First of all, I'M a Black man. I grew up in the whole stereotypical black environment: father not around, mother on welfare, project dwellings, ran the street with gangs, sold drugs, and spent a fair amount of my life paying off debts to society. I eventually became a working man, had kids, and even started a small business. So I've been all around the chessboard. But the one constant is that I still live in the “'hood.” So my finger is still on the pulse. Meaning, I still know what's going on. I'm not out of touch.
Now that we have gotten acquainted, let me tell you how this book came about. About three years ago, I met a white woman on Craigslist, in the “platonic friends” section. She was a very intelligent, very attractive, mid-thirties white woman. At the time, she was finishing up a master's degree in business but had already held some pretty high positions in Corporate America. We hit it off immediately! Our conversations started over books we had both read, and topics we were both into, like psychology. She held a degree in that as well. She wanted to come into the city and visit the local university to see if it would be a good place for her to finish up her master's. So she asked me would I ride with her. I told her yeah, but that she had to come to ME. She had to meet me in the 'hood. And to my surprise, she told me that it was doable.
What surprised me is that she actually met me where I asked her to. At that time, I was staying in the worst part of the city. It was a sight to see: a well-to-do white woman, sitting in the middle of the “jungle” with all the “animals.” It looked as if she was on a Safari ride. But usually, on a Safari, you don't get out of the car. She did! We hugged, made small talk, and went on our mission. I really admired her courage.
Now, everyone that knows me, knows that I have a big sense of humor. So I started joking with her about how brave she was for coming in the 'hood, her being a white woman and all. And she started joking back. We had a good time joking around with each other. But that exchange in her car that day opened up a whole new area of conversation for us. One that we had been avoiding – RACE. As time went on, she started to ask me so many questions about “why y'all do this?” and “why y'all do that?” that I had to jokingly ask her if I was helping her write a paper or something.
She would always preface her questions by saying things like, “You know what y'all do that's so confusing to white people?” or “You know what y'all do that scares the shit out of us?” Or she would ask me questions by giving me little scenarios to act out: “if I was behind you in the checkout line at the supermarket, would you speak to me unprovoked?” What was strange was that the things that she were scared of, she shouldn't have been scared of, because they are just innocent things that we do.
So the curiosity of my friend (yes, we're still friends) is what inspired me to have this quick conversation with you. In this series, I will answer all the questions she asked of me, and a few that she didn't. Once I started writing, I thought to myself, “Why not reach out to even more white people to ask them what confuses THEM about black men's behavior. So I did. And that's when things REALLY got interesting. I placed ads on Craigslist in a couple of different cities, suburbs, and rural areas around the country. I received a good variety of questions. Here's the ad:
“Attention All White People:

Are there things about black men that confuses you or scares you about them? Ever want to say, "Hey, why do y'all do that?” Well, now you can. Anonymously! I am a Black man and I would love to answer those questions for you. I have a friend who is a 37 year old white woman and she asks me "why do y'all do that?" types of questions all the time. So send me what you got. No question is to small, and no question is to big. No question will be offensive. No limit to the amount of questions you can ask.