Earlier this week, New York Magazine published an article entitled Black and White on Martha's Vineyard by Toure. Apparently, this article has created quite a bit of buzz and controversy in the African American community.
Here are a few excerpts from the piece:
"In 1912, a former slave named Charles Shearer opened the first summer
inn in Oak Bluffs that catered specifically to black patrons. Only a
few dozen blacks visited the island at the time, but over the years Oak
Bluffs has become the summer meeting place for scores of what could be
called the Only Ones—black professional and social elites who travel in
worlds where they’re often the only black person in the room. The Only
Ones typically break into fields or companies that admit few blacks,
move into neighborhoods where few blacks live, and send their kids to
mostly white schools. They are not running from their own—they’re
chasing after the best they can get. They aren’t assimilationist;
they’re ascensionist"
"The Only Ones deal with glass ceilings at work, unfortunate
misunderstandings in their neighborhoods, condescension from blacks who
think their education or class makes them inauthentic, and identity
crises in their kids. When they get to their Vineyard vacation homes,
they want to escape that casual, institutional, and intra-black racism
and be around people who help them feel less anomalous. Trey Ellis, who
wrote the script for The Inkwell, the notoriously bad film
about the black Vineyard experience (Ellis himself called it terrible),
says, “The black part of the Vineyard is like, I would imagine, being
gay and going to the Castro. It’s this mecca where you can be yourself
and be with people who have so much in common with you. No one has to
feign some street cred when they’re playing tennis.” It’s a source of
communion and of pride. “When you see a beautiful black family with
their kids, it makes you feel really good about being black,” says
Chrisette Hudlin, wife of Reggie and a lifelong Vineyarder who travels
there every summer from L.A. “As a person who’s high-achieving and
striving for the best for their family, you’re looking at these other
black people who have the same goals, and it makes you feel good as a
black person. You don’t feel out of place.” Several Only Ones say
there’s nowhere in America that makes them more proud of black people."
Here are some of the more "controversial" passages:
"And while the Only Ones embrace each other, they can be dismissive of
other blacks. “If you’re too Southern Baptist, too dark-skinned, too
street, you might not be insulted by a white person but you may be
insulted by a black person,” says Columbia law professor Patricia
Williams. “It resembles the way in Britain race and class are
inflected. If you’re a Nigerian prince and you speak the queen’s
English, you’re okay, but if you’re an island hoodlum, then there are
no bounds to the expression of racism.”
"The arrival of two presidents and a secretary
of State will be an invasion of another sort. Some Vineyarders are
nervous about the motorcades and traffic; others are preparing for a
summer stimulus package. Many blacks from Oak Bluffs are elated that
the Only One–in–Chief may be joining them. “People are going to lose
their minds!” Tonya Lewis Lee says. At the same time, there’s also a
bit of wariness among the wealthiest ones, an uncertainty whether Obama
will affirm them. “Obama is more a man of the people,” says a
Vineyarder who’s part of black high society. “He doesn’t seem to
identify with affluent black people. His wife definitely doesn’t; she
is basically a ghetto girl. That’s what she says—I’m just being
sociological. She grew up in the same place Jennifer Hudson did. She
hasn’t reached out to the social community of Washington, and people
are waiting to see what they’ll do about that.”
