Reflections from a token black friend
Ramesh A. Nagarajah 6.19.20
I am regularly the only black kid in the photo. I have mastered the well-timed black joke, fit to induce a guilty “you thought it but couldn’t say it” laugh from my white peers. I am a token black friend. The black one in the group of white people.
I believe my story speaks directly to the covert nature of the new breed of racism — its structural side, along with implicit bias — and may prove helpful to many I know who seek a better understanding.
In a piece my brother wrote reflecting on the current situation, he considered whether black privilege was real. He and I have both considered how our differences from the common story of black people made us “privileged.” For instance, our immersion in the white community, our success in school and now in the workforce, and the fact that we grew up in a middle-class black household (highly uncommon in Boston) led us to believe we had somehow transcended the plight of the black man. Yet, what scared us both so much as we watched the videos of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd is that we clearly had not. In both cases, it could have been us. There is no escape. There is no level of success that will spare you. We are black men, and that is all that matters to some.
Read the entire piece HERE, please.