It can leave me so uncomprehending I carp like a fish that, after 400 years in America, whites still don't even understand black's benign warrior behavior - especially when it comes from my ex-slave, NWA-enthused, hometown. Here we are, together all these years, and blacks still catch Hell for simply being who we are:
We can spend our whole lives amongst whites, and they insist a black voice rising is someone preparing to fight. Blacks see it:
"You know, when you hear 'bout black folk, we loud. That's our defense mechanism, we loud. We talk aggressive, you know. We talk all that - We ain't gonna do nothing to you, we ain't gonna do nothing to you,…. "
What I don't think whites realize - as often as it happens - is that, what they're mostly doing, is telegraphing to blacks the white's racist fears about having us around.
Blacks hear rising passion and don't think anything. Whites hear rising ANYTHING and get weird - unless they're head-banging, or Yee-Hawing the Allman Brothers, or something.
How can blacks not notice?
Unfortunately, it's the whites collective way to deal with feeling fearful, by acting out - in some kind of misguided retaliation.
Publicly accusing blacks of being upset when we're not (or being more upset than we are) is a means to gain advantage in a disagreement - very effective when blacks are isolated amongst a group of fearful whites in an airplane or, say, at the workplace.
Publicly accusing blacks of being upset warps the group dynamic, so whatever the black's main issue was gets distracted into discussing what whites think is a respectful behavior for the black in that given situation.
It's complete nonsense.
I can't tell you how often it happens. So often, I don't think I have to.
A respectful vocal timbre lecture publicly identifies the black, even further, as being some "other" in the minds of the white group. Nobody else's voice is rising, is it? That's because the whites are being rational and the black - to the white's minds - is becoming unhinged. ("He should do yoga,…") Whispers, about how comfortable everyone else is, working with someone like that, ensue,…including at the Human Resources level.
BAM. The black's out of a job - and race is never mentioned as a reason for it - while the issue that started it all (which, odds being what they are with a black amongst an army of clueless whites, may have been the black, already previously wronged, somehow) is completely forgotten in the brouhaha, over the mystery, of whether the dark skinned guy started yelling or not.
The black goes home, considers a life of poverty, and gets nauseous.
The whites go out for drinks after work and, using NewAge self-help, re-assure one another they're good people doing the right thing.
While knowing better the whole time.
Whites earn it,…
