Race in the Space I Mark Human
I was going to save this because honestly want to dedicate a whole episode of Muse to this topic, but there’s enough talking points around it to fill up several tomes….
Was talking on twitter earlier today about this song and how it reads to different people. Some interpret it as a purple endorsement for a colorblind society while others see it more as a general indictment against racism and racial stereotypes. Perspectives are generally informed by whatever colors your lens as I always say, but I kind of wanted to expand on mine a bit just to explain why I feel honestly triggered by the “colorblind Prince” narrative.
My personal perspective comes from growing up generally being one of very few people Black people wherever I’m at :
Lived in upper-middle class neighborhoods
It wasn’t unheard of that the police would be called on my family because they thought we were breaking into our house (2 adults and three little girls heading into a stately home that we had a key to…sure thing). People would solicit the house and ask for the owner when my mom answered thinking she was the maid. Dad was asked how much he charged when he was doing yard work by people who thought he was hired help.
Was one of a handful of Black people at the schools we attended
They were reluctant to let my older sister into advanced classes when we moved down south from Michigan. My dad had to raise hell to get her in. (She continued to be an honors student, graduated with honors, and is now a pediatrician). My private school counselor told my parents I wasn’t very smart and should just go to community college (I was also an honors student, graduated with honors, was accepted into Georgia Tech in their school of Computer Science, a top 10 program…and graduated to a fantastic well-paying job where I manage people old enough to be my parents). My “friends” called me “greasy chihuahua” in middle school because I was small and Black. I didn’t say anything because they were my “friends” and I didn’t have anyone else to hang out with. Regularly asked what sport I played by classmates’ parents because they assumed I was on an academic scholarship at the private school I went to (I wasn’t). At Georgia Tech (Black students were about 4% of the student body including grad and undergrad at that time) regularly questioned about my eligibility to be there like I didn’t have a high GPA and college entrance exam scores like everyone else did…(double whammy there as the ratio of men to women was 3 to 1).
General examples of existing while Black
In the past few years, I have been pulled over for driving while Black in a nice car (gun in my face and all), followed around in nice boutique shops when I go shopping, standard reaches and petting of my “cool hair”, token/mascot language like “our KaNisa” or representing the Black perspective in non-Black spaces (which I realize I’m doing of my own volition now), being subjected to someone using Black vernacular thinking that appeals to me in some way, had to show my key when the police were called on me in my own house because I was new and it was assumed I was a squatter couldn’t afford to live there (tradition, lol) etc etc…
I say all this to help explain that there is a privilege in walking into a room and not having anyone think anything about you based on how you look, or what’s more, assigning bias, stereotypes, or any other assumption based on how you identify. That is a privilege I don’t know and a privilege many people do not have. When I hear Prince say “Black, White, Puerto Rican everybody just a freakin” or “our clothes our hair we don’t care it’s all about being there” or “I wish there was no black and white I wish there were no rules” or even “Race in a space I mark human” to me that is a dream world where I get to go into a space of people who are not like me, and they see and appreciate me based on what they experience in front of them, not judge me based on what they’ve heard about people who look like me.
I don’t want people to ignore or overlook my identity, I want them to ignore the pre-conceived notions THEY have about how I identify. It’s not about being “colorblind” it’s about being “bias-blind”.
“D-d-down with H-I-S-T-O-R-Y and all this BS propagandi
Keepin you from me and me from you as we grow
I don’t wanna know
Why those before us hated each other” – Prince, Race
“If U never stereotyped it, the stereotype would never be…” – NPG, Black MF in the House
(Note : Those songs were tracked at roughly the same time late 1991 according to Princevault)
Knowing that he was a Black man born before the Civil Rights Act was passed and that he lived through much of the turmoil of that period…
Hearing stories of things he went through before he was famous that are the stories most Black people go through at some point of their lives in America…
Hearing stories of things he went through AFTER he became famous that are STILL the stories most Black people go through at some point of their lives in America on a grander scale (institutionalized racism is a thing no matter what class you are in…)
Mixing in the privilege that HE has as someone who is deemed a “safe Black person” and that he used this privilege to appeal to others when it came to racism in ways they could absorb (in a song like Race) or couldn’t (in a song like Black MF in the House that speaks to the same theme in different way).
All this again FOR ME resonates as someone who is very aware of race, very proud of his own, but also someone who is weary that it does get in the way of people really seeing each other because they are blinded not by how people present, but by how people interpret what they see.
Again don’t be colorblind. Just check your racial/gender/sexual biases and don’t let it color you vision.
