This one is an interesting topic. This is not a rant on some random topic. This is about me.
There was a word spoken over me a long time ago that I never thought about or took to heart. Today that stupid little thing hit me. It was caused by some stuff from Leadership Summit a couple weeks ago, and today is something I need to write about.
Back in college I was given the name MC Enigmatic as part of a stupid joke rap crew I was in with my friends Brandon Spencer, Matt Swaim, and John Flannery. (None of whom talk to me anymore for some reason. They got too good for me or something. Who knows?) The name had no real meaning. We were just trying to come up with stuff and threw that out there and figured the word sounded good.
Well I guess now that word has meaning in my life. I am just as it says. An enigma.
e·nig·ma (
-ng
m
)n.
1. One that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable.
2. A perplexing speech or text; a riddle.
I am this odd unexplainable middle ground that none of my friends or the people around me, or even much of my family understand. I walk this line of ambiguity that has always haunted me but I could never fully see. I have grown up this black guy who isnt "black enough" but still not a white guy. Shunned and ridiculed by a lot of my black peers through middle school and high school and even now because I dont "act like them". And made fun of by so many of my so called friends for being too white. And yet still I dont really fit in there either do I? This is not so much a complaint, but the way it has always been. This is how I have gone around.
Now lets be real racist for a minute. Here is why I dont fit in with these "black and white" cultures. I dont listen to hip hop or r&b as a staple of musical genius. I dont speak ebonics except by choice when I am being retarded. I dont have a bunch of little children running through the streets being idiots. I dont feel I deserve reparations or handouts. I dont disrespect women. I did well in school and chose to try to make a way for myself and not live off of welfare or pity.
And on the other side, I dont have blond hair and blue eyes. I wasnt handed life on a silver platter by daddy who gave me a lexus for graduation. I cant walk through a nice high class neighborhood without being looked at funny. I got some extra scholarship to school because I was black. I was sought after for pictures at Asbury because I made the school diverse. My original date ask to my senior prom had to tell me her parents said she couldn't go with any black people. And then they apologized profusely when they found out it was me and then still we didnt get to go together. I hate mayonnaise and you wont see me jogging around town all willy nilly for fun.
Most of the world wants to put everything into these nice separated black and white boxes. I stand here as this middle grey color that neither side has ever fully been able to accept. In the black community I am glared at, made fun of and shunned. In the white community, I am still frightening and compartmentalized, and assumed about. Middle grey in the photography world is what a photographer wants to base their spectrum on. Its what they set their camera tones to. It is their staple. In life it is an outcast set aside for when needed.
Now many of you at this point are either pitying me or thinking that this is really melodramatic. You can make whatever choice you want on how you are going to view this. But the fact is that this is really how I felt most of my life. This is how I spent so long viewing the world. This is where I have to lay down myself a lot of times to surrender myself to what Jesus is asking me to do. This is where I find contention in my everyday life. I want my friends and family to understand something very important though. I love you all and I know you love me. This isnt to convict you or make you change how you act with me or anything like that. This is so that maybe you will understand me a little more fully.
I used to have this recurring dream. It happened pretty frequently as a child and through college. It kind of stopped for a while when I got married and came back pretty strong for several months after my divorce. I havent had it in about a year, but Sue reminded me of it the other day when I was processing this stuff. It was of this giant ball chasing me. I could never get out of its path. And I could never see anything but it behind me. All I could do was run. This ball was always this speckled black and white mass. Envision if a giant stone looked like the fuzz that you get on a tv screen when you arent getting a signal. Sound like a dumb dream right. Well it always scared the hell out of me. I knew before I even fell asleep when that was going to be my night. As soon as I would lay down and close my eyes I would see the ball. I would open my eyes and try to think about something else, and never could.
So psychiatry would suggest that that recurring dream is a part of that struggle in me. And as I have been thinking about it, it was definitely always at very hard spots in my life that it was the most outspoken. For instance, your white wife leaves you for some punk kid with blue hair who is "getting her back to her punk rock roots" its pretty easy to make the leap to "if I was white" whether it be the case or not. Or this relationship didnt work out regardless of what you said or did, or this job wasnt gotten, or this position was over looked or this is why you are here or this is why you were asked to do this or anything like that. It is very easy for insecurity to come in.
And even the most well intentioned, innocent people making assumptions about who you are cause of your skin color annoys the hell out of me. I dont own any hip hop. AT ALL!! I listen to pop rock and metal. I dont in fact know ever black person on the planet. So dont assume I know who you are talking about just cause his name is Darrell. (Whitney I hope you just got that joke.) I do not own FUBU and I hate puffy vest. Leave the assumptions at home if you want to start a conversation with me. You may find yourself called out and looking foolish cause I am getting a bit tired of it.
Now I will be the first one to say that I make a lot of black jokes. Or joke around that I am going to steal your TV. But come one people, know the difference between what is a joke and what is real. I know when someone is being serious and when they are just being silly. I am not naive or dumb. If the joking around with my close friends needs to stop completely so you can see the lines tell me.
So what do I do with all of this now? Thats the question I have been asking Jesus for the past week and a half. My answer... I dont know. Do I own my middle grey status and play mediator between sides? Do I educate so people don't look stupid around each other? Do I let it slide off my back and just let stereotype and assumption win the day? I dont have any answers at the moment. I will gladly take advice. And be relationally intelligent when you are replying if you choose to do so. This is a serious topic, and making dumb jokes is really not the way to go with me on this right now. I'll just be straight up about that.
I am this odd unexplainable middle ground that none of my friends or the people around me, or even much of my family understand. I walk this line of ambiguity that has always haunted me but I could never fully see. I have grown up this black guy who isnt "black enough" but still not a white guy. Shunned and ridiculed by a lot of my black peers through middle school and high school and even now because I dont "act like them". And made fun of by so many of my so called friends for being too white. And yet still I dont really fit in there either do I? This is not so much a complaint, but the way it has always been. This is how I have gone around.
Now lets be real racist for a minute. Here is why I dont fit in with these "black and white" cultures. I dont listen to hip hop or r&b as a staple of musical genius. I dont speak ebonics except by choice when I am being retarded. I dont have a bunch of little children running through the streets being idiots. I dont feel I deserve reparations or handouts. I dont disrespect women. I did well in school and chose to try to make a way for myself and not live off of welfare or pity.
And on the other side, I dont have blond hair and blue eyes. I wasnt handed life on a silver platter by daddy who gave me a lexus for graduation. I cant walk through a nice high class neighborhood without being looked at funny. I got some extra scholarship to school because I was black. I was sought after for pictures at Asbury because I made the school diverse. My original date ask to my senior prom had to tell me her parents said she couldn't go with any black people. And then they apologized profusely when they found out it was me and then still we didnt get to go together. I hate mayonnaise and you wont see me jogging around town all willy nilly for fun.
Most of the world wants to put everything into these nice separated black and white boxes. I stand here as this middle grey color that neither side has ever fully been able to accept. In the black community I am glared at, made fun of and shunned. In the white community, I am still frightening and compartmentalized, and assumed about. Middle grey in the photography world is what a photographer wants to base their spectrum on. Its what they set their camera tones to. It is their staple. In life it is an outcast set aside for when needed.
Now many of you at this point are either pitying me or thinking that this is really melodramatic. You can make whatever choice you want on how you are going to view this. But the fact is that this is really how I felt most of my life. This is how I spent so long viewing the world. This is where I have to lay down myself a lot of times to surrender myself to what Jesus is asking me to do. This is where I find contention in my everyday life. I want my friends and family to understand something very important though. I love you all and I know you love me. This isnt to convict you or make you change how you act with me or anything like that. This is so that maybe you will understand me a little more fully.
I used to have this recurring dream. It happened pretty frequently as a child and through college. It kind of stopped for a while when I got married and came back pretty strong for several months after my divorce. I havent had it in about a year, but Sue reminded me of it the other day when I was processing this stuff. It was of this giant ball chasing me. I could never get out of its path. And I could never see anything but it behind me. All I could do was run. This ball was always this speckled black and white mass. Envision if a giant stone looked like the fuzz that you get on a tv screen when you arent getting a signal. Sound like a dumb dream right. Well it always scared the hell out of me. I knew before I even fell asleep when that was going to be my night. As soon as I would lay down and close my eyes I would see the ball. I would open my eyes and try to think about something else, and never could.
So psychiatry would suggest that that recurring dream is a part of that struggle in me. And as I have been thinking about it, it was definitely always at very hard spots in my life that it was the most outspoken. For instance, your white wife leaves you for some punk kid with blue hair who is "getting her back to her punk rock roots" its pretty easy to make the leap to "if I was white" whether it be the case or not. Or this relationship didnt work out regardless of what you said or did, or this job wasnt gotten, or this position was over looked or this is why you are here or this is why you were asked to do this or anything like that. It is very easy for insecurity to come in.
And even the most well intentioned, innocent people making assumptions about who you are cause of your skin color annoys the hell out of me. I dont own any hip hop. AT ALL!! I listen to pop rock and metal. I dont in fact know ever black person on the planet. So dont assume I know who you are talking about just cause his name is Darrell. (Whitney I hope you just got that joke.) I do not own FUBU and I hate puffy vest. Leave the assumptions at home if you want to start a conversation with me. You may find yourself called out and looking foolish cause I am getting a bit tired of it.
Now I will be the first one to say that I make a lot of black jokes. Or joke around that I am going to steal your TV. But come one people, know the difference between what is a joke and what is real. I know when someone is being serious and when they are just being silly. I am not naive or dumb. If the joking around with my close friends needs to stop completely so you can see the lines tell me.
So what do I do with all of this now? Thats the question I have been asking Jesus for the past week and a half. My answer... I dont know. Do I own my middle grey status and play mediator between sides? Do I educate so people don't look stupid around each other? Do I let it slide off my back and just let stereotype and assumption win the day? I dont have any answers at the moment. I will gladly take advice. And be relationally intelligent when you are replying if you choose to do so. This is a serious topic, and making dumb jokes is really not the way to go with me on this right now. I'll just be straight up about that.
