I get asked the question all the time - "What are you?".When I say that I'm just Black, "Black and what else" is the next question.
My ethnic make-up is Creole (father)/Mexican, Native American (Modoc Klamath Tribes) (mother).
But still - I'm Black,
just Black.
15 comments:
Just make up a country and say you're from Transylvania or something. When I was in NY people used to think I was Puerto Rican so I would tell them I'm from Madagascar because people never meet people from Madagascar.
I think I look Black (Deoending on the time of year).
Being down here near Louisiana - a lot of people are fairly mixed but I can always spot someone who attempting to "Pass".
When they hear my last name they understand that I must be from Louisiana and of Creole descent.
What a cute baby picture!
I'm African, Spanish/Corsican,(from whence I get my red curly hair), and Navajo Apache Indian (from whence I think I get my stubborn,rebellious, independent,natureloving,spiritual nature. I'm also light beige and beautiful.... :P
I hear ya. I'm just white.
Anonymous April 1, 2010 12:32 AM said...
"I hear ya. I'm just white."
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"Just white"? C'mon...:) white is such a vast array of different peoples, I quess you could say white from what part of the world?..
Awwww that's a such a cute baby pic! Schweeet!
I think it's nice to be asked where you're from bec it means you look different, but to be asked, 'are you Black'? All your life. That's gotta be d.e.e.p.
Hey UBJ, I feel you. I guess your Mothers folks is from Oregon eh? My brother stays in Klamath Falls right now! And whenever we go up to Oregon in the past, the Modoc art and pictures are cool!
Yeah, it is difficult being asked 'What are you?' or 'What nationality are you?' I get that all the time as well but since my son has blue eyes and his skin is fair like mine and his hair is sandy brown, whenever my husband is with him EVERYONE tells him 'Oh your son is so cute! His Mommy is white huh?'
KW, your consciousness about being Black must be interesting since you are from Africa. Here in the US, some of us have been here for hundreds of years and are quite mixed but still consider ourselves to be Black.
This can be a source of friction between Black Americans and Africans. I was in San Francisco with my husband back in the day before we had our son. And we were in Union Square sitting on the benches ala swisher time...anyway these guys walked up to us and started talking. We'd seen them about town here and there and they were from Senegal. We talked about a great number of things and they gave us cowrie shell rings. One question they asked was what we were. WE both laughed and said Black. They laughed at us and stared and then it got contentious where they insisted that really we weren't Black.
All this crap has people's minds screwed up!
Mahndisa,
In most African countries colonial categorisation of race seperated mixed race Blacks from non-mixed. Hence there were Coloureds and Africans. Coloureds and Asians were treated as second and third class citizens, with some privileges that were not extended to Black Africans, like certain schools or hospitals.
While urban Black Africans were placed in the ghetto, Coloured Africans lived in relatively decent areas, although not quite as good as the Whites. These divisions still exist to this day and some neighburhoods in most Southern African countries have remained traditionally Coloured or Black. Coloured Africans are still called Coloured and some do have a certain air about themselves as 'better than Black' whereas some Blacks see them as a 'people without culture' and lacking in social mobility and pple joke abt Coloured people as aspiring to become secretaries and mechanics - in my country, at least.
When I was 14/15 I went through my 'revolutionary awakening' after reading Malcom X and 'falling in love with Blackness' (the NBA, hiphop & African history lessons), and I decided that Coloured people were just a different shade of Black so they're Black in my eyes, Black Americans or Caribbean people, are to me Africans who through no choice of their own live in another part of the world.
When I migrated overseas a few years ago and I made friends with this girl from the Caribbean, I used to feel immense guilt and I once apologised to her for Africans' role in the slave trade and although she was touched, she laughed at me and said the Devils were the ones with pink skin.
My man is Coloured, but he sees himself as Black and knows his whole family history. It bugs him that everyone is so caught in talking about Coloured & Blacks but no one actually talks about the British who came over to Africa, had babies with African women and left. And he's right, it's almost as if Coloureds were majicked up from nowhere and we all woke up with Coloured relatives.
When I lived in South Africa, it was a different experience. The divisions are not quite the same as they are in Zim, Coloured people are seen as Black first and foremost then Coloured. There's a whole history there to do with having Khoi San (SA's first indigenous people) and Malay influence so it's a li'l more complex. Under apartheid they were oppressed together and fought together. Indians in a political sense, were also classified as Black. Same as in the UK, the term Black includes south east Asians and Blacks.
In the Lusophone countries, like Mozambique or Angola everyone is the same - the distinction isn't as pronounced. Same with Tanzania and Kenya, everyone there's Black and African first, mixes come 2nd.
I guess that's why the Senegalese brothas laughed, but I that just shows how deep internalized colonialism goes - even in the U.S & Black Americans history, people are still trained to think in the oppressor's terms.
Hope I haven't offended anyone by using the word Coloured, but that's the term used in Zim, in the UK there's a whole push to call mixed race Black people not only Black, but mixed race Black. iDont get it, its like fussing over apples n oranges - divide n rule in full play.
...one
A couple more things, I've been called all sorts too, everything but Zimbabwean. In South Africa some White folks thought I was African American bec White people ign'ant like that.
Interestingly enuff in South Africa, some Black South Africans would say I was an African from Africa - like SA wasn't a part of Africa??? It's a common belief among some of the locals and it's partially the cause of xenophobia in SA - apartheid really screwed up Black pple.
Since moving overseas people I've been asked if I'm Rwandan, Somali or Ethiopian. Last Dec I was in Ethiopia and this guy came up to me and started speaking to me in Amharic! I guess I could say I was Ethiopian as my consciousness is rooted in RasTafari and I've traced my family's migratory routes back as far as Tanzania so far and we're part of the African Jews.
Thanks for explaining that KW. I have met some South Africans but not Zimbaweans before. In fact some SA friends of my parents suggested my name! When Allan Boesak was having problems he came to Northern California and my Grandfather hooked him into a church in Lafeyette (suburb of Berkeley). We shared dinner quite a few times in that period of time. His wife Elna was very nice. You could see that they both suffered from the strain of how they got together and the racial attitudes in SA but at the time they were together.
BUT his daughter Bolyn was never very friendly to me at all. In fact someone told me that SA Coulored females have issues with each other. I don't know if that was her issue with me, but I've read that they trip real hard off skin color and stuff like that.
My brother lived in Germany for a while and had a couple of SA girlfriends. One was colored and one was from the Shangaan tribe. The colored girl would say mean things about 'Black people' but in our mind she looked like a normal Black American!
As to allowing the oppressor to define us, I get that. But the one drop rule really put people who have a lot of differences in the same category.
The majority of my family is from Lake Charles, Lousiana some from Shreveport and others from rural Missouri. These were French territory states and I guess there was a lot more race mixing in these colonies.
I've been told that I look exactly like people from Lake Charles, they are either fair complexioned or have cafe au lait skin like my sister. I guess like UBJ said, he gravitates towards women that look like him and I have to admit, I've always been partial to a brown skinned Creole man or a red head. My husband is Black, German Jewish and some Native American and he looks like a brown skinned Creole man. I find that to be the standard of beauty most attractive because it is in my family:)
Here is a youtube video of my sister singing a jazz standard:)
Your sister has a wonderful voice! Best of luck to her!
@ Ms M - Odd... that you know about Klamath Falls and Lake Charles - one side of my family lives in one area the other side lives in the other.
(Ummm... is your sister single?)
@ KayDub - Thanks for the history and perspective.
I posted this pic just for you.
Hey UBJ, my sister is married with a baby girl. Yeah, my family is from Lake Charles everyone with my surname is from there originally. Then on my Mothers side they are from Warrensburg Missouri and Shreveport Louisiana. One of my Great Grandmothers was born on a plantation in Mississippi but as an adult migrated to Missouri.
Thx Cactus Rose, I'll pass your compliment on to her:)
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