"Okay, here's the secret. It's not really a secret, but I'll frame it to you as one. The same people who despise you for identifying as mixed? Those are the same people who, when you do identify as black, despise you for not being black enough. And there's nothing you can actually do to be black enough, for them. Because it's not really how you act that they despise. It's you. Your very existence." Loving Day, p. 123
When I finished Loving Day a week or two ago, I was left feeling a little confused about my feelings for the novel. So, I decided to let it settle...and settle...and settle. And now, I think I've spent enough time away from it to really be able to reflect on it.
Mat Johnson wrote a beautiful, satirical criticism of colorism in the Black community. It was eloquent and honest, and I really connected to it in a lot of ways that I hadn't initially expected to. But god, it also really pissed me off. Maybe it was Johnson's honesty and satirization of Black colorism, two of the things that really stuck with me in a positive way, that pissed me off. Sometimes it's very hard to have the truth shoved in your face when you've been spending most of your life trying to ignore it, because that's almost how you have to learn to survive as a white as snow woman of color in this racist society. Maybe I identified with Warren's self-deprecation as a light-skinned Black man who wanted to fit in with his darker brothers and sisters, and that's why I was pissed off while I was reading. I guess that makes sense, because it's not the best feeling in the world when you're forced to hold a mirror up to the things you hate about yourself and say, "Hey. It's pretty stupid that you feel that way...it's pretty stupid that anyone feels that way." I suppose that, in a way, Warren's journey of self discovery through the novel reflected my own journey, in a different (more heightened) way. I, for example, have never planned to set anything my white father owned on fire as a way to really erase who he was (and to get a boat load of insurance money), and hopefully, I never will.
The quote at the beginning of this post is, to me, one of the most important things said in this novel. Sunita Habersham, the woman who whirls into Warren Duffy's life at a comic book convention and changes the way he understands his racial identity, says this when Warren asks her what the "big secret" is about her being okay with being mixed, and identifying as a mixed person. Sun sets him straight, saying that there is no "secret" to being mixed--that it's all just the shit Black-identified people project onto people who embrace every part of their identity, not just the Black part. This is so relevant to the colorism that, in my opinion, is still as prevalent in the 21st century African-American community as it was in the 19th and 20th centuries. As I've said in my previous posts, there tends to be this fear of not being "enough" when you're biracial/mixed; you're afraid that you're not black enough, not white enough, not anything enough. And it's not just Black people who can pass for white, like Warren, Tal, and Sun--there are people that reside at the Melange Center who are dark-skinned, and yet they struggle just as hard with their racial identity as a light-skinned member would. Warren refers to the M.C. inhabitants as being the "mis-matched socks" of the world, people who don't quite know where they measure up in terms of their racial/ethnic identity. Like Warren says, there are light-skinned Black people who identity as Black, and light-skinned Black people who identify as white...but then there's the rest of them, who don't really know where they fit in.
I think one of the main points Johnson was trying (and succeeding) to make in writing this novel is that it's stupid for there to be a huge discrepancy between mixed people and everybody else. There isn't a huge secret to being okay with your racial identity, because all you need to do is have the strength to say, "Hey! Fuck anybody who doesn't like how I identify! They don't define me!" and then you're going to be fine. This is, of course, easier said than done, but nonetheless...it is possible. Even though Roslyn, the M.C. founder and director, is a quasi-cult leader in some respects, she helmed a whole community that was based upon the acceptance of differences, and she did everything she could (as a quasi-cult leader...) to teach her community members that it was okay to be unsure of your racial identity, because for Christ's sake...race isn't even a real thing!!! Of course, a lot of the things Roslyn believed were as problematic as Warren's the things old crush Tosha believed. While Tosha discouraged Warren from hanging out with his "Oreo" friends (I kind of hate Tosha, by the way), Roslyn seemed very happy with creating a separate community of mixed people, one that excluded anyone else, which, to me, seemed pretty silly, since you honestly will not find a Black American who isn't mixed in some way, so why exclude anyone?? I think I may be asking the kinds of questions that Johnson was hoping his readers would ask...
Loving Day was truly an amazing read, and I'm very glad I read it. I think it helped me reexamine a lot of my own beliefs about Blackness and Whiteness and Anythingness, through humor, drama, romance, and satire. I've always thought about my race, and how I identify, and how other people want me to identify, but it wasn't until I started this blog, and this independent study, that I really started to think about it, you know? Like, think about it in terms of how I can grow as a Black woman who passes for white every. damn. day. I have a lot of gratitude for writers and artists like Mat Johnson, because they show me that there is a space in the academic and literary worlds for people like me, and that gives me a lot of hope.
I'm going to end this reflection with a quote from the very end of the novel. Here's a little context: Throughout the entire novel, Warren, Tal, Sun, and the members of the M.C. have been seeing these ghosts at Warren's father's house. Initially, Warren thinks they are two crackheads loitering on his property, but it isn't until he, Tal, and Sun see them having sex mid air outside the second floor bathroom window that it becomes clear they're supernatural forces of some kind. It's made clear that these two ghosts are male and female...but there's a twist: the male ghost is black, and the female ghost is white. Tal names them "The First Interracial Couple," and it really starts to catch on with the Melange folks. Warren is skeptical, but at the end of everything, he finally opens his mind a little more.
"I see, even from here. One is a man. One is a woman. He, black. She, white.
Standing together. Staring, across the ghetto grass. But I'm not scared. I hold on to Tal, who breathes in more life and future. I have everything but nothing that can be taken from me.
I'm not scared. I see them. I see what they are, or what they were. Just lovers. Just people." p. 287
And that's the thing, I guess. We're just people.
When I finished Loving Day a week or two ago, I was left feeling a little confused about my feelings for the novel. So, I decided to let it settle...and settle...and settle. And now, I think I've spent enough time away from it to really be able to reflect on it.
Mat Johnson wrote a beautiful, satirical criticism of colorism in the Black community. It was eloquent and honest, and I really connected to it in a lot of ways that I hadn't initially expected to. But god, it also really pissed me off. Maybe it was Johnson's honesty and satirization of Black colorism, two of the things that really stuck with me in a positive way, that pissed me off. Sometimes it's very hard to have the truth shoved in your face when you've been spending most of your life trying to ignore it, because that's almost how you have to learn to survive as a white as snow woman of color in this racist society. Maybe I identified with Warren's self-deprecation as a light-skinned Black man who wanted to fit in with his darker brothers and sisters, and that's why I was pissed off while I was reading. I guess that makes sense, because it's not the best feeling in the world when you're forced to hold a mirror up to the things you hate about yourself and say, "Hey. It's pretty stupid that you feel that way...it's pretty stupid that anyone feels that way." I suppose that, in a way, Warren's journey of self discovery through the novel reflected my own journey, in a different (more heightened) way. I, for example, have never planned to set anything my white father owned on fire as a way to really erase who he was (and to get a boat load of insurance money), and hopefully, I never will.
The quote at the beginning of this post is, to me, one of the most important things said in this novel. Sunita Habersham, the woman who whirls into Warren Duffy's life at a comic book convention and changes the way he understands his racial identity, says this when Warren asks her what the "big secret" is about her being okay with being mixed, and identifying as a mixed person. Sun sets him straight, saying that there is no "secret" to being mixed--that it's all just the shit Black-identified people project onto people who embrace every part of their identity, not just the Black part. This is so relevant to the colorism that, in my opinion, is still as prevalent in the 21st century African-American community as it was in the 19th and 20th centuries. As I've said in my previous posts, there tends to be this fear of not being "enough" when you're biracial/mixed; you're afraid that you're not black enough, not white enough, not anything enough. And it's not just Black people who can pass for white, like Warren, Tal, and Sun--there are people that reside at the Melange Center who are dark-skinned, and yet they struggle just as hard with their racial identity as a light-skinned member would. Warren refers to the M.C. inhabitants as being the "mis-matched socks" of the world, people who don't quite know where they measure up in terms of their racial/ethnic identity. Like Warren says, there are light-skinned Black people who identity as Black, and light-skinned Black people who identify as white...but then there's the rest of them, who don't really know where they fit in.
I think one of the main points Johnson was trying (and succeeding) to make in writing this novel is that it's stupid for there to be a huge discrepancy between mixed people and everybody else. There isn't a huge secret to being okay with your racial identity, because all you need to do is have the strength to say, "Hey! Fuck anybody who doesn't like how I identify! They don't define me!" and then you're going to be fine. This is, of course, easier said than done, but nonetheless...it is possible. Even though Roslyn, the M.C. founder and director, is a quasi-cult leader in some respects, she helmed a whole community that was based upon the acceptance of differences, and she did everything she could (as a quasi-cult leader...) to teach her community members that it was okay to be unsure of your racial identity, because for Christ's sake...race isn't even a real thing!!! Of course, a lot of the things Roslyn believed were as problematic as Warren's the things old crush Tosha believed. While Tosha discouraged Warren from hanging out with his "Oreo" friends (I kind of hate Tosha, by the way), Roslyn seemed very happy with creating a separate community of mixed people, one that excluded anyone else, which, to me, seemed pretty silly, since you honestly will not find a Black American who isn't mixed in some way, so why exclude anyone?? I think I may be asking the kinds of questions that Johnson was hoping his readers would ask...
Loving Day was truly an amazing read, and I'm very glad I read it. I think it helped me reexamine a lot of my own beliefs about Blackness and Whiteness and Anythingness, through humor, drama, romance, and satire. I've always thought about my race, and how I identify, and how other people want me to identify, but it wasn't until I started this blog, and this independent study, that I really started to think about it, you know? Like, think about it in terms of how I can grow as a Black woman who passes for white every. damn. day. I have a lot of gratitude for writers and artists like Mat Johnson, because they show me that there is a space in the academic and literary worlds for people like me, and that gives me a lot of hope.
I'm going to end this reflection with a quote from the very end of the novel. Here's a little context: Throughout the entire novel, Warren, Tal, Sun, and the members of the M.C. have been seeing these ghosts at Warren's father's house. Initially, Warren thinks they are two crackheads loitering on his property, but it isn't until he, Tal, and Sun see them having sex mid air outside the second floor bathroom window that it becomes clear they're supernatural forces of some kind. It's made clear that these two ghosts are male and female...but there's a twist: the male ghost is black, and the female ghost is white. Tal names them "The First Interracial Couple," and it really starts to catch on with the Melange folks. Warren is skeptical, but at the end of everything, he finally opens his mind a little more.
"I see, even from here. One is a man. One is a woman. He, black. She, white.
Standing together. Staring, across the ghetto grass. But I'm not scared. I hold on to Tal, who breathes in more life and future. I have everything but nothing that can be taken from me.
I'm not scared. I see them. I see what they are, or what they were. Just lovers. Just people." p. 287
And that's the thing, I guess. We're just people.