Just last night my sister and I were eating at a local Italian restaurant. The owners and staff did not appear to be Italian; we couldn’t quite figure out where they were from. And apparently, they were wondering the same thing about us, too.
Halfway through our meal, our waiter, who had a foreign accent, asked me, “Where are you from?” I said, “We grew up here in Winston-Salem.” He said, “But where were you born?” I replied, “Outside of Los Angeles. We’re American.” He said, “Where is that?” I said, “California.” I probably should’ve just said, “We are black.” I had a headache and I wasn’t in the mood to explain why I am black but look otherwise.
Some folks will also phrase the question by asking, “Where were you born?” “Which one of your parents is white?” “Are you mixed?” and “What are you?”
That last question was real popular in the 80s. I remember my dad taking me to Burger King one evening when I was younger. A gas station now stands at the corner of Peace Haven Road and Robinhood Road where the chain restaurant once was located. We walked in, placed our order and sat down in a booth to eat. There were white and black people working behind the counter.
A few minutes into our meal, a white woman with a thick southern accent came over to our booth and said, “We were just wonderin’, what are you?”
I don’t know who appointed her the company spokesperson but the rest of the staff was behind the counter, watching this exchange take place.
My dad took a deep breath, put his burger down and said, “We’re black darlin’.”
She responded but I don’t remember what she said because I had been holding my breath, anxious and flabbergasted that a complete stranger had interrupted our meal to find out if we were black or white.
She walked away and my dad shook his head, annoyed. And I was annoyed too! I thought, if this will happen at Burger King, it will happen anywhere.
And it still does.
I’ve been mistaken and continue to be mistaken for white, Greek, Italian, Latino, Portuguese, Russian, Asian (yes, Asian), Pakistani, Egyptian and the list goes on. Sometimes a person of a particular ethnic group will pose the question in their native tongue and is shocked to find out that I am black and that English is my first language.
Every time I go to the Greek Festival at the Greek Orthodox Church at least one person asks me if I go the church. I worked at a local Greek-owned boutique and numerous Greek women asked me if I was related to the owner or if I was Greek. An Italian waiter once asked me what part of Italy I was from. Mexican waiters are always shocked when I place my order in English and can’t understand what they’re saying to me in Spanish.
And when I don’t give people the answer that they want or expect, they sometimes argue with me. I worked at Ann Taylor in Charlotte after I graduated from college over 10 years ago. While I was ringing up a white woman she asked me if I was Portuguese. I told her that I was black. Her response was, “You can’t be!” My husband and I just came back from Portugal, and you look just like our chambermaid!” I’m sure she left that store convinced I was lying or confused. I contemplated carrying my birth certificate in my purse. I thought, when people don’t believe me, I’ll just pull it out and shove it in their faces.
Deep down I knew that carrying “proof” wouldn’t solve the problem or explain it any better. Biracial and multiracial people like me don’t fit into a box or a category and that disturbs a lot of people’s comfort zones. So many people cannot understand how you can call yourself black when you don’t have brown skin.
I’ve never seen so many beautiful hues of brown skin as I have in my family. I spent a week in Charleston attending my family reunion this past June. I had never been to my family reunion before. For the first time in my life I felt connected and apart of a group. Many of us echoed a mutual sentiment that week: “Isn’t it nice to spend time with people who look like you?”
And it was.
Light and All Write 