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Visible Man

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By Jerald Walker

A fellow black colleague called me to her office and asked why I had not attended the campus Kwanzaa celebration. As a recently hired assistant professor, I told her, I was overwhelmed, weighted down with new responsibilities and pressures. In addition, my two young sons had been frequently ill, requiring a great deal of attention. But I was lying.

The truth is that I do not observe Kwanzaa. I recognize that the desire to celebrate customs and traditions is a good one, but Kwanzaa's emphasis on Africa simply has no personal appeal to me. I am American, not African. I speak English, not Swahili. I wear Western-style clothes intended for commoners, not kente cloth intended for royalty.

I have no need to participate in a highly ritualistic holiday to feel better about myself; for that, my ancestors gave me Brer Rabbit and John Henry. Those ancestors include the remarkable Americans who invented spirituals, blues, and jazz. In no small part, they invented America, too.

I did not have the courage to say that. I had been an academic for only a few months, but I had followed the profession enough to know what happens to black faculty members who get labeled "conservative." And, somehow, not celebrating Kwanzaa would earn me that distinction.

My colleague leaned back in her chair, a frown thinning her lips as she looked toward the ceiling. I glanced up, expecting to see something perilous, a protrusion of water-stained plaster, perhaps, or a light fixture teetering from a single screw, but there was nothing of the sort, just a few harmless cobwebs wafting in a draft.

"Racism in academe," she began, "is rampant. It's a disease. A cancer. An epidemic. As a woman of color, I've had my share of battles." She shook her head sadly and said, "I tell you, Jerald, there are some seriously misguided white folks around here. Black ones, too."

She rested her elbows on the arms of her chair. "But there are also some good people in academe, there are some good people here at this college. It's important that these people -- and they're good people, Jerald, really they are -- see you at campus events, especially those that celebrate our culture."

I nodded. "Well, you know, I'd like to attend more events, all sorts of events, but I'm just so overwhelmed right now. It's difficult to stay afloat."

"I understand that. But you're one of a small number of black faculty on this campus, and, well, there are certain expectations there." She leaned forward. "It's in your best interest, particularly at this early stage of your career, to be more visible."

"I'll do what I can," I said.

"Don't be a disappointment, Jerald."

"Of course not."

"Then you and Brenda will be at the Martin Luther King breakfast?"

I decided not to tell her I had already purchased tickets. "Yes," I said. "I'll make arrangements immediately."

"Good!" she responded, now smiling, and yet, somehow, still managing to look troubled.

The breakfast crowd was overflowing. It was easily the largest gathering of minority people I had seen since we'd relocated to this overwhelmingly white town, and I wondered if, in the true spirit of King, they had been bused in.

Our administration, including our black president, made a strong showing in the crowd but there were, at best, only two-dozen white faculty and staff members there. The rest of the attendees were hundreds of extremely well-dressed blacks, many of them surveying the room and smiling -- pleased, in a way that only blacks can be pleased, to be at a large gathering of successful peers.

Breakfast was served buffet style. My wife Brenda and I were joined at our table by an elderly black couple, both of whom were retired faculty members from a local college, and together we enjoyed a wide-ranging menu that included asparagus quiche and grits. After breakfast, the president said a few words, and then the keynote speaker took the podium.

I do not recall exactly what was said, but I remember somber references to the lack of progress that minority people had made since King's ultimate sacrifice. By the time the speaker finished, a palpable anger filled the room, and he was given a rousing ovation.

I applauded, too, even though I knew blacks had accomplished more in the past 40 years than in the previous 400. I told myself that, had King been alive, he would have preached that message instead, and I raised my guava juice to him in silent tribute.

In January, Brenda and I attended a few more high-profile events, and a couple of low-profile ones for good measure. February brought Black History month, which kept us in high demand, and then things were quiet until early May, when I received an e-mail message from the black colleague who had chastised me about not attending Kwanzaa. This time, she was reminding me of the approaching Kente Cloth Ceremony, a.k.a. "Black Commencement."

I knew that the ceremony, like Kwanzaa, would be largely African-themed, but that was not what concerned me most. What concerned me was that, after so recently celebrating our country's staunchest promoter of integration, I was being asked to celebrate segregation, to teach our students, in essence, that to derive meaning from what King preached was our most meaningless trait of all.

That is what I was thinking as I typed my RSVP, saying, cowardly, that I would be delighted to attend.

The next Saturday morning, Brenda and I sat with the families and friends of students of color as they marched across a stage to receive the kente cloth they would wear during graduation. Candles were lit at various points of the ceremony to symbolize universal values, here described as "African," such as the importance of family, community, and faith. Poems were read. Libations were poured. Women wearing spandex beneath thatched skirts danced to the rhythm of beating drums, summoning ancestral spirits from across the Atlantic.

Later, after breakfast, the guest speaker -- black, with an African-sounding name -- was introduced. He wore a wrinkled, double-breasted white suit, and dragged an enormous duffel bag to the stage. He had the longest dreadlocks I had ever seen and, perhaps following some little-known custom, had buttoned them inside the front of his suit jacket so that they emerged beneath the hem, continued past his knees, and swept the tops of his white shoes as he moved.

His lecture included references to ancient Egypt, Allah, mathematics, Imhotep, slavery, reparations, and cloning. He laughed, he cried, he sang. He removed large homemade instruments from his duffel bag and played songs designed to amuse children, though few were in the audience.

At some point I glanced at Brenda, whose mouth and eyes were opened wide, and then I scanned the room and saw similar expressions of disbelief, including on the faces of some of the event organizers and the colleague who had invited me. That bizarre performance led me to a decision.

I would attend no more kente-cloth breakfasts. I would not attend a Kwanzaa celebration. Never again would I applaud speeches that celebrated the myth of black defeat, and I would not participate in events simply because of the color of my skin. And if people questioned my absence, I would not tell them a lie.

I intend to be visible, I would tell them, but only in ways I wish to be seen.