What is Black Now? And Are We Even Ready to Talk About It?....

In his latest book Touré asks the question, What does it mean to be 'black' now? Says we should ”attack and destroy the idea that there is a correct or legitimate way of doing blackness...post-blackness has no patience with self-appointed identity cops and their cultural bullying.” Now, that might be some fighting words for some of my diehard red, black and green. But if we take a min to consider where Toure's trying to go with this, we can at least appreciate the idea of finally placing individuality before collective pressure to represent/less and fit in/more. Maybe that's one of the reasons why so many of us get upset at father Cosby's call to clean up our dirty laundry and stop the victim game. Or why Obama wants to be Prez and not Black Prez. As much pride as there is in carrying our Black, we tend to forget the pride of just being. The luxury Whites have of getting up in the morning to simply be, without the preoccupation of skin color. No matter what you think of Toure's views, we can't call him a sellout just cos he wants us to be ourselves, without having to prove the obvious-- hair, lips, nose, melanin and yea, the everyday hassles of race-ism. But being yourself, from attitude to fashion to choice of music to who we vote for to who we call friend to who we love to social consciousness to lack of social consciousness and back to attitude; being yourself is the real emancipation, if we can get there. I'm just sayin...