Today I am thankful that I can share the secret to passing as black
- play bass.
I'm not joking.
I look Irish. My skin is so translucent that I nearly glow in the sun. My hair is a naturally curly dark auburn.
I am sedentary, so my booty is too big for my taste.
In high school and college, most of the men who would ask me out were black. I think it was because I played bass and sax.
It didn't matter.
I moved to a black part of town and became involved in local politics. At one point, a white educator complained about my activism. I had caught her abusing my neighbor's son. She held him up by his ankles because he was late to class.
I complained. The head of Elementary Education in Denver called me and asked me what in the world I was doing in the black side of town.
She wanted to know if I identified as black.
I didn't know.
I told her the truth.
I was orphaned.
I barely remember my biological father.
My grandmother said he was black.
I don't know.
The photos I have of him show him with curly black hair and dark skin. He could have been anything.
I don't know.
I was pissed off that my ethnicity mattered when I reported child abuse.
I am still angry about that.
*****
I did find my paternal family in the years that passed. They are cracker....horrible....evil...crackers.
They are of Irish descent.
I am NOT one of them. One would think Irish people would know the horrors of discrimination.
I never want to speak to any of them again.
*****
When I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time with my step-father. He told me that growing up, in the 1940's, he would see movie skits picking on Native Americans. He decided to call himself Bob, cut his hair short and pass for white.
He claimed his grandparents were Cherokee. He was in his fifties when he started talking about his childhood and his belief system.
He nearly drank himself to death. He spent a lifetime pretending to be someone he wasn't.
I wonder who he could have been if he hadn't had to be someone else.
*****
I remember talking to my aunt when I was a child. She told me that black children were beautiful. They didn't have the ugly translucent skin we have.
She always wanted to adopt a black child but would talk about how they could never achieve anything because society would not allow it.
That was forty years ago.
My have things changed. We have Beyoncé. We have Rhianna. I drool watching Will Smith's movies. I want to play like Bootsy Collins and if I were ever in the same room with George Clinton, I'd probably faint.
Wanna know a secret? I had such a horrible crush on Alexander O'Neal growing up.
I wonder how much my acceptance of black culture stemmed from my growing up watching BET because grandma said my dad was African American.
I will never know why I like what I like.
I just like it.
That's good enough for me.
*****
What does skin color have to do with success?
Sure....idiot cracker people will hold you down. Dumb cops will search your car and violate your fourth amendment rights...
As I type this I realize why I grew up to be a Libertarian. I just had an Opt Ed piece published demanding that we get rid of stupid laws in order to minimize the number of minorities shot to death by idiotic police officers.
The less stupid laws we have, the less contacts people have to make with the police. The less contacts with police, the less of a chance a community will mourn the loss of a citizen.
Hmmmm......this is therapeutic.
******
Just to be clear, I don't identify as black. I identify as Heinz 57.
I am not Mullato; I am a mutt.
I find it interesting that a woman would be harassed because she identified as a person of color. Her siblings are black. She seems to be trying to further their freedom, their liberty and their potential by educating everyone as to how we are all similar. We are all human. We all deserve the same chance at success.
I don't know that I understand the problem.
Her parents seem to be dysfunctional asshats. I wouldn't talk to them either.
Rachel Dolezal is teaching us something. I'm not sure what the lesson is. Maybe it is a lesson of empathy. She has walked a mile in the shoes of a black woman. She knows things about the experience many of us will never understand.
Black culture IS American culture. Things are changing. We are becoming more integrated with each passing year.
I can't wait to see how my great-grandchildren live. They'll probably laugh at this controversy.
That is my hope.
We all originate from the same source, don't we? Our oldest common mother originated from Africa. Honor her. Honor your ancestors.
Be who you are. You are beautiful that way.
Love ya,
S.