I’ll Give You Racism

It’s not my habit to cry about life experience, so I don’t…but let me give you a small taste of what racism is like to experience, from the mixed-race angle.

You see, mixed-race is not good, when it comes to racism.  You have no safe harbour.  No one accepts you.

So, if your mother is white, as mine is, you’re not really black.  I’ve had more black people call me “white boy” than white people call me “nigger,” to be frank…and when I say I don’t consider myself black (uh, have you met my Mom?), the same people call me uppity or say I’m putting on airs of being white…

I can’t be white…my black father’s black skin says as much…you are that from which you come, so I can’t be white nor black, because that is not the whole of my ancestry on either side.

Racism says I’m black.  That’s American racism.  I reject just about every American ideal I’ve come to know, and this one is on top.  I am not black, just because, for economic advantage, all peoples of African descent in America were labelled “black,” in order to enslave own’s own blood children and grandchildren.

So, if Obama wants to “consider” himself black, bully for him…he’s a damned fool, either pandering to the blacks or has for real bought into the nullification of his every ancestral  link but the black ones.

For shame, Obama.

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Obama’s not my kind of half-breed, but that’s just me…one half-breed speaking about another.  I don’t like him, he’s too slick by far, but then, as a brown-skinned product of racist America, he might likely have had to be to get where he is.

And then, there’s his “Blackness” and the homophobia issue…of all the stupid, idiotic and maddening attitudes to have glommed onto from the Black community…he throws gays under the bus to pander to Bible-thumping blacks…my head is beginning to hurt…

You know what?

Every gay man is my brother.  He is me.  He comes from people, from which he comes, but is not them.

Get it?  I have more in common with a white gay man rejected by his own people, those from whom he comes, because he’s not like them…kinda like racist whites always chasing me away, even though I come from them, because I am not them…

Don’t get me started on the Jews.  You know what?  If you find me a group more shafted and persecuted in the last 2000 years than the Jewish people, I’m all ears…lay it on me.

Of course, a racist Jew or gay is just an asshole as well, but I see red when I encounter anti-Semitism and homophobia…don’t ask me why, I just do…and Obama’s dead to me for his gay-bashing revival the other month…what a fucking dolt…

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Me?

I’m mixed race.

In Spanish…un mestizo…and a proud one.

I cherish my French-European roots and French-Canadian heritage.

I cherish my African roots and my Black Caribbean heritage.

But heritage does not a race make…it’s an ethnic identity.

I identify with both whites and blacks.

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And I grew up among whites, with a white mother, white schoolmates and white relatives, as my father’s relatives in Canada were few and far between.

And you wanna call me Black?

Uh, I don’t think so…

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As for the blacks…oh yeah… the same lot who, all of my life, smirked at my straight hair, caramel complexion and green eyes and told me I wasn’t one of them…

You’re damned straight I’m not…and I don’t give a shit, I tell Black people I’m not Black all the time…that’s all of your problems, not mine… I’m no more Black than Tiger Woods is, and if you think Tiger Woods is Black…I don’t know what to tell ya…

Once, in college, some Black girls sitting near me began bitching and moaning about “useless brothers,” until they noticed me sitting quietly among them…(yeah, I hung around Black people in college, “A Different World” was hot at the time…end snark)…and so stopped cold.

“Don’t mind me,” I said casually, from the depths of my book, “I don’t care what you say, I’m not really Black, remember?”

And, let me tell y’all, nothing provokes outrage in Blacks more than a coloured persona telling them “I ain’t with y’all…”

Oh, the outrage…“What do you mean, you’re not really Black? You think you’re better than-“

“No I don’t-“ I snapped, slamming my book shut.  “I’m just reitirating what I hear from you stupid motherfuckers everytime I come around you…I’m not Black, unless you need me for numbers.  Well, then I’m not Black, and go fuck yourselves…”

And I left them there staring after me as I stomped off, more annoyed to have had my reading interrupted than by their attitudes…

And I never heard another “White Boy” comment from them ever again…but it doesn’t matter…I’m not Black, and only resented being told so when I wanted to BE Black.

And wanting to be Black didn’t make me Black, anymore than wanting to be White would make me White…

I’m no more Black than I am White.

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And, frankly, both of you disgust me most of the time, with your petty and narrow-minded little obsessions over race and percentage of blackness…

Tell a Sicilian he’ a fucking Arab because he’s got some Moorish blood in him, and see what it gets you…if it isn’t a punch in the nose, I’m mistaken.  Better yet, call him Black because the Moors came from Africa…prepare to die…

And you know know what?

Racism is all of your problem, not mine…I just have to put up with all of your bullshit, both from the White and Black sides…

And frankly, I’m glad I’m not one or the other…I’d probably die of embarrassment….

And I haven’t even addressed the racism yet…

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Perhaps later…I’m too disgusted right now…