Blackness is an important subject and the holding line to all Black media from blogs to magazines to television channels. Though it is more familiar as an African-American perspective, it stretches across the various stripes of the African Diaspora. It shows itself when Blacks, such as myself, refer to our race as “our own”. Blackness, to be brief, is a mindset.

When executed properly, Blackness is mainly expressed in a form of self-awareness, comfort within their own skin, knowledge of their own heritage and how it plays in their lives and being happy with it. When executed poorly, it becomes a stereotype checklist and creates an insular, myopic culture which stews in its own faults and the only perspective and knowledge of their heritage is deeply fragmented and distorted.

Another name of Blackness is the “Black card”, as in, even despite your skin and bloodline, Black is more of a culture than simply a race – which isn’t entirely wrong since different races breed different cultures. For example, look at Asian American and Latino American culture. The issue with the Black card is that it serves more of a stereotypical checklist and is so flimsy, it can be lost at any given moment it seems. The most particular problem is that it, unlike true Blackness, operates under a very, very narrow scope of what the Black identity is and is very paranoid about it. Step one toe out of line of what that “Black” is supposed to be and be ready to be deemed White.

A lot of how the Black card operates kind of works in embracing anything that isn’t stereotypically White as a way to fight off the Whitewashed culture most Blacks live in but instead of creating a mental resilience, it creates, as aforementioned, a stereotypical person that lives a life as defined by White culture. For example, I have been called “White”, an “oreo” (Black on the outside, White on the inside) and other names relating to being a race traitor by countless people and especially since I was growing up in the hood simply because I didn’t like hip hop, I liked learning, reading, I abhorred gangster culture and anyone who participates in it, didn’t dress “Black”, didn’t talk “Black”, walk “Black”, etc etc etc. It definitely gave me confusion because it pretty much implied to be Blacker than Black, you had to be stupid as a rock, highly illiterate, with a rap sheet longer than the state of California, consistently violent, dress in clothes that don’t fit, only interested in making it in either the sports or entertainment industry and other stereotypes that has plagued my race since we pretty much got here. A good defining moment is when I was very interested in astronomy (still am – I have Google Sky Map on my Android) and on PBS, I would see this short show directed by Neil deGrasse Tyson and he would talk about what planets were visible that night and when I was getting ready to go out and stand on my steps to go watch, my sister would tell me, “What Black person does astronomy?” and my mom responded, “Benjamin Banneker.” Apparently, Blackness is supposed to be a willing ignorance, despite our history showcasing the opposite time and time again but a knowledge of history or simply a desire to learn is a sign of Whiteness.

Then there’s the very myopic view that the stereotypical Black card carries, that racism is only done to Blacks and Blacks can do no harm. Of course, as simply living on this earth can teach you, douchebaggery is infectious. Does this mean that Whites can wail in grief of all the racism they have(n’t) felt? Not really, best hold off the kleenex. Does this mean that Blacks have just as much potential to be a dick to someone based solely on their race just like anyone else? Yep. Look at South Philadelphia High where Asian students were being beaten by Black student clearly due to their race and the whole administration turned an eye and said that nothing was race motivated – despite the motivations, slurs and everything else that justifies the beatings as forms of hate crime. And look at what Floyd Mayweather tweeted and how Jenny Hyun responded. Yah, that’s racism for you. I remember when I was once told, “Blacks can’t be racist,” I remembered back when I was about 14 and I attended the MLK parade and there was a Tae Kwon Do school that was in the parade, mostly Korean kids and how did the mostly (if not all) Black crowd respond? With chicken box and half and half jokes. I think Dr. King was rolling in his grave strong enough to be a generator for the cemetery he resided in. And I just looked at Black/Asian relations (you can probably glimpse at that just by looking at the phenomena that is Jeremy Lin). This is a big problem because while my race is definitely not out of the woods as far as racism is concerned, we sometimes tout it like it’s a cross to bear and that no one else has seen the troubles that we’ve seen despite the fact that there are those in our race that can be just as bad.

This confused and lopsided Blackness, however, is the monolithic Blackness that is the most touted. It is hood, it is Southern, it is Christian, it has outdated gender perceptions and it doesn’t even know itself. This monolith is dangerous for everyone because it is a culture imploding, its scope is growing narrower and narrower and covering less and less Blacks. The monolith is scared of its own shadow and does not truly want to learn the past, just tout it about whenever convenient. Racism holds us back but so does internalized racism, which is what this monolith mostly is.

This Black card, just like normal and well-settled Blackness, wants to protect its culture from the culture swagger jackers and from it getting putrefied from White culture but kind of in the same way that Homeland Security was put in place and the PATRIOT ACT was signed to protect Americans, it hurts more than help.

It’s tough trying to define by this scale of Blackness – there are folks who have even mentioned to me that Black Witch isn’t Black despite having “Black” in the title, written by a Black person, has been nominated for a Black Weblog Award and most of my readership is Black because the blog is Pagan, a religion that has a face Whiter than all award shows and television shows combined. So this month-long series has been developed to show that Blackness doesn’t have to mean giving into the stereotypes. That you can still be Black and not a walking caricature of your race. Blackness carries many different faces, feelings, ideas and perspectives.