“I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.” Every time I hear this song, I feel like my mood automatically dampens and it’s like a quick 3 minute biography is playing on the radio. This song speaks to me on many levels (I think it captures how a lot of millennials feel after college, depression, etc) but the one I am going to focus on is my race. Lately, with all of the volatility between oppressed people and the status quo l have been really struggling to place my self in these movements.
I advocate for Black Lives matter and educate any chance I get but I also see myself on the outside looking in a lot. I don’t fuck with places like Ferguson. I’m lucky. I was raised in the suburbs and went to great school and got a great education. Did my family have money issues? yes. But I was so young it didn’t really influence my development. I was raised middle-class. I’ve struggled through acting hard and faking what I call a “BET” upbringing and then finally settled on being myself. It was embarrassing not being the black person that black people expect you to be. I was good at basketball, ran track…but I also collected Transformers and saw Brittney Spears in concert. I grew up at a time when being called OREO and/or gay were completely acceptable if you didn’t fit into the proper blackness box. I hate being called Oreo…way to ruin a great cookie middle school… I wanted to be “blacker” but honestly all I had to look at was BET, rap videos, and the news to figure out what that looked like (that’s problematic, as you can imagine).
“I keep looking for a place to fit
Where I can speak my mind
I’ve been trying hard to find the people
That I won’t leave behind”
Being black and middle class is like playing for the Atlanta Braves. Everybody likes you, or appreciates you but you’re not the Yankees (rich or white) and your not the Cubs (black, poor). Everybody hates the Yankees but they want to be the Yankees. The Cubs aren’t winners but they are lovable, authentic, and hard working and we are waiting for them to reach the success they deserve. The Brave are doing fine, they are not as successful as the Yankees but they have success in their recent history. People like the Braves because they used to live in Atlanta or they see them on TNT or TBS but nobody really identifies with the Braves or care when they suck.
Looking for a place to fit in is the crux of being middle-class and black. The middle-class experience is defined by whiteness yet the black experience is defined by the struggle. As a middle class black person white people are disappointed in you because your not the “authentic” black friend they desire, and black people resent you because you talk white and you don’t understand the struggle or you left the community behind. It’s tough. I can’t speak my mind, what is there to complain about? I’m middle class and doing well. So the reality of my black experience isn’t considered. I try hard to find the people that I won’t leave behind but there is a turning point when the white people in your life don’t connect with you in the same way and the rift gets larger as we get older (that moment when your BFF votes Trump) and black people who are not middle class don’t live in your neighborhood and those friendships are hard to keep too. Where I am at, things are well segregated and I don’t live in the black half of the city. I goes days at home without seeing anyone that looks like me. It’s a sad state of affairs.
“They say I got brains
But they ain’t doing me no good
I wish they could”
“Where can I turn when my fair weather friends cop out
What’s it all about”
The hardest thing for me as a middle class black male is that I love advocating for black rights and I desperately try to but at times it almost feels like I am appropriating a culture that wants nothing to do with me. I feel like Tom Dubois from Boondocks. He wants to support and be a great role model but nobody can get past the fact that he’s married a white woman and works for the state. He knows the prison system inside and out but nobody even wants his input because he talks white. It sucks. I can relate with him, even when racism shows up in my life it doesn’t seem to count. My experiences and my knowledge are invalid because I am not black enough.
I personally have a great group of friends that’s relatively diverse. The friends I have that fill the biggest need for me at times (for my mental health at least) are my black friends from college and working in higher ed. We live a shared black experience that is brought up on TV via Blackish but it’s still not really part of the lexicon for Black people or Black Lives Matter. Can I be a part of BLM if I married a white woman? I hope so, but sometimes I don’t know. “Real” black people “friends” are very quick to throw my life experience in my face. I can’t understand racial profiling because I have a degree. It makes having authentic relationships with black people really challenging, even as a black man. Black females basically disown me once they see my wife, and while I understand there position on that I cannot lie and act like it doesn’t hurt me. I love my wife, I didn’t marry her because she’s white. I also can’t deny the fact that I grew up around mostly white woman and I am sure that impacted my decision. I don’t hate black women because I didn’t marry one.
“Every time I get the inspiration
To go change things around
No one wants to help me look for places
Where new things might be found”
This entire experience is dejecting. I feel like I can’t support my people, but then my people don’t want my support. I am not a role model for staying out of trouble, getting married, and pursuing education…I am a sell out. A phony. An Uncle Tom. I code switch so much, I don’t know who I am really am. What does my voice actually sound like? But there’s no escape. When white people see me walking down a street, I am just another nword walking down the street. Then they talk to me and it’s either “OMG you’re so articulate and smart” or “where are you from?”. I am black when it’s least convenient but not black enough when it holds cache. It’s an odd thing to navigate. Nobody sees middle-class, they just see black. That creates expectations for people, that are hard to affirm or break down.
Sometimes I feel very sad
Sometimes I feel very sad
(Can’t find nothin’ I can put my heart and soul into)
Sometimes I feel very sad
(Can’t find nothin’ I can put my heart and soul into)
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times
I guess I just wasn’t made for these times
J3Blackgamer 