough literature to be prepared for Sommer's choices as she grows older.
But right now, Sommer's a little shy of 4 years old. At this moment, the choice was mine. We've never come across this before: she goes to a private preschool where the question was never asked. Perhaps in a year or so, we may confront the issue again on some public school form. But this was my first time-- my virgin moment-- with racial classifications in my own family-- and I was surprised my the conflicting emotions it brought up.
I re-read the form. This section was optional-- the cruise line was only interested for marketing and consumer information purposes-- but I hadn't hesitated or even questioned the use of their data for the rest of my family. Sommer's status made me re-think whether that was information that I cared to share-- or at least whether the cruise lines marketing database was a good enough reason to provide it. But righteous indignation aside, there will be other forms, more crucial ones. Medical forms, for example. What is the appropriate response for a child whose parents are of different races?
Organizations like ProjectRace.org have been focusing on this issue for years. They have lobbied against boxes like "other" and argue that, in our increasingly multiracial society, forms should allows to "check all that apply" instead of being forced into a single category box. The wisdom of this approach seems obvious to me: it allows a person of mixed heritage to honor all of his or her cultural influences.
But the larger questions remain about why any of this matters so much outside of the medical context (where certain genetic markers may affect compatibility of treatments). What does it say about our society when a cruise line collects racial information "for marketing purposes"? What does it say about our school system if racial heritage is important information to tracking the performance of a student?
The truth is, if I knew more about my own racial heritage, I could probably check every box on any form you give me--- most of us probably could. I know for certain there is white/Dutch ancestry in family, as well as English/Anglo Saxon blood. But I'm certain there is a far more rich story that I don't know and that that rich heritage is present for us all.
Perhaps the ProjectRace.org approach is the beginning: we check as many boxes as apply... until science and geneology make it possible for all of us to check all of the boxes. Only then will the necessity for racial categorization become unnecessary.
For today, I left Sommer's form blank... and when back and erased the categories for the rest of my family. We're a family travelling together and that's really all the cruise line needs to know.
This morning a friend who knows of my interests sent me a link to an msnbc.com story with the title "Marriage eludes high-achieving black women". "Duh", she wrote in her commentary. And she's right: this isn't news to me or many of the other 1.8 million black women who find themselves successful and single. Furthermore, the article touches on many of the "notions" I explore in my upcoming book "Don't Bring Home A White Boy and Other Notions That Keep Black Women Single", including the pressures within the black community that make interracial dating taboo for black women, as well as the concerns that men of other races won't be interested in us as romantic partners. This article spends a few thousand words on the topics... I spent a year and a couple hundred pages. I think the situation, while dire, is more hopeful than this author. Can't wait until the book comes out to share more!
Michael Pollan’s books have opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about food, eating and nutrition, but in today’s NY Times magazine, he makes some really good points about the explosion of TV cooking shows… compared to how little time we actually spend cooking anymore. My favorite quote was this one: “A hundred years ago, chicken for dinner meant going out and catching, killing, plucking, and gutting a chicken. Do you know anybody who still does that? It would be considered crazy! Well, that’s exactly how cooking will seem to your grandchildren: something people used to do when they had no other choice. Get over it!
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