I've received much less racism from whites than from blacks.
Once, though, I didn't get a job -- I had dropped off my resume at Europe magazine in DC. The hiring party didn't see me -- just my resume -- and called back immediately. But once I showed up, I was suddenly overqualified.
Yeah, right. The only brown faces in the place were pushing brooms and mops.
Twice I've gotten strange looks from older white women -- this was once in NC and once in Arizona. I'm sure it's because I was with a white man and they didn't like that. But they didn't say anything. Black women make an issue of it, they seemed to take me on as a personal harassment project. You would think they'd prefer me to date white men -- leaves more black men for them! But no, they'd rather try and control me.
Maybe that's why I have this problem with authority. Can't stand for someone to try and control me.
When I was in Utah in January, one woman kept giving me odd looks. I don't know if she was afraid of me, if she hated me, or if she had never seen anyone with brown skin and blond hair before. She wasn't rude at all, though.
Anyway, I can count on one hand the deliberately mean things that white people have done to me. But the things "blacks" have done -- countless. In fact, I'm only recently coming to terms with the massive abuse I've received from blacks. Some of it I think I repressed for quite some time.
I know what you mean about racism from blacks. And as I have said on this board before - what makes it hard is that, if you complain about whites' racism toward you, society applauds that and is on your side. If you say blacks were racist toward you (1) till recently you were int he same category as them, so "how could you be getting racism from them" and (2) it is assumed that if you are lighter and have less kinky hair/straight hair, you've got it all better than "blacks" so how could anythign they say possibly "hurt you when you're th one on top.
Anyway - I have experienced racism from whites - in New Jersey and in the south as a young adult. I have not experienced any in California.
In Atlanta I remember I was called in for an interview. I walked in, the man took one look at me and you could tell he immediately just started going through the motions and then 'Ok thanks good-bye." It was so obvious. I started to tell him 'Ya know, you really shouldn't be so obvious about it." etc. (At that time I had an Anglo-Saxon surname)
In Atlanta I cannot recount how many tiimes I heard the word "nigger" - it was awful. From whites who thought I was white. But not at me.
I remember doing Roommate Finders in Atlanta and it was virtually impossible to live with whites. I started saying I was Puerto Rican and they were puzzled. They did not know how to fit me into the black white dichotomy they had in their heads.
That's why I love California.
My brother and sister went to a private elementary school in Montclair NJ - Brookside. This would have been in the late 50's early 60's. They are much older - I was not born yet. My brother says they he would get beaten up every day. Or he'd get beaten up having to stand up for my sister.
The occasional racism I've experienced from racist whites and blacks (and even some hispanics and asians at times) has been directly associated with my marriage to my German husband I feel.
Luckily, the incidents I've experienced have been rare as most people I've encountered have been completely normal decent folks.
America is slowly coming along finally. And it's about time.
To be honest though, I have experienced far more racism from blacks than whites overall. If I were to do a tally. And this is a damn shame... I was really sheltered in the Bay Area I think being surrounded by intelligent middle/upper middle class people of color. My family, personal friends, and friends/associates of my parents who belonged to all so called "races". The most racism I've experienced in my life has been since leaving California almost 4 years ago. I've had the most problems with underclass dark-skinned (i.e. unmixed) black males and young poor black women.
They are much more open and agressive in their dislike when they have issues, while other people keep it on a nonverbal level. You can feel it, but with some blacks they make a point of you hearing it too.
The problems I've encounterd with other non white minorites has been with the women not the men. Again, when I'm with my husband.
I think the assumption is attractive professional white men are supposed to be with white women. Specifically blondes. If a desirable white man is attracted to women of color, they should be Asian, or "Hispanic" (i.e. the Spanish type) or Indian, etc... Not black, "light-skinned" black, or biracial (if the partial ancestry is black).
Every now and then I'll get hate stares and rudeness from white women in stores and resturants (this was really an issue when my husband and I were in Florida a few years ago before I had my son) but I don't really have many problems with white males at all.
If anything, they tend to be very nice/respectful to me both when I'm alone and especially when I'm out with my son and husband.
Maybe every part of the country is different. I don't know.
I DO know that since having my little boy, people in general tend to be friendlier. Aside from some of the underclass, usually dark-skinned black women here in Ohio with many fatherless children I've encountered. They tend to look pissed and I find themselves looking at my son, than back to their children, and looking hurt and angry. now THAT makes me SICK. Because ALL children, I don't care what/who they look like, desearve to be loved and well thought of.
I think this is one of the biggest problems in the black community in fact. Lack of love, self love and feeling like one is on the "the short end of the stick" all the time. I really wish it would end.
Some black males have stared at me hard and looked angry/hateful/shocked when I've been alone with my son, (Yann has a golden summer tan now so this behavior has stopped temporarily) but others have smiled
and been so nice.
Sooo... it's a mixed bag.
I try to (sometimes I succeed sometimes I fail) go into all situations with a clean slate. Not automatically assuming the worst of people. Sometimes I'm surprised positively. And that's always nice.
My husband and I have had wonderful experiences with people who look stereotypically "creole"/"quadroon"/"multi-generational mulatto". Light skinned, curly/wavy haired, intermediate featured folks. From their demeanor/tone of voice you can tell they probably don't consider themselves white OR really black for that matter. They flock to my son with such warmth and just claim his as one of their own.
Posted: Wed 13 Jul 2005 20:17 Post subject: "Uppity" whites
The few "white" attacks on me have come from self-styled "white liberals" who feel they are defending the poor, oppressed blacks by putting down the uppity mixed blood. Note how this one distorts my opposition to "one drop" and "racial kidnapping" and projects what are no doubt HER beliefs of "black" genetic inferiority onto me:
While researching this entry, I read a piece by A.D. Powell, a mixed-race woman who has a virulent hatred of black people, at another weblog. She clasped the story about Joseph to her bosom because it fit in with her claim African-Americans 'kidnap' non-blacks into the race to disguise their inherent inferiority. Racist sites have embraced a book based on a mangled understanding of DNA testing, The Seven Daughters of Eve, though I think their participants, deeply invested in white supremacy, would avoid the tests. On this thread, from an 'anthropology' blog, several bigots supposedly address the issue, but it is mainly an explication of their racist beliefs. Among the participants is 'scientific racist' Newamul Khan (Razib), who along with fellow-traveler, and boss one suspects, Paul Wickre, (Godless Capitalist) fronts the Gene Expression blog. Some people's agendas notwithstanding, these DNA tests are not the key to understanding 'race.'
Frankly, I can't recall commenting on the Wayne Joseph case at all. The "Silverrights" woman is mad about other things I've written. I've yet to meet an ODR supporter of any alleged "race" who wasn't somewhat hysterical.
In the magazine American Heritage, a white woman named Jillian Sim announced that she had discovered that her great-grandmother was Anita Hemmings, a white mulatto or mixed white who graduated from Vassar College in the late 19th century was almost expelled for being "colored" when a wealthy and envious classmate decided to have her background investigated. Now Vassar proudly claims that Anita, who lived as white for the rest of her life, was their first "black" graduate. Jillian Sim accepts the myth that Anita was a "black" who "passed for white" and she condemns both her paternal grandmother and great-grandparents as "blacks" who "passed for white." Sim, her father, and her son, however, are still white. The dead are "black" and the living are "white."
Jill Sim, here. 2004, and I see A.D. Powell is/was still excoriating me for “embracing” one drop. I did and do not. My journey into my ancestral research has remained a work in progress. I find Ms. Powell’s continued intolerance of this process suspect and take great exception to her characterizations of me throughout the years – as have others who come from bi or tri, etc., racial ancestry who are examining the ambiguity and arbitrary nature of race in this country and who have felt the particular sting of Powell’s poison arrow.
Some of us came late to the table and didn’t always posess the inner resources necessary to come to the “right” conclusions that Powell has, which I believe arise from a refusal and reluctance, more than a solid position, to study the past in a more balanced fashion.
The fact is, the woman whose race I supposedly hijacked, my great-grandmother’s, lived with family who were very much part of their “black” community, were well-known leaders of it, and who listed themselves as black and who were identified by their society and by government as black – as was my ancestor. It would be one thing if my ancestor lived all her life as white, however there was a discernible split from black to white and such a change, once called “passing", and the effects on future generations, and there are effects, are what I have studied and continue to study today.
That said, there is much to agree with A.D. Powell, but I find her style, for lack of a better word, is fatal to constructive dialogue.
Thanks for the comments above.
Jillian Sim
Sim does not know the difference between "mulatto" and "black" nor does she realize that "colored" was not synonymous with "black" in the 19th century. She also confuses a social handicap ("colored" or nonwhite status) with one's "true" ethnicity and "race." Did Jews become literal non-Aryans when the Third Reich degreed them to be so? Do we honor the Nazis by maintaining their racial nomenclature? NO!
Facts Sim chooses to ignore: Anita Hemmings, her great-grandmother, knew that the "colored" or "Negro" label did not describe her and chose to embrace an identity that she felt more accurately reflected who she was. She married a man who shared her views. A person who is "raised black," as Sim and her confederates would put it, is no more obligated to keep that designation than one is obligated to honor a parent's political party or history of abuse by carrying it on to the next generation without question.
Sim says, "It would be one thing if my ancestor lived all her life as white..." In her American Heritage article, Sim denounces her grandmother, Ellen Love, as a "black" who "passed for white" DESPITE the fact that Ellen had been REARED AS WHITE. Now that she's been caught in that lie, can Sim say exactly when her family changed from "black" to "white"?
In some families, the ties to black roots have been so long broken that later generations are shocked to discover their real heritage. Such was the case with Hemmings’ great-granddaughter, Jillian Sim. Sim, now a writer working on a book about her family, did not discover the family secret until 1994, when she was informed by a friend of her grandmother’s. She described her reaction to the news in her essay "Fading to White," published in American Heritage (February/March 1999).
"I was surprised by how little surprise I felt…I have reddish brown hair, and it is very fine. I have blue eyes, and you can easily see the blue veins under my pale-yellow skin. I was ignorant enough to think of blackness in the arbitrary way most of white society does: One must have a darker hue to one’s skin to be black. I look about as black as Heidi."
(Sim didn't know about "one drop" until black-identified mulatto elites miseducated her.)
Quote:
Curiously, a Boston newspaper that interviewed Hemmings when she was working at the public library argued that the "singularly serious, frank, earnest girl" never made any attempt to deny her African background while in her hometown.
"Miss Hemmings certainly did not go to Vassar under an assumed name, nor did she give a fictitious residence," said the 1897 report. "Miss Hemmings has been too prominently and publicly identified with her parents’ people to allow any good excuse for the ignorance of her lineage which is attributed to her instructors and associates at Vassar."
(Most "anti-passing" nuts believe that the "tarbrushed" white should be like the Indian Untouchable, constantly alerting the "pure" whites to his/her polluted presence. And they call that "pride"?!!)
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Quote:
Andrew and Anita Hemmings Love, on the other hand, raised their children — Ellen, Barbara, and Andrew Jr. — as whites, sending them to the demanding Horace Mann School in Manhattan and to an exclusive whites-only camp in Cape Cod. According to Sim, Hemmings’ mother came to visit the Love house just once during her daughter’s married life and was made to use the servants’ entrance.
Ellen Love, Sim’s grandmother and Anita’s daughter, discovered the truth about her racial heritage only by tracking down her own grandmother, Dora, on Martha’s Vineyard in 1923. Ellen took the secret to her grave, telling not even her own family.
"My great-grandmother was the first black graduate of Vassar College. And there was the real secret," wrote Sim. "This was why my grandmother would not, could not, speak of her family. Grandma’s mother had been born black, and she had left her black family behind to become white. An irreversible decision. A decision that would affect all the future generations of her family. I thought of my faceless black ancestors who watched their daughter Anita leave them behind for better opportunities, for a better life as a white woman. She had to pass as white to educate herself. She had to abandon the very core of who she was to educate herself."
Like her parents before her, Hemmings conspired with her daughter to keep her race a secret in order to allow her to attend Vassar. On her application, Ellen marked her race as white and her ancestry as French and English, just as her mother had done.
If the college did not make the connection between Anita Hemmings and Ellen Love at the time of Ellen’s admittance, the school certainly became aware of Ellen’s racial identity while she was on campus, noted Vassar professor Bickerstaff.
"The 25-year-old festering sores of Hemmings’ white roommate erupted at a class reunion when the roommate heard rumors that Hemmings’ daughter, Ellen, was enrolled at Vassar," Bickerstaff wrote in a 1999 article for the Miscellany News. "She confided in the president that her particular interest in the question came from her ‘own painful experience with a roommate who was supposed to be a white girl, but who proved to be a Negress.’"
Tamar Tate ’95, co-chair of the African American Alumni Association, who did research on the Hemmings family while at Vassar, has read the correspondence between Hemmings’ roommate and college President Henry Noble McCracken. She related, "The president wrote her back and said, ‘We are aware, and we’ve made sure she’s in a room by herself. We don’t even know if [Ellen] is aware that she’s black.’"
Ellen Love, in fact, graduated as a white woman in 1927. "I think in some ways Vassar was thought of as a proper institution, but it was also progressive in what it was doing for women in this country," Tate speculated on why the college would have protected Ellen. "I have to think that somehow they understood that at the turn of the century this country was still dealing with issues of race, but it had gotten to the level that it just wasn’t worth it [to deny Ellen admittance]. There were so many institutions comparable to Vassar that were admitting black people at the time."
Remember what Sim said about how it would not be "passing" if Anita had been reared as white? Well, Ellen was reared as white but Sim still accepts the myth that she was "black" and only "passing as white."
(College officials probably protected Ellen because they realized how ridiculous it was to label this white girl a "Negro."
Posted: Fri 22 Jul 2005 19:18 Post subject: College Freshmen
At the beginning of my freshman year of college, I moved into a room in the freshmen dormitory with this girl that I’d never met. She was this blond white girl who bragged about having gone to study apes in Africa. She was also a freshman. I had only been in the room for no longer than two weeks when she asked me if I’d do her a favor by moving out so that she could have her friend, a girl that she’d only known for two weeks who was also white, move in since they really got along. I told her that I’d think about it. The truth was, I liked the room because it was a corner room with two windows and I would have preferred for her to move out instead. She actually felt that she was more entitled to the room because she had more stuff in the room than I did and it would be more convenient for me to move out with my fewer things than for her to move out with her larger load of stuff. When I told her what my decision was, she told me that she’d take it up with the Resident Assistant (RA) on our floor and see what Residence Life would decide. We both were called in to talk with the RA separately and then together and neither of these meetings ended with a satisfactory conclusion. The RA had a meeting with the Residence Life directory and from that, the decision came down that since my roommate was the one who was instigating a roommate change, she’d have to be the one to move out. Less than a week later, I came back to the room after classes to find a note left on my desk that was written by my roommate telling me that a Lieutenant Femmi from Campus Security wanted to see me. I went to see this officer and he informed me that my roommate had lodged a complaint that a twenty-dollar bill was missing from her trunk that she kept under her bed. I was flabbergasted! I didn’t know that this girl even had a trunk under her bed but even if I did, I’d NEVER steal anyone’s money or anything else! The Campus police officer asked me if I stole the money. I told him that I did not. Then he asked me if I’d be willing to take a lie detector test. I told him that I would be willing to take that test. Then, he read me my Miranda Rights. This was my first time ever being away from home, I was only 18 and here I was in a campus police station being read my rights! I was really scared and thoughts of innocent black people going to jail after being falsely accused by lying white people went through my mind. I wondered if that would be a factor in making me fail the lie detector test. I found out later that he didn’t intend to give me the test, he only wanted to record my response to the question about whether or not I’d be willing to take it. The campus police officer called about four other girls into his office. I was the only “black” one. While this investigation was going on, my roommate offered to me that she’d drop the charges if I moved out. I told her that I didn’t steal her damn money and that we’d just have to see what the police would find out. My roommate made a fatal mistake with her ploy. She went to the RA and told her that if I didn’t move out, she’d make life miserable for me. The RA, who was also white, wrote this in her report and sent it into Residence Life. The directory of Residence Life, who was also white, became absolutely INCENSED about this comment. The comment was actually made prior to the charges. When the Residence Life director was told about the (phony) charges that had been lodged with the campus police, he strongly suspected immediately that my roommate was lying. The Residence Life director and the campus police got all of us together for a meeting. The RL director started the meeting by telling my roommate to her face that he thought that she was a liar! He also bristled at her that he did NOT appreciate her comment about making life miserable for other students in his dormitories and that HE'D make life miserable for those who threaten to make life miserable for others! He then asked her what was the exact amount of money that she had in her trunk. She said that she didn’t know exactly how much she had but that she knew that a twenty-dollar bill was missing. He told her that it didn’t make any sense for her to know that a twenty-dollar bill is missing if she didn’t know how much money she had to start with. How would she know that a five wasn’t missing as well or how could she be sure that she wasn't mistaken about how many twenties she actually had to begin with. She claimed that she was sure that she had a twenty put she didn’t know how many of them she had. She couldn’t even say whether or not she had one, or two or three of these bills. Her story fell apart right there in the meeting. Then, the RL director brought up her threat of making my life miserable again in front of the campus police and everyone at the meeting. My roommate dropped the charges shortly after the meeting and moved out a few days later.
My take on all of this? Well, I think that my roommate was expecting white solidarity and found herself receiving a rude awakening. This all happened back in 1984.
Posted: Fri 17 Mar 2006 21:40 Post subject: White College Roomies
"mixedmom": I can totally relate to your negative experience with your White college roomie. I was attending an Ivy League college on the East coast. During my time there I was accused of stealing my White roomie's sweater(she later retracted the accusation when she" remembered" that she had LOANED the sweater to me!). I was also accused of stealing money from another White roomie(who later found the money in the bottom of her backpack). I was thousands of miles away from home, 18 years-old, and one of only a handful of students of color on campus. So you can imagine my discomfort and grief. The administration did little to make me feel welcomed, and behaved as though these random RACIST accusations were par for the course. I will never forget the number of times I was asked "What ARE you?"(I am multiracial),"Are you here on an affirmative-action scholarship?"(I was not. I had an academic grant completely separate from the affirmative-action system),"Why do all you Black students sit together?"(from White students)and "We noticed you sometimes with the White students---what's up with that?"(from Black students). It was a harrowing time, filled with racial politics and innuendo. Looking back, I am amazed that I had the fortitude and self-esteem to survive it. But it definitely prepared me for the real world.
Posted: Fri 17 Mar 2006 21:56 Post subject: More College Issues
I also have a very odd memory of a conversation with my Mother the year I applied to colleges. She and I were perusing college catalogs and I was very excited about applying to an Ivy league school(as I had always wanted to experience life on the East coast and I would be the first person in my family to attend such a school). My mother held up some catalogs from historically Black colleges(Spelman, Fisk, Howard, etc), and announced "If you want to find a Black husband, you should go to one of these schools! Black men would love a light-skinned girl like you!". I felt stunned and frozen. My Mother(who is White)had never said anything so blatantly bigoted and narrowminded to me in my life. I never felt more acutely the absence of my African American/Native American father(they had been divorced since I was 4 and he had not lived with us since). Even at that tender age, I knew my mother was being offensive and ignorant in her assumption that Black men were so shallow that they would choose a wife based entirely on the lightness or darkness of her complexion. Unbelievable.
Posted: Sat 18 Mar 2006 20:22 Post subject: Re: White College Roomies
sweetsister wrote:
"mixedmom": I can totally relate to your negative experience with your White college roomie. I was attending an Ivy League college on the East coast. During my time there I was accused of stealing my White roomie's sweater(she later retracted the accusation when she" remembered" that she had LOANED the sweater to me!). I was also accused of stealing money from another White roomie(who later found the money in the bottom of her backpack). I was thousands of miles away from home, 18 years-old, and one of only a handful of students of color on campus. So you can imagine my discomfort and grief. The administration did little to make me feel welcomed, and behaved as though these random RACIST accusations were par for the course.
I know that this had to be very unsettling! For me, the girl who accused me ended up transferring to another school the next semester and that was my last encounter like that where I was accused of any wrong doing.
sweetsister wrote:
I will never forget the number of times I was asked "What ARE you?"(I am multiracial),"Are you here on an affirmative-action scholarship?"(I was not. I had an academic grant completely separate from the affirmative-action system),"Why do all you Black students sit together?"(from White students)and "We noticed you sometimes with the White students---what's up with that?"(from Black students). It was a harrowing time, filled with racial politics and innuendo. Looking back, I am amazed that I had the fortitude and self-esteem to survive it. But it definitely prepared me for the real world.
I still get asked about my ethnicity. I like being multiracial, it's who and what I am and I don't mind telling people who ask me about it. I don't want to be made to feel like I'm being displayed in a showcase or anything but it's nice to be able to share my point of view about my multiraciality with those who are curious.
I hear you--it is nice (at times) to share the story of my heritage with well-meaning and genuine friends and acquaintances. But I always ask for the same favor from THEM. I learn so much this way---the "racial heritage" of so-called White people is just as rich, varied and fascinating as mine! But when people come at me with the "explain why you're tan so we can categorize you and forget about you" attitude, I am NOT amused! Thank you, "mixedmom" for listening to my story. And I saw some of your family photos---absolutely beautiful!
But when people come at me with the "explain why you're tan so we can categorize you and forget about you" attitude, I am NOT amused!
I HEAR you loud and clear on this point. It's never a good thing when you encounter people with nefarious reasons for wanting to acquire personal information about you.
I've also encountered those who appear to start out being "just curious" about my ethnicity but when I say that I'm mixed, mulatto (I know that you don't like this word), or multiracial, I've had some African Americans pull away from me and not care to include me in their camaraderie. I've encountered both white and black reactions.
I respect your right and your personal decision to self-identify as "mulatto" and/or "multiracial". I identify(depending on my mood)as Black, White, Native American, or Multiracial (also "multiculti" when I'm feeling feisty) . I do not use "mulatto", but I apologize if I offended you with my past rants against the word. I now understand that it holds historical and personal significance for you. I think you and I come from very different(but both valid)experiences with the term "mulatto", so we will logically have different emotional responses to it. I really appreciate you acknowledging my personal aversion to the word. And I respect your allegiance to it. Peace.
My white grandfather disowned my mother, his only daughter out of six children, when she married my father. My dad was what they called light, bright, and almost white and had blue-green eyes, mostly due to the fact that his mother was from the islands, if you see what I'm saying. Anyway, my mom's father told her "You went and got yourself and ni99er and couldn't even get yourself a whole ni99er". Yup. So, I grew up with one grandfather, my black Pop-Pop, even though my white cousins had relationships with the man who fathered my mother and her brothers. My sister and I MET my white grandfather ONE TIME at one of our cousin's birthday party. I was nine and my sister was eleven. How disgraceful is that!?
Here's another lesser, but still messed up, example. My first real boyfriend, who I was with from age 15 to age 19, was half-white and half-Puerto Rican. Well, one day he told me that his white mother had called me a half-ni99er bi$c%. I really don't even know why to tell you the truth, nor why he told me, but then again that reminds me of some other things I ought to share... Anyway, the craziest part about this white woman dissing me like that is that she had six kids by like three different PUERTO RICAN men! If she only knew the genetic make-up of many Puerto Ricans.
I guess I never thought of the following as incidents of white racism against me, but there are some other things that have affected me. Now that I think of it in these terms, I think my sister and I, in many cases growing up, were the "token mulattos", if that makes sense. Here's what I mean:
1. One day me and another light-skinned mulatto (my play cousin) were playing with this white girl who told my play cousin "If you were any darker, I wouldn't be allowed to play with you." I'm PRETTY SURE she wasn't even directing that to me. Anyway, surely her parents had put this wack notion in her head, as I don't believe a child would have come up with that on her own.
2. Our play cousins consisted of three girls and a boy who lived right next door to us. They looked so much like us that there are some people from the old neighborhood who thought all six of us were siblings. However, they were slightly darker than me and my sister. It wasn't until adulthood that my sister pointed out to me that our play cousins had NEVER been in the house or even the yard of our white neighbors who lived on the other side of us. My sister and I were over there ALL THE TIME and the white girl around our age that lived there was one of our closest buddies growing up.
3. My BEST FRIEND growing up confided some things to me over time about her dad, who was Italian and apparently quite racist. You gotta understand that we were at each other's houses ALL THE TIME, went places with each other's families, lived one block away, went to school together - in the same class from K-8, and even had our birthdays like 4 days apart! All of these people HAD to know I was half black, I mean, my parents were divorced and dad lived 1,000 miles away, but, hello!?, when we had birthday parties our BLACK cousins and aunt and uncles would be there!!! OK, so my best friend told me that...
A. her father had a rubber mallet that he had somehow altered and he referred to it as a "ni99er beater".
B. she was not allowed to watch "Gimme a Break" with Nell Carter because when her dad saw her watching it he said "I don't want that fat, black woman jumping up and down on my TV".
C. when one of our schoolmates, who was half-black and half-Italian, who happened to be chocolate brown with the cutest little ringlet curls, knocked on my best friend's door and asked for her, her dad told her "some little black girl's at the door for you".
I guess my point is that my friend MUST have felt uncomfortable about all of these things or else why would she tell me? Also, what was her dad's tactic when I was around? Did he just squint his eyes and convince himself that I was Italian!?!?
Thanks for re-launching this thread. It feels good to get all of that out.
Last edited by OTHER on Wed 10 Oct 2007 15:28; edited 2 times in total
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But it definitely prepared me for the real world.
If she only knew the genetic make-up of many Puerto Ricans. 
