Angry: The Black Community

I suppose I could alternatively title this post "The Double Down."  After it all it was the sentiments in this post that got me unfriended on Facebook by an acquaintance who I truly enjoyed knowing and hearing from. I still regret that I responded thoughtlessly in haste to her pain, and that I wasn't able to take down my comment before she saw it.

That said, I do stand by what I said, if not the timing of when I said it.  This post elaborates on that deleted comment. I don't imagine my friend will see this post (since, you know. .. .unfriended) but if she does, I hope she can now understand where I was coming from. 

A rare photo of a meeting of the Black Community. (Just kidding, this is just a stock photo courtesy of Pond5.com)

I hear the phrase "the black community" thrown around a lot, by people of all races. Indeed I've been having an offline discussion with another friend where this topic has come up. I'm not honestly a huge fan of the term. It often seems to imply a kind of groupthink among black people. It's as if we all belong to some giant association that has monthly meetings and votes on the various issues we will address, the statements we will make and the opinions we will have. In the minds of some the Black Community is currently chaired by Al Sharpton, and in our May meeting voted for riots and looting to be approved at all Black Lives Matter protests.  

I'm not denying the existence or importance of black community--of shared culture and experience that naturally occur. Nor the existence or importance of literal predominantly black communities that often face unique challenges but have their own joys as well. I'm not denying the existence of black social communities that voice the concerns shared by many (but not all) black people, Black Twitter, for example. One of my favorite social media groups is the Wakinda SDA Fellowship (Wakinda being a play on Wakanda) where the experiences of being both black and Adventist come together in delightful relatability.  Yet even here, we are not all of one mind.  Their are cultural differences, between Caribbean and African and African-American, and differences of opinion ranging from very religious to culturally Adventist but non-believing. There are the politically conservative (okay, that's more rare, but it's there) to liberal views. We don't always agree--one of my biggest arguments on Facebook was with another black person in this group over whether racism is always about hatred (I argued that it wasn't).

What I have an issue with is when one black person is expected to speak for all black people. ("So, Sean, what's the black perspective on this?" And I'm thinking, man you have no idea how unqualified I am to answer that question).  I object to the actions of one or a few black people being a reflection on all black people (particularly when the actions are negative. When a black person earns their PhD, you don't hear people saying "There go black people again, doing their thing."  But let a couple of teenagers beat up an old lady and it's the Black Community's fault for not stopping it and not issuing an Official Statement of Condemnation).  It's this sense of the Black Community that has me drilling my students when we go on our class trip that they do not have the privilege of acting the fool because whatever they do right will be credited to their individual remarkable nature ("Can I just say, your students are so well-behaved") but anything they do wrong will be a reflection on all black people. They don't get the "hey kids will be kids, just blowing off steam"  pass when they get too loud in the hotel hallways or hotel pool.  They must be exemplary at all times.

Now, I know what you're about to say.  "Exactly, Maycock! So how is it fair to blame all white people for the bad actions of a few? There's no White Community either!"  And to that I would say:  I don't blame all white people--or really any white people--for the actions of a few. My issue is always with the system, not the people. People don't ask for the "white perspective" on things because it's understood that there will be a variety of perspectives depending on that person's politics, culture, and background. I'm simply saying the same is true for black people. We are not a monolith anymore than white people are. When a cop kneels on a guy's neck till he's dead the response isn't "There go white people again, doing their thing." We say there goes a broken system again that allows a bad dude to do things like this and the good folk to look the other way.  When your kid acts the fool, some might say it reflects bad parenting, but nothing about it is assumed to be endemic to the White Community.

The one thing that every black person in America,whether a Turning Point shill or Black Lives Matter activist, shares is simply being black. We may deal with that reality in different ways but blackness itself is the common thread.