If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m not the typical Black chick. I didn’t vote for the first Black (biracial, really) President of the United States, I’m married to a White guy, my close friends aren’t Black, and I’ve spent a good part of my childhood accused of being a sellout because I articulated myself well and listened primarily to music other than hip-hop and R&B.
Every now and then I really struggle with making the color of my skin connect with the person inside of it. I struggle with issues connected to my racial identity, often feeling insecure and overanalyzing why I don’t have any close Black friends.
But then there are other times when I realize I’m simply a Black woman who just doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with most of my Black peers.
A few years ago, I held a summer internship at a popular Black magazine. I felt fortunate in obtaining an internship and being part of the company’s history and legacy. I learned a lot during my 3 months there, but even as a temporary employee, knew I didn’t belong there. Most of the people I worked with possessed a certain amount of Black pride—I’m not talking about Blacks are the greatest race on earth or anything like that. My coworkers carried themselves with a sort of confidence and grace that seemed to announce, “I’m Black, I work for a prestigious Black magazine, and I’m honored to represent Black people in a way that encourages them to better themselves.” Not that that’s bad but I’ve never seen myself that way. I’ve always spent most of my life wishing to be someone else when it came to my personality; it should come as no surprise that it wasn’t any different when it came to my skin color.
After my internship ended, I subscribed to the magazine for 3 years (mostly with the hope that I’d write freelance articles for it; never did). At first, I read the magazine voraciously each month but then grew more and more disenchanted with it to the point where I began tossing it into the garbage for the last year of my subscription once it arrived in the mail.
And somehow a year ago, I was anonymously subscribed to Essence magazine, which is unfortunate as I’ve never cared for the magazine much at all and have taken to tossing it in the trash most months as well (or I’ll take it to the hair salon and leave it there).
The idea of exclusive racial magazines bothers me. I think there was once a time for Ebony, Jet, Essence, and other popular Black magazines, but I think that time has come and gone. (Although subscriptions, of course, contradict me.)
Many of these magazines arose during a time of racial tension. Ebony and Jet began publishing in the late 40s/early 50s of the 20th century while Essence started in 1968 and Black Enterprise began in 1970. Even after the Civil Rights Act, equality and integration still had a long way to go. Whites were reluctant to include any other race in their magazines so Blacks had to cater to their own demographic.
Forty years later, however, predominantly White magazines have made a concerted effort to include more diversity—not just Black people but also Hispanic, Asian, and other nationalities. (Although one could reasonably argue they still have a long way to go.) But Black magazines continue to cater strictly to Black people with little attempt at integration. Many of the articles infuriate me because they pit Black people against White people in various comparisons:
- Black families earn less than White familes
- Black women are less likely to be married than White women
- Black men are more likely to be in debt than White men
- Black children are less likely to get into Harvard than White kids
I’m being partially facetious with those bullet points but many of the comparisons run along those lines. These magazines rarely make comparisons against Hispanics (a race/nationality on track to overtake Whites/Caucasians as the majority).
I’m all for celebrating Black culture—not the color of our skin so much as many of the things common to American people of sub-Saharan African descent—but I just wish that Black people’s calls for equality and integration would ring true within our own community. I would love to see a magazine that caters to women of all skin colors, all hair types, all different backgrounds and nationalities. I would love to see a magazine in which you can’t predict the nationality of the person on the next page because it’s not all White or all Black. I want an magazine that’s not afraid to discuss the challenges of an integrated nation, the acceptance of interracial relationships, and the need for cultural sensitivity among different groups.
Do I need to start that too?
This Journey Is My Own 