Let me just say that my talk went really well. I was well-received and afterwards in the Q and A I got a lot of positive feedback. I ended up “winging” most of it so that I was giving a talk rather than just reading the words off of my computer screen. Everyone was engaged and I felt amazing afterwards. Before hand is another story completely.
Around 3 PM I checked my mail to see if my Netflix movie had arrived because I wanted to show clips of it for the presentation. The mail arrived and in it tucked between bills and catalogues was my Netflix. I opened the package carefully and pulled the DVD out of the sleeve to find it CRACKED IN HALF. I stuck it in my computer anyway and hoped that it would play. It didn’t. I called Barnes and Noble to see if they had a copy that I could purchase. They didn’t and instead referred me to a video store in Manhattan that specialises in hard-to-find DVDs. I called to see if they had it, they didn’t. I called the New York public library to check to see if they had it and Ta-da! They did. I rushed down to the library and up to the 5th floor where I found a copy of Trembling Before G-d waiting. I explained to the librarian that I lost my library card two years ago and would need another. She said she just needed my ID to look up my account and issue a new card. I opened my wallet and my ID was nowhere to be found. I pulled EVERYTHING out of my bag and still couldn’t find it. I actually have no clue where it is, still. I showed her my SS card and my credit cards which do not count as a form of ID. I went to the circulation desk and talked to the supervisor who said she couldn’t help. I glanced down at my watch and had only a half hour before I was to start my talk. I asked the supervisor if I could purchase the DVD and she said I could not. I actually considered the consequences of putting the cracked copy into the library’s copy and keeping the library’s copy for myself. I decided stealing wasn’t necessary and figured I’d just use the internet on my computer and stream the DVD from there. I packed up my stuff and headed to the meeting. When I entered the lobby the security guard asked to see my ID… I explained my ordeal and he didn’t budge. I explained that I was giving the talk, that the meeting wouldn’t exist without my presence and he escorted me to the room where my computer got no reception …Thank God the actual talk went better than the hours before hand…
Here are the first few pages, enjoy!
To start, let me just say that I’m not a Jew, Yet. I don’t stand before you holding all the answers of what it’s like to be a Black, Gay, Jew. I can only give you a bit of insight into who I am and how I’ve come to identify as such.
My path to Judaism cannot necessarily be called organic because it didn’t happen naturally. Rather, it took a lot of searching and researching for me to stand here, self-identifying as a Jew. Sometimes I say Jew-to-be and sometimes I say Jew-in-Training but just the other day when one of my work associates asked what I would be giving my girlfriend for Christmas I said, without thinking, “Oh we’re Jewish” She was another black woman, and a New Yorker so the kind of quiet politeness that often follows when you say something that seems curious was lost on this, in-your-face Brooklyn girl.
She scrunched her face up so that her nose wrinkled and said in disbelief,“Wait, you’re a Jew? I didn’t know there were black Jews”
I shot a similar look back to her, “You’ve never seen a black Jew? You’re a New Yorker!”
She, of course, wanted to know “how” I could be a Jew and I explained that I was in the process of converting, that my girlfriend was a born Jew but not observant, and that I was not converting for her sake but rather, it was where I came to after what seemed like years of searching for what felt right.
The memoir that I’m currently writing has the same title as the talk I’m giving you. It is name of my personal blog as well; Black, Gay, and Jewish. The title is inspired by one of my favorite memoirs about identity, Rebecca Walker’s Black, White, and Jewish. Her entire book is remarkable and deals with her struggle to find herself, which community she belongs in, and if her three identities can be one in the same. Because I identify with so much of her book, I will be reading sections of it that I find the most poignant in comparisson to my journey. I cannot speak for Rebecca, I can only speak for myself but as I start to re-examine who I am, I identify in this order; Black. Gay. and Jewish.
Black.
Growing up in Toledo, Ohio in the eighties by two driven parents made me a driven, head-strong, strong-willed child. My father is an entrepreneur and my mother gave up her career to raise my younger sister and I. We live in a Victorian Mansion in a historical neighborhood which is generally considered a bad neighborhood, meaning that it’s predominately black. Our home is situated on a corner surrounded mainly by rental homes occupied by careless tenants and absent landlords. This could have been the reason that my father started buying entire blocks, house by house around us. This could have also been the reason that my sister and I were given every freedom except to never leave the imposing wrought iron fence that surrounded our property. The way that it was situated was so my sister and I were inside with our large home and carriage house while the other black neighborhood kids were looking in.
I never questioned or thought about who I was as a black little girl. My interactions with family were always positive and my interactions with friends were as well. It wasn’t until 4th grade when my world was turned upside down. Walker writes,
{Walker Quote 1}
In fourth grade I transferred from a non-denominational Christian school my parents drove us to, 20 miles away. Calvary Christian School was ethnically diverse. My best friend, Tamara, was a black girl that I adored. She was my very best friend and we spent a lot of time together. I loved her and as a child does, so much that I faked an eye exam so I could get glasses, too, because she was made fun of for getting glasses in the first grade. My “boyfriend’s” name was Joey, he was white. My other “boyfriend” was Jamal, he was black. My two other best friends, Leslie,and Julie were black and white. I left Calvary Christian School for St. Angela Hall, an all-black school I could’ve walked to but was still driven to. I sat up straight, without slouching, Sr. Martin commented on my first day. I beamed with pride as the target on my back started to peak from under my uniform. My hand always shot up when she asked a question and I answered them correctly, with perfect grammar and pronunciation, she noted. I beamed with pride as the target grew larger. I read well, my math scores were high, and I thrived under Sr. Martin’s watchful eye. I was happy and thought I had friends until Alisha, a bi-racial girl much bigger than me, threatened to beat me up for acting like a white girl. I ate lunch in the cafeteria but spent recess in the class room reading after being ridiculed for not knowing how to double dutch, or the steps to latest dance moves.
I went to St. Angela Hall for 2 years and spent my summer break at Summer Day Camp at the Catholic Club. There, too, the black kids laughed at me, called me names,and tormented me. I have a memory where I’m standing beside the pool in my swim suit waiting in line for the diving board. The kids were name-calling me and the normally tough skin I’d grown was getting thinner. I jumped into the pool when my time came and stayed under water for a long time crying. I swam far away from the diving board and clung to the side of the pool crying. I hated everything about my life, I didn’t know why the kids hated me when Iooked just like them.
In the 6th grade, St. Angela Hall closed and I attended Ladyfield. My sixth grade year I was the only black child in my class. There were two Indian girls, Purvi and Anita,and that was it. I felt nervous for the first time being black. If my peers at my all-black school were cruel, what would these kids do?
For a while, I didn’t speak-up in class and when Sr. Christine asked me a question on my first day I answered her quietly but correctly. She smiled back at me, and went to the next student, with no mention of my diction or grammar. I made friends easily and felt comfortable in my own skin again. Until my 8th grade year. I was at a high school football game holding the hand of my boyfriend. A group of older high school boys surrounded us, they were all black. One of them pulled a number 2 pencil out of his pocket, handed it to me, and asked me what color it was.
I remember holding the pencil in my 8th grade hand and looking at it. Their presence and undoubtedly their color silenced my voice. The pencil was yellow-ish, brownish,orange, I thought. They answered for me and told me that it was brown, like me, and that I had no business holding a white boy’s hand. I don’t remember the specifics of what happened next except that they crowded us, overtook us. I managed to get out of the circle of angry faces spitting hatred but my white junior high boyfriend remained inside. Another classmate, male, white and older-looking for his age managed to deflect the mob to himself, and his older brother and their friends. On the ride home in the back of the mini van with my boyfriend who wouldn’t hold my hand and the other boys who were bruised and injured on my behalf I felt black. My blackness was on their faces, and the faces of the parents that waited for us at the sullen pizza party that was to follow. The looks of my friends and of their parents are kept tightly tucked into a compartment of my mind. It wasn’t the first time that I was being questioned not by me but by other people who did not or could not understand me.
I thrived in high school with the girls from my grade school in tow. I made new friends of various ethnic backgrounds and even had two close black friends. Still, whenever I was in a predominately black space I as singled out as the Oreo, or the Cracker. When I was older, the name calling came both from peers and some members of my family. Walker remembers being in the South and her cousins calling her Cracker {Walker 2}
My father once told me, “When you’re with white people, it’s okay to speak like that but when you’re around black folks you should try to sound black” What does black sound like? I asked. What does white sound like? He spent upwards of $7000 a year to educate me in primary and high school annually and he wants me to use double negatives and drop the “N-Word?” I am who I am, I told him over and over again. And over and over again I was a disappointment to him. I wasn’t black enough, I wasn’t proud.
I took an English course in College called African American literature pre1900s. The professor was a black woman who sounded exactly like me. She was smart, she was caring, she was engaging, she was incredibly beautiful. Dreadlocks and natural hair isn’t a huge phenomenon in Toledo, Ohio and having this beautiful dreadlocked woman teaching and inspiring me helped me to realize that I am black. I am a black woman and the only person I needed to answer to was my self.
