Subscribe to FeedI ain’t brother, I’m just heavy*
by Jeff RosenbergI broke one of my personal rules last week while visiting Jackson, Mississippi: I claimed race creds.
I was down in the south conducting a day of communications strategy development and media training. The folks I was working with were all African American. I really liked them. It was just one of those groups that I really connected with. The media training went great — every individual I worked with, we really sharpened their talents as communicators. Towards the end of the day together, as everybody was just sitting and talking, feeling good about our six or so hours together, somebody told me that one of the participants was the former president of a well known HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). I went out of my way to note that my wife attended an HBCU, and so did several of her siblings. I wanted everybody else in the room to know that I was almost-kind-of-sort-of-really-connected-to-them-even-though-I’m white.
I immediately cringed inside. I don’t like to do that. It’s a rule of mine that I don’t lay out my race cred (that is, race credentials) because it always feel as if it’s just me trying to prove something or impress somebody — as if I’m yelling, “Don’t I really understand people who don’t look like me?!” or, “Aren’t I cooler than most everybody else?!”
One of the participants laughed and exclaimed, “So you’re a brother!” He wasn’t being sarcastic. He wasn’t poking fun. It was said with real warmth.
But I still cringed inside. Though I will say this: with my wife’s help it is true that I no longer dance with my arms glued to my side!
*The title of this Blogenberg is a takeoff on a song, originally by the Hollies, called He ain’t heavy he’s my brother. It was covered by The Osmonds, resulting in one of the worst “artistic” endeavors in history.
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