Identity Crisis: All My Problems are Self-Inflicted

Dinner last night. He is a lawyer. She is a lawyer. They are as happy as two clams in a toxin-free Chesapeake Bay. I am... having an identity crisis. Repeat after me: It does not matter what you do, how educated you are - you are great little black girl, and you are happy too.

Yeah right. Is your pedigree and corporate affiliation the equivalent of identity?

The crisis is not that I don't know who I am as a human being. Clearly, I have arms, legs, relatives, a BMW and a purpose in life. The crisis lies in the human inclination to feel inferior and then to say things that, at the very least, preserve our standing in the eyes of others and, at the very most, may even advance our position in the eyes of others. Both indicate flawed composition or damaged self esteem - a trait very common among black women. Contrived calculated speaking. Not lies (the opposite of truth) but almost. Hype. Why do we hype, oh God of great-keeping-up-with-the-Joneses? Why do we care whether or not people know we have flaws and debt and fragile raggedy relationships? What is the worst that could happen if people somehow saw that we were not altogether perfect? Fear. The fear of having our weaknesses outshine our strengths makes people do all manner of fake bullsh$%ty things - especially in Washington. I hate that. I should just be quiet. Forever.

In other words, if all that you speak and say and do is done with consideration for what other people will think of you, then one is (I am) not being (favorite black phrase alert:) "true to self." Therein lies an identity crisis.

Question: Do black girls have a harder time being "true to self" than other people?
Answer: I do. (Don't you like that I answer my rhetorical questions?)

The reality is many of us do not know who "self" is. We ALL have Marsha Brady syndrome. Don't get angry black women, hear me out. Yes, we feel at home on the pews of an amazing gospel church. But we also feel at home discussing the cost of the new Prada bag, weekends in Rehoboth and the pros and cons of Martha Stewart having a spin-off of "The Apprentice." We all WANT to be in the Junior League somewhere in 0ur soul. We all know that if you can rock (wear) pearls and a button down with blue pinstripes, then white men will be less intimidated by and more accepting of us. Blue is the color of white. Light blue and pearls are the uniform of white girls. Everyone knows that.

I have yet to find a place in the world where I feel fully accepted just for being me. In my mature analysis of the situation I realize that nobody else cares about this. I am the complex crazy one.

Lost?

Me too. The fruits of colonization strike again. It is al about perception.

Are my lawmaking friends with multiple degrees, who are seated at the pinnacle of black professional life REALLY all that they seem on the exterior? Multiple homes, traveling, socializing, well-read (well, some of them). OR is it just a ruse (sp) to make everyone else think they have got it all together? WHERE IS THE TRUTH? What if all of us black people trying to prove we have arrived and can live just as comfortably as white people (our barometer of success is white American comparatives) stopped doing that? Contentment would burst from every mind and heart. Happy with self. In love with self. Secure with self. It is possible, yes? In Black America?

A man whose mission I admire is Ron Daniels. He runs a think-tank and civil rights policy advocacy place based in New York called The Institute of the Black World. It might be "for" the Black World. I'll check for you. but here is a man not trying to be white. The website alone (do not skip intro) is enough to replenish empty self-esteem reserves. The IBW is trying in fact to achieve justice through blackness. He is aided in his mission by fellows (with ships) who are white, uber-liberal and some of the sharpest Constitutional minds in America. He is always hanging out with Congressman Conyers. I feel better somehow thinking about his tireless and fearless wrok of which there is an endless amount to do.

Maybe black women can draw self-esteem from men and women like this. I have to read more. What makes Angela Davis so confident? I want ADC (Angela Davis Confidence) to speaktruth not just to power, but to self.

I learn something everytime I write to you little black girls. Keep that head up. TELL THE TRUTH AT ALL TIMES. To thine own self be true...and joy will follow.