The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian

by W. Kamau Bell

(By the way, I spell “Black” with a capital B because I subscribe to all the Black intellectuals and academics and barbershop sages who say that Blackness is as much an uppercase identity as Chinese-ness or Christianity-ness or any other proper-noun identity is. And if Wikipedia is going to insist on capitalizing “Klansman,” then I am certainly going to insist on capitalizing “Black.”

Are you thinking (perhaps awkwardly) that you need help sorting through the stuff that makes up America in order to attempt to figure out how we should remake America?

For all three of us, people assume that because we have the information, we must have pieces of paper that certify us as smart. Nope. We just have information because we wanted it. If there’s one thing that I learned from both of my parents, it is that you don’t need the paper to get the information. As much as they are so different from each other, I learned from them that nobody can beat hard work.

I couldn’t relate to being invulnerable. I was a Black kid growing up in America.

Creating Black superheroes with the word “Black” in their names was a way for America to once again normalize whiteness. It wasn’t “White Superman” or “White Batman” or “White Green Lantern.” Because “white” is normal. White doesn’t need to be mentioned. But “Black,” on the other hand, needs to be announced. To me, it made the superheroes sound less intimidating, less powerful, less normal than their white counterparts. I think some of that had to do with my own feelings at the time about being Black.

And this is important. This is about representation. For some reason, white people in America are perfectly comfortable with the idea of people of color just contorting their imaginations such that we can imagine ourselves as white heroes, but white people generally aren’t OK with imagining themselves as Black heroes. Every time there’s talk of a new actor taking on the role of James Bond and Idris Elba’s name comes up, white people freak out: “HOW CAN A BLACK MAN BE JAMES BOND???” Meanwhile Hollywood regularly takes characters of color and turns them white whenever it wants.

I never thought to pick. Eventually, I found that people regularly wanted me to pick between Black stuff and white stuff. I just like stuff. I’m

Racism is deep. And great at creating brand loyalty.

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” That became my mantra. It was Bruce giving me permission to live my own life without worrying about what other people thought. Bruce

Because of my mom, I’m powered by hugs.

the difference is when white kids cause trouble, it is dismissed as teenage hormones running amok. But when Black and Brown kids cause trouble, we get tried as adults by a jury of our (WHITE) peers.

also always felt slightly outside of what people think we should be doing with our Blackness.

Every few years, angry white men rebrand themselves as a way to disguise their racism.

But it does happen with people of color and with women. You either bond together because you know you will need each other to survive or you run as far as you can in the other direction, because you would hate for people to think there are too many of you in the room at one time.

At the time it was seen as a referendum on Blackness. Because that’s what we do with Black people of opposing views. We make it about their Blackness instead of about their individuality.

When art sets racism in the past, no matter how good it is, it allows white people in the audience (and others) to say to themselves, “Wow! That racism sure was bad way back then!” It’s what happens when people go see 12 Years a Slave. My response is always, “Yeah, you wanna know another time when racism was bad? Earlier today.”

“Well, you know you can’t end racism and also make sexism worse.”

Make the bandwagon to freedom as big as possible.

Simply put, I am afraid of the cops because I am Black.

Because I know that not being a part of criminal activity is no assurance that you will go home safely after an interaction with a cop. Because “boring” is no assurance of safety when you are Black.

And it is why I was so happy to then have a second daughter. I felt some sense of relief. I didn’t want to have to figure out how to talk to them about how to be a Black man in America.

So when these dudes say, “Women aren’t funny,” they are forgetting a classically important addendum: “to me.” They should be saying, “Women aren’t funny to me.” But they don’t say “to me” because if you are a man in America, you are considered the norm.

The biggest thing that white people can do is really get comfortable having conversations about race and racism in this country. And the way you get comfortable is that first you get awkward by putting yourself in the middle of it. Read books—actually read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me instead of just putting it on your shelf. Read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Go to websites like The Root, Colorlines, Very Smart Brothas, Blavity, and also The Establishment and Indian Country Today, and read Lindy West, wherever she’s writing at currently. And support the artists, TV shows, and films that support the America that most Americans want. Don’t take any of these choices for granted.

Change is possible. It is not always loud and fast, but it can happen. And one small change doesn’t always mean everything changes.

Just by virtue of Trump’s victory, people felt like they could say the things and do the things that they’ve always wanted to say and do but didn’t feel like they were allowed to say and do.

We have to stop letting Democrats and Republicans lead us into believing that it is their way or no way. I feel like right now we are in the era of “No way!,” which means we need to find a new way.

They aren’t going to get it on the same level as people of color. The difference between two people talking about cancer. If only one person has cancer, then the person with cancer has to spend time explaining cancer to the other. If they both have cancer, then they can get past the explanation and directly to the conversation about having cancer.

Being able to say no is the most power you can ever have.

That night I learned the terms “microaggression” and “implicit bias.” Both are fancy ways for describing racism that isn’t necessarily fatal. Racism that often doesn’t physically injure you. Racism that is hard to prove. Racism that makes our so-called white friends ask, “How do you know it was racism? . . . I mean that sucks, but how can you be sure?” This is the kind of racism that drives you crazy. Death by a thousand racist cuts.