Enough is Enough

Last week whilst reading Catherine M. Anderson’s poem Black Enough something happened. I resonated with her poem, her reservations and her resolve. I resonated quite deeply I might add, and well…I am Black Black. However, day after day, more and more, I’m finding that just being Black is negligible. Being “Black enough”, now that is the tipping point.

In my auspiciously afro’d youth, I was missing something. “You don’t talk Black. You don’t dress Black. You don’t have enough Black friends.” In the tumult of my teens, “You don’t date Black guys because you are afraid of them, because you think you’re white, because you think you are better.” As an accomplished adult, “You don’t love yourself, you’re brainwashed, your hair is relaxed.” It never ends, and I’m not just dishing hyperbole, my children aren’t Black enough either.

A wise woman loaned an insightful perspective on the backlash of oppression and the defensive- almost to the point of offensive, nature of the oppressed. It made sense, and although I’ve never personally felt oppressed, I am aware of our history of oppression. She hinted to a need for unity and noted how individuality was perceived as a threat to the strength of the tribe. Thusly, her insight called to question how we, as members of this human tribe called society- not just Black members of society, willfully contribute to the very oppressions and divisive acts we’ve fought to overcome?

Historically, without recounting specific events- no matter how benevolent the proposition, any attempts to create like-minded, uniform groupings of man has not bode us well. At what point do we stop vying and assert that we are individually, uniquely enough? That enough is enough?

Is my slip showing? Is this just another example of my uber-leftist, utopic, Nouveau Hippie thinking, or can we find it in ourselves to accept ourselves and others on their terms without the need to qualify based on old fears and/or the current criteria for Blackness?