...says my Indian friend, after making some generalised comments about black folk. He and I haven't seen each other for quite some time. We've been friends since grad school in the early to mid 1990s. We talk politics and generally serve as an echo-chamber for each other's similar beliefs. Our politics are shaped by our shared immigrant experience and the fact that I might be 1/16th Bengali(though I don't know if the same "one drop of blood" rule applies when it comes to measuring Indianess). We argue over the $12 bottle of water on the bil: He thinks I am cheap and I think he's crazy for thinking that it is EVER OK to Pay $12 for Nordic glacier water. Yeah it's cold and wet and crisp and the bottle is nice but $12? But I digress.
What gets me is his statement that Black folks are no longer at the top of their creative game. He says, Black people have not produced anything in 30 years(he means in the musical/culture field). I am, of course rather disbelieving. Whither the hip popular American culture without black folk? Just the other day my white of white boss says: "this is how we roll!" Yes I know this is not a great achievement in terms of physics or economics, but perhaps it is! But let me not digress. After this great initial pronouncement, he continues to say... "I hang with brothers." I reply sarcastically, a la chris rock: "whaddya want? a lock of my nappy hair?" I suppose now people can feel justified and validated in expressing their "opinions" about black folk in mixed company as long as they trot out their street "creds", i.e. that "they hang with brothers." JSYK*
What the hell?!???
(just so you know.)
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