The Internet Says I'm A Racist and Also? The Obama Ocho

A couple of weeks ago, I was called a racist. It was, admittedly, a charge leveled against me by some people online who couldn’t possibly know that I am, to state it in the vernacular, a woman of color. (I don’t consider myself to be white--or non-colored--but brown. And, no, I don't automatically think that being brown means that I, ipso facto, cannot be a racist. But those are complicated issues and this is meant to be a simple blog entry.)

It unfolded like this: I was posting to a site about--of all things--fashion. A television show had featured a fashion designer who had been born in, I think, Zambia, but who had emigrated to the US as a child. In one of the segments, the designer had been shown playing African drums. One of the commenters on the site had written, “I am a white woman, but I want to learn to play the drums like that. Would that be weird if I took up African drums?” The oh-so-supportive commenters on the site had stepped up to assure the woman that, oh, no, sister! There is absolutely nothing wrong with a white woman playing African drums! You go, girl! You do what makes your heart happy!

--and all that kind of crap that makes cultural appropriation the in-fashion thing to do.

But me? I had to open my mouth and point out that maybe white people should stay the hell away from African drums. (I didn’t put it that way exactly, but that was my point.) Cultural appropriation is never the way to go. You stand over here, white person, and appreciate the African drummers. But you see that line? That's the cultural appropriation line. You don't cross that line. You don't even, white ladies and white gentlemen, approach that line unless you are invited to do so by a person of color. (And I don't mean invited out of obligatory politeness, but actually invited from the heart.)

Well, you would have thought that, along with my comment, I had suggested to the woman that she open up her mouth so that I could feed her a big juicy turd. The comments came fast and the commenters were furious. Several people called me racist. One woman, a white woman, wrote that she had never heard such a racist thing ever. Most mocked me for not being supportive. One man suggested that I should never eat pizza again if I wasn’t Italian. (I replied that I wished it worked that way because then I might lose these ten pounds I gained before the election.) The only black person to comment suggested that maybe I was right--but that I hadn't stated my case with the appropriate amount of sensitivity. (Yes, really. Apparently white women's dreams are like little, delicate, dew-covered blossoms that are easily crushed by my stomping around wearing my big, ugly, brown, lack-of-sensitivity jackboots.)

Anyway, I am here to say that I have since seen the light.

Barack Obama having been elected to lead the free world has made me see that white people are just as good as Africans and African-Americans. Now I feel bad for raining on that white lady’s African drumming parade. So let me just say:

I’m sorry, white lady.

And:

You go for it, girl! You go online and get you a dashiki and some drums and you let your hair go natural! I was wrong. Cultural appropriation is the way to go.

A'salaam alaikum, my sister.

So, uh, that isn’t even what I meant to write about today. In fact, I was going to write about that extra ten pounds I put on before the election. I’m calling those ten “The Obama Ten.” Catchy, huh? Not so much. I wish there was a number that started with O. That would make it catchier, like: "La Obama Ocho." (If it were only eight pounds I mean.) In Japanese, it would be “Obama-no Ju.” (But Obama’s new Jew is apparently going to be Rahm Emmanuel.)

Ah.

So I haven’t been to the gym since I almost fainted there, almost two weeks ago. Mostly, pre-election, I was sitting in front of the computer eating high-calorie snacks in an attempt to keep my energy up for the long hours of compulsively checking news sites to make sure that Obama had a chance of winning. And we all know how that turned out, right? Obama won and we all cried. The tears were mostly tears of joy and relief, but I also cried because now I have to give up my sedentary, high-calorie snacking ways and go back to the gym and get rid of these ten pounds.

Wish me luck.

Wait--how did it go? "Yes we can"?

Yes we can! Yes we can!