Regular black

My views on mixed race and multicultural black folks have evolved over time. When I was an undergrad, the Afrocentric, black power sista, I was all about the blackness or the African-ness of everyone being expressed and affirmed. It was in undergrad that I developed my first close ties to any mixed people. Both were black identifying women with black dads and white moms. They were cool people who were all about black progress and really affirmed what I believed at the time: you can have white in your family, but if you are part black, you are black. Period. Mixed folks who identified as mixed or more with their white side were sellouts. Now I am not saying this is what my friends thought, but it was my view. Mixed folks like my friends were cool, others were not.

I went through a lot of changes while in undergrad. I remember reading Alice Walker's thoughts on multiracial identity and how she felt she had to honor all of her ancestors, including the Indian and the white ones that were probably there because of slavery. At the time, I was practicing an African based religious tradition and ancestor worship was part of my practice. I thought deeply about this and realized that perhaps I, too needed to affirm all of my ancestors, not just the black ones. I discussed this with some Afrocentric friends and experienced the first of many attempted silencings by other African Americans on my desire to acknowledge my multiracial ancestry. My one friend shut me down. Solidly. I don't remember what she said, but it was enough to shame me into thinking that perhaps I was not a revolutionary thinker, but a self hating Negro like the rest of the masses.

I identify as African American. But I recognize that inherent in that identity is the understanding that I have mixed ancestry. I know this because of the experiences of blacks historically in this country, but I also know it because of my own family history. I first learned about this as a young child. I grew up in Detroit, but my mom was born and raised in the Southern Arkansas / Northern Louisiana region of the south. One summer, my mom and I traveled south to spend time with her maternal grandmother. Granny Mirdie.Granny Mirdie and her son Grandpa Willie always looked a little "odd" to me. It was something about their coloring, which was dark, but almost red instead of brown, and their white, straight looking hair, that did not fit in with the rest of my family up north.At the time, the majority of my family was rocking gherri curls, so I really had a skewed view of what "normal" was. My mother, however, wore a short natural….really a fade…which provided my extended family with endless comic fodder.

But, back to the southern folks. Now, this was my mother's paternal side, the side which was almost completely in the South. My mother's maternal side was the side that I had grown up around, a side that my mother, an only child, and I, her only child, did not resemble too much. My grandmother, mom's mom, was the eldest in the family, but she was really a half sister to all her siblings. She was a Robinson, while the rest of my family were Washingtons. I will get back to the Robinsons later.

While visiting Granny Mirdie and Grandpa Willie, my mom and I went to visit two of her grandfather's sisters (Grandpa Willie's paternal aunts). I remember sitting on the porch with them and being scared and amazed at the same time. They were small petite old ladies, with really light skin and long straight white hair that hung to their waist. As my mom chatted with them I just stared. They looked like witches to me! And they were white! How could these women be my aunts? When we left the house I asked my mom how could we be related to those white women. She replied that they were not white, they were Indian. I don't remember probing her further. And I think for many years I put it to the back of my mind

As a dark skinned girl growing up in the late 80's and early 90's, I was ridiculed often because of my skin.I got called choco-bliss (after the Hostess snack) blackie, and a whole assortment of names. My parents were anti perm and hair pressing, so I wore my hair in natural braids and ponytails until my middle school years, when I took to daily pressing my hair. I always knew where I fit on the beauty continuum, according to my peers. The light skinned girls with "good hair" were at the top, and I was at the bottom because of my skin. I would look in the mirror and see a really pretty girl, but one who could not be seen as beautiful because of my darkness. But I would look at my thick, below shoulder length hair and, later, my shapely physique, and see that if I played up those attributes, people would recognize my beauty. My folks were not having the tight clothes, so I focused my attention on my hair. If my hair was long, or looked curly, then people would be able to see my beauty.

When I became afrocentric, I let go of the obsession with hair, initially. I cut all my hair off, as my mother had done so many years ago, and focused on the beauty of my dark skin and black features. I fell in love with me.I was a broke college student though, and could not afford the weekly barbershop visits. So I began to let my natural hair grow out. I was completely surprised when my hair began to come in as curly waves. You got "good hair", some family members and friends would exclaim. But I didn't. Good hair was what mixed light skinned girls had. I was African. I started paying attention to my mom's hair, which by now had grown out and was fast turning white, like her father and grandmother…and her Indian great aunts. I noticed how her hair straightened when she put water in it and combed it, while mine curled and waved up. What is going on with your hair? I would ask her. Is it because you are going gray?

I tried to be a nappy missionary, encouraging others to go natural. My extended family would scoff at me. You and your mom got Indian all in your family. You can go natural. We can't. After a while, I stopped trying to get others to accept their natural hair. But I started thinking about my identity, bashfully at first. I was ashamed to even think of myself as anything but African. But my desire for self knowledge trumped my worries of perhaps having some residue of self hatred in me. I asked my mom about those aunts from long ago. "They, and my granddaddy were Creek. I remember some stuff about him, but not much. But there were some Indian things that he did at the homeplace". She was never specific about it though. I know he was a sugar cane farmer and they called him Beet because of it. She desired to know more and so did I, but again the social pressure to be black and only black got to me. Even years later when I was researching the family on ancestry.com and considering DNA testing to find out about our African ancestors, I remember chiding my mom for asking me to look up the Indians too. I remember she stared at me and said, "Why shouldn't I want to know about them? They're my people too".

This was a pivotal moment for me. At that point in my life I had been experiencing a number of people, from different walks of life and different nationalities, asking me where I was from. Mostly they thought I was from the Caribbean or Africa. Sometimes folks would ask me my racial makeup, wanting to know who in my family was non-African American . This was usually in the context of a conversation about hair. I would grudgingly admit that my great grandfather was Indian and the questioner would give me a knowing glance, indicating…yes, THAT is why your hair looks like it does.

During this time I was also trying to come to terms with mixed race and multiracial people and identity. I no longer felt that people who affirmed their mixed heritages were sellouts. But I was still uncomfortable with a lot of what I read about mixed and proud people. They often seemed condescending of mono-racial folks, particularly black people. I felt like they were trying to separate themselves from blacks, and it stung. But I wanted to understand their perspective. I dated a mixed race (white and Chinese- American) man who had been part of the early mixed race movement in the Bay area of the 1990's. He had distanced himself from it because he felt that they wanted people to let go of their colored identity, in his case, his Asian side. He was staunchly pan-Asian. The funny thing is, when talking about his non Asian side, he brought up the Indian heritage that he had via his white father. It turned out that he had an Indian great grandfather as well. We were probably the same percentage Indian, if you will, maybe me more so since there is purported Indian ancestors on not just my mother's paternal side, but also her maternal (the aforementioned Robinson's) and on my paternal side as well. I do not speak of this often because of my lingering reluctance to be labeled as one of those blacks claiming to have "Injun" in the family. I try to stick to the Indians that I know, but I still get labeled.

In various online communities, particularly ones that talk about racial politics, I have tried to engage in discussions about black people with Indian ancestry. I have shared my experiences, one experience in particular when a man attempting to get me to sign a petition asked me about my racial makeup. He was a reddish brown-skinned man, black, but it was obvious to me from his pony tailed wavy hair and facial features, that he had Native ancestry. Still, when he asked me about mine, I tried to dismiss it. He pressed me, and I finally acquiesced about the Creek heritage. he told me that he could see it in my features. Upon sharing that story, a member of an online hair board that I frequent looked at my online photo album, returned to the board and remarked, "I don't know what you are talking about. You look regular black to me". I remember being stunned and feeling silenced. Was I trying to be something that I was not? What was regular black? That thread did not end well. People who identified as having native ancestry were basically called self hating Negros who wanted to find any way possible to claim superiority over non Indian blacks.

I knew that was not the case for me. I love being black /African American. I have been exposed to other black cultures (African, Afro-Latino, Caribbean) and while I appreciate them, I have great pride in African American culture. Its mine. Likewise, I have been exposed somewhat to Native American culture and intellectual spaces. I am interested in them, but they are not me. I'm black. Regular black. Which to me means having a multicultural heritage that should not be ignored. Like Alice Walker, I am going to continue to learn about all of my ancestors, women and men whose lives have led to my life. I am striving to no longer let others make me feel ashamed for acknowledging them.

My views on multiracial identities have and will continue to evolve. It took me seeing both sides of the debate, experiencing them firsthand, to really begin to understand the dilemma people who consider themselves mixed race have to deal with. While my experience is not theirs and theirs is not mine, I am better able to understand their (varied) perspectives. It is this understanding that precludes me from being hypocritical and expecting them to show their loyalty to blacks in particular. The need to self identify is paramount. No one has a right to determine for others what type of black, what type of human, one should be.

Negotiations...the convo I have been dreading...

This morning's convo with my mom via Skype...

Mom: So you are going to be staying with us for 3 months....whoah...how are we gonna manage?

Me: Well, we will have to work it out....but a couple of things. I don't need my coffeemaker, but I do need the microwave.

Mom: I will have to re-arrange the kitchen for it, but I guess it'll be okay.

Me: And also, I must use the shower head. I know you all are afraid of mildew and prefer us to only take baths, but there is no way I can do my hair without the shower. The shower and the microwave, I need compromise on those.

Mom: Well, just shower with the window open and we'll see....your dad doesn't like folks taking showers cause the paint starts peeling, but I guess it will work out.

Me: Fine. So how's grandma?

Mom: She's okay, but she refuses to get a new stove and her oven doesn't work. So I have to fry up all her chicken and fish instead of baking it.

Me: Why don't you just bake it at home and then take it to her house? Its healthier.

Mom: And cook meat in my house!! Oh no!!

Me: Umm, mom...what do you think F. and I are going to do?

Mom: I thought you were going to stop eating meat again.

Me: Well, I plan on it, but F. isn't a vegetarian, and I am not feeding him frozen chicken dinners for three months.

Mom: Well, I hate handling raw meat, but I will have to cook the meat cause you don't know how to handle it without contaminating my kitchen.

Me: Mom, I am a 35 year old woman with a teenage son (not true...I'm 33 and he is 11, but this was my "I'm a grown azz woman" rant) and this is what I have been doing for 15 years now, cooking my own food. I cook healthy meals for my family. I intend to continue cooking for my family.

Mom: Well, we will have to see.

Me: What do you expect us to do?

Mom: *silence

Me: *silence

Mom: Well I guess I will have to go up behind you and re sanitize my kitchen after you are done contaminating it.

Me: Well, if that's what you need to do...

Mom: hmph...

Me: *bratty only child smile

That went well, I think......

Living in Detroit

(pics here now)

I am only here for a few days before I head off to Brazil, but I feel like I have a bit of culture shock…in more ways than one. I packed up my apartment, put everything into storage….a 10 x 25 place that is pretty full (even with my pruning I still have a lot of ish… and turned in the keys. So now I have been driving around Detroit….south-eastern Michigan more specifically…as I spent Friday and Saturday in Ferndale, Madison Heights, Royal Oak, and other suburban cities. I want to reacclimate myself to this place that I will call home for the next year…but I feel so alien. Part of it is cause the area has changed a lot in four years. Not that I have not been back home on occasion, but visiting for 2-3 days once a month does not give you the flavor of an area. The "for sale" and "for rent" signs are rampant in the burbs, as are the empty storefronts. Even in tony places like Birmingham you see empty homes….empty strip malls in Royal Oak.

One interesting and cool thing that I noticed was in Oakland Mall. Growing up, Oakland Mall was one of "those" suburban malls where black folk weren't looked at too kindly. Over the years it got more comfortable to be there, and it was better than Northland which had been overrun by teenagers and gaudy, ghetto-fab shops (which I was all into during my younger years). I went to Oakland on Saturday to get my eyebrows arched and a pedicure (special treats for me with my doctoral student time and financial restrictions). There were Middle Eastern people (possibly Chaldean), Muslims, Indians, black folk, white folk, Latinos, Asians…j

ust an extremely diverse crowd. Now, for the most part, people were with their "own kind" but I did notice a black teenage girl handing with her ???Latino??? or Middle Eastern friend (she may have been bi-racial)….they looked like they were into the skater scene…tres cool! I saw two interracial couples….both black men, one with a white woman and one with a Asian woman. A few groups of teenagers were multiracial…and this one white g

uy with locks and some interesting get-up was walking around the mall barefoot….I wish I could of gotten a picture…evidently it is not against the rules to walk around barefoot cause he passed the security guard and the guard (a black man) did not even blink an eye…yes I was doing a lot of people watching at the mall today…I find malls to be excellent places to just sit and observe…

I felt a bit of role reversal on Saturday as well…many of my friends and family know that I am extremely pro-nappy, and have been since 1994. Well, on Friday I went to a salon and came out looking like this…

(sorry...pic later...just imagine me with straight hair...I look like a mix between Gabrielle Union and Queen Latifah)

***Here are the pics...see the resemblance....okay, maybe not***

Many folks who have only gotten to know me in the past few years may be shocked, but the reality is, I am not anti-straight hair…not 100%, and I have been known to straighten on occasion. I actually got into a bit of a heated discussion with my hairdresser about the merits of and problems with water and heat when it comes to black hair. I decided to slow my row since I WAS paying her to straighten my hair, so I couldn't quite argue that pressing combs were the debbil….so, I had my hair straightened, mainly so I could wear a stretched braid-out and to let my hair gradually kink back up….I prefer my hair bigger and curly; flat and straight doesn't feel like "me".

So I go run errands on Saturday, and it was interesting how people related to me! The girl that did my eyebrows tried to engage me in a convo about the high price of hair weaves…I had to tell her that I had no idea what she was talking about. She later let me know that I had the type of hair women are paying for…like baby doll hair, she said…. I think I did say thank you in response to all of the complements she gave me, but I did feel a bit uneasy (I try, as a rule, to NOT say thank you to statements like, oh your hair is so long, curly, nice texture, etc….but WILL say thank you to statements like…your hair is pretty….the personal is so political when it comes to black hair)

As I left the mall I crossed paths with this sister with long, semi-manicured locks…I usually am able to catch a fellow nappies' eye, but she averted her glance….

Later I sat in a restaurant near two older black women. One was a natural (small fro) and another had this short curly thing going on (not sure if it was natural or natural-esque). I attempted to catch their eyes and smile, but they, too, did not look my way. Now, I usually smile at black folk, particularly black women (I smile at other folks too, but my black liberation days have conditioned me to smile at sistern and brethern). I really felt as though they were shunning me cause I was not "one of them". Now, of course, I have no idea what they were thinking or not thinking regarding me, but I know that hair gives people impressions of you. I am used to my hair saying certain things about me, whether or not they are true. I kind of like the image that people have of me…the earthy, intellectual, conscious. I don't care for people classifying me as militant or racially intolerant (most people in real life know that is SOOOO far from the truth). I like the black aesthetic and I like the culture that I come from and the global African diasporan culture. Wearing my hair straight has been a culture shock for me….first, I do like it…somewhat. Second, I feel really guilty for liking it. Third, I don't like the way I felt alienated from sistas simply because of my hair. Fourth, I wonder if women who wear their hair straight feel alienated when around natural sistas? Now I know the answer to that; many do, cause many of US (natural sistas) do have preconceived notions of women who straighten their hair. This hair thing is deep and I am sure it will be revisted later, since hair is a mini-obsession of mine. Its late though, and I need to get up early so I can go to the Detroit Flower Show!!! Will blog later...