Lineage

09/19/2005

My Native American/Irish/Jewish grandfather married my African American grandmother whose family moved to the mid-west after the Emancipation from who knows where.

Their union netted my father who married a southern girl of African American, Native American, and Caucasian decent.

My parents produced children with this bloodline who were raised in multiracial suburban communities.

Further, born in the Orient, I spent the first years of my life among Asian Cultures.

What does that make me? This question plagued me for most of my life.

I don’t think my “box” really matters but it sure seems to be important to those around me. From grade school surveys to door-to-door polls people have asked me to define myself within very narrow boundaries. I have been asked countless times to limit myself relative to one culture. Am I African American or Native American? Usually, no one even considers any other designation because my skin is so dark.

Honestly, I like being multiracial. I like fucking with the minds of those who strut into my world as if they know what makes me tick because they’ve seen “Boyz in the Hood” or an episode of The Cosby Show.

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been asked to explain the lifestyle of Inner-city minorities. Just because my skin is ebony does not mean I have lived in the Ghetto. I’m a suburban kid…a child whose first words were laded with Japanese phrases. I don’t have a brother named T-Bone, an aunt named Big Mama who runs a whorehouse, or a cousin named Crackpipe who has done more time in the pen than on the streets. I have never been involved in a drive by. I have no idea what the “M” line is, AND I have no idea what every black person in the world thinks about every subject under the sun – brown and black skinned people do not have a uni-brain.

Just why is it so important for people to know which box you check on surveys? I may go to my grave wondering why people think it’s so important to know “what I am”. Isn’t it more important to know “who I am”?

Peace,
zss

© 2005 Wrosesongs
All Rights Reserved