I am not of these racial times. An odd statement but one that captures a slice of my life today. Let me explain and, as always as someone who doesn’t live in race, I am teasing out the chemtrails of race consciousness.
This morning, I threw myself into an intense read of Three Cheers for Color-Blindness by Ian Rowe. I was flattered to be cited by Rowe as an example of an independent black male writer, someone who grew up in the segregated South and was not resentful against our Founding Fathers. I loved the piece and found myself curious about Rowe’s framing of me. How we frame a life matters. Isn’t it equally true that I am a child of the New South, an epic decade of public school desegregation throughout the South in the 1970s? I am eager to ask Rowe about whether my framing of my life might be as valid as his more conventional framing of me.
Next up was a serious read of Rowe’s book, Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power. I read the entire book on the flight from San Diego to Richmond, Virginia. I recognized so much of my values and attitudes in Rowe’s life story. Even though he attended public schools in New York City and I was a small-town kid, there was overlap in how we approached and understood life. Agency knows neither city nor suburb. I look forward to asking Rowe whether his practical prescriptions for education can be applied to building a norm of color blindness in our country.
As we stepped off of the plane in Richmond, I noticed how much of black life was reflected back at us. There were large ads trumpeting education at Virginia Union University. Virginia Union is a black university in downtown Richmond. The majority of ads gracing the hallways and walkways were of black Americans which seemed appropriate given the demographics in the metropolitan Richmond area. At our baggage claim, every individual depicted on the wall was a black woman.
Times have changed in the former Capital of the Confederacy.
Notably, few of the passengers waiting for their bags were black. For some reason, my eyes were drawn to a cute kid whose Mom exuded southern prep culture — the sweater on the shoulder, the mannerism, the graceful outfit chosen for her pre-school daughter. Mom reminded me of the sorority sister types at the University of Virginia. I heard the Mom call out for her daughter, Caroline! Caroline! Where have I heard that name before?
I felt at home, and I was home, and yet I was a San Diegan now.
As I type, I am in a place which seems far too artsy to be in downtown Richmond. The deer on the wall wears eyeglasses. There is a zebra on the wall over my shoulder. There is a banana plant in front of me to my right. A movie projector plays on the wall a dreadful movie I Used To Be Funny. Not…my…cup…of…tea. The ceiling reaches for a Tribeca loft effect. It is humid outside and cool inside. I am home, but not home, home.
The dreadful movie ends….
Conclusion: My son is hungry and leaves to find food in Carytown. When I was young in the 1980s, Carytown was a hip, happening part of town. I don’t know Carytown now in the 2020s but I see evidence of hipster culture, young women with earrings in their noses, the faint signs of same-sex relationships. My Brooklyn-born wife said Did you tell him to be safe out there? He’s a California kid in the South. Scary. Maybe not a kid…
What do you get when you cross a Brooklyn Mom, a Chester Dad and a San Diego kid? Answer — a California adult enjoying himself under the cover of nightfall in Carytown, Richmond, Virginia’s answer to the bohemian way.
Was my day about race? You decide.