The very act of constantly dividing one’s personality between a predominately white world of work and a predominately black home community can be wearying.
-- Clarence Page

You woke up this morning in your Black home, washed and adorned your black body, combed your black hair, locked the door of your black house, got in the car to listen to your black music, and drove through traffic thinking black thoughts. Then, you walked into a lily white office.

You suddenly do 2 things – 1) tone your black down then 2) put on the white cap.

Now, some of us don’t care; we never change out of our black. We drive into the parking lot with the music booming, heads bopping, and our fists pumped, not caring who’s watching in shock, disapproval, or disbelief.

But others of us smile at everybody like we are the world, laugh along with the group as the boss tells yet another corny story that is so not interesting, and even change the vernacular of our language and voices to match that of the dominant group. Maybe we do those things to fit in and ultimately keep our jobs. Maybe we don’t want white people to think we’re not totally like them thus causing them to think us different, difficult, or unapproachable and ultimately blackballed, disrespected, and/or without a job. Maybe we want white people to think we’re different than the Black folks they saw on the evening news last night, the ones who got arrested for acting fools for whatever reason. Whatever our reasons for cloaking our black at the expense of white folks, it certainly makes for a long, hard day, one in which walking a real tight rope is probably easier.

W.E.B. Dubois called it having a “double consciousness,” and though he was referring to Black people being both Black and American, having “two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings,” this double consciousness is synonymous with having to walk in 2 worlds – a Black one and a white one. Both worlds have their own peculiarities, and as Black people, we have to walk the line between both worlds, switching back and forth as necessary. How much more comfortable are you talking with the Black secretary or janitor than you are talking with your white co-workers because of the innate similarities you and that Black person have in common? Don’t your shoulders tend to relax a little when you’re just shooting the breeze with Leroy the janitor who comes from around your neighborhood? You and he have sort of an unspoken solidarity despite your socioeconomic, gender, or age statuses.

Each day we must reconcile living Black in a white world. We must know not only how to maneuver and get along in the world of Black, we also have to know the same when we cross the emotional and physical railroads, which means we spend most of the day outside of our true selves and in the heads of white people and trying to stay 2 steps ahead. And it’s not until we’ve shown them who we are and that we’re harmless human beings just like they are that we let down our guard and keep the black on.
But there comes a day and time when you’re too tired to front any longer and you just want to be. And why shouldn’t you? White people get to just be white. You are who you are, there’s no denying that, and none of us should even begin to think we have to shut away our Black customs and individuality just to fit in and keep white people at ease. There’s no reason for us to divide our personalities. Who we are is who we are in any community.

And, whose issue is it if white people are uncomfortable with Black? It’s not ours and we should not take it.

No more hiding, acculturating, and obliterating who we really are just to make white people comfortable.

Sadiqqa © 2007