Skin I'm In

Small reflections growing up in my skin. I thought about all of the things that were said to me, oftentimes cruel, sometimes witty. As I grew older I began to understand the division among my race and soon began to realize it's importance today.

As children my sister and I were subjected to "witticisms" pertaining to our lighter shade of "black." I don't think people realize that children, especially small ones, take someone's words literally when spoken. We had a neighbor who liked to refer to us as "piss-colored." Quite perplexing as a child because we couldn't quite grasp what "piss" color really looked like. She would tell us that if we wanted to be darker we would need to drink "black coffee." Can you imagine two little girls oh say 10 and 6 drinking black coffee because we wanted to be darker?
After the 5th cup of coffee we realized that it didnt work and drove our parents crazy for a week straight until we came down from the caffeine high. That is when our father sat us down and explained to us what life for us would be like in our skin.

My father was a beautiful man, and until the day he took his last breath was still fighting the United States Army to change the race on his records. The Army changed what my father had originally listed as Negro (back then it was Negro) to white and he detested it. Flashback...let me take you back to my grandfather who looked Italian with blue eyes and wavy black hair. Grandpa was glorious...and mean...not to his grandchildren, but as I got older I understood where he was coming from. He was born in a time where "darkies" had it worse then ever before. His father (John) was white and Libby (my great grandmother) was Cherokee Indian and black.

Grandpa took after John. Being raised in Wichita, whenever the Papin (pronounced Pau-pawn, however later changed to Papin because it was too hard for others to pronounce) clan walked outside, the neighbors would exclaim, "there goes them Papin darkies...etc.." and Grandpa would seethe with anger. John was from France and immigrated to America. When he met and married Libby he was instantly bannished from the Papin family because he married / procreated outside of his race. Darkies were only meant to clean your homes and raise your children, not marry.

Since grandpa took after John, he was the first black American to make it possible for other blacks to play sports at WSU. Yes he was a great athlete, and later became a pro golf player. Whenever we would be around him, he would complain how he didn't like "darkies" or white people...no particular reason (he could be looking out of the window and see them), but as I look back at it now I understand his comment. I know where he was coming from and I can relate.

My father was a militant, a revolutionary that shared our interest in the black revolution and passionately spoke of his travels and endeavors. He worked hard to establish a chapter in Colorado for Malcolm X. He was liked and known by many, but he knew what we were up against and he prepared us for the time we would be out in the world. My mother would oftentimes paint a picture of a world that was seen through the eyes of rose colored glasses. She didn't want us to grow up believing that all people were racist, and wanted us to view the world as equal for everyone. Boy am I glad we had that balance or we'd be psychotic!

So to clarify, my father did not teach hate, he taught realism. He taught us to embrace our skin and be proud in the fact that we had the blood of many flowing through it. He wanted us to realize that although we were black, life was going to throw us several curves. One is the blatant racism from our own. Two is the blatant racism from white people. Three, we were also women and he wanted us to be able to care for ourselves without relying on others.

When Spike Lee made the movie, "School Daze," I would be verbally attacked by my kind because I was considered a "Wannabe." I remember working in the mall one Saturday when a guy approached my booth and called me a "Wannabe." "You're nothing but a wannabe....fake hair...fake eyes, etc..." he exclaimed, as he tried to get my phone number! Ok first and foremost, I take offense to anyone that makes comments about my color because I had heard it all of my life that I am no longer tolerant of it. I'm not piss-colored, I'm not an Octaroon or a Quadroon. I am not a Wannabe, I am not a perpetrator. I am not white, I am what I am. A black person just trying to make it in racist America.

In corporate America blatant racism is all too real. I tried to explain to my darker toned comrades that if we were to go out for the same jobs with the same skillset, my darker toned brothers or sisters would get the job before I would. They beg to differ. It has been tried and true and the results are inconclusive. Being a lighter shade of black, I do not fit the typical "norm" of what America views as Black. Back in the day however, I would have gotten the job due to the "paper-bag" theory. Yes when Affirmative Action went into affect, companies were hiring blacks based on whose skin tone was lighter or matched a paper bag. The lighter the black, you appeased "The Man..."

White women are quicker to hire a darker toned black person over a lighter toned black person because they are not considered offensive to them. White men will hire a lighter toned black person over a darker toned black person due to fascination with the color. Has nothing to do with skills, just making sure they still meet Affirmative Action with what works for the company. At my last job, I really got tired of people asking me what I was. When I would explain that I was human, they would stand before me baffled because I refused to state my heritage. What difference does it make, you hired me to get a job done so let me do just that...I would always get comments that I was trying to assimilate into the white man's world because of my color. So let me reiterate, when I was born, I had no control whatsoever of color...I was born with the skin I'm in. Period.

As a child, white people would be so fascinated with my sister and I that they would literally reach out to touch us everwhere we were. To this day I think that is where my aversion to touch began. My mother told me a funny story about how I embarrassed her at the grocery store when a woman approached the basket and I screamed, "Don't touch me!" She walked away flushed and embarrassed and I wailed that I didn't like people touching me. Today I am still faced with people quick to lay hands on me because my skin is so "creamy." Lever and I are best friends as I race home to erase the hands laid upon my skin. All 2000 of my body parts scrubbed clean to start the cycle anew.

Through the years my mother has displayed a subtle hatred for our skin tone. She makes references whenever she can about our color, comments about laying out in the sun to get darker, etc... She told us that when she was our age, she too was our color, but we've seen the pictures, she is the same color now as she was then. She can't walk past us without making a "color" comment. "Whew! I wonder what you would look like if you let the sun hit you!" or "'Chile you are hurting my eyes...where are my sunglasses?" I wonder if she thinks we should keep drinking black coffee!

Family members are the same way. My older siblings would always pick fights with us because we were lighter than them. Introductions to their friends were always the same, "These are our white sisters...." I have cousins that are so caught up with skin color that they married white men to have white children. In their minds eye if they had half white kids they were successful. If we were to analyze that, throughout the ages if men or women "scored" a "red-bone" or "high yella" person they made it. To others a lighter toned black person is like scoring a white person and earned you extra brownie points on the block. I don't know about you but I like to choose my people based on actions and feelings, not color.

Today there is a great fascination with multi-racial people. Does this mean the world is changing? No. It is just sugar coated to mask the racism that still exists and persists.

Grandpa made a valid point when he said he didn't like darkies or white people. He wasn't saying it to be racial, and the translation behind those words were simple: he didn't like ignorant people. Black or white. I don't like ignorant people: black, white, yellow or tangerine. Ignorance is bliss.

I will tell you this though...through the years, through the hatred, the comments, the bias...I am comfortable with the skin I'm in.