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To bury himself in things black. How he hid that from everyone, the instinct to know more about blackness. The website for blacks, chats, mate searches--he needed a persona. A name that was recognizably black, but not caricaturish--it was very difficult terrain. To pick a name that was indeed a black name, one that upon initial encounter the race was evident. And yet not embarrassing. Leroy....yuck. Cornell....obscure. Ralph....first impression=white. Devonski....too hip. You see the problem.

But why at all. View it from the point of his sister, who grew up in the bedroom next to his and went to school in the classroom next to his. Who sat next to him at the table and in the back car seat. Who ostensibly understood a thing or two about him. But the black thing? Not a chance. More or less normally prejudiced herself, not rabid in any attitude. She considered herself sufficiently malleable when pressed on any moral point concerning racism. But such curiosity about black? She didn't get it.

Black people were all around. Celebrated in sports and omnipresent in radio music. And what they were perceived hopeless in, there stood the exception to the rule every time. Then the playground challenges, the scary humiliating affrontiveness, grabbing pubic hair int he PhysEd showers, etc.

The same only different. No big deal. No metaphysical longing, no differance.

 

 

 

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