Note: In the photo at the top of this page, I had gone with some friends to a crass restaurant where the servers purposefully give rude service. At the end of the meal, they give everyone these “hats” and write a joke making fun of each diner. A Black server looked at me and said, “I got just the one for you.” He came back and stuck on me the hat labeled “TOKEN” that you see in this photo of my friend and me. Making fun ourselves in front of white people has just become that innate.
[WRITTEN SUMMER 2020]
When I was 11 years old, I had to pretend to be a slave. I was probably 13 or so when I made my first race joke.
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Our small group has chosen to learn together and grow further on issues of racial reconciliation, reading through Be the Bridge and discussing at our weekly gatherings. Mary and I are leading the conversations this time.
A pair of chapters has pushed me to share the following, some thoughts I’ve pondered for months while soul-searching through my story and experiences. These chapters explore colorism—between people of color and non, among the Black community itself, and internalized within individuals—and the healing power of forgiveness.
My colorism didn’t start right at 11, but I do remember the experience. Our class was on a field trip to a kind of live history museum, where one of the activities was the Underground Railroad. We were given a story—we were runaway slaves pretending to be a church choir. We had to carefully listen for the code word “brother” by the people at each stop; otherwise they could be lying and turn us in, in which case we’d fail the exercise.
I’m not sure if there was another Black kid in my class, maybe one other at most. But for me, even at 11, I could tell I was different among my peers in the exercise. And now I realize that although meaning well, the museum organizers did not highly consider us for whom the exercise was reliving the horrors of our ancestors. Or, Black people simply did not meaningfully exist in their world.
Fortunately, I did not encounter blatant racism among my classmates, or really even implied racism. Yet, through this colorblind approach, I don’t ever recall talking with anybody about being different. Nobody else knew how it felt for our class to review the Civil Rights Movement and have multiple classmates look at me and say, “Wow, without Martin Luther King, you wouldn’t be in this classroom!”
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I remember at one point in middle school, a random comment about chicken went something like, “I don’t like dark meat. It’s too greasy.’ And another friend chimed in, “And Chris is like, aww.”
I can’t say that was a particular moment of change for me either, other than in a short amount of time around that age, I decided I wanted to head off any discomfort for myself and others in my predominantly White community. It probably started with, “What, cause I’m black?” And it continued and worsened and worsened all the way up to me disclosing this today.
Throughout high school, college, and young adulthood, I was the race joke guy to pretty much any and every non-Black person I met. I called myself a token. I called myself a suspicious black guy. I called myself and people of color handout-takers. I called myself a fence-jumping, running-from-police gangster. I called myself a miracle that I knew how to swim. I celebrated out loud when the black guy didn’t die first in the movie. I told myself to sit in the back of the bus or vehicle. And when none of that felt like enough, I called myself white.
Encouraged by me and feeling comfortable to do so, white people joined in, especially on the calling myself white part. They agreed I was a token, I looked suspicious, I took handouts, I ran from the police, I was exemplary for swimming, I should have to sit in the back or die first in the movie, and that my music/movie taste and the sound of my voice made me the “whitest black guy ever.” Why wouldn’t they say that stuff? I told them to.
It was all a cover for my self-esteem and confidence issues. I will not claim these issues made me a victim, but I will truthfully say being different, never talking about it, race bantering with friends, and so on caused me to lower my own social value. For example on the high school dating front, or lack thereof, I had lowered my own value as a Black person so much that I thought, in a predominantly White area, who the hell would be attracted to me? I had myself convinced I was a step below most every other guy around.
As I went through college, I realized I wasn’t the only Black person doing this. I remember that on a few occasions, one night of sand volleyball in particular, where there was a Black student playing with us who made so many “because I’m black?!” jokes that I thought jeez, I can’t believe someone’s making more race jokes that me.
Reading stories of late, I was reminded of this beautiful, painful reflection by Ramesh A Nagarajah, titled “Reflections From a Token Black Friend,” where he writes:
“During a visit to a Louisiana plantation during my sophomore year of high school, I shamefully recall posing for a picture with a noose around my neck. I remember walking around downtown New Orleans later that evening with it around my friend’s neck, me jokingly walking him like a dog. Two black guys on the street, a bit older than us, said to me, “That’s not ******* funny, bro.”
I immediately filled with guilt upon recognizing my stupidity, and I struggle even today to understand what made me think either were permissible at the time. Sharing that story relieves some of the guilt, yes, but it also speaks to how being wrapped up in white teen culture led me to buy into, and even spearhead, the insensitivity that is often exhibited toward issues of black struggle that are incorrectly categorized as “in the past.””
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So here I am, bringing this confession to the table and seeking and granting forgiveness. I confess to God, my family and friends of color, and myself that I have insulted Black people countless times, myself included. Anyone of color can read this and feel shock, frustration, anger, or rage, all justifiably so. In this way, I have failed you and failed us. I am so sorry and ashamed of this part of my past. I seek forgiveness for the things I said and did to avoid pain, trying to fit into my surroundings instead of releasing this pain by seeking others who could relate.
I joyfully grant forgiveness to anyone reading this seeking it. In the months of our heightened civil unrest, I have had multiple friends reach out to apologize for engaging in all the race banter I encouraged–the labels of ‘white black guy’ and ‘Oreo’ and such.
In his Saturday Night Live monologue this last fall, Dave Chappelle—love him, hate him, or otherwise—transitioned at one point to reach a poignant truth. “Try wearing the mask I’ve been wearing all these years!” he said. ‘I can’t even tell the truth, unless there’s a punchline behind it.”
Chappelle proceeded to make a joke about White people dancing. And, humor is OK. I love humor, always have, and always will. Hopefully the takeaway here isn’t that we can never talk about race and unrest; quite the opposite. We can grow in humor and dialogue about our differences.
To reach that fun, powerful place of joyful reconciliation, though, these Be the Bridge chapters suggest confession and reconciliation. Having exhaled after 18+ years under this shadow, my hope is that together, we can keep shuffling across this bridge—even the White people who can’t dance and the Black people who can’t either, knowing we don’t need to put silly or serious expectations on each other in the first place. Then, we all get to simply live as the children of God we were each created to be. Much love y’all.