My Best Friend is White
And in a segregated America, that matters
It was the summer of 2009. I had just come back from a 7 month stay in Florida, and a two month stay in Atlanta. My then partner and I were back in the city we loved so dearly:
New York.
We would be apartment bouncing from Flatbush, to Park Slope, and the Upper East Side between then and 2012, but that’s a whole other chapter. I had left NYC in late 07' under the auspice of needing a break from the underground rap scene and a fresh start; she wanting to be near her family and sunshine.
Prior to leaving, '06-’07 had me busting my ass rocking shows with the likes of Torae, Skyzoo, Emilio Rojas, and other very dope emcees. Me selling tickets to get folks to come to shows, or just me paying outright cash. Showcases would give you 15 tickets to sell, at $20 a pop — a racket if I ever saw one — for 15 minutes to perform to a CD with some tracks on it, a 12 AM time slot in a room with like 16 people in it who were all either wannabe rappers, managers, fake A&R’s, weed rollers, or Myspace models.
I ain’t wanna do that shit no more. I felt like the sounds in my head were far more vast and bigger than an instrumental on a blank CD-R.
And then, like magic, in came Jon Braman.
Jon Braman comes to shows in his work clothes, which usually run the gamut between a basketball jersey, some slacks and square toed shoes, and collared shirt and dress pants. Sometimes, he shows up to rehearsal in farmers overralls and brings radishes for folks to eat that he grabbed from the co-op where he and his wonderful wife shop.
He plays his out of tune ukulele that he found in a dumpster. Yes, an actual dumpster. And he plays said ukulele everywhere: parks, train platforms, Harlem sidewalks. He makes his own hot sauce.
He’s also Jewish, from Long Island, quotes Outkast, and is one of my best friends. And, he’s White. And I know we make it seem as if America has become this uber-ultra-progressive country where kumbaya is sung at every ball game, but it’s still one big ole' celebrated segregated lunchroom. Folks lay disclaimers like:
"I have one Black/White/Asian" down like the proclamation deserves a standing ovation.
So trust, having Jon in my close circle would have sounded foreign to me 15 years ago.
I grew up in a hood where the only identifying White folks were authority figures. I saw White people on TV, working as law enforcement, or at the head of the classroom — except for Samantha, the White girl who had a crush on me in 3rd grade who I could not stand at all. I never really acknowledged race and skin color as an indentifier. I never really had to. I grew up with folks who looked, spoke, acted and ate like me. Well, I mean, I’m pretty sure I was the only one that was a part of an imaginary boy band that had an imaginary feature film, but whatever.
That was, until high school. My school was the same school that housed Nicki Minaj (no, we weren’t friends. We shared a freestyle cipher once and that’s it), better known as Onika, or "Cookie" to folks in the Drama department at F. H. La Guardia High School of the Music, Art, and the Performing Arts, aka the "Fame" school. And I walked into culture shock 101.
White people.
Cats was coming to school in the dead middle of winter, during snowstorms, in jean shorts. Dudes was drinking 40’s in front of the school, lounging on furniture in stores, jumping in the fountains barefoot in Central Park...
Watching White folks participate in life felt like an episode of National Geographic to me.
Shit was entertaining, and it felt like a different world. Anna liked Bob Dylan, Anastasia was talking feminism and using cool ass terms in poetry, Alex knew all these playwrights I had never heard of, James loved Chris Farley, Ken could call Raul Julia a neighbor. But even as a friend to them, I always felt half of myself around them. They knew me as the actor guy who rapped, and they knew my story, at least the parts I wanted to share, but I still felt lost, grappling with the worlds I was juggling — hood nerd and cultured artist. I was looking for something that felt, familiar, like family, and then I met Jon.
I wanted to be in a band. I had even gone as far as looking on Craigslist for folks who needed/wanted an emcee. In comes Arthur Lewis and Myspace. Arthur Lewis, another one of the best homies, who has the voice of a geeky angel, performed with this crew called the Melting Pot — a collective of musicians and artists who would come together the 2nd Wednesday of every month, and rock dope ass music in a cool venue. I saw that Arthur was performing with the Melting Pot the following month, found Jon’s website via Arthur’s page, and took it from there.
I came out to the show after I emailed Jon about rocking the stage with them, seeing as how they were looking for openers. They already booked an Indian dude playing this real intricate ass instrument for that month. So, I came, and Jon asked me to freestyle with dude at some 3/4 tempo, which was mega hard, but I does this freestyle shit so it was all goody.
Mad slang in this sentence, proud of myself.
Anyways, I finish and almost immediately fell in love with the scene, the music, vibes, and the folks who contributed to it. So, I kept coming back. And Jon asked to learn some of my songs for the band to play. And they did. Then, we learned some more. And that was 6 years ago. I ain’t perform with CD tracks since.
Jon was there after my breakup. Jon invited me to Passover Seder. And we sat and I heard stories and sang songs and witnessed communion and family in a way that felt very close to home in my spirit. I helped him move that one time. I hug Jon when I see him. I tell him I love him when I see him. I went to his mother’s Yiddish concert over the summer. I added music to his Spotify. I had my first falafel with Jon. We’ve written songs together. He’ll probably be the godfather to my child. He doesn’t know that yet. He’ll be a groomsman if I ever decide to grab a bowtie and a seersucker and hop over a broom.
I love Jon like a brother, because he is one. Because he was the first person who, outside of my blood, knew my working parts, my heart, without judgment. I never knew folks like that existed, until Jon. And we’ll probably still be playing music and going to each other’s homes after our bones don’t bend backwards like they once did in our youth. Jon is my man fifty grand, as we used to say back in the day. Jon was the first person who heard me sing and said yes, do that thing you feel inclined to do.
That’s what friends do — they find the pockets in you that need to be pushed, and they open them for you.
I believe there is such a thing as good debt; something that will not gain interest, but will forever be owed. A debt that will be repaid with love and kindness, sincerity and honesty, compassion and understanding. To me, this is true friendship, true kinship. When you find purity of this kind, in this sort of debt, you must honor that; you must uphold that with all the weight conjured in your heart, and you must be willing to nurture this.
I owe Jon.
And the debt is a good one, and one I am willing to pay back indefinitely. Because, when your homie is true blue like that, the choice will always be obvious. And he’s the homie. And I’m his. And so now my proverbial lunchroom feels a little less segregated. So, thanks JB, for being a friend.
*Golden Girls theme song plays triumphantly in the background*
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