thinking about shani davis. he's the first black guy to win an individual gold in the winter olympics - EVER - and he can't seem to get a break. i was reading an article yesterday that seemed to say that his reaction to winning is bizarre. but it's not, really.
I had to explain this to my roomie once. She comes from a midwestern family that celebrates everything in a really big way- holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, this and that. It's great - they're a wonderfully loving and generous family. Sometimes she doesn't understand me and my family's more...low key way of doing things.
For instance, when I had that article published. I knew my family was happy for me - but my dad just sent an email that said, "Proud of you, girl." When I took a risk to change jobs and do something I really really wanted and it actually worked out, my sister simply said, "I knew you could do it." It was the same when I graduated college, went to grad school, finished my degree, moved to Chicago - my family just said, "We're proud of you. We knew you could do it."
And so I understand Shani Davis and his mother. They're a family who've had to work extra hard to get where they are. And for them, as it was for me and my family, the work never stops. It's hard to let go of that work, to relax, and say, "Ok, I can take a breath now. I can take a break now." There's never a break. Not when you're the first. There's a whole lot of black folk looking at you, smiling in pride, but that's a heavy burden - the First. There's a whole lot of white people looking at you - watching you. They may or may not be waiting for you to crack, but let's just assume the worst (there are no surprises when you think of the worst). Someone wants you to fail. You're the First, so if you screw up, you screw up big.
And so you work even harder - because who cares if people like/don't like you? Being a success trumps that.
So I wrote the reporter and told her all this. I said, Please understand; what you trivialize by calling a 'mood swing' is a way we black people have for dealing with and preparing for success. Allow Davis to process this huge moment, this culmination of all his hard work, in his own way. And also understand how condescending and problematic it is for the press (the - ahem - white press) to say to a black man, "Now show me how happy you are!" In my community, we call that minstrelsy and we don't do that anymore.
[sister gal even wrote me back and said thanks for giving her a perspective she'd never had before. she even said mine was the best letter she had about the subject. yay for me - i get a gold star for race relations. a bridge was built. that's my good deed for Black History Month.]
