By Eden Omari
I am constantly reminded and put in my place each time I open a Eugene Weekly, university newspaper, or multiple store circulars and local advertisements that arrive at my door that have not one single image of a Black person.
I’m not talking about the light-skinned Blacks and near-white Mexicans/Chicanos usually featured on the covers or in the entertainment section. I’m talking about the real black dark skinned Blacks and MexiChans. Los Morenos, the Blaxicans. It must be so awesome to never even notice, because it just keeps on happening.
In America, if someone says, “You’re Being too White” or “You’re being too Black,” we know exactly what is being inferred. But here’s the thing… only in America would you hear such a fked up absurd and ignorant statement. Nowhere else in the world. Let’s start there. Wait… stop… ponder that… continue.
Our proclivity to take measurements in terms of black and white and us and them and bourgeois colonial baselines is astonishing. The Irish are alcoholics, the Italians are scary and loud, the Mexicans don’t speak English, the Jews always cryin’, the Blondes, the Blacks just lazy criminals on welfare (way more whites on welfare, always has been), women will never be equal to men or president, George Washington freed the slaves, the Natives got soothed, Europeans are not descendants of the Neanderthals until science confirmed that whites have more Neanderthal DNA than Blacks and then they took that back and re-classified Blacks.
Tarzan and Jane are descendants of Dick and Jane, R-word, P-word, N-word, C-word, B-word, F-word, N-word again. Dark black-skinned people are unprofitable and don’t sell products except sports or exotic or foreign brands.
The problem with not seeing dark-skinned people in the media is that it amplifies, in each issue, what dark skinned people are subjected to daily, world-wide. Insignificance. Sooo dark and black that they become invisible at the supermarket except to security, always security. Feared, targeted, rejected, dismissed, scrutinized, suspicious, watched. Felon, stared at with fixed eyes, uncomfortable to be around, the only one in the room, must dress better than their white peers, learn to keep your chin off your chest and never ever draw attention to yourself, never complain out loud, endure the injustice, hyper aware of the single white female walking in his direction and use Visine in that eye on the back of your head. Lastly, the M Affect.
The problems with being too white or too Black are obvious (Ahh — see, you know what I mean).
That captivating Super Bowl 2025 halftime performance headlined by Kendrick Lamar has literally revolutionized and energized the entire world, and an entire generation of Black and white youth are echoing “They’re not like us.” Sadly, most whites are unaware of this significant cultural shift that is happening in their lifetime right underneath their noses right now. Right now. I hate that for them.
Here’s the real problem: Most white American children are not and will never be bilingual. Every child of color is bilingual and some are trilingual as they master the reading and speaking of the invasive omnipotent social language of white culture, aging rapidly into a discerning awareness of the value of, and the generational identity of their own. They come to acknowledge too swiftly that not seeing the images of their purple black Nne Nne, Abuela negra, Bba Kekere, Tio oscuro, Primo negro or old lady Johnson next door means something, because it keeps happening.
What region the wine grapes were harvested is fantastic cultured information that the whole world enjoys. Even dark-skinned people. The phenomenon, the drink known as Jamaican sorrel, made from hibiscus flowers, will send your taste buds to heaven. If you know you know. I’m certain there is a Jamaican here in Lane County that could hook you up. Mexican food. Ha! If you have never been invited, then you really don’t know. Then we are back to the point.
Nowadays, again, the white children are standing shoulders with their brown- and black-skinned peers, despite messaging from home and the media and despite our grown ass selves making everything about us. The Abercrombie & Fitch days have perished. Youth are learning truths first person, in their high tech worlds, despite what they don’t see in their local newspaper.
P.S. That new Snow White movie sucks. We didn’t need it or the Mermaid, Disney. Keep that.
*Thaddeus Stevens, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Harriet Tubman, Kendrick Lamar, Octavia Butler, Donald Goines, Ruby Bridges, Malcolm X, Madame C.J. Walker, George Jackson, Richard Wright, Esther Lee “Baby Esther” Jones, Tulsa Race Massacre, Harlem Renaissance, LaBelle, Berry Gordy and those The Supremes.