Introduction

It's me... I'm tired...

The Project:

Dear Reader,

So, as many of you may or may not know, my relationship to my Blackness is one that’s pretty complicated; I [often] pass, I didn’t identify as Black until I was an adult, and my ability to articulate the experience of American Blackness is fairly nascent, especially given my age. 

Often times, I use my feeling a certain “lack of authority” on Blackness as a way to eschew talking about race in public forums; especially on social media.

However, I’ve decided to do something a little different for Black History Month this year and, through highlighting and uplifting Black thinkers/artists/business people/leaders, I want to speak publicly about my personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences of being Black, catalogue my growth, and also create a record of my development; how far I've come and how far I need to go.

So ya know in a month about Black “history,” let me center my biracial contemporary ass for a moment; I guess that's the white side of me coming out. 

Humor aside [and, as I plan to write relatively extemporaneously, so expect copious amounts of glib/self deprecating humor], Black History is my history and my present, so I’m gonna claim my part of it.

Here’s the plan: Each day this month (February 2022), I’m gonna highlight one person (or group of people), as well as either a conversation, impactful moment, or piece of media that has helped me to understand what it means for me to be Black.  

I'm going to do this by writing a brief essay (defined in the LOOSEST of terms) every day on the person and moment and post it here, then sharing these posts on my social media feeds.  I'm limiting myself to 2hrs of writing.  Hopefully, these should end up being pretty short.

I’m not here to speak to anyone's experience other than my own; if none of this connects with you, then, cool. If any of it strikes a chord, my DMs on Twitter and IG are open to you.

I’m also, right here, and right now, giving myself permission to make mistakes, speak poorly, and forget/miss things. These pieces will be unedited by outside voices (at least at the time of posting, I might come back and change stuff later), so the view points are only my own and they are... unrefined... the internet is forever, but take anything I say to seriously or pull it out of context and you'll be missing the forest for the trees.

WHEN I fail to nail what I mean to say, or say something impolitic or inaccurate, I welcome your corrections, guidance, etc… especially from Black friends, followers, and readers; if you have space, obviously. No one is responsible for my learning, save for me.

For the next month, I’m gonna work on speaking.

I’m currently living my third and Black adolescence; here, now, in my 30s. Weird right? But whatever, it’s cool.

For this project, I had initially made categories for the stuff I wanted to post, but that felt dumb so now it’s just a list.  

Some of the folks are famous, some are famous w/in their circles, some are people who reading this message right now (hey-o!), and some are everyday human people who helped shape me.

The first four are bands/musicians tho, lol, I'm hoping the shorter writing about them will give me time to work on the longer harder stuff.

LASTLY, you might wondering about the name of this project.  I'm referring to it as both My Negro Project and My Negro Problem.  The title is a reference to Norman Podhoretz's 1963 article "My Negro Problem and Ours" [LINK] written as a companion piece/response to James Baldwin's "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind" [LINK]; the discussion of these two articles will be the midway point of this project and thing I'm probably going to work the hardest on.

I do not intend this title to be an endorsement of Podhoretz or speak to any admiration I do or don't have for him; I find his life to be a bit of a cautionary tale and his politics are FAR from my own.

All that said, the article he wrote is on how the white American liberal, specifically Jewish liberals, relationships and feelings about Blackness and Black people.

As a white Jewish Liberal, I find some mild kinship with Podhoretz and the intersection of my whiteness, Jewishness, and Blackness will probably be a big part of this project.

Anyhow, I'm very nervous, but also very optimistic.

So... here goes nothing!

Sincerely,

Ian

PS: there will be no comments on this Blog, responses can be directed to me via DM on my twitter account @itgray89.