For My Sisters Of The Yucatan

The moment you landed here,
if you didn't give consideration beforehand,
you became one of the Talented Tenth. 

It is difficult to write about race without sounding as though what you really want is a bonfire burning bright, heaped high with all that you would really rather forget. Race is a difficult subject to navigate and always someone will take offense. It's inevitable but the risk is a necessary by-product of the potential clarity that can come from such discussions. I am not interested in pointing fingers but what I am endlessly fascinated with is what is at play when situation arise that are out of the ordinary to my life and others.  People of colour who call racists out on their behaviour are almost always then labeled as angry. There is a pathology in that and it is not in the person of colour. It is extremely difficult for one to see themselves as others do. Part of the phenomena of Whiteness is its invisibility, to others and to itself. Whiteness is a privilege and that privilege tells itself over and over it deserves what it wants. Anything that questions that is a threat. That is part of the pathology. Another facet of it is its inability to truly see others as equal or at its worst its insistence that what it sees and believes is what everyone should see and believe. So I am interested in picking apart things. If I am lucky Whiteness will learn but at this point in life I realize that the hard work necessary for us to be better human beings all around is a type of work most people don't care to do. So I write about things that are of interest to me.

This blog entry is for my sisters living in the Yucatan. It is meant as a survival guide of sorts. When I first arrived here some of my encounters I had with others were so overwhelmingly bizarre to me that I locked my door for months, at times greeting my eyes out, wondering where I had landed and what possibly was I suddenly doing wrong. White people had never caused me to cry before but I was encountering people who went from crazy to beyond crazy. When I eventually unlocked my door I did so with the understanding that there wasn't a thing wrong with me; (I have 56 years of bona fide, mutually loving relationships), but there are a unique set of circumstances here in Merida, Mexico where I reside, that are at play. I hope to tease some of these circumstances out so that you, precious sisters, can step back from the sometimes hurtful encounters we have here, regroup, give yourself a hug, and send you back to swaggering (with your bad self), around this little village, which for me can sometimes feel claustrophobic and teeming with people with no sense of boundaries.

When one is in the middle of an awkward encounter with someone who is being wholly insensitive about racial etiquette it is very easy to give a wave of indifference and dismiss the offending party as dismissable. I have often wondered why racism (homophobia, sexism, etc) is not considered a mental illness since what one believes in is based upon a delusion. I presented this question to Dr. Robert Carillo, as well as doing my own research, and have summarized the following answer:

Racism can not stand alone as a psychiatric disorder, (despite ones logical inclination to put it there), in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), because it can often be a manifestation that is temporarily brought on by a larger systemic problem. The larger problem, if successfully treated, can often render an individual no longer a racist*. You can not be a racist without an underlying psychiatric disorder. Racism is therefore simply a symptom of something larger. That is really all you need to remember when dealing with individuals that are like teeny gnats buzzing around your head. They are annoying but they really have problems that loom larger than the presenting bigotry. (This understanding is applicable to homophobes, misogynists, able-ism or any other irrational fear, artificial concern or unfounded belief, towards any group or person).

To have a fear of a people based upon a passive trait (language, colour, country or ethnicity) is delusional and irrational. If one insists upon the delusion convincing themselves that these traits have special powers such as creating the ills of the world, or the cause of illness, or the reason for X, Y or Z then a clinician might suspect you suffer from paranoia. If you begin to set fires, conduct assassination attempts, make bombs in your basement or simply spray paint symbols or words meant to hurt the people you feel paranoid towards, then you easily would be diagnosed with some sort of anti-social personality disorder. If you talk about other people as though you wrote the book and are an authority on people(s) other than yourself one might want to look up Narcissistic personality disorder. If all you do is obsessively talk about, write about, send emails to, or call people about subjects that hold no interests to anyone other than you, your clinician may suspect some sort of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If that behaviour is cyclic, (followed by a great silence or depression) or happens at hours of the day when most people are sleeping, you may have to consider a bi-polarity diagnosis. Recognizing clinical issues is one way in which to distance oneself from the mayhem orbiting others. The underlying clinical issues will be in control of all aspects of a persons life, not just issues of race. If you don't know what a personality disorder is I suggest you read further on the subject, (or any of the other disorders) because once you understand and can identify these underlying problems you can quickly and efficiently make swift decisions on whether you really can have a concrete meaningful conversation with someone about race, or whether you can excuse yourself to go do something more interesting with your time.

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In part, the American Dream promises that no matter how awful things get for white people they will never have to be black. In this case 'being black' is figurative for being poor, struggling all the time, resorting to crime to make ends meet, or in general being of the pool of people from which white people draw from to service themselves. The dream promises whites they will always be able to afford to flee, have a job and their dreams will come true if they just put nose to grindstone. It's the unwritten segment of The American Constitution. In Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most memorable passages is the courtroom cross examination of Tom Robinson. The courtroom collectively gasps when he is asked to explain the day in question (when Mayella accuses him of rape), and he reveals that he went to help Mayella because he felt sorry for her.  White people, in this example, are presumed superior and there is nothing a black in Black existence that could possibly be better than the position of whiteness. That Mayella is also sexually attracted to Tom brings up miscegenation nightmares which were the blueprint of Jim Crow laws. It is Tom that needs to controlled not Mayella. It is something about Tom's blackness that has seduced Mayella. No matter how out of control whiteness becomes it is the fault of blackness.

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There are many types of expats that arrive in Merida and most are harmless and inconsequential. But there is one type of expatriate that has arrived in Merida who has come, with bags in hand, and money in fist, angry and looking for brown people to abuse. These are not people who arrived in Mexico with any love for Mexico. They arrived here being unable to afford to live the life they were promised in the States. (Perhaps this is the same for expatriates from elsewhere, but here I speak for those from The United States). Life here allows this type of expatriate to recreate (or create) a fantasy they have concocted where they are masters of their domains, controllers of their house help, complete with a social life that revolves around a constant, never ending complaint that the indigenous brown people that surround them are somehow all inferior. That scenario is what the American Dream promises white people: That they will always be on top. This type of expat can't control itself, is riddled with rage, and believes its money can buy anything it sees. This is the expat that you will surely meet,at some time and who will at one time or another give you pause.

We, the sisters, are a minority here. It is easier to stop us and demand our papers here than when we are state side en masse. No one would even think of doing it state side for a few reasons: fear of black people congregating in numbers larger than two, (see psychiatric disorders), self imposed segregation, a self delusion that what you think or believe is not shared by people of other races you deem inferior.

I have been invited to small dinner parties here and had my white host suddenly burst into tears and single me out with questions abut my race and did I think we would survive white people. I was called upon to answer for every black person in the world. The encounter was so sudden and so intensely felt that I had to wonder how long these feelings had been pent up inside my host. (You can rationalize this all you want but it is embarrassing, rude, and galling to be singled out at a dinner party in this way).

I've had people sidle up to me here and make random mention that they miss All In the Family, an American landmark TV show about a bigot who openly used offensive words about many different people's ethnicity's.

I have been deluged with unsolicited emails attempting to race bait me. I have had the colour of my skin fetishized as though it is something that can be fondled. Sometimes there is a forced feigned intimacy were none exists. Sometimes my email address is added to mailings with other people solely because of skin colour.

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Recently blackface came up for me for the first time in my entire life because someone living here hoped the image would provoke a large enough response in me which perhaps would allow them to self-righteously further blather away about the loop that circles inside their head. Sadly, their loop insisted that I was a dear friend who cared about what they might have to say on the subject; I'm not and I don't. But they couldn't see that. I was sent information, that was garbled and unclear, but smack in the middle of the mess was an ancient picture of a kid or a dwarf in Blackface. I don't know how others feel about Blackface but when it is hauled out as a means to rile me up, I don't feel riled up. What I do see are frightened people masturbating, playing with ancient toys which they made in their own image. These toys are like weird security blankets. They get hauled out when people feel socially inadequate, and can't think of a better joke. Or when people want you to think they are hipper than hip.  Or sometimes because others really do wish to hurt your feelings. (See 'Sadism' is a psychiatric disorder).

Black people don't don Blackface, white people do. If I saw pan Africans donning blackface I might be bothered. Let that sink in for a minute. Everything that embodies the animated Blackface (curly hair, fuller lips, darker skin) have been the very things that white people have paid huge sums of money to the cosmetic industry to disfigure themselves in an attempt to look like.a person they really can't be but who has the best of negroid features. These people cut and paste their features. The disfigurement that is achieved oddly begins to resemble the very face, created by white culture, which was meant to be insulting to people of African descent.  Blackface might be better suited to the clinical offices of plastic surgeons along Rodeo Drive. Racial body dysmorphia is a psychiatric disorder.  Pity might be more forthcoming than, upset.  For me blackface seems like such a last ditch effort type of thing that by the time I notice you are attempting to hurt my feelings, or needle me, weeks may have passed, and at that point, I don't care. The other issue with blackface, and any stereotype, is that both parties have to be on the same page. If blackface is not a part of my reference or life, you can't use it against me. I have to believe what you say to be hurt. Don't I?

Perhaps the strangest encounter I have had, but one which makes me think about how precarious whiteness really is was when I was at a party and a man began to show serious interest in who I was as a person. We began to chat about food as he was a chef. His wife was nearby. He made the comment that he thought he had met or seen me someplace before and his wife quickly butted in that this was not possible because I was black and they would have remembered a black person. That encounter, while offensive, actually began my thinking about what it meant for white women to move to a place such as Mexico and have their spouses be attracted to something they couldn't compete with. Skin colour. If your partner suddenly likes brown women, what are you going to do? You're going to do what American white women have done since their spouses were running off to slave quarters; you're going to be exceptionally nasty (or cruel), and do your best to shame the other woman. You will bad-mouth, back stab, publicly snub, or publicly ridicule her in an attempt to make me (you, her) disappear from your realm. In my experience only women engage in this behaviour. Men more often fall into the I-know-it-all category and are easier to dismiss as a garden variety blowhard.

It has been a struggle for me to live here. Sometimes I imagine Merida to be riddled with Jack in the Boxes loaded with crazies that seem to come up out of nowhere. Sometimes you just want to go to a party and have a nice time, or be introduced to someone without the snub or the drama.

We, the Talented Tenth, are an anomaly to many people who are curious in ways which are going to strike you as downright odd. I will own this: It strikes me as downright odd.  I am gobsmacked to meet people well into old age still reference Harlem as a place only African Americans live or who have lived a life never having known or spoken to a person of colour. Or who give you the nervous stink eye when introduced as though cannibal is written on your forehead. Other times it will all be so subtle that you won't even Catch the Crazy until 3am when you are all alone again. And like me you may find yourself wondering where in the world you have landed. I have been there and I now know many others living here have been there as well. You are not alone. This blog entry is solely for you. Bookmark it, you will, at times, need a reminder.

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Here is what I am sure of: We of the Talented Tenth are remarkable, unusual, an anomaly, rare, like diamonds, even strange. Not, mind you, to anyone who knows us but to those that have never seen us before; who never knew the likes of us existed. It insists upon you seeing it through its own eyes. And every time we stray from the script, their script, we become unusual, but also suspicious.
To those that are new to us it was never considered that we could stroll and saunter.  To those that have had to reach ripe ages never having known people like us, chance encounters are often awkward, uncomfortable and sometimes just awful. It's not you. It is not the water you drink or something you said. It is not because you don't know the right people. It is not because you are not in the right clique, (though one has to ask oneself why anyone, since high school is even prone to that concept). (I do however understand the need for community people have when 'away' but that community should never be dependent upon a shared belief of exclusion of any sort). We are such rare jewels that there is a confusion that the uninitiated have. They are blinded by skin and can not see the flesh and the bone. They waste their own valuable time (and ours) by insisting that Blackness is a monolith that we atone for rather than seeing you for what you are: an individual to be gleaned from.

My reminder to you dear Sisters: you are no longer required to carry papers and no one has the right to demand of or question your right to be off the plantation. Keep on strolling. Keep on sauntering. Your swag is correct and luminescent.

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They are like that because I am black. 

No, no , no she corrected me, 

they are like that because they are white. 

Alice Walker - Possessing the Secret of Joy

You may notice that surprisingly you have no fear of the police. They will be cordial, polite and they are not out to get you in the same way they are in America. You're actually going to like the police here. If you get pulled over, just smile. Sometimes you'll have to wait a long time before they send you on your way, but I promise you, you will not be carted off and mysteriously die in a cell a short time later.

In Merida, Black Lives Do Matter! You will never be rounded up for any number of potential offenses because your neighbour claimed a black person did it. You will notice that people who do not share your lovely shade of brown, hate the police here. They will describe them as: useless, good for nothing, dumb, stupid and a heap of other things that border on the extreme. Maybe it's because the police are not on a beck and call status in the same way they are at home. Who knows? Just a thought.

You are going to meet a tonne of people from places you will be able to identify on a map as being somewhere between California and New York but you are never going to believe you and they share the same planet. For some you will be the first person of colour they have ever known in their entire life (which of course is going to make you believe that those spaces between New York and California are inhabited by cave people) (I admit it, I sometimes tend to think that). People will seem, at times, a tad too friendly and you will find yourself staring off into space trying to remember what it was Kevin McCarthy screamed as he ran about town trying to warn people about the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

As always friendliness is sometimes perceived as a weakness. Loads of people see friendliness as a way to manipulate. That's just a fact of life, not a thing specific to Merida or colour.  But be prepared. Remember your  Girl Scout tools. All that friendly is sometimes going to find you in the middle of the woods with nothing but a piece of flint and your cell phone and a gaggle of people chock-a-block with questions about your life lining up like you're the Good Humour truck on free Popsicle Tuesday. You will be asked questions about your hair, what it was like growing up in the projects, poor, riddled by crime and drowning in drugs. If you mention that your background doesn't include these things, they will not know where to move the conversation to and they will simply walk away. Or, as has happened to me, they will become angry that you contradicted them.You will get a bunch of gobsmacked faces if you have a degree higher than a high school diploma. If you, by accident, reveal a degree higher than the person who asked, you may wish to look for cover. They will wonder how you were able to identify Mexico on the map and arrive to the same place they did. They are going to ask you things that up until now no one in your life would have had the audacity to ask. How much money you spent on your home, where do you live (like they want to make sure the Avenida de Parque they are planning here in Merida, includes/excludes you), They are going to ask all of this sometimes before they even remember to say: Hi, hello, what's your name?

You will be invited places, cheerfully accept the invitation and suddenly find yourself cornered by someone demanding you account for and explain every thing any person of African descent ever did since the beginning of time. If they hate people of colour you have to hear all about their hurts and rage. Once again, if you are like me, you will find yourself drifting off, wondering if it's only in the movies that people survive throwing themselves out of moving vehicles, and you will make a note to look at YouTube when you get home to see if you have what it takes to survive rolls at 30MPH.

If you are the first person they ever met of colour imagine their excitement to grill you beyond reason. Imagine all the questions they have bottled up inside. Goodness, just imagine all those years they were left alone with just a TV and episodes of Cops or Archie Bunker. You are the one they have chosen as their coloured leader because for some reason, until they laid eyes on you, all alone in Merida, they never before had the inclination to talk to or get to know a person of colour. Life is funny like that.  You may become a type of hobby for those who have not caught on to gardening yet.

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I have to tell you a story.  Years and years ago I attended a party hosted by a dear friend. There amongst the sea of familiar faces was an unfamiliar face that I approached out of kindness. My host had beforehand informed me that she was new to the gang and to keep an eye out for her. I approached her and we struck up a conversation. She mentioned that she and her husband had recently returned from a vacation in Canada. When I asked her where in Canada she had vacationed to she said she didn't want to tell me. Just like that: I don't want to tell you. When I pressed her as to why she didn't want to tell me she replied: because I don't want the place to be ruined. I immediately knew two things. One: Something about me led her to believe that I was capable of ruining or jeopardizing vacation spots and Two: I immediately knew where it was that she was referring to because everyone refers to this place like it's some big magical secret.  So to mess with Dip Shits head, I called over my boyfriend, and once he arrived, I made introductions and like Carnac the Magnificent I said: She doesn't want to tell me she went to Prince Edward Island on her vacation. She was gobsmacked and I could tell she had never contemplated that her vacation destination, what she imagined was a secret and hers alone to keep, had been had by the likes of me, way before she even planned her itinerary. (If you want to know how I knew she had gone to P.E.I. it's because everyone who has been there uses the same adjectives to describe the place: Storybook, pastoral, pristine, simple… I've heard it a thousand times. And when tourists go in the summertime they never notice that people of colour live there. People like me, who spent every summer, from day one of my life, going on to eventually live there for a time.

And thus it is that I am sometimes approached here in Merida and asked: How did you get here? Or, When did you first come here or learn of Merida? I don't know about my reader but I find those two questions odd as heck if you haven't even bothered to ask my name yet. Those questions suggest something. It suggests to me, when asked, that my presence was not expected and I need to be quickly put in a box and figured out. They are asked as though I have interloped in some capacity. They are the questions the women in my story might have asked had she met me casually on Prince Edward Island. Isolated, they are not odd questions, but where and when they are asked and what comes after will tell you everything you need to know about whether you are being interrogated or in the throes of a budding friendship.

Seek me out if you are a sister new to Merida. My email is enclosed in this blog template. You are not alone and our growing numbers extend our brown hands to offer you support. Or maybe just a nod as you swagger about with your bad self.

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We will never make friends like we did back in the sandbox. The tools we use as adults are far more complicated and useless; manipulative and cliquey. Our friends are now too often chosen to complement the perceived image we have of ourselves; kind of like accessories. I want someone to talk to about meaningful things. I want a friend that relishes my seriousness and openness. I am quite artless in this respect. My philosophy is simple: I'll be myself, at your side, with you being yourself. Boundaries and respect are always implied.

* I once had a patient who arrived to clinic convinced I was God and that I was going to cure his HIV infection by he knowing me. He had gone off his psychiatric medication but once leveled again, he stopped having this delusion.