The Black Privilege Vibe

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

“This is a celebration, not a funeral!” — Minister performing wedding ceremony for black couple across the street

As I returned to the Coronado Public Library, I saw a black couple getting married in the park across the street. It was a nice scene, a curious and intriguing scene. As the local newspaper puts it, “Coronado — A Paradise for Any Who Can Afford it.” Coronado is an island connected to the mainland by the Coronado Bridge. I cannot tell you how many times we took the children to the Coronado beach for weekends when they were growing up. So many memories of birthday celebrations at Miguel’s Restaurant. I never think of race on the island.

The wedding across the way was romantic. I duly noted that 201 black Americans live on the island. That would make Coronado 0.8% black. Wouldn’t exchange our pleasant family memories since 1992 for anything. The number of black people is irrelevant to me and our family memories. My wife and I had our first dinner in San Diego on the island at Peohe’s. I first saw the Pacific Ocean steps from where I am typing this essay.

Surely, there must be some race incident since 1992? There is one race event in 32 years. You will have to buy my book to find out what happened/smile. Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America.

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This essay is not about Coronado island. Nor is it about the black wedding across the street. This essay is a short review of one of the best race essays I have read this month. Kudos to my Journal of Free Black Thought podcast co-host Michael Bowen for a splendid walk through the human condition in his Substack essay, The Black Privilege Vibe. What Michael does with the effortlessness of a skilled correspondent is to walk us by the hand as he experiences life in America in all kinds of places — Reno Nevada, Austin Texas, Vail Colorado, Kernville California, Bakersfield California, Boise Idaho, Salt Lake City Utah, Provo Utah, Olympic Peninsula Washington, Shelton Washington, Stone Mountain Georgia, Boston Massachusetts, Somerville Massachusetts, Atlanta Georgia, Forsyth County Georgia, Cumming Georgia, Cobb County Georgia, Washington, D.C.

I delighted as I read about the nuance and complexity of life in these far flung places. At least half of the time, Michael was expecting a racial reaction and he found something more reminiscent of a Black Privilege vibe. Are we allowed to say that? Are we allowed to recognize such a thing in polite society? Am I permitted to share how joyful my heart and soul are here on the Coronado island at the library, even though less then 1 percent of the humans surrounding me share my skin color and race?

Why…should…it…matter? The best writing is truthful. No dogma about oppression. No slogan words about the white gaze. Laughter and more laughter. Seriously, people, in real life, people are too involved in their own lives on the island to worry about you and me.

I’m being serious which is why my adult children will make it in life. They have grown up in the larger world and are comfortable. Yale is more home than Spelman College. Stanford is more home than Howard University.

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Michael would expect me to be a contrarian in this essay review. I will not disappoint.

My buddy Michael throws shade on Somerville, Massachusetts: But even five or six years earlier than that, while I was still in college, I attended a conference in Boston and walked over to a town called Somerville. At night. Alone. I had no idea about its reputation, but telling the story brought gasps of astonishment.

I did not know that Somerville.

In the school year 1984-1985, the Somerville I knew was a working-class, ethnic, Irish enclave. I technically lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, a pleasant, quiet 1% percent black town. Arlington was a paradise for me. However, I began to date a woman who lived in Somerville. Eventually, I was living in Somerville nearly all of the time. She lived a few blocks from the trolley stop down off of Massachusetts Avenue. We were a few blocks and around the corner from Steve’s ice cream. I don’t remember seeing any other black people around. Today, Somerville is 5% black but not in 1984-1985. I never thought about race at all. I was not concerned about my race or the race of others in the neighborhood. I recall that we lived near Congressman Tip O’ Neal’s home but I had no knowledge of any race reputation in town. Nor did my black girlfriend.

This just goes to show that everyone has their own unique, individual memories when it comes to race. My memories of Somerville differ from Michael’s and that’s to be expected. No two people are clones.

Like Michael, I was aware of issues in South Boston. I stayed away from South Boston so as to not tempt fate but that was South Boston, not Somerville or Arlington or Cambridge or Brookline, my neck of the woods.

Sometimes “racial static” comes from other black people. Remember the elderly black woman earlier this week (a lifetime ago) who charged there were not many black people in San Diego and that I should care somehow? In my life, racial anxiety oftentimes comes from other black people. Michael deftly talks about his encounter with 1 or 2 black folks from Fulton County, Georgia who felt Michael was “too uppity because (his) kids were born in Northside Hospital rather than Grady.”

I have little patience for backwards thinking. These were not unreconstructed white southerners giving Michael a hard time. These were fellow black Americans. What gives? Give me Coronado island any day of the week over sharing space with black people who live in self-defeating thoughts.

From my own life experience, I want to further concur with Michael’s experience on this point. No white person in my life has ever insinuated I should feel uncomfortable because there are not enough black people around. Only black people have engaged in this moral policing of the black body (I can use slogan words with the best of them/smile).

For example, “Abby” was the cutest freshman at the University of Virginia (UVA). Abby’s Dad was a dentist and Abby had attended private schools. Abby had freckles and was light-skinned and intelligent. I never had the courage to ask Abby out but I remembered Abby over the years. She attended an Ivy League university for graduate school before settling down in Atlanta. Years later when I had moved to San Diego, Abby asked me, how did I like San Diego? I said, I loved the oceans and the beaches and the palm trees. Abby turned silent. She said she could never live in San Diego. There were not enough black people. Well, duh, I’m not loving the black people. I am drawn to the views and the climate and the mountains and the desert floor.

Next exhibit in this strange reaction from black people would be a well-regarded black woman who was born and raised in rural Georgia. Her school was 1/3 black. We met in La Jolla by the beaches. The views were awe inspiring. The waves crashed upon the rocks beneath our feet. She announced she was leaving San Diego. I was shocked as she was influential around town. I asked why. “There’s not enough black people here. I need to be in Atlanta where there are more black people.”

I, for one, would not give up ocean views for Atlanta traffic and the comfort of a majority-black city. I value other things in life. Everyone is an individual.

A final exhibit would be a Dad in New Haven. Our daughters were friends. He was smart and we hit it off. We started talking and I could sense he was a true believer in Blackness. He said, he enjoyed going to Martha’s Vineyard so that he could vacation among black people and relax. (Hmmn, I thought to myself. This dude probably wouldn’t dig my Coronado island). Then, he asked me the BIG question: How do you like San Diego? I said, I loved San Diego. I loved the oceans and the beaches and the palm trees. He gave me a startled look as if I had three heads. And I knew he was not of my tribe, even though we shared the same race and generation. He was West Indian from Manhattan and very much of a Black mindset. (Are there any unmixed descendants of American slavery left in New Haven? At the Medical School?)

There is more to commend in Michael’s essay. Michael is a truth teller as he shares the topography of Black Privilege. One of my favorite lines is “Of course, the South is complex.” That’s truth, as my white distant Twyman cousin might have said. That is truth.

Conclusion: Treat yourself. Read Michael’s essay if you care about the topography of race. If you want to see life revealed free from dogma and slogan words, allow Michael to guide you throughout our amazing country from coast to coast. As I type in the library where I would bring my kids to study for the ISEE, SAT and Advanced Placement tests, it saddens me that we have lost so much wisdom about race over the past decade or two.

I do not need other black people to enjoy life on the island. And neither does Michael. We both need to be ignored sometimes and treated with dignity and respect at other times. One doesn’t require people “who look like me” for moments of serenity. One only needs humanity from others.

I Need People Who Look Like Me

The Hotel Del on Coronado Island