Lately, a semi-latent tension has come to the fore here at The Glenn Show: to be black or not to be black. That is, I’ve long been a proponent of “transracial humanism,” or the notion that race is, at best, one element among many that comprise a person’s identity or, at worst, a constraint that prevents us from laying claim to our full cultural inheritance. Tolstoy is mine, Shakespeare is mine, Einstein is mine no less than John Coltrane and WEB Du Bois and Bayard Rustin are mine. That’s the transracial humanist creed.
But the historical, cultural, and personal specificity of black identity, at least as I experience it, can’t be sloughed off so easily. I identify, too, with the African American tradition within which I was raised. The cadences of black speech—from the pulpit to the street—inhabit my voice. The aromas and flavors of my relatives’ cooking shape my palate. The arc of African American liberation determines my self-understanding as a modern American, and so on. I could not disavow my blackness even if I wanted to—it’s fundamental to who I am and how I experience the world.
Both poles—transracial humanism and black identity—are necessary, but neither are sufficient. I know I’m not the only one who occasionally finds himself teetering on the tightrope strung between them. I have no choice but to walk it, but can I do it gracefully?
Last month, I sat down with two guys who are doing it gracefully: Ian Rowe and Nique Fajors of the Invisible Men podcast. Both of these men—through their teaching, writing, and entrepreneurship—emphasize a strain of black self-reliance that is key to a viable, vital future for black identity in the US, one that doesn’t rely on outmoded and undignified equivalences between blackness and oppression. They had me on to talk about Late Admissions, the development and bias narratives, and much else. I’m presenting this conversation, with their permission, here at the newsletter and my podcast feed. But do yourself a favor and subscribe to Invisible Men—Ian and Nique have a lot to say, but they’re walking the talk, too.
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