I ain't white enough!

I've been reading a few editorials lately about the Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III who was so infamously disparaged by an ESPN commentator for not being "black enough."  This has caused a great deal of soul-searching on my part.  I love pad Thai, tamales, and vindaloo.  I appropriately listen to music by dead white guys (Bach, Beethoven, and John Lennon), but I also enjoy classical Persian music and Ravi Shankar.  And let's not forget Michael Jackson!  I grew up with that boy.  "Thriller" is in my soul.  I drive a VW and wouldn't be caught dead behind the wheel of a Ford pick-up.  I have shot a gun, but it was 30 years ago and was my grandfather's World War II rifle, which, my husband informed me, doesn't count.  All of this has brought a great cloud of confusion upon my mind.  Am I white enough?

I quickly checked my skin.  It's pretty pale, not white, exactly, more of a pinky-buff.  Does that mean I check the "Pinky-buff Caucasian" box on the next survey I fill out?  And what is a Caucasian, anyway?  The term was derived from the people of the southern Caucasus mountains.  An "enlightened" German anthropologist decided 200 years ago that the southern Caucasus region was the likely birthplace of the "white" race.  My genealogical research goes back a long way, and I've yet to discover anyone in my lineage from that part of the world.  But there's no"Pinky-buff Anglo Saxon with Norman and Roman roots" option on all those questionnaires.  What's a concerned member of the human race to do?  What shall we call ourselves?

Nothing.  I vote we call ourselves nothing.  Except for people, of course, or humans, Americans (or any other nationality) would be OK, or how about this, brothers and sisters?  Such divisions as African-American, Asian-American, white, can only...divide.  That is their purpose.  I have an adorable 7 year old piano student who had an assignment in her lesson book to color the drawing of a hand.  Finger one was red, finger two was blue, etc.  When she was done she said, "I want to color the palm," and she took a brown crayon from the box.  I was surprised and asked, "Why did you choose a brown crayon?"  She replied, "Miss Charis, my hand is brown."  I looked and saw, as if for the first time, her Puerto Rican brown hand.  I said, "Oh my goodness, so it is!"  And we both laughed.  It had simply never occurred to me to see her as anything than a sweet girl that I enjoy teaching.

When my oldest daughter was four years old, she had a friend over to play.  They began coloring some pictures.  My daughter began to enthusiastically color a person blue.  The friend, a very blond, very blue-eyed, very pale skinned, Campbell Soup Kid, all-American prototype said, "What are you doing?  People can't be blue. You're supposed to leave the skin white."  My daughter put down her crayon, looked the budding Barbie doll dead in the eye and said, "You're wrong.  People can be any color."  She then returned to her bit of blue humanity.

You go, girl!


Here is my newest composition, "I Ain't White Enough, How About You?"  Enjoy!