For 17 Years, I Thought My Mother Was White

I’m not even kidding. That’s close to 3/4 of my life. I also completely stumbled upon this information because I was being terrible. Have you ever heard something more ridiculous in your life? Well, there’s an election coming up, so probably, but bear with me anyways.

I was in the car with my mother, and we slowed down to get around an accident. The person that, from my experience half-watching CSI reruns, looked to have perpetrated the accident, was a little old white lady. I, being the bastion of cutting-edge observational humor that I am, made an offhand comment questioning the driving prowess of wizened old Caucasian people. My mother simply shrugged and kept her eyes ahead. Rankled at the lack of affirmation, I said, ‘but mom! You’re a little old white lady, too!’.

I wish I had a picture of the look on her face. My mother has been proud of me, disappointed in me, angry at me, but never have I seen, in her or any other human being, such a pure expression of confusion and shock. In fact, it was exactly like this, because she’s super light-skinned:

Now, she has a sister, my aunt. My aunt is brown, about the same color as I am. I see her a few times a year. I know this. A thinking man would connect the dots, but nope, not me. Some things, you file away as facts, and never revisit, because why would you?

You’re on a boat, or on a beach. Are you having deep, existential thoughts pertaining to the fact that water is wet? Of course not. Death, taxes, white mother. Some things just are. She even tells me that, when I was very young, I would point out women in Robert Palmer’s Simply Irresistible video, and say that they were her. Why? Hint: they were white.

I didn’t stop to consider this, because again, why would I? Blue, yellow, pink, that’s my mother, and I’d lie down in traffic for her any day of the week. To me, she’s not a black mother, or a white mother, she’s MY mother. The last one is all that I really care about. She’s told me that many people would be openly racist in her presence because they assumed the same thing I did: that she was white. I can’t imagine having to deal with that on a regular basis like she did.

Her and my father (hey dad, I had to sneak you in somewhere) raised me, and did their best to raise me right. I was a stubborn, willful little ***hole, but the one lesson they taught me that stuck was that everyone’s deserving of my respect, no matter their gender, color, or creed. One might even say that you should judge them on the content of their character. That’s a pretty good line! I should patent that, maybe put it on some t-shirts. Under a picture of that ‘Che’ guy everyone loves.

All my life, I’ve gotten it from every direction. Black people, of all ages, have said I’m an ‘oreo’, ‘uncle tom’, ‘house negro’, etc. That, for some ridiculous reason (hint 2: the media), being smart, reading, thinking, was being uncool, being ‘white’. I could continue, but you get the idea. White people have done the same, with the added bonuses of being in a position to arrest me and follow me around department stores. Have you ever played real-life Pac-Man with a middle-aged white lady that thinks you’re trying to get a five-finger discount on some Fubu? I have. It’s not fun.

I’m black on both sides (Mos Def!). I’m black on both sides, and I had absolutely no idea, because it didn’t matter to me. I love all sorts of different things, and all sorts of different people. My interests aren’t confined to this over here, that over there, they go all over, and come back again. I’m a *person*. I’m a person before any prefix you might think to judge me with. So are you. So are we all. That’s the dream; let’s live it.