Personal Memory Ethnography Parts 1-4
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PME #1
My childhood consisted of relatively pleasant moments of being an "only" or a "first," the first black family to live in an exclusive white neighborhood, the only black child attending the nearby elementary school; I began to associate myself as a "spot" in a sea of white faces. Just about everywhere my family and I went- events, restaurants, operas and symphonies- I sensed a simultaneous clash of difference and resemblance between ourselves and others around.
I always knew that I was different and I never had a problem with this. After all, I was raised to cherish individuality, and to diverge from the norm as often as necessary in order to make my presence known. I grew up accepting that being an "only" or a "first" would someday be beneficial for me. I liked being my own person, formulating my own attitudes about the civilization surrounding me, and I liked taking the right path while others took the left. My apathy for following what is considered as a normal societal pattern became evident fourteen years ago in the prime of my adulthood when I met him, my soldier of fortune, and when we crossed the threshold from platonic to serious. I must declare that while looking back as well as ahead, I can joyfully say, Mike:
"I not only love you, but I love who I am when I am with you." Unknown Author
Race relation in the United States is an incredibly complex recipe, particularly between those of African-American and Caucasian backgrounds. While only 2% of the American population engage in exogamous relations, a mere fraction of that percentile occur between African-American women and non African-American men. Whenever intimacy between couples from the two diverse racial categories of white and black is thrown in as an ingredient into the American philosophical "melting pot" ideology, emotions brew to a near volatile degree. My husband, Michael, and I had the misfortune of experiencing examples of such explosive attitudes from our fellow Americans. The hostility and negativity served to us from outsiders only supplied us with the sustenance, the fervor, and the will to continue our relationship and to keep the commitment between us going no matter what or who opposed. It became our prime directive. The more society was convinced that we would not last, the more determined we were to prove everyone wrong. The more everyone argued that we were too different, the more we set out to demonstrate to society that love is an impartial adhesive in which to hold two humans together. The more people insisted that we should not or could not be with one another and still be who we were- a black woman and a white man- the more Michael and I became an interwoven part of each other’s lives and cultures. Of all of the incidents that the two of us had to face against the outside world, threats to our existence as man and woman, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife; none of them had as much of an impact upon my perception of us as a mixed couple as the fury produced shortly after we progressed from friends to lovers…
Michael and I met in a refurbished WWII dormitory at Kadena Air Base Station on Okinawa, Japan in 1986. Here, on this tiny island where the (American) male to female ratio was a staggering 12 to 1, I was criticized profusely by black male co-workers who discerned that my relationship was racial apostasy. They were adamant that this white boy was taking away one of their "sistas," disputing that Michael would use me for his physical enjoyment and then throw me away afterwards. I was criticized profusely by my black roommate who viewed my interest as an act of deception. She fed me a steady diet of rationalizations that I would surely suffer a personality conflict or an identity crisis because Michael would not acknowledge me as a black woman free to express my ethnicity in whatever way I chose to, and that I needed to come to my senses and stop dreaming of being a representative of the "wanna-be" society. I was criticized profusely by the other females in the dorm who thought that sticking with my own kind was a debt that I owed "my people." In other words, to hell with doing what best suited me, I should not rock the boat. Michael was not without his own wrath too. His supervisor warned him that if he "continued relations with that little black chick that he would be asking for trouble." Michael and I locked arms, hearts, and souls, embracing for the impact of the imminent adversity that may lay ahead for us. Unbeknownst to all of these pyrrhonists they had encountered two of the most stubborn people known to mankind. It inevitably became us against the world.
Today, I can attest to three truths about my relationship with Mike: First, we do have a physical, as well as, an emotional bond, an unbreakable connection between two seemingly mismatched beings. Secondly, I am living in a dream, a reverie filled with endless love and eternal devotion. Third, I do owe an obligation to my ancestors, who fought so hard to make a brighter future for generations to come, but my liability can be repaid through ways other than marrying within my own kindred group like, through educating others, and not forgetting where I came from or where I am headed. Nearly a decade and a half later, I still cling to my steadfast convictions of following my own individualistic example, of doing what I wanted to do and not what others advised me to do. Most importantly, I still think, act, and live the life of an African-American woman that not only loves her WASP husband but also loves who she is capable of being, with or without him. In essence, I created my own destiny despite intense pressure to conform and I still carry the burden of defying the judgment of a society that insisted that I was to love a man that more closely resembled myself. As this is the route in life of my own propensity, so is the life of an outcast, the perennial societal leper.
PME #2
"Goddammit! I am tired of our ebony princesses running to be in the arms of ‘whiteys’," contested Sergeant Henderson to Sergeant Woodard, two black male coworkers of mine.
Sergeant Woodard acknowledged his soul brother’s frustration by saying, "I hear ya’, break it on down for me."
Their rancorous utterance was just barely audible enough to be overheard; however, unintentionally, and at the same time, perhaps intentionally, it was directed towards Michael and I as we were leaving together for the day.
As I shot a look back at them that was just as malicious as their observation, Sergeant Henderson continued on by adding, "Don’t they have any idea how that makes us feel?" It was this instant that our eyes converged and I knew that his remark was not intended for me personally, per se, but for all black women, in general, who chose to "cross the color line."
It was this instant that I could envision all of the rage and anguish in the hearts of American black men not just on this tiny occupied island but in metropolises all over the nation. Michael wanted to speak up on my behalf but I stopped him. To them, seeing their black women with the "enemy"- who Malcolm X referred to as "white devils"- was a demonstration of defiance, an act of perfidy, the ultimate cardinal sin against our precious and sacred race.
Completely bewildered and confused, I resisted trying to comprehend why we were receiving an unfavorable reaction. "Unfair and unjust," I told myself. Knowing that black men stationed in Asian countries insisted that African- American women were to stick to our own kind when they themselves chose to take Filipinas, Thai, Korean, and the like for their mates was a hypocrisy in its own right. Half-stunned and half-angered by my fellow cohort’s malignant attitudes, I attempted to understand their position. I realized that some of their temperament on this touchy subject could be produced from a protective, paternal instinct, inherent recollections of how women of color have been treated by the dominant white male class throughout (American) history. The feelings of intimidation and helplessness that black men felt as they stood by and watched their related, beloved females get abused, raped, and victimized by whom hooks referred to as the "white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy" society may leave them paralyzed with agony even still today. Unsure if it is just their selfishness (black men are twice as likely to marry outside the race than black women) or something much more profound, like deep-rooted psychological conditioning, that incessantly flows through the veins of African- American males so many generations after the fact; I knew that they still regarded white men as the usurpers who violated the sanctity of young colored girls, snatching away their innocence, dignity, and virginity as if it were sweetened candy. These molesting thoughts are not easy for black men to overlook and may contribute to why they correlate seeing their present day soul "sistas" happily and willingly with their Caucasian companions as a type of brainwashing or manipulation that may still leave African- American men psychologically and physiologically impotent. I asked myself, if we women are not bothered by past history, why are they? My answer was manifested by reminders, not just that it is a "male thing," but of the fact that we were on a U.S. military occupied island that had been seized from the Japanese during an extremely controversial time period, and an isle in which there was a tremendous deficit between the sexes. Both of these speculations greatly enhanced the imperialistic notion of Anglo dominance. The black males reasoned that white men must possess everything, to include the women of indigenous societies, and whatever they touched in gaining their conquest, metaphorically turned from gold to cinder. The political protest and the tension asserted by the Okinawans toward America’s military presence was a constant admonition of this assumption.
While bonding with another African- American female, who was also involved in an interracial relationship on Okinawa, she revealed to me that a black male informed her that she was a "damn fool for allowing the victimization to occur all over again." To us, this was not the case; however, to black men who felt that they had nothing left which they could consider as exclusively their own, they rationalize that their women are non-negotiable and off limits to all other men of contrasting races, especially and particularly Anglo men. We both agreed that men of color might feel threatened because they saw couples such as Mike and I, and she and her partner, as illustrations that the white man has again taken something that does not belong to him. She and I encountered hostile opposition to our situations because since black men felt for such a long time that they had been unable to protect/control their environment, they felt that they had to protect/control their women. They seem to express difficulty in dealing with this issue because they can not protect/control us from the "enemy" when we are with the "enemy." Little do they want to accept that she and I do not need protection, we are with our Anglo- American conquistadors because it is of our own free will. Once able to "perspectivize" this disposition, my asperity towards African-American men- my male coworkers and the others I shared the island with- subsided and was replaced with empathy. I finally could comprehend where they were coming from.
PME #3
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