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December 12, 2006

A Token of My Appreciation

Hey, you!

Yes, YOU!

Are you in desperate need of an African-American acquaintance to accompany you and your circle of friends to social gatherings? Would you feel safer walking the streets of Columbus Metropolitan areas like Hilltop, the East Side, or Kingsdale with someone who is well-versed in black culture, ebonics and gang relations? Would you like to impress your friends with your knowledge of Kwanzaa, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and Popeye's Chicken?

Well, you're in luck! The Token Friends Agency is in the business of connecting otherwise intelligent black citizens with racially clueless and insensitive gringos like you! For an incredibly low daily rate, you'll receive:

*A token black friend at your disposal!

*Entrance into the hottest clubs, bars, and rib joints!

**Admittance to the Baptist church of your choice!

*An American English translation of a musical work by current hip-hop celebrities like 50-Cent, Jay-Z, Kanye West and more!

*A free dance lesson!

*ALL THE CHICKEN AND WAFFLES YOU CAN EAT!!!

So remember, the next time you need a minority to sponsor your country club's charity golf tournament, or to account for the Affirmative Action quota at work, call the Token Friends Agency at 1-800-555-GRINGO. That's 1-800-555-GRINGO. Fo' shizzle, Whizzle.

Call now and take part in our BLACK 2 SKOOL special! All well-qualified customers will recieve not one, but TWO black friends to accompany your son or daughter to class! Let our junior token friends teach your child how to buy lunch with food stamps!

*Coming soon in September: Token Asian friends! Now with a brainiac buddy from a Third World country, you can study for those SATs and GREs with confidence! Perfect for high schoolers and college students looking to get ahead of the game!

* * * * *

I wrote the piece above over a year ago in response to a statement made by an aquaintance I'd met through a close mutual friend. Out of the blue he decided to make a comment about me being the only dark person in a sea of white faces, hence, outing me as the stereotypical "token black friend." Everyone else in the room got quiet for a moment, not knowing whether it was a time for me to start preaching the benefits of a culture that had progressed since Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream," or to open up a can of whup-ass in the vein of a pre-Mecca Malcolm X.

I blew it off, as is my natural wallflower way, but on the way home and for the next few days following the incident, it really bothered me. It wasn't as though he'd called me a nigger, and it wasn't as though I'd come out and called him a white-washed, soggy cracker honky (although I may have wanted to post-incident), but I still felt that there was something very wrong with the whole deal. It just didn't sit right with me, this whole notion of "token friendship." Couldn't I be a part of the group without having to be singled out as the one black girl? Couldn't I have a relationship with anyone without feeling as though I was meeting their virtual Affirmative Action Friendship Roster?

I'd tucked the whole thing in the back of my mind for a while, until this morning, when I happened to stumble upon a race related blog entry by the always articulate and heartwarming Epiphany. I thought about his entry for a while and came close to submitting a comment as soon as I read it, but I chickened out and decided I wasn't in the mood to pull out my Civil Rights cape this morning. I let it slide.

Unfortunately, the race card didn't dissolve so easily for me today. I was checking my voicemail messages this afternoon, and after a while I decided to change my personal greeting. I know it seems silly, but I go through at least thirty different versions of each recording of my voice before I can ever decide on one final message. Not too formal, not too laid back, not too ditzy... You'd think I was rehearsing a monologue or something. Truth is, I hate my speaking voice. I absolutely hate it, I cringe and duck whenever people play back tapes with me speaking, just because it irritates me so much. Not because it's grating, or smothered in phlegm, but because of the fact that my voice sounds white.

When I speak to unknown people on the phone, I know I come across in their minds as a twenty-something, college educated, suburbanite white woman. If they have the chance to meet me in person, the looks on their faces never seem to match the voices on the other end of the phone; voices that seemed so certain that they were talking to a girl who better resembled them by reason of her voice and skills listed on her resume than by her physcial appearance and ethnic background.

It's an irritating let-down.

I can't speak for everyone, but I feel that as far as blacks have come in achievement and recognition, we've still got a long way to go in our self-perception. Speaking like a white person doesn't get you far in black social circles, especially when you're stuck smack-dab in the middle of the snobbery of the upper-middle class suburbs. There's really no place to go when you've succeeded in school and you've done all the right things to be accepted to a good college and pursue a reputable career--all those things are strictly coded as selling out and acting white. So what is a girl to do when she's been surrounded by nearly all-white students at a college-prep high school, participated in activities and sports that were coded as white (tennis, marching band, creative writing, National Honor Society), speaks traditional American English with (usually) correct grammar, and attended a university in the middle of a predominately conservative white town?

She finds white friends, that's what.

Not that those white friends are bad. I have wonderful, close and personal relationships with many white people (Dear God, I sound like Michael Richards), and I'd say that nearly 75% of the people I'm close to would fall in to the category of melanin-deficient friends and acquaintances.

But it still makes for awkward moments.

posted at 10:30 p.m.

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