The Humiliation Potential of Shaking a Black Man’s Hand

November 18th, 2004 Posted in Essays

I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, and so things start normally. “Oh! Hey! How you doing?” I say, smiling and walking over.

“Jay! Not bad! How you been, man?” he asks.

So far so good. I make a move for a handshake–pretty standard territory where I come from for someone you haven’t seen in a bit. I opt for a standard three-pump-release shake for the occasion–firm and decisive, but not too firm, so as to make it clear I’m about friendship as much as business. Following the third pump I go for my standard release-and-hand-to-pocket maneuver, so as to better jiggle change and rock on my heels while talking.

But then suddenly, like an F-18 fighter jet whose controls won’t respond, it all goes wrong. He stops my hand in mid-release from the third pump and, without warning, segues the pump into a 45-degree-angle hand-lock.

Flustered at the audacity of his rebellion from handshake norms, I nonetheless try to regain my composure. Alright, I guess we’re doing this now, I think, and hold the hand-lock for two seconds–what I estimate to be a decent amount of time for a handshake that, to my mind, implies a level of brotherhood I hadn’t been prepared to acknowledge. Uncertain if I’m supposed to lean in for a combo back-pat or not, I end up not. It’s not like he saved my life in a car fire or anything, I think.

I wait for him to release the hand-lock, which he does, and it is here where I make my crucial and devastating mistake. Unmindful of the possibility of a third stage to the handshake–at two stages, the entire ordeal’s already gone into overtime, in my mind–I let my hand down…and leave him hanging. Before I can even react, he segues from the 45-degree-angle hand-lock to a closed-fist tap, while I already have my hand halfway into my pocket.

Horrified that I’ve disengaged from the handshake before it had come to a full and complete stop, and just as scared that I might look uncool in front of a black man, I quickly bring my hand back up for the fist-tap. He pretends like the entire handshake business has gone off hitchless and starts talking, but I know he knows: I, the dorky white guy, fucked up his cool black guy handshake.

If I can take any solace from the ordeal, it’s with the perspective that maybe he’s the one who should feel embarrassed. The three-pump shake is the established norm. Any deviations not worked out ahead of time shouldn’t automatically be assumed to be part of the shake canon. What if I’d gone for a single-pump tight-squeeze shake with an elbow-grab combo right when he brought out the hand-lock? There would have been a four-arm pile-up and blood all over the place. There’s no room for freestyling in the handshake arena.

Still, though–I screwed up his cool black guy handshake. Man.