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I got the idea for this page from an article in Harper's Magazine July 2000 issue. That article was titled "Race, The final Frontier" It was full of questions by both blacks and whites, some were about just light cultural differences others ran to deeper misunderstandings between the races. Unfortunately they listed the questions but didn't list any answers. I found that I didn't even know the answers to some of the questions about blacks not alone knowing the answers to the ones about whites. For some of the questions both from blacks and whites I found that I knew the answers so I will post here the answers to the question that I know and will post any questions anyone chooses to send to me. Since these are questions that you would normally be to embarrassed to ask I will not post your name or your e-mail address, just the questions themselves. So you can feel perfectly free to ask anything you want. Over the years I have noticed that once people got to know me that they would come to me with the most unexpected questions regarding being black. Even more than what I receive about being Jewish. People who ask are always relieved that I don't berate them for asking and feel empowered to ask even more. There are those that feel to be asked questions about the different races is in itself rude and racist but I feel just the opposite; that if you don't ask about the differences you notice, than we will never have a better understanding of each other. Lately I have heard more and more African Americans when asked about issues pertaining to race by white people say that to expect them to answer for African Americans as a group is in itself racist and that they can only answer for themselves and from their own experience. Well this response is a cop out. As Africans in America we share some of the same basic experience. To deny that is to deny the truth about ourselves and the society we live in.
It seems to me that a great many generation X whites have chosen to act black. Why?
White Americans have emulated and then absorbed portions of black culture as far back as the turn of the last century. When Scott Joplin wrote ragtime music at the turn of the century it was mostly for white listeners. If you list the major music styles of the twentieth century most of them either came directly from the black culture or were adaptations of that culture. I don't think that even anthropologist are sure why African American culture plays such a large roll in the arts. But it definitely is not a new phenomenon. To see some more on this phenomenon check out the movie "Black and White" for a review see the New York Times Movie Review.
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