Nod. I went in to reading Autobiography of Malcolm X wanting to be sympathetic (and the book never explains how much of the Angry Black Man stereotype comes from him), but it got me in the gut, relatively early. He was in school, and everyone was encouraged to follow their career paths, or, if guided, guided to push harder, go higher, or consider stuff that was similar. Until he said he wanted to be a lawyer, and was told he should shoot for being a carpenter.
And that was the turning point for him, as he recalled it, and I really got that. Probably because if I had my brain, and had someone tell me that, not maliciously, but because he *cared* about me, and didn't want me to pursue a useless dream, I could just *see* how that would fuck me up.
The other thing that really hit home was his talking about "conking" one's hair. One line... he discussed how they all did it, they never considered stopping, they told all the new folks to do it and taught them how... and no one *ever* told them their hair looked good. That was like, *wow*. That was like, holy *fuck*. (It helped that I read Pam Spaulding writing about black people's hair in the past, though.)
(And now I'm ever so torn, when I notice a nice afro, or some other styling that works with natural hair, I feel like saying "hey, nice hair!" if I'm sure it'll be sincere. I'm torn, because I don't tend to say things like that to random people, and is it condescending to want to provide validation?)
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Date: 2013-08-29 06:19 pm (UTC)And that was the turning point for him, as he recalled it, and I really got that. Probably because if I had my brain, and had someone tell me that, not maliciously, but because he *cared* about me, and didn't want me to pursue a useless dream, I could just *see* how that would fuck me up.
The other thing that really hit home was his talking about "conking" one's hair. One line... he discussed how they all did it, they never considered stopping, they told all the new folks to do it and taught them how... and no one *ever* told them their hair looked good. That was like, *wow*. That was like, holy *fuck*. (It helped that I read Pam Spaulding writing about black people's hair in the past, though.)
(And now I'm ever so torn, when I notice a nice afro, or some other styling that works with natural hair, I feel like saying "hey, nice hair!" if I'm sure it'll be sincere. I'm torn, because I don't tend to say things like that to random people, and is it condescending to want to provide validation?)