So Black I'm Blue

Vershawn Ashanti Young So Black I'm Blue "White people don't know how to tell the difference between one black man and another," writes comedian Chris Rock in his book Rock This! "If they could, we'd all get along" (11). So Rock dedares, "I love black people, but I hate niggers." For he believes that if whites could distinguish good blacks from bad ones, everything would be okay. We'd finally be able to determine which blacks to eliminate because, as Rock says, "the niggers have got to go" (17). And apparently some whites agree. John Bellew in Nella Larsen's Passing presents an earlier version of Rock's quip when he teases his wife, Clare. "She was as... white as a lily," he says. "But I declare she's gettin' darker and darker. I tell her if she don't look out, she'll wake up one these days and find she's turned into a nigger" (39). Both jokesters get laughs but are duped by the paradox they spin. Bellew learns that his wife really is a nigger! And Rock must answer, What am I? Rock thus reproduces for himself what I call the burden of racial performance , the demand to prove what type of black person you are. Ifs a burden all blacks bear, and is the core of the problem ofblack racial authentidty. It is the modern variant, I argue, of radal passing, making Bellew's radal distinction archetypal of Rock's performative differentiation.1 Further, this burden not only supports racial discord between whites and blacks but provokes blacks to abhor other blacks, causing Rock to exclaim, "ifs like our own personal civil war." This conflict, however, is not only interpersonal, as it is presented in Rock's example: "Every time black people want to have a good time...some ignorant ass niggers [are present] fucking it up." "Can't go to the movies first week it opens. Why? Because niggers are shooting at the screen" (17). It's also intrapersonal as I describe in a crack of my own, in a poem I've titled "shiny." as dark as i am and tryin' to pass somebody needs to kick my black ass for using proper english all the time when the rest o' my family's spittin' rhyme dressin' all preppy, talkin' all white, somebody tell me this ain't right my skin so black folks think maybe ifs blue; who am i foolin', Two Eyes? Cain't be you I wash and scrub and cosmetically bleach but this doggone pigmentjust won't leach so tryin' to be white ain't working at all, since the only attention I get is in the mall 208 the minnesota review when heads turn to see the nigga with the silver dollar tongue wondering, who dat talking deepfrom the diaphragm and lung? as dark as i am and tryin' to pass somebody really needs to kick my black ass for walking like a white man with my rear end tight but when someone calls me stuffy I'm ready to fight do I bring it on myself with high falutin' ways livin' like whitey did in the brady bunch days? i been walkin' so long down the other culture's path that i'm gone need me a little nigga momma wrath to kick my butt and do it good the way a nigga momma should for me paradin' 'round as white when my skin is shiny as night s black as I am and tryin' to pass omebody pleeease kick my black ; Thus my interest in this essay is not only in analyzing a literary problem but in helping to solve a social—even a personal—one. Sugaaarrr! My sister Cookie screamed the half of my nick-name that I can't shake. Itwas my turn to dance a jig, sing a tune, something to entertain the mostly women and kids who gathered in the living room of my apartment . My brothers, male cousins, and brothers-in-law were in the kitchen. I was there, too, trying to bond with them, participating in the men-talk they found so enjoyable and that I decided...