In Touch with Your Ancestry & Your Ethnicity

A couple months ago, while waiting in a popular fast food restaurant for my chicken wings order, a young girl was holding court in the confined waiting area. She had the attention of everyone as the customers silently pretended to toy with their cellphones as she talked loudly enough for all to hear. It was a distraction, but an interesting one. The young girl’s curly black hair was covered by a cap; she was attractive, and one might say pretty; and her skin tone was of a lighter hue. As she continued to prance around in the crowded area, she announced to her companion, “You know, I’m not fully black.” As the old saying goes… You could hear a pin drop. She said she didn’t know that until someone told her when she was a little girl. It all starts at home, folks, or when someone tells you something that will put you in an indecisive position for years to come. Who was she that she felt so conflicted with her skin for her to make such a statement?

The young woman’s declaration about who she was seemed based on her skin tone. This display of character performance turned my attention to a play that I had written about a thirteen-year-old girl who had been called “fat, black, and ugly,” by one of her own black male schoolmates. They nicknamed her “Chocolate Girl.” As an adult, she had something to say. Here’s an excerpt from the play as Chocolate Girl takes the audience on her journey away from those ugly words:

When James Brown belted out his song, “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” in 1968, those of us at that time became stilled and listened to those words. Those lyrics told us to take pride in ourselves; to love one another and to take a stand as a people. It didn’t matter whether or not the color of our skin was ink black, jet black, blue black, coal black, pitch black, chocolate, beige, bronze, butternut, cinnamon, nutmeg, copper, light skinned, or damned near white, we were all part of the same color scheme and the basic color was black.

I bring up these two young girls as a point of reflection. I grew up at the time of “Chocolate Girl” and there was segregation among our people designated by the color of one’s skin. In the incident with the “I’m not fully black,” we have a biracial or mixed-race child seemingly not too comfortable with her ancestry or ethnicity. She could have chosen to say, “I’m not fully white,” but she chose to say, “I’m not fully black.” Why say it at all? Did anyone of those hearing customers care? Who was she trying to explain her existence to? This is the 21st Century and the only one who needs to know where she fits in ethnically is the U.S. Census Bureau and other agencies who need this type of information. Customers waiting in a restaurant to pick up their chicken wings really do not care. They came for the chicken.

So, young lady, make up your mind. Which side of your ethnicity will you be on? Take a stand for there is nothing to be ashamed of.

In the reflection of our African-American history, let’s visit two biracial men who took a stand about the color of their skin and the content of their character.

There was a young man in his middle thirties who made history and his decision is still in history books or you can just Google his biography. Homer Plessy was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 17, 1863 and died on March 1, 1925. He had one-eighth of black blood and, considering the time, he was designated as a black man but looked very much white. He chose not to turn his back on his African ancestry and became a social activist championing for better public schools for African-American children and the right to sit where he wanted on the East Louisiana Railroad Number 8 train. He bought a first-class ticket, got on the train, and when the conductor asked if he was “colored,” Plessy said yes and was promptly told to go to the “colored” car. He refused and was arrested. He argued his case in the court system, but the Supreme Court ruled that the accommodations provided to each race were equal and that there would be separate cars for the races. Well, in the 1950s, Thurgood Marshall declared that it was separate but unequal and thus began the educational struggle to desegregate the nation’s public schools for equal education.

The other biracial young man was born in Hawaii, moved to Chicago, became a U.S. Senator from Illinois and became President of the United States on January 20, 2009 and served two four-year terms.

Be careful of how you talk in public places; somebody might be listening. I grew up in a segregated environment until Thurgood Marshall knocked down the “separate but equal” fantasy.

So, young lady, it does not matter to most people or some people today that you are biracial; just be thankful that this is not a hundred years ago because even with one-eighth count of black blood, you would not be considered biracial, just black. Times have changed, but not that much.