Thread by @Ebonyteach

There were layers to what happened last week, though. I've supported the person who sparked it, bought her book, and just skimmed her response post over lunch. And... when I went to her talk, she definitely emphasized her home & community culture as a factor in her success.

Beyond a particular digital celebrity's ego, I think that these conversations deserves more nuance. Goes deeper than folk "wanting it both ways" -- they are both in a sense. Folks are from one culture; they're steeped in another. That's hard.

My upbringing wasn't bicultural. With the exception of 1-2 lines, I have zero known non-Black American ancestry post-1865.

But I did grow up bi-regional, lol, if that's a thing. Southern father & grandmother, Northern mother & grandfather. Helps me imagine the immigrant dilemma.

Because honestly, I felt like an outsider to the proverbial US immigrant narrative until I read Isabel Wilkerson's THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS. That highlighted the regional differences that were marked in my family, and that made my friendships & first romance difficult.

One example: I got into it on FB last week over my reminisces about my Mississippi-born father requiring us to say "Ma'am" and "Sir" to anyone over 18 upon pain of death, lol. It was weird asf in 1980s Detroit to say it, even offensive to Northern Black folk. But Dad was like...

If regional differences are weird like that, I can only imagine how much more fraught it must be to grow up with one culture at home, and another at school & in your neighborhood. I'm sympathetic. And US folk *in general* (not just Black people) can be xenophobic.

But. *But.*

Black American DOS have been in a centuries-long fight for personhood in one of a few Diasporic contexts (don't @ me; said "few," not only) where we're a distinct, embattled minority.

That's different. That's unique. And yes, having our particular culture *at home* is a thing.

History matters. So does timing. Pre-1965, comments about Black folks "not having a culture" or "not having values" would've seemed ridiculous.

Since 1965, the full brunt of White supremacist backlash has sought to punish us for the midcentury miracle of human rights.

It's one thing to read about it in class, or watch a documentary. It's quite another to have family narratives that stretch back to the mid-to-late 1800s about the extreme, unwarranted, unrelenting, dehumanizing violence in a nation purporting to be the global arbiter of freedom.

It's one thing to observe the effects of being less than 15% of a country for 4-5 generations (our % was higher during the slavery period) in the lives of your friends, teachers, and classmates.

It's quite another to carry that specific trauma in your DNA & consciousness.

These conversations are not new. Hashed it out in undergrad & grad school with friends whose families were from other places. Some disagreed with me -- and listen, I hear y'all. "Effie, we all got pain." Gotcha. But Black American DOS pain is specific to a context we're still in.

Beyond any and all xenophobia, which ain't cool, some of the Black American DOS response is sheer exhaustion. We tired & there are fewer places for renewal & restoration -- there is no Promised Land for us, because this sure ain't it.

For us, the United States of America is the scene of the crime. The world wants us to forget, and criticizes us for not just shaking off our bleeding wounds. "Walk it off!"

When folk who look like us come along & tell us to "walk it off?" Maaaan. Salt in those wounds. For real.

In #TheDarkFantastic, and in a couple forthcoming pieces, I write about the necessity of imaginative & narrative escape for Black people -- I am indebted to Schomburg Center director Kevin Young's *The Grey Album* for sparking that intellectual journey in my own work.

The problem of escape is profound for Black American DOS. Beyond all talk about pain & survival, we've had to evolve into escape artists. 😂 In fact, we can escape in plain sight.

Our culture was -- and is -- the only escape that we have. There is no other refuge for us.

Just a few thoughts. But most of all, I think it's important for us to respect & love each other, no matter our background. Peace! #TwitterOff