White People Cheese
I was at the store and the brand of cheese that I had been dying to try was on sale, two for five dollars, so I decided to give to buy it. When I ate it, I completely understood why it was so expensive; it was a fantastic sharp cheddar. I told my kids under pain of death were they to touch my cheese. I put it away and looked forward to eating some eggs later on with it.
A couple days later my husband, who works nights, and a friend from his job were coincidentally discussing the particular brand of cheese I’d just bought. He’d asked my hubby had he heard of it, he hadn’t and texted me to ask if I had. I told him we had some in the fridge and how good it was. I didn’t think about it anymore-until I saw my husband the next day.
He said his friend looked up the cheese on Google and a couple videos and declared to my husband, “Tell your wife she’s white, man.” I have no idea what smoking gun he found to make this statement. My husband said, “She’s heard that lots of times before.” They had a good laugh, but, needless to say, I didn’t fucking laugh when I heard the story.
I asked my husband why he didn’t say something more defensive but he just sort of shrugged and said “Who cares what he thinks?” I thought to myself ‘Here I go again’. I was in that all too familiar place again that I repeatedly find myself with my black peers. I had a friend (isn’t my friend anymore) tell me “You know you’re white on paper, right?”.
I tried to let it not bother me; throughout my time in school, into my adult years; I tried to just brush it off. I certainly figured by the time I was fifty I’d be done dealing with this type of shit. I accept myself. It’s just some of my black brothers and sisters who can’t seem to make the jump. See, this has been my burden to bear my whole life. Since I’m willing to bet my life on the idea that if you’re reading this, you’re not an idiot, I’ll explain since cheese tastes being black or white only makes sense to stupid people.
I will be honest enough to say that the things I like don’t typically fall into the categories of things black people traditionally like, but so what; I’m not a group of one. Plenty of people have eclectic tastes, but black people seem to be villianized more than others for liking things that don’t fall under the heading of ‘Black.’ It seems like black folks have a very strict code for what it means to be black. I never seem to fall squarely into it.
I like rock music- not Metal, rock music, specifically classic rock. I’m talking The Stones, Yes, Genesis (before the 80s pop…thing), Jimi, Pink Floyd, Janice, Cream, Iron Butterfly, David Bowie etc. The music and lyrics are more meaningful to me. I have a lot of angst and rock music, is, well, angsty.
I’m about to say something that will probably get me disinherited from the black community, but…here goes…I hate Motown. My husband revokes my black card every time I say it. It all sounds the same. I just don’t like it. Well, that’s not true. I like a little of everything, but I just like some stuff more than others. I do like a couple Motown songs but not many. I prefer Huff and Gamble (I am from Philly). I love the Chi-lites, Delphonics, New Birth, Sly and The Family Stone, but no, not Motown.
I don’t know why I’ve always been teased by my own about this one, but I love to read. I am a, as Stephen King calls his fans, A Constant Reader. I know the history of African Americans and education in America. I know white folks got a 400 year head start to fall in love with words and education and it was a crime to teach us to read or to teach us anything. So, the idea that learning and reading is “white” has a long painful history in America. When we should’ve been reading we were owned.
After manumission, we had to do shit and reading didn’t put food on the table, but also when black people were freed, one of the first things we did was start schools to help our people learn. Reading was the thing black people understood as THEE number one skill that would make freedom more than just physical; they knew it freed the MIND from slavery too. If you could read what the oppressor was trying to hide from you, you couldn’t be fooled. So, why is it now a symbol of “whiteness” to learn and love to read?
I do a whole host of “white” things. I look at documentaries, I know about a lot of things, I love language and how different cultures live and express themselves, I love art in all of its forms, I will find out something I like and research it to death until I wring out every bit of anything worth knowing out of it. My mind is a raging place that never shuts down and feeds on information of any and all sorts. I also have been chided for asking questions. “You like white people; always asking questions.” Yeah, I’ve gotten that too.
I’ve been accused of “talking white”. Which, I’ve come to find out, essentially means I speak in standard register, but I also speak in “black English” too. Black folks know what I mean. We drop our helper verbs. “Where you goin?” “How you doin?” We mash words together “Iownknow” “Wayment.”
It’s the way black people have pulled away from the “rules” of having to talk a certain way to fit in. I get it, but I love language, and its many uses and how to use it to get what you want. I use it properly, well, because I fucking want to. This just never set well with my friends. I can speak both ways but my friends were only competent in the one way and they hated me for be “bilingual”.
I love to try new foods, exotic foods. I made a salad one time and put sunflower seeds in it and my mother in law told me “Oh, you like your salads like white people.” I just sighed and thought “Yeah, that white nutrition.”
Those plastic bags of ramen noodles- allowable. Authentic Ramen from a ramen bar-white. Cobb salad with a mount Vesuvius amount of Blue cheese-allowable. Blackened chicken, strawberries and walnut salad with lemon vinaigrette- white. My problem is, is that I just like trying new things and those things happen to fall outside of what’s, I guess traditionally black.
Not all black people have treated me this way though. I’ve met other people like me and we’ve gotten along and shared all types of things together. One of my friends is a very educated black woman and we know a lot of the same stuff and talk about everything. She can identify with what I’m saying since we’ve talked about this too. I don’t feel like an outcast or an outsider when I’m with her. We get each other and we love one another’s company. It has taken all of our adult lives, though, to find someone that we can be comfortable with. Oh, and she likes Motown.
This idea that I’m not black enough for black people is still stepping on my heels. I have, after many painful years, accepted who I am, which is regular. I’m human, I have likes and dislikes like everyone else, I have a wide variety of interests and tastes and, yeah, that includes expensive cheddar cheese. I told my husband to tell his friend. “Oh, I’m white for knowing about the cheese? Well, I guess that makes you black for not knowing.”
I felt bad later, much later.
