When strangers meet at the Black Table, there is always a tentative sizing up of the other person for their loyalty to the race.

“What did you write your dissertation about?” I asked.

I had been looking forward to this lunch for the last few days. A good friend from law school, "Shelby Valentine," had recently become engaged to an education professor at a Southwestern college. I enjoyed intellectual banter as a former law professor. That the three of us — Shelby, "Herb," and I — were all African-Americans did not enter my mind, at first, not until Herb reminded us to bless the food before eating.

“I wrote my dissertation on whether and how teachers develop ethnic identity in school children,” Herb explained. Hmmn, I know something about this topic, I thought to myself. Eager to engage his interests, I offered up my own insights on the development of ethnic identity. Because Herb was a professor, I presumed an open mindedness.

“I did not have a conscious ethnic identity until the third grade. Growing up in Chesterfield County, Virginia, the public schools remained segregated under freedom of choice during my first and second grade. I attended an all-black school with an all-black teaching staff and a black principal. I lived in a black neighborhood and attended a black church. I had no race consciousness.”

In my experience, there are two great dividers between conversants at the Black Table — regional upbringing and generational distance. By offering up my own story, I had attached myself to a particular slice of the black experience, the insight of a middle-aged African-American born and raised in the South. Herb offered that he had grown up in the Bronx where he had never known a day of de jure segregation. While Shelby remained silent, I knew she had grown up in Philadelphia. Our hometowns differed and yet we shared the weariness of the mid-40s age bracket.

I noted Herb’s silence. He did not ask me whether my first and second grade teachers had facilitated my “ethnic identity” in any way. Did it go without saying that an all-black environment facilitates ethnic identity? And if that is so, why did I lack a race awareness of being black in the first and second grades? What Herb did pick up on were the tragic demotions and firings of black teachers after desegregation, a fair and often overlooked point.

“Before I entered the third grade, the federal government threatened to cut off money unless the county made the Brown decision a reality by eliminating racially identifiable schools. In one fell swoop, I went from an all-black school to being the only black kid in my class.”

Both Herb and Shelby were caught up in the story. I had hooked my table audience. “That must have been hard,” Shelby said. I later learned that Shelby had always attended predominantly white private and Catholic schools.

“I got called a n____ every day by my classmates. They had never known a black as an equal. They harassed me without mercy.”

Herb smiled, I suspect, because my travails confirmed his sense of the way the world works. “And that is an underreported harm of desegregation, the injury done to youngsters under those traumatic conditions,” Herb declared.  He was right. I remembered those unhappy days well, even as a 44-year-old man.

Then, I delivered what I hoped would be my insight into development of ethnic identity. “I never shared anything with my parents because I did not want to disappoint them or worry them. I don’t recall running to my white teacher with accounts of racial slurs. One day, I just sat down on the playground and decided that race had no connection to intelligence. My experience in the first and second grades had taught me this lesson. So, I concluded that my racist classmates were dumb. And since I stood at the top of my class, that conclusion served me well through the years.”

Shelby laughed. “So, they were just dumb? Well, whatever works for you.”

By probing into intelligence as a basis for ethnic identity, I had turned a potentially devastating environment into an affirming black consciousness that rejected stereotypes. Herb remained silent.

When strangers meet at the Black Table, there is always a tentative sizing up of the other person for their loyalty to the race. Even at family reunions, I have sensed a vague discomfort when celebrating black achievement in white settings. Rumblings are heard about whether a black U.S. Senator can remain “grounded” in the black experience. Descendants would rather hear black liberation oratory from a distant cousin clad in African garb than recognize a “white appearing” ancestor who founded the family. Middle-class cousins choose their words carefully in the presence of cousins from the ‘hood.

Had I crossed the loyalty line with Herb? Did my account of being the only black in a white class call into question my “ethnic identity” years later?

While mindful that Herb might be trapped in a conventional form of group think, I still clung to the idea that, as a professor, he would be intrigued by the interesting, the different. And so I related how issues of black identity proved complex, even within my own family. 

I shared the story of an Uncle whose four children had come of age of with disparate identities. The oldest child had attended de jure segregated schools until freedom of choice in 1966, when his parents gave him the choice of attending the  formerly all white neighborhood high school or being bused across the county to the all black high school. Bruce chose to attend the white high school where he became popular and a student leader. He was one of three black students but the resources were better than at the all-black high school. With this experience and changing times, Bruce would attend and graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as the first black graduate in the journalism department. Because of his outgoing personality, he became a minor celebrity in the Richmond area as a television sportscaster and weatherman. Bruce wears his identity lightly and feels comfortable in all black, mixed, and all white settings.

Bob, the second child, attended all-black schools all of his life. Even during freedom of choice, Bob chose to attend the all-black high school, a choice shared by 60 percent of black high school students in the county by 1969. Bob never attended college. He enrolled in the Marines and later chose to live a bohemian life in the mountains of western Virginia, an area populated by few African-Americans. Bob’s identity is rooted more in his individualism and pioneer spirit than race consciousness.

Toni, the third child, has the strongest black identity of the four children. Faced with the prospect of Richmond busing their daughter to heavily-black public schools in the ghetto, my Uncle and his wife moved their youngest two children out into the suburbs. Toni never knew a day of de jure segregation. She attended schools that ranged from one to three percent black. When she attended high school, she lamented her limited dating opportunities. She sought out students at the public schools in Richmond. She regretted that she had not attended a majority black school. After leaving Midlothian High School, she attended John Tyler Community College, dropped out, and now attends VCU as an older student.

Todd, the youngest child, attended schools that were one percent black. His friends were all white. He never felt a longing for black community or a black consciousness. He started a heavy metal band in high school and ran away from home. He never attended college. He now works at a fast-food establishment. He lives with his parents in a house he will inherit upon his parents’ death. His identity might best be described as “white redneck.”

When I recounted this tale, Herb didn’t have much to say other than someone should write about my family.

I finished with the throw away line that there were many ways to have a black identity. At last, I seemed to catch Herb’s attention. “What do you mean by that statement?” he said. I confidently quoted Wesley Williams, a partner at Covington & Burling, who had made this statement to the Washington Post about there being twelve avenues to advance the race.

“What are those 12 avenues?” Herb questioned.

Quick on my feet, I connected Senator Obama as demonstrating one avenue and then the former black female president of Spelman College as offering still another path. Sensing that Herb was gathering evidence for an indictment, Shelby jumped in and assured her future husband that she knew Michelle, Obama’s wife, from law school. Michelle was “grounded” and would keep Obama in check. Shelby’s take on Mrs. Obama mollified Herb.

Lunch concluded with Herb recounting the story of a black female professor who had been denied tenure. “The rules are different for us,” said Herb as he launched into a familiar refrain I knew all too well from Black Tables in the past. “We are different. And we are different because we are black.” With that shibboleth, Herb seemed comfortable and at ease again.

As we said our good-byes, I thought about my diverse cousins. Do their life experiences prove that being black is all the difference? Are we Twymans suspect because our ethnic identities are all over the map? What does identity difference within the African-American community mean in 2006? And does this intrarace difference trump the difference between blacks and whites?

“Be strong, my brother, be strong,” Herb urged me as he headed out into the San Diego sun with his future wife.