Can I Fully Appreciate the Black Experience in America?
By W. F. Twyman, Jr.
The hour is late, so I have little to say save for appreciation. I read a great book review of Professor Glenn Loury’s book Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. I will be speaking with Loury next week which should be a real treat. The review I came across was from John H. Cochran with The Grumpy Economist, June 20, 2024.
Cochran plunged into the depths of race identity and retrieved this gem — “We can observe, and try to understand, but we can never fully appreciate the experience of being black in America. There is such a thing as ‘white privilege.’ One element is that I never spend a minute thinking about my white identity, whether my peers think I’m white enough, whether my work advances ‘my people.’”
Even though Cochran and I do not share the same race, might we not share an inability to fully appreciate the experience of being black in America? I have examined my life in deep detail since March 23, 2023. And I have found the things I know well of my place, my time, my family. These things I know of life are not the things Professor Loury knows of life. The simplest example — I am listening to Alone Again right now by Gilbert O’Sullivan. This song by an Irish singer-songwriter never fails to lift my mood. Are these feelings I feel part of my experience of being black over a lifetime in America? There is no evidence Professor Loury is equally moved by Alone Again.
Professor Loury and I are different people at the level of personality and temperament and memory.
My point is my life is comprised of hundreds of thousands of moments. A minority of these moments pivot upon being black in America. Few are the moments I have spent thinking about my black identity, whether my peers think I’m black enough, whether my work advances ‘my people.’” This is even more true now that I live in San Diego in the year 2024. Professor Loury for many unique reasons may have a different experience of being black in America. In fact, I am sure he does. I cannot appreciate the Black Experience in America through Loury’s eyes. We are two different people separated by generation, place, time, family dynamics, and moral choices made in life.
There is an unspoken element of racial solidarity among some who happen to be black in America. The idea is to self-censor should what one knows diverge from the collective group. Those who did not grow up in the city are left mute as the Black Experience becomes the South Side of Chicago experience, not the Chester, Virginia experience. The black voices of Brooklyn are amplified at the expense of suburban and small-town voices. It matters to the color conscious whether San Diego has few black people. Sigh.
When Cochran writes we can never fully appreciate the experience of being black in America, who really can if one thinks about it? If there are over 40 million black people in American, God knows there are over 40 million individuals, some who love hearing Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond on You Tube and some who always viewed city public schools from afar.
Conclusion: We can live in caricatures and stereotypes. We can presume there is a black experience in America we can never fully understand. In truth, there is a human experience of the individual. We overlap blackness upon millions of individuals and proclaim, Behold, We will never fully appreciate the experience of being black in America. It is wiser to appreciate the individual at the center of the human soul. That way, you see me and others, not a racial monolith beyond all appreciation.
Professor Loury would be the first to say he is one person. He is not an avatar for a race. He can be understood as surely as I can understand family members who live in race consciousness. Millions live in race consciousness. And millions do not.
Good evening to my fellow travelers who appreciate the individual. Appreciate an English singer I appreciate…Sting
When I initially saw your headline, my first thought was “why should you?” I think that especially after reading so many of your essays, and the fact that the more I read, the less I think about your “blackness” or my “whiteness.” Does it really matter if it doesn’t matter to us?
For whatever reason, we don’t talk much about the different classes of white people. I can’t remember the last time I read or heard anyone talk about some of the white people who still live in relative isolation and poverty in Appalachia. A friend recently told me the story of her youth, and how she ended up there as a young, married woman. I can’t even imagine, but I’m grateful that it wasn’t my life. However, I also don’t relate to a lot of white people. I grew up in a middle class family, and so did most of my friends. I’ve been around people who have money, come from “old” families, etc. Their lives are different from mine, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to “fully appreciate” either situation.
If I’m misunderstanding your point, I apologize. I’m sure the pressure for you is much higher because this seems to be a topic that is consuming us lately. So, I don’t have that. But, the thing is, I think you are unique in that you are you. Your experiences are different than mine, and yet we have found common ground because of our interests in people as a whole. Finding the things that make us relatable to one another is so much better than trying to figure out who screwed who.
That there is a single "black experience" is just as silly and simplistic as the idea of "white privilege." This could easily be "The (white) voices of Brooklyn are amplified at the expense of suburban and small-town voices."