MY RACIST INTRODUCTION I despised suits and ties. For seventeen years I had been surrounded by suit-wearing, tie-choking, hat-flying church folk. My teenage wardrobe hollered the defiance of a preacher''s kid. It was January 17, 2000. More than three thousand Black people--with a smattering of White folks--arrived that Monday morning in their Sunday best at the Hylton Memorial Chapel in Northern Virginia. My parents arrived in a state of shock. Their floundering son had somehow made it to the final round of the Prince William County Martin Luther King Jr. oratorical contest.
I didn''t show up with a white collar under a dark suit and matching dark tie like most of my competitors. I sported a racy golden-brown blazer with a slick black shirt and bright color-streaked tie underneath. The hem of my baggy black slacks crested over my creamy boots. I''d already failed the test of respectability before I opened my mouth, but my parents, Carol and Larry, were all smiles nonetheless. They couldn''t remember the last time they saw me wearing a tie and blazer, however loud and crazy. But it wasn''t just my clothes that didn''t fit the scene. My competitors were academic prodigies. I wasn''t.
I carried a GPA lower than 3.0; my SAT score barely cracked 1000. Colleges were recruiting my competitors. I was riding the high of having received surprise admission letters from the two colleges I''d halfheartedly applied to. A few weeks before, I was on the basketball court with my high school team, warming up for a home game, cycling through layup lines. My father, all six foot three and two hundred pounds of him, emerged from my high school gym''s entrance. He slowly walked onto the basketball court, flailing his long arms to get my attention--and embarrassing me before what we could call the "White judge." Classic Dad.
He couldn''t care less what judgmental White people thought about him. He rarely if ever put on a happy mask, faked a calmer voice, hid his opinion, or avoided making a scene. I loved and hated my father for living on his own terms in a world that usually denies Black people their own terms. It was the sort of defiance that could have gotten him lynched by a mob in a different time and place--or lynched by men in badges today. I jogged over to him before he could flail his way right into our layup lines. Weirdly giddy, he handed me a brown manila envelope. "This came for you today." He motioned me to open the envelope, right there at half-court as the White students and teachers looked on.
I pulled out the letter and read it: I had been admitted to Hampton University in southern Virginia. My immediate shock exploded into unspeakable happiness. I embraced Dad and exhaled. Tears mixed with warm-up sweat on my face. The judging White eyes around us faded. I thought I was stupid, too dumb for college. Of course, intelligence is as subjective as beauty. But I kept using "objective" standards, like test scores and report cards, to judge myself.
No wonder I sent out only two college applications: one to Hampton and the other to the institution I ended up attending, Florida A&M University. Fewer applications meant less rejection--and I fully expected those two historically Black universities to reject me. Why would any university want an idiot on their campus who can''t understand Shakespeare? It never occurred to me that maybe I wasn''t really trying to understand Shakespeare and that''s why I dropped out of my English II International Baccalaureate class during my senior year. Then again, I did not read much of anything in those years. Maybe if I''d read history then, I''d have learned about the historical significance of the new town my family had moved to from New York City in 1997. I would have learned about all those Confederate memorials surrounding me in Manassas, Virginia, like Robert E. Lee''s dead army. I would have learned why so many tourists trek to Manassas National Battlefield Park to relive the glory of the Confederate victories at the Battles of Bull Run during the Civil War.
It was there that General Thomas J. Jackson acquired his nickname, "Stonewall," for his stubborn defense of the Confederacy. Northern Virginians kept the stonewall intact after all these years. Did anyone notice the irony that at this Martin Luther King Jr. oratorical contest, my free Black life represented Stonewall Jackson High School? The delightful event organizers from Delta Sigma Theta sorority, the proud dignitaries, and the competitors were all seated on the pulpit. (The group was too large to say we were seated in the pulpit.) The audience sat in rows that curved around the long, arched pulpit, giving room for speakers to pace to the far sides of the chapel while delivering their talks; five stairs also allowed us to descend into the crowd if we wanted. The middle schoolers had given their surprisingly mature speeches.
The exhilarating children''s choir had sung behind us. The audience sat back down and went silent in anticipation of the three high school orators. I went first, finally approaching the climax of an experience that had already changed my life. From winning my high school competition months before to winning "best before the judges" at a countywide competition weeks before--I felt a special rainstorm of academic confidence. If I came out of the experience dripping with confidence for college, then I''d entered from a high school drought. Even now I wonder if it was my poor sense of self that first generated my poor sense of my people. Or was it my poor sense of my people that inflamed a poor sense of myself? Like the famous question about the chicken and the egg, the answer is less important than the cycle it describes. Racist ideas make people of color think less of themselves, which makes them more vulnerable to racist ideas.
Racist ideas make White people think more of themselves, which further attracts them to racist ideas. I thought I was a subpar student and was bombarded by messages--from Black people, White people, the media--that told me that the reason was rooted in my race . which made me more discouraged and less motivated as a student . which only further reinforced for me the racist idea that Black people just weren''t very studious . which made me feel even more despair or indifference . and on it went. At no point was this cycle interrupted by a deeper analysis of my own specific circumstances and shortcomings or a critical look at the ideas of the society that judged me--instead, the cycle hardened the racist ideas inside me until I was ready to preach them to others. I remember the MLK competition so fondly.
But when I recall the racist speech I gave, I flush with shame. "What would be Dr. King''s message for the millennium? Let''s visualize an angry seventy-one-year-old Dr. King ." And I began my remix of King''s "I Have a Dream" speech. It was joyous, I started, our emancipation from enslavement. But "now, one hundred thirty-five years later, the Negro is still not free." I was already thundering, my tone angry, more Malcolm than Martin.
"Our youth''s minds are still in captivity!" I did not say our youth''s minds are in captivity of racist ideas, as I would say now. "They think it''s okay to be those who are most feared in our society!" I said, as if it was their fault they were so feared. "They think it''s okay not to think!" I charged, raising the classic racist idea that Black youth don''t value education as much as their non-Black counterparts. No one seemed to care that this well-traveled idea had flown on anecdotes but had never been grounded in proof. Still, the crowd encouraged me with their applause. I kept shooting out unproven and disproven racist ideas about all the things wrong with Black youth--ironically, on the day when all the things right about Black youth were on display. I started pacing wildly back and forth on the runway for the pulpit, gaining momentum. "They think it''s okay to climb the high tree of pregnancy!" Applause.
"They think it''s okay to confine their dreams to sports and music!" Applause. Had I forgotten that I--not "Black youth"--was the one who had confined his dreams to sports? And I was calling Black youth "they"? Who on earth did I think I was? Apparently, my placement on that illustrious stage had lifted me out of the realm of ordinary--and thus inferior--Black youngsters and into the realm of the rare and extraordinary. In my applause-stoked flights of oratory, I didn''t realize that to say something is wrong about a racial group is to say something is inferior about that racial group. I did not realize that to say something is inferior about a racial group is to say a racist idea. I thought I was serving my people, when in fact I was serving up racist ideas about my people to my people. The Black judge seemed to be eating it up and clapping me on my back for more. I kept giving more. "Their minds are being held captive, and our adults'' minds are right there beside them," I said, motioning to the floor.
"Because they somehow think that the cultural revolution that began on the day of my dream''s birth is over. "How can it be over when many times we are unsuccessful because we lack intestinal fortitude?" Applause. "How can it be over when our kids leave their houses not knowing how to make themselves, only knowing h.