[Baltimore Sun] Black Gen X: the bridge generation ushering in the ‘Golden Age of African Americans’ | GUEST COMMENTARY
Read Time:5 Minute, 3 Second
In “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending,” an essay by Franklin Foer published in March in the Atlantic Monthly, Foer endeavors to name that moment in U.S. history when Jewish identity crossed a line in the American psyche and became part of our larger national identity.
“Jews, who had once been excluded from American establishment, became full-fledged members of it,” he writes. “They achieved power by and large without having to abandon their identity. In faculty lounges and television writer’s rooms, in small magazines and big publishing houses, they infused the wider culture with that identity. Their anxieties became American anxieties. Their dreams became American dreams.”
Try to imagine American society of the last century without the influence of the Jews — the ’60s without Bob Dylan; the ’70s without Norman Lear. Norman Mailer taught Americans how to think about war, and Elie Wiesel, how to think about peace. Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan changed how we viewed women in society, and Phillip Roth and Saul Bellow changed how we viewed men. Elizabeth Taylor was our beauty, swimmer Mark Spitz, our strength, and Henry Kissinger, our shame. Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer transformed our understanding of the physical world, while Steven Spielberg and Stan Lee gave shape to our imaginary one. And, over most every beating heart, at some point in its lifetime, rested the image of a polo player on horseback made famous by Ralph Lauren.
Once ostracized, Jewish Americans have stamped an indelible mark on American culture, which is even more remarkable given the relatively short period they have been in this country. By comparison, consider the history of Chinese Americans. They have been in the U.S. far longer, since just after the Civil War, and yet, can we honestly say that they have made as strong an impression on American society? Have they, “infused the wider culture with their identity,” as Foer put it?
In a country like ours, founded on Anglo-Saxon protestant traditions, how does a marginalized group accrue cultural influence while also — importantly — retaining its unique identity? Is there a demographical saturation point at which a group’s cultural characteristics automatically begin to infect the larger culture? Or, is it just about longevity? African Americans have been here since before there was a here, but can we honestly say Black people have had as pronounced an influence on American culture as, say, Irish Americans or Italians or Germans?
Michael Jackson, Dr. Dre, Whitney Houston and Kendrick Lamar have all made a huge impact on American culture — as have President Barack Obama, Toni Morrison and Beyonce. But has the influence of any one of these individuals, (or, for that matter, all of them collectively), done anything to “infuse the wider culture,” with Black identity? Have African American anxieties become America’s anxieties — our dreams, America’s dreams?
This is a difficult question to answer, but the country is clearly more tolerant, more appreciative of Black identity than it was when I was growing up in the 1980s. Consider, for example, the pervasiveness of Black slang today.
We were not permitted to use slang in the house when I was a child — it was considered vulgar. But today, Black slang is everywhere. Foreign leaders use it, it’s used to sell breakfast cereal, the musical Hamilton wouldn’t work without it. The next time you get a chance, turn on the Golf Channel and listen to the analysts describing the “whitest” of “white sports” using phrases like: “On the down low,” and “Back in the day,” and, “In my feels.” That is not the language Tiger Woods heard on the golf course growing up!
If Black culture is indeed beginning to influence American society, I believe a debt of gratitude is due to those valiant “cultural warriors” and “social pioneers” who did the yeoman work necessary to help shift American attitudes about African Americans — Black Generation X.
My generation, Black Gen X, Americans born between the years of 1965 and 1980, bore the lion’s share of the burden needed to acclimate the larger culture to Black Identity. Of course, every generation stands on the shoulders of the ones that came before. My generation owes an immeasurable debt to my parent’s generation. But we did our part too.
Black Gen X was the “test case generation.” In the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, our generation was jettisoned like deep space probes out into American society, “to boldly go where no Black man had gone before.”
Black Gen X was the “translator generation,” sentenced to a life of suffering uncomfortable questions about everything from our hair, to our clothes, to our anatomy.
Black Gen X was the “bridge generation,” America’s social barometer of acceptable transcultural behavior. We taught Americans how to treat us, we challenged worn stereotypes, and we educated the larger culture about what it really meant to be Black in America.
And for our pains, we experienced isolation, loneliness and ridicule. The most cutting insults were hurled at us from our own corner — from among our friends and family who, unburdened by the daily indignities and frustrations of life as a member of the bridge generation, criticized us for purportedly, “acting white,” or “talking white,” when all we really wanted was to fit in, to be accepted in the worlds we were forced into. But, we persevered and took one for the team.
After 400 years of contempt, targeted abuse and derision, Black identity seems to have crossed some imaginary line, and it’s suddenly cool to be Black now. Black America may even be on a path to its own “Golden Age of African Americans.” If so, it’s due significantly to the influence, and the sacrifices, of the generation that bridged the gap between what was, and whatever is to come.
K. Ward Cummings ([email protected]) is a former senior adviser to members of Congress and a former director of intergovernmental affairs for the Maryland Secretary of State.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0