Baratunde Thurston is a black guy.
It says so on the cover of his Best-selling, part-satire, part-memoir book, How To Be Black (Harper Collins Publishers), which I assume is an admission of said blackness. But while you may still read it in book form, downloading it and reading it on your Kindle or tablet might be more apropos for the tech-minded Thurston.
A comedian by trade, Thurston owes much of his success to our ever quickening Information Age. Combining his love of comedy, politics and technology, he helped found popular political blog Jack & Jill Politics in 2006, garnered national acclaim after speaking to Netroots Nation in 2009 and for the past for years, he’s been the Digital Director for legendary satirical newspaper, The Onion.
But behind that success is a story both unique and familiar in traveling between worlds both black and white, yet uniquely American. In How to Be Black, Thurston writes of being raised by a single mother after his father was murdered, of attending prestigious Sidwell Friends private school in Washington, D.C. and of graduating from Harvard. He talks about the integrated life of being “the black friend,†and other dramadies that make up our so-called post-racial lives.
And that’s why Thurston’s book, New York Times best-seller How To Be Black, resonates. It’s the story of code-switching and co-existing in a racialized world.
But there’s also jokes and stuff.
In a half-serious conversation about his book and how technology can save you (if you let it), Thurston explained why black people need to be more entrepreneurial in the digital world, and why, when asked if we’re living in a “post-racial America,” he says: not so much.
Belton: You‘ve been on quite the book tour with How to Be Black. Are you sick of talking about yourself yet?
Thurston: As most people go, I’m at above average abilities of talking about myself. My threshold is probably higher than those people built with shame.
That’s good since you’re the keynote speaker at South By Southwest (SXSW) this week. What’s the keynote speech for SXSW looking like?
Thurston: Keynote is about everything. I found the secret. I will reveal it to the people in the room. It’s a one-time only shot. I’m not doing it again and if you miss it you miss everything.
Oh, really?
Thurston: I’m talking about the way I see the world changing. Freedom as a grand concept. Talking about the role for mediators in this more rapidly changing world and where technology and humor fit into that. And I’ve got some theories I’m going to be passing off as facts. And I’ll mention black people. Probably twice.
Now on the tech side of this shift though, as you may recall, not-so-long ago there was some befuddlement about black people using technology, namely Twitter.
Thurston: There were a couple of stories.
Belton: Yes! There were. But I don’t find it surprising that black people use technology. Of course we do. But what do you think of the statement about how African Americans are more consumers and users of technology, but not creators or developers?
Thurston: Black people, as much as we’ve been deprived, we’re pretty creative, entrepreneurial folks. We should be set up to do more in the (digital) space. But no one’s painting that picture that coding is cool. That entrepreneurial is sexy. Digital start-up entrepreneurship is not hot as it could and as it should be. There’s an attitude and certain presumptuousness that accompanies the mindset of people who build tech businesses. An arrogance of, “Yeah, I can do that. I’m going to build a tech company.†Not in a negative way, but the delusion has to be strong that I’m going to create Foursquare so people can check in and become king of the burger joint.
Clearly we have an affinity for gadgetry. We were using pagers before anyone knew pagers were necessary. We’ve been promoting technology and using technology for a really long time. It’s time for us to join, in full force, that producer class. When black people create stuff it’s amazing. We created jazz. What’s that going to look like in tech and software and web experience? It’s not just about “oh, this would be great for black people. Oh, we got to hook black people up and make more black coders.†It’s about the world and the mark of relevance in the world is that people know how to build things.
If you’re black and reading this and thinking of being entrepreneurial, you have to be digital.
On that note, speaking of black advancement in another realm—politics—why didn’t the election of Barack Obama cure racism?
Thurston: [Laughter] [Refuses to answer question.]
But we’re in post-racial America! We have a black president! Where’s my one-stop-racism cure!
Thurston: [Crickets]
Come on! You wrote a whole book about how to be black. Surely there’s some post-racial goodies in there?
Thurston: This country—probably the world, but especially America—is going through a reassessment of who and what we are, trigged by our place in history and demographic changes. We are facing new types of conflict and collaboration and that dove tails into what we’ve been talking about as black people. There are new fears, stereotypes and expectation but also new collaborations and shared understanding. In this river of life new rocks emerging, the flow is changing. We can come closer to one another and bond through this experience; or we can paddle to our own beach and flip the boat and all wash out.
Follow BlackEnterprise.com’s coverage of 2012 South by Southwest at blackenterprise.com/technology