BHM: Jonah Stang-Osborne, a Certified Black Friend
CONTENT WARNINGS: use of profane language
Our opinion editor Jocelyn Hsieh in conversation with Jonah Stang-Osborne
Lexington High School junior Jonah Stang-Osborne doesn’t seem to care at all about what other people think, and I respect that. While his frequent race-based jokes might come off as extreme to some, behind his Dave Chappelle-esque brand of humor contains a wealth of experience from being black and gay in Lexington.
It comes to nobody’s surprise that Jonah has faced racism in Lexington. He says it was worse in middle school, but only because middle-schoolers are “less subtle.” To him, “people are still racist as f**k here,” even if it’s more covert. He recounts a time in freshman year when he was giving money to a friend so that the friend could afford a cookie—“you know, because I’m a nice person.” But in a messed up turn of events, a teacher saw a black kid handing money to a friend and assumed the worst. He found himself being interrogated in the dean’s office, forced to explain how he had not been participating in a drug deal in the middle of the hall, but was instead helping out a friend. As much as Lexington claims to be progressive, such events make it integral to acknowledge the subtlety of racism echoing within our struggling, upper-middle class suburban society.
Chances are, within a minute of any conversation with Jonah, race will be brought to the forefront of a joke. It’s an especially blurry line that he toes when he makes these jabs, especially since they’re usually made as a comedic insult to Asians or white people. But to those who don’t shy away from his blunt jokes, the humor of his comments outweighs any potential offensive language. Jonah isn’t Jonah without his nonstop jokes. “Humor is a coping mechanism. It’s easier than addressing systemic problems in society.” While he acknowledges that it might offend people, he says that ultimately, “people who know me know that I’m just a dumba**.” Among the people who know him best are those in his frisbee community.
This community likes to market itself as open and welcoming, attracting a diverse swath of students in Lexington. Nonetheless, Jonah is one of the few black students here at LHS who plays frisbee, and he excels at it. As varsity captain, he has worked tirelessly to become one of the best on the team. And yet, Jonah feels that “people assume [he’s] good because [he’s] black.” It detracts from the hours of sprints, workouts, and tryouts he’s thrown himself into. Jonah tried out and made the U20 Boston Ultimate Disc Alliance team, an elite youth club team, last summer. At the annual Ultimate Frisbee Youth Club Championship tournament, he made waves as one of the youngest and most athletic players on the team. So when people, even teammates, attribute his success and skill to his race, whether in a joking manner or not, they ignore the hard work he’s put into his craft.
While many might think of Jonah as their “black friend,” his identity often feels more complicated. He’s biracial: half white, half black. One year, he went back to visit family in Ireland, and he recalls feeling immensely out of place. “My [extended] family was just like, what the f**k, he’s black.” Not only does Jonah feel out of place among his extended family, he also feels that he can’t claim his blackness, either. “Real black people, like some METCO kids, don’t think I’m black enough.” Around them, he says he feels uncomfortable using the n-word. Yet, you’ll still occasionally hear him saying the n-word at frisbee practice, or around friends. He constantly seeks to balance his pride in his black heritage with the feeling that he’s not black enough; depending on who he’s around, his “percent blackness changes”, as he puts it. And while audience matters for when he uses the n-word, he stresses that nonwhite can’t tell him that he can’t say the n-word.
In looking for a balance to his identity, Jonah has also discussed race with his family. In particular, his discussions with his mother, a wealthy white woman from Connecticut, has helped him understand how she views herself in society in relation to race and gender. He compares her identity politics with the conversations with his dad, a black man from the South. To understand how he should think of himself, he has to understand the vast difference in privilege that his parents had. His interactions with others reflect how others think of him, but it’s far more complex to figure out how he thinks of himself: which side does he belong to? For now, he “hangs out with Asians and Jewish people because I can’t really hang out with other people.”
Jonah’s identity wouldn’t be complete without his sexuality. He recalls coming out on the bus to Amherst Invite, an ultimate frisbee tournament. In frisbee and many other sports, there’s a huge culture of jokingly doing or saying something gay. That day on the bus, when the jokes started to get sexual, Jonah just came out. “Nobody on the team is homophobic; everybody does gay s**t, but now they just treat me differently.” But while the frisbee community is generally supportive and humorous about the LGBTQ+ community, Jonah is not sure if his black side of the family is. “I would never come out to the black side of my family. They don’t need to know that about me.”
While Jonah might be black and bisexual, he hasn’t needed either of these components to find his place. His friends don’t become his friends because he’s black, or because he’s gay; they become his friends because of how he finds humor in the darkest of circumstances, and because of the occasional glimpses of his innate kindness.