1000 word excerpt

Intro:
Way back when

I believe I was about five or six years old when I discovered two life changing things about myself. #1. I had black skin. #2. I was considered a NIGGER.

It was a very confusing time for me. I soon learned that the girl that broke the news to me by calling me that no word, was black, too. Never mind that she didnt look black. Her skin was white. She was a red-bone or hi yella as my aunt explained. None of it made sense to me. My skin was clearly not black. I was bronze or tan or mocha or cocoa or something I couldnt describe and the girl was pink, yet no one was called pink or brown. It was really confusing.

Upon reflection, it was unusual for a girl like me not to know her skin color by the age of two, as I was in the fifties. Unfortunately, I have been reminded numerous times of my skin-tone as an American. The confusion deepened when I was reunited with my Dad after being separated from him when I was about 4 or 5 years old. He re-entered my life when I was 19 years old.

Daddy was upset when he observed my book collection and realized I was very interested in African - American history. I can still feel my hand in his as he told me that he had kidnapped me when I was younger so that I wouldnt be raised as a nigger. Believe me I was shocked! What did my father think I was? What did my father think he was? Why he was a nigger too! Surely he knew that.

He didnt know that. He was raised in Panama and Jamaica. He was a merchant seaman and traveled all over the world. He was accepted for being a man first. Then he was accepted for being an Indian man from Japore, India, and Colon, Panama, and Kingston, Jamaica. He was a Singh and everyone knew he was a Caucasian, an Aryan, a Sikh. So what if his skin color was darker than mine. He spoke with an accent, his hair was straight and he carried a passport. So there.

So there lay the very reason my mom said she left me and Dad years ago in New York City. I recalled her words about her and Dads reasons for not living together. She said he didnt understand her American blackness. The black experience for a black native born American woman was dramatically different from a mans of any race.

My mother was very sensitive to her race and her sex as she was constantly reminded to keep her place as a citizen of the 1930s to 50s. She explained how Dad would try to teach her to speak with an accent, to wrap and wear a sari, to wear a bindi on her forehead so she could escape the prohibitive racism still running rampant in our America. He wanted her to be able to sit anywhere on the train going to a funeral for her relative from New York to North Carolina. No Jim Crow car for his woman.

Of course, she didnt want to wear the sari or the bindi or speak with an accent. She endured the pain of her blackness and it ripped them apart. No, it wasnt the only thing that caused them to break up but it was enough for my mother to use as a reason for why I never saw my father when I was a young girl of 4 and older, but thats another book.

This book, this collection has evolved from the cooling pot of my ancestors lineage and the cauldron of the time and place in which I was born. My friend Linda Lopez, ( I love you Linda even though we dont talk often) reminded me a few years ago of a racist incidence we encountered years ago which may summarize my true feelings about living in a society that believes in racial categories. Linda and I had lost contact for a few years. I called to wish her a happy holiday or because I had found her number or for some reason out of the blue.

Linda says, Girlfriend, I was just telling some of my friends about you and about that racist incident we had a while back.

What racist incident? I asked, trying to recall.

You remember she replied, the one you, Bill, Larry and I experienced when we went up to my sisters cabin in Big Bear?

No, remind me. I said, not remembering.

How could you not remember! she said incredulously. That incident changed my life. I never will forget it how could you forget, just get over it, thats amazing!

To make a long story short, the man called me the `N word for no reason. Linda defended me vigorously. I forgot about it, and thats the point. I dont necessarily remember everything a sexist said or did to me either. There are mean, rude people in every culture and color of skin has nothing to do with it. There are a lot of people that pretend they are better than everyone else for one reason or other. Often, race is just a handy way to start trouble. A hot button to push, a buzz word to use.

Luckily the human genetic code has been broken. There is scientific proof of Einsteins theory, now in the year 2000. All men share 99.9% similar DNA regardless of their skin color. There is no such thing as race.