Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend

by Ben Philippe

  “Instead of minding me, maybe use this time to bond with your dog, who clearly hates you, by the way.”

  “My dog does not hate me!”

  “Your dog absolutely hates you. That thing darted away from you the second it was off the leash. Does it hide under the table when you want to cuddle at home, too?”

  You’ve always had zingers. After all, you learned English from sitcoms, thinking there was an invisible audience that could be made to laugh at any point.

  The people looking from a safe distance are not laughing, but entertained, though uncomfortable. The bearded guy nearby keeps throwing you glances like the mall cop he was born to be. The threatening “Is everything okay there?” is ready on his lips. You’ve somehow never been in a fight. Not a real one. This guy, you’ll fight. You’ll use your teeth if you have to and strictly target his nuts.

  You realize you’re still ranting and whatever you’re saying must be stinging. Something about the levels of sadness of her life. You didn’t write it down. Maybe Mark had a point; maybe you do talk too much. But part of you wants to see if you could make her cry.

  “You shouldn’t talk to people that way!” she sputters, embarrassed and bright red, pretending to pay attention to her dog and not the conversation she started. They change colors so easily, don’t they?

  I should, actually. More often, I should talk to people exactly like this.

  “And I shouldn’t be able to pick up your body odor inside a dog park but here we are.”

  “That is so rude! This is a friendly park! Your dog seemed bored! I was trying to help and you’re getting very agitated.” It’s an attempt to flip the narrative, to turn me into the unstable Black guy making everything about race. She’s playing to the audience, too. Racist is the last thing I want to call her; I haven’t even commented on her hair or noticeably yellow teeth yet.

  You transition the building aneurysm into an exhale. You’re a polite Canadian but also half social butterly like your mom and half child whipper like your dad. It’s a volatile combo. What would Belzie do? What would Robert do? What do you want to do right now in front of a perfectly nice audience of casual park nodders and chitchatters who until now probably considered you one of the polite good ones?

  “Go fist yourself, lady,” you enunciate clearly, standing up and no longer smiling. If they won’t see you as a person, why should you? Leave the infinite patience and grace to Michelle Obama; I was always more of a Muhammad Ali guy: when they go low, you duck and counter with an uppercut.

  “I’m not your friend. I’m the Black guy you thought was walking someone else’s dog. Put on some deodorant.”

  You whistle, and Blue startles from her stick to follow you toward the exit. She’s a very good dog like that, provided there are no distractions around. One squirrel, and your dramatic exit would have been vanquished.

  It’s the first time you’ve cursed out an adult, someone who was already an adult when you were a child in Haiti, and it feels good.

  You return to the park every weekday evening at the exact time and claim your space, even when it’s inconvenient to your schedule. One day, you see her walking toward the park. She makes eye contact with you and then turns around with her two mutts, chin high. A weird part of you wants to hop on a bench and start howling in victory.

  After that, you stop paying attention to her entirely. You don’t know if you’re a dog park bully or a dog park hero, and in truth, you don’t care. You simply wish life didn’t involve making so many first impressions without realizing it. What it must be like to be a blank slate to the world, a racial blank slate that can wear a hoodie and walk his dog without enduring petty microaggressions from iron-haired dog park Karens that never heard of Emmett Till.

  You’re twenty-eight, and then twenty-nine, and then thirty, and your world is English. You’re a bona fide New Yorker now. It’s Mother’s Day. Three Mother’s Days in a row, in fact.

  You’ve sent Belzie a bouquet of gigantic flowers, or a box of gigantic chocolates, or both, and later, you’ll video chat together. You always remember all the important dates and holidays. You’re a good son that way even though you’re not as close as you once were. Maybe it’s because you’re an adult now and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

  The first time it happens you’re appropriately on social media. Of course you were: cataloging and ranking one another’s memories and lives was a system designed to trigger panic attacks. The dry heaving is built into its code.

  You find a nice photo of her, from the Sherbrooke era. You’re a cute kid posing right next to her without a scar to show. You write a nice caption that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It will get a lot of likes and you’ll move on with your day, but only one of those things happens.

  Because all you can think about is the fact that one day she won’t be there. There will be black shoes and folding chairs at a reception. You see it so clearly that you already want to throw up. She’ll die and you’ll be all alone, across three countries all at once.

  You start to tear up, and then cry, and then wail quietly to catch your breath until it hurts your chest. No glass of water or open window helps. You’re so alone that it hurts. Sit with it in the bathroom and lock the door, even though you live alone, crying into your dog until she no longer knows what to do and starts to whimper, too.

  Every year you want to call her, more than anything, but you know you can’t call. She’ll get sad that you’re sad. No, she’ll be devastated that you’re sad. She’ll think she wasn’t a good mom. She won’t understand that what this overwhelming sadness means is actually that you owe her everything and that everything good about you comes from her. Please don’t think I was trying to leave you behind, too. I promise I wasn’t. It just maybe happened. Please, God, don’t die. Please never die, Mom. There’s no one else. I’ll be too alone.

  A few hours later, you will wake up, groggy, with a barking dog and ceramic tile imprinted on your cheek. Three years in a row, the bathroom floor is always where it stops. You hate Mother’s Day. It only makes you think of pain ahead.

  You’re thirty years old, and your world is English. You’ve settled in at 165 pounds and go on dates wearing nice jackets and expensive jeans, perfecting the art of dressing like a Black man who gets called “sir” at restaurants.

  You’re a published author, which makes you both accomplished and interesting when advertised in a format that requires swiping. You try to meet people right away if only to pretend at growth.

  Nicole is a Black law student from Washington, DC, who does not see what the big fuss about hiking is, which puts her above 90 percent of the population. You’re not spiritual and, thank God, neither is she. Rather, she’s blunt, straightforward, and has the confidence of someone who has seen a lot of bullshit but tries not to let it sour her.

  You meet her after work at a dimly lit bar with expensive cocktails in a hotel lobby where she has perfect posture and her freshly ironed hair catches the light when she takes a sip of wine. You might call her bougie in the same way you’d call me an Oreo.

  The conversation is fun but challenging, which you like. It’s your third date together, but there won’t be a fourth.

  “So, you don’t want kids?” she asks, twirling her glass with two fingers, watching me. “Never?”

  It’s something I had mentioned on our last date and that I suspected would come back up again. It usually does.

  “Never,” I repeat, without any bite. “I take it you do?”

  “At least two.” She nods. I get the logic. Only children grow up lonely and crooked.

  “And you’re sure?” she asks again at the end of the night, as I walk her to the Chambers Street station. I nod. I’m as sure as she is. I suspect we both made our decision at an early age, and neither of us is looking to be convinced. Leaving a legacy is profoundly overrated.

  “Fair enough.” She smiles, and we kiss one last time. “I’ll look for your next book, even if I don’t read it. Suppor
ting Black authors and all that.”

  I laugh and take a car home. It’s a little sad to never see her again, but we’re busy grownups and maybe both a little jaded these days. Who isn’t?

  Lexicon to a Black Experience Narrative

  Affirmative Action:

  Education, employment, and housing policies that support members of disadvantaged groups that have suffered past systemic discrimination. Also, a filter through which every Black person’s accomplishment can be lessened and dismissed as a participation ribbon.

  Afro-Punk:

  The participation of Black people in punk music and other alternative and predominantly white subcultures. Or, the feeling you might get wearing a trilby hat and black nail polish on two nails at a Montreal Vans Warped Tour concert in 2008. See your Dead Kennedys, your Wesley Willis Fiasco, your Suffrajett. (Regular early ’00s punk is also very good but—and I cannot stress this enough—extremely white.)

  African American Vernacular English (AAVE):

  AKA Black vernacular, AKA Ebonics. (Don’t call it Ebonics.) A vernacular primarily associated with middle- and lower-class Black people, at the casual end of the sociolinguistic continuum and at the front end of a lot of online communities.

  Basically, all those terms you Google after stumbling across them on Twitter. See also: bae, basic, ratchet, lit, shade, and all those podcast names taken from Black culture by two white roommates in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for the name of their podcast.

  An “Am I Racist?” Moment:

  A moment of self-reflection in which a Person of Non-Color catches themselves expressing a racist thought, feeling, or, in some cases, shouting some slurs. See Michael Richards, circa 2006. Level-10 Racists don’t tend to experience this syndrome because their racism simply isn’t jarring to them. To them, calling a Black person the N-word is the same as referring to a mug as a cup: a distinction without a difference. These are much messier moments, baked in at the intersection of you being a generally good person while also being aware that we exist in a world in which race can be weaponized and sometimes involuntarily flexing your grasp on that weapon.

  Ashy:

  Ashiness occurs when Black skin goes unlotioned. At a glance, it might look like you’ve stepped in a pile of ashes. Now, it’s no dryer than white skin—it’s just more visually striking. Moisturize and it goes away. Socially, however, it is more than a temporary condition; it denotes a lack of self-awareness and self-love, frankly. People will be rude about it.

  Example:

  “Why are you wearing flip-flops, Ben?”

  “Morgan, the movie literally starts in twenty minutes!”

  “We’re not going anywhere until you go back up to your room and either put on some shoes or moisturize those ashy-ass toes.”

  Beyoncé:

  The alleged Queen Mother. I’d personally say (oh boy . . . safe space, Ben, safe space) that I like Beyoncé a solid 8/10. It’s an unsafe state of existence in a world where nothing short of 10/10 is acceptable for many. Confession: I’ve opted out of seeing her in concert. Twice. Once for work and another time simply because I was terrified that I would find her underwhelming in person and be unable to hide this “eh” reaction from my friends. Like, then what? That’s the last shot of a Twilight Zone episode I do not want to live in.

  Black people are mostly cool about it. They sum it up to my lifestyle of bad taste. Like so many things in life, it’s young white women you have to look out for. They love Beyoncé. They’ll dig their nails into your arm while telling you how much they love Beyoncé. Your cries of anguish will go unanswered as they start to sing the lyrics to “Single Ladies.” If they could, they would storm Beyoncé’s castle, hold her by the throat, and inhale her essence, leaving her a skeleton. This would not altogether satisfy them, mind you. Their glare would turn to Lizzo next.

  Black Illuminati:

  The internet gets bored and comes up with nonsense. There’s nothing to this. Don’t worry about it. Where would we even get the resources to meet every three months at 405 specific locations around this country? You sound unhinged right now . . . Are you okay? I worry, as your Black friend.

  Black Twitter:

  That secret club I’m not a part of even though I’m verified on Twitter. Whatever. Lame. I don’t even care. Nor would I even have the time to be let into the inner sanctum of that secret garden of dank memes and content curated by self-actualized twenty-four-year-olds with impeccable joke delivery. “Hi, I’m Jaboukie Young-White! I’m woke, dashing, and have been on The Daily Show since early pubescence!” Stupid Millennials and their phones.

  Black Women’s Hair:

  See also: edges. See also: braids. Black women’s hair takes effort, some measure of science, and sometimes just plain old buckets of money. Admire, but keep your hands to yourself. I bear no responsibility if you’re caught reaching for a feel of the texture of the Black woman in line ahead of us. I’ll take a step back and pretend to be a stranger texting while you’re eviscerated. (Kidding: I’ll obviously be filming the whole thing.)

  “Is this your boy?” she might ask me while your eyes plead with me for assistance.

  “I don’t know this fool!” will be the only reply.

  Bootstraps:

  A hollow life philosophy that your white dad gave you the summer he made you get a paper route and that you might have internalized into thinking that you’ve earned every good thing that’s happened to you while the people who do not have those things have simply chosen not to work as hard as you. What a steaming pile of poop, that one. To quote Martin Luther King Jr.: “It’s a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” Everything you’ve earned or built was the result of gifts from the world and opportunities to thrive that others are systemically denied. (This is not an indictment of your character; I’m sure you still wake up super early.) And while we’re at it: there is no such thing as a self-made billionaire. The numbers simply do not add up.

  Bougie:

  Short for bourgeoisie. Elements of Blackness perceived as upscale from a blue-collar point of view. It can be an insult for someone putting on airs or a simple descriptor. Or even a bit of both . . . For example, I’m currently taking sips from a very bougie bottle of imported beer while writing. Bougie sips. Yummies.

  Caucasity:

  An effortless second-nature audacity restricted to white people. Ever been in line behind a white person berating a minimum-wage minority employee? Has the aggrieved customer ever then turned to you and scoffed in an I mean, really! way meant to signal that you’re both on the same team against this minimum-wage employee’s incompetence? That, my friend, is a caucacious look. Little Smithie gets arrested drunk outside his gated community, goes, “Oink, oink!” in the back of the cop car the whole way, and is still safely dropped at his parents’ doorstep? The absolute caucasity of that boy.

  Colorism:

  The discrimination and self-hate that occur around the wildly erroneous notion that the lighter the skin tone of a Black person, the better they are in one way or another. Lighter-skinned Black people are often openly or subconsciously believed to be smarter, more educated, and more beautiful than darker-skinned Black people. It comes down to the idea that not only has your Blackness been diluted but that your whiteness has been increased. It’s incredibly screwed up and somewhat normalized across all cultures. See all the languages of all the whitening and skin bleaching lotions and serums across the various beauty stores in a place like New York City.

  Women suffer disproportionately from it, as they tend to do in all appearance-related matters in the world. (As they tend to do in all matters in the world.) Imagine looking in the mirror and considering yourself ugly because your Black skin is too Black? What barriers can you place around that thought to keep it from spreading? Especially when the content pouring into your phone seems to say that you’re not wrong.

  Nicole: “Boo-hoo, Ben! Do you know how messed up it is to swipe right on a Blac
k man and for your thought to be Oooh, I hope he likes Black women?”

  Field Dreams:

  I dream a lot about being a slave these days. It’s very off-putting; like a weird set dressing over otherwise perfectly mundane, borderline-clichéd dreams.

  I will find myself at the dentist’s or back in high school, in an exam I did not study for—only the dentist will be dressed like the massa of the house, the classroom is a small wooden shack surrounded by scarred slaves in rough linen passing notes or cheating off one another in an exam. The contents of the dreams themselves never quite acknowledge this horrific setting. My dentist will ask if I saw Trump’s latest tweetstorm and what an idiot that guy is, although Biden is also out of touch with the cultural moment. He’ll transition into asking me for a recommendation letter for his daughter. The only other thing I can remember once I wake up is his whip that was leaning against the door behind him the whole time. (Thanks for that one, America.)

  Fleek:

  That thing you should stop saying. Like, now.

  The Habitual Be:

  Yeah, son: we’re getting grammatical up in here! The habitual be refers to the use of be in conjunction with a present-tense verb or adjective, often within the African American Vernacular English. This is done to indicate a perpetual (or habitual) action or state.

  See, it’s a common misconception that AAVE speakers simply replace “is” with “be” across all tenses, with no added complexity. That is patently false. To be reading means to habitually read, not presently. Right now you’re reading. When your friends go out without you and wonder what you do with your evening, they might suppose you always be reading. In that context, be becomes synonymous with “is always” or “am always.”

  The takeaway for you here is that, AAVE? Yeah, it’s a real language. With its own grammatical rules. It’s not slang or a lack of education. Black kids who speak it fluently are absolutely bilingual. How do I know this? Because I am a Black person who doesn’t speak it. It’s the awkward language I borrow and step around in. I’m grateful to understand it and envious of kids who rattle it off seamlessly. You don’t have to teach it in your classroom (although, you totally could) but put some respect on it.