on A Post-Racial Society

It seems that our country coasts a long a little bit until the media grabs hold of an event that reminds us that we remain deeply scarred by the legacy of slavery. In the wake of the election of the first Black President, many mistakenly counted his win as an indication of having arrived to the promised land Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of the evening before he was assasinated. Incidents like the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., or the racial tensions that arose during a recent rally in Paris, Texas, where the anger over the dragging death of a Black man nearly a year ago continues to simmer, demonstrate that a post-racial society is not yet an appropriate moniker for America.

Even with the highest man in the nation being Black, many Black people continue to feel as though they are second-class citizens in a society that was built on the backs of their ancestors. Gates, believing that the mistreatment he experienced was simply, in his own words, because he is “a black man in America,” and the people of Paris, Texas believing that if Brandon McLelland were White, his murder would have been handled differently.

As usual, in such incidents like Gates’, many agree that the arrest was racially motivated. While others, both Black and White, are more apt to argue that if Gates was “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior” as the police reports states, of course he should have been arrested; it was his actions, and not his race, that motivated the arrest.

After nearly an hour of healthcare talk during his presidential news conference Wednesday evening, President Obama made a long awaited response to Gates’ arrest for disorderly conduct, the charges later being dropped. The reporter who when out of turn almost resulted in this controversial last question not being asked. But Obama, being the talented people-manager that he is, avoided a potential uproar.

The stance the president took, though admittedly biased, was that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.” New York Times reporter, Katharine Q. Seelye, wrote the next morning: “Americans got a rare glimpse Wednesday night of what it means to have a black president in the Oval Office.” Yes, the highest man in our nation being a Black man is significant when the oval office responds to accusations of racially motivated treatment, but I have to wonder if by rare glimpse, does Seelye mean that sometimes Obama is Black, and at other times he is something else? And what does it mean to have a Black man in office? That somebody with major credentials is finally paying attention to such insidious injustices as racial profiling?

Regardless of what stance is taken, the friction stemming from the actions of the Cambridge police, reveals that we have yet to obtain the highly-desirable status of a post-racial society, as some thought. Put another way, racial lines are still being drawn when we have to think about the question that CNN correspondent Soledad O’Brien posed: Would things have been different if Henry Louis Gates Jr. was a White man? President Obama’s election was a milestone, but let Gates’ arrest and the Black community’s reaction be a reminder that we still have a long way to go.

on Being Hairdresser for a Day

I'm fresh off my stint as hairdresser for a day. My fingers are sore. The left pointer finger I used to catch the toasted sections of hot pressed-out hair is now tender with the beginnings of a blister.

“Do you know how to straighten hair?” my friend had asked me earlier that day.

“With a flat iron or hot comb?” I answered.

I knew that with the former I could dust off the ancient skills I developed pressing out my own hair when my hairdresser Maria, the one other individual I trusted with a smoking comb so close to my scalp, was unavailable. But I wouldn’t dare use a menacing hot comb on somebody else’s head without a professional license, or at the very least– overblown audacity.

“I can flat iron,” I said. “I may not be able to get a professional, bone-straight look. But yes, I can flat iron it.”

I was the last choice, I knew, but with the late hour approaching and a departure for an overseas trip the next day, I was also the best.

“It doesn’t feel straight,” my friend said after reaching up to finger my first attempt, a move that I learned through painful means from both my mama and Maria growing up, is a cardinal sin.

It looked straight to me. In fact, it looked bone-straight. But women, black women in particular, are sensitive about their hair. I know this. I understand this. I relate to this. So my response is to simply go over it with the flat iron again. Then go over it with the rotating, curling and flat iron brush contraption I'm handed, fresh out of its box. Then once more with the flat iron, each time the limp hair, its post-shower, boistorous curl now absent, falling tired onto my raw fingers.

I’m just going to wear it straight for a few days, my friend explains to me. She wants to arrive at her final destination with it straight. But summer heat, an exotic location, and beaches guarantee that there will be swimming. The straight hair will only last until this urge to swim takes over, and the curliness and thickness will again reclaim their rightful place crowned atop her head.

I can tell she’s not satisfied with the straightness of her hair. But I press on (yes, corny pun intended), and she sits cooperatively as I jerk her head around with a hairdresser’s prerogative. It takes over an hour, not including the other pertinent steps of the process: washing, blowing out, and of course, snacking. It’s the wee hours of the morning by the time we finish.

But we do and she’s off to the bathroom mirror admiring my handiwork. She spends a few minutes playing with her hair, shaking it, pushing it to one side with another, and positioning the curled ends that had outright, and with much frustration, refused to go straight until the very last minutes.

The commentary begins.

"It did finally curl."

"It looks nice."

"It’s got bounce."

"I like it."

Good, she likes it, but that’s not what makes me smile inside.

It’s when she says: “This is the way I’d have my hairdresser do it if she could. She always goes bone-straight. This has body!”

Have I inched her a bit towards a natural nap? Maybe if she asks me next time, I’ll leave a bit more body in it, slowly and deliberately undoing a lifetime of being socialized into the norm of straightness.

on Losing the King of Pop

Though his life was troubled, The King of Pop has definitely gone out in style. Today’s coverage of the memorial service for Michael Jackson was reminiscent of President Obama’s historic inauguration– right on down to the ticket lottery.

Uninterrupted, live coverage was on all the major channels. Televisions and streaming computers tuned in throughout workplaces. Twitter and Facebook updates featured citizen commentary on the likes of Mariah as she struggled to hold a note, Al as he channeled the spirit of an authentic African-American funeral, and sweet Paris, her presence creating a rainstorm of tears. It will be a moment to remember.

I often sit and reflect on the major events of my parents’ and my grandparents’ lives as they grew up. For my grandparents there’s Pearl Harbor or the Stock Market crash. For my parents there was the Supreme Court’s ruling to desegregate public schools, the day that Martin Luther King was shot and killed, or Elvis Presley’s death. As I pile on the years, I wonder which moments will stand out in my life. Some will because of their fatality, like 9/11, or historical significance, like Obama’s election. Others, like Michael’s death, are significant because of the lines that they cross—gender, class, race­­— and the sheer number of people that are affected.

Michael was after all, simply a pop star. Yes, his career spanned decades and he was a prolific entertainer. And yes, he was a humanitarian and wrote conscious lyrics, but his life was also riddled with “questionable decisions,” as Motown record label founder Barry Gordy pointed out in his eulogy.

I say this not to take away from Michael’s life, but to highlight how in his death, he has been able to unite more people than he was ever able to do when he was alive. This to me is what is most significant­­– the masses that have been brought together to mourn the life of a single individual.

You don’t have to be a diehard Michael Jackson fan. Whitney Houston happens to be the soundtrack to my life. But it’s moments like these that you begin to eclipse a bit what Maya Angelou so eloquently said through Queen Latifah’s voice during the service: “Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.” Public grief is a reminder that in the diversity of our life’s journey, the one thing we share is that we’ll each leave it at some point. It is not scandal, eccentricity, nor the painfully obvious lack of love Michael had for his Blackness. Instead, it is how the end to his imperfect life united people that this moment goes down on my list of significant historical moments.