Is It Race or Is It Culture?

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

For the second or third time in my life, I find myself in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. I believe my grandfather passed away in Dinwiddie as a technical matter. I grew up 30 minutes from Dinwiddie but never had cause to experience the county. It is never time to stop exploring the larger world. If my kids ever eulogize me, they would all say I pushed and prodded them to explore the larger world.

I judge my success as a Dad by my children’s comfort in the larger world.

One of my introspective kids in the car asked how would the kids have turned out if they grew up in Chester, Virginia. There was a pregnant pause. The consensus was that they really didn’t have much in common with people they met today. They found it challenging to communicate and to talk about common experiences. It occurred to me that, for most of the past century or two, my family members lived in the same county, attended the same church, knew the same people throughout the county, and were buried by the same three to five funeral homes. Here’s looking at you, Mimms Funeral Home. The upside was the deepest of roots in the land and one’s people. The downside, however, was an unawareness of the larger world which I was duty bound to seek out in my young days.

And so my thirst for the larger world resulted in a San Diego family, explorers of the larger world, who do not speak the language of their distant Virginia relations. What do I mean? Simple things. Let’s take football. I have zero interest in football. My children did not grow up in a home that valued football. All their Virginia distant relations could talk about was football this and football that. The game between the Commanders and the Buccaneers was on the entire time of a recent visit. My adult kids had to adapt but it was a different culture. It is ironic because, an hour or two earlier at Lulu’s in Shockhoe Bottom, my older son ruminated on the old adage Blood is Thicker Than Water. The phrase doesn’t mean what you think. I thought the phrase meant kinship trumped any other type of relationship. In fact, the phrase means the opposite — taking a blood oath to be there for one another is more powerful than affinity of the womb.

Football did not create a blood affinity between distant relations.

What does one talk about? If one’s world is church and Lifetime television and soap operas which is great, sharing summer experiences from Aspen and Puerto Rico might come across as otherworldly. So, one lapses into faux Virginia accent to sound like everyone else in the room. One dredges up code switching memories from Blackness 101 class. But in doing so, one is mindful that one is straining and, really, one shouldn’t strain to communicate with relations. Yet, one has been raised by parents to be courteous and respectable and one does as others do until the clock strikes 6:00 p.m. and it is time to leave because….Mom is expecting a call from us.

(Not really.)

This is a cultural chasm. Cultural differences exist within all families. My adult kids are more aligned with relations up North than down South. It is not a race thing. It is a culture thing.

Conclusion: Even within black American families, there is a topography of culture. The culture gap is real. My readers have read about differences between me and my wife, me and my adult kids. Now, you can appreciate differences of language and the ability to communicate between the young generation of San Diego and the older generation of Virginia. There is no one way to be black in America.

I leave you with this brilliant insight that I will expand upon sometime later. I wanted to write about it at my son’s commencement this July but I got sidetracked. The topic of Aspen came up. Aspen is a nice place to live, I gather. Two well-educated and privileged black Americans had a split of opinion on Aspen. One woman perceived Aspen as a great place to live. What’s not to like? Mountain views, snow trails, high-end coffee shops, etc. The second woman replied, well, there are not a lot of black people in Aspen. I grew up in a diverse town and I feel more comfortable with black people. The first woman replied that the number of black people did not matter in her perception of Aspen. And why should it?

My readers already know I perceive the world as the first woman.

The first woman had grown up in 1% black to 5% black spaces all of her life. The lack of blacks was just more of the same, life. There is an underappreciated cultural divide between blacks who grew up in Middle America (1% black to 12% black) and those who grew up in more diverse settings (33% black to 100% black). Are we witnessing the genesis of a new cultural divide among black Americans based upon early life experiences in the larger world versus a more insular world? I encourage writers and scholars and intellectuals to peer into the nuance and complexity of communications and comfort levels between black Americans with divergent levels of white immersion in their formative years. Does the black woman who only knew 3% black private schools bring into adulthood more wisdom about comfort in the larger world than a black woman who only knew 38% black public schools?

We need an American Dilemma (updated) for the modern era. Are blacks raised in 3% black private school settings separating with mindsets and worldviews different from blacks raised in 33% black or more public schools? These are cutting-edge questions that enter my line of sight as I think about the human condition.

Good evening from the banks of the Appomattox River as I peer across the waters into Chesterfield County, land of my people.

[Author’s note — I attempted to attach a you tube video about black students in private schools. Every video was either (1) negative, (2) separatist in sentiment, or (3) critical of racism. From personal experience, I am very disappointed in the menu selection. My three adult kids all attended private schools — one from the age of 2 to high school graduation, one from the age of 2 through middle school, one from the age of 2 to high school graduation (with the exception of a crazy year in 6th grade). My kids were all challenged and held to high standards. They developed confidence and ambition. They developed the poise and ease in the larger world one would expect. I had no negative experiences of note, only productive outcomes and smart adults ready to take on the world.

There is too much distortion of reality about black students in private schools on You Tube. Beware parents and grandparents.]