I have a conundrum that I’m currently trying to work through. When did being dysfunctional become synonymous with being Black?
By now, many have heard of the latest incident involving one of Hollywood’s stars. Justin Bieber was arrested in Miami on Thursday morning and charged with DUI, drag racing, and resisting arrest, after admitting to police that he drank alcohol, smoked marijuana, and took prescription drugs before getting behind the wheel.
As I usually do in the morning, I fired up my Twitter app today and delved into my social media world. Being the current trend, I found out about La Beiba’s arrest there before I could even find my remote to turn on the news. Informational tweets, amusing tweets, concern-filled tweets, “If he were Black...” tweets - Beibermania took over my timeline in a variety of ways. What really got me going were the amount of tweets insinuating that La Beiba had finally crossed the threshold into his impending Blackness with this latest brush with the law. I had to stop for a moment. What?
Equating particular behaviours with Blackness isn’t new. Though Bill Clinton has no direct political relevance to me as a non-American, I still remember the confusion I felt about Black folk calling him “the first Black president” seemingly because he played the sax on Arsenio and cheated on Hillary. Navigating your Blackness in a country so near yet still so far from the U.S. is difficult enough - I couldn’t navigate this White man’s Blackness too, so I left it alone.
More recently, similar adoption papers have been signed and sent to my fellow Canadians La Beiba and Rob Ford. The former’s affinity for hanging out with Black celebs, his recent legal struggles, and his absorption of what he believes to be Black culture seem to have earned him some kind of honourary “Congrats! You’re Black!” medal. The latter’s drug habit and recent display of ‘diversity’ with drunken rants in Jamaican chat have earned him the same. I know some commentary is based in satire - but this week especially, I seem to be coming across more and more folk who are earnest in their bestowing of Blackness on actin’-up assed non-Blacks.
A Facebook status I wrote on Thursday was the inspiration for this post. As I wrote on my page (in part):
The behaviours that La Beiba and Rob Ford exhibit are common across all kinds of people, yet some Black folk seem quick to take sole ownership of these pathologies like it's all we have to offer.
Unlike some of the interviewees featured this week on G 98.7FM (a local radio station), I don’t view Rob Ford as my first “Black” mayor. His struggles with drugs are not unique to Blacks, so him smoking crack didn’t make him any more “down” to me. Additionally, I don’t see him as my first “Jamaican” mayor either, even in jest. I value my Jamaican heritage entirely too much to grant citizenship to someone who spews out some careless “bumboclaats” and “rassclaats” in a drunken stupor.
How are we granting honourary Blackness to people who have the privilege to avoid the repercussions that actual Blacks would receive in their position? With both La Beiba and Ford, the convenience of having Black bodies nearby to take varying amounts of the fall isn’t at all lost on me. Remember when comedian Paul Mooney said “Everybody wants to be a nigga, but nobody wants to be a nigga” on Chappelle’s Show? Just call me Tag Team, because Whoomp! There it is.
There are so many layers to these issues and the ways we absorb and emit commentary on them. Media hypocrisy. Discussion around legal slaps on the wrist for many White celebs. Discrepancies in the American legal system as a whole. Thoughts on deportation processes and the who’s who of artists who get banned at the Canadian border. Society’s ability to blame Trayvon Martin for his own death because “he should have known better”, but to then turn around and shield La Bieba from controversy because “he’s just a kid.” I could go down the rabbit hole on any one of these points, but my head already hurts enough.
As with everything on this blog, I can only speak for what I’ve seen and heard, and can only represent my thoughts and feelings on the matter. I almost didn’t follow through with posting this, until I saw Ian Andre Espinet’s tweet and knew I wasn’t completely off the mark:
As far as thoughts and feelings go, mine can be best summed up at this moment with another portion of my Facebook status:
La Beiba and Rob Ford ain't no kin to me. My Blackness amounts to much more flyness than they could ever hope to adopt.
P.S. - check out Britni Danielle’s post on Clutch Magazine for another great perspective.