Fried Corn Tamales

‘I try to pretend that I’m different but in the end we’re all the same’- Jay-Z

Everyone is special-in a minuscule way. I remember being about five years old, living in Atlanta. My mother was combing my hair while I sat on the floor, Indian-style between her legs. I looked at my skin and we started talking about color. My mother has always resembled Salt from Salt’n’Pepa-especially back in the day. She’s light-skinned, yet she still looks like she’s got Black in her. Now, me on the other hand…? Being a five-year old, with a light mother, a brown daddy, and a light-brown sister, I didn’t understand why I looked the way I did. So I asked her-wait, correction- I TOLD her, ‘Mommy I’m white.’ Of course, when you’re a Kindergartener and just learning how to spell your first name, genetics, skin-color, and ethnicity are far-fetched topics. She said ‘no, you’re Black, you’re just light-skinned-like me and your aunties. Black people come in all colors Chavonne.’ Yes, my Aunt’s were lighter toned women, but they still looked more ‘Black’ than I did. In my mind her rationale wasn’t acceptable; although she was right. ‘But my skin is too light-and Dae-Dae’s (my sister) is brown. Everybody thinks I’m white,’ I said, confused at the contradictory notion of ‘White-skinned Black people.’ Always a slight smart-ass, I was questioning my mother and she wasn’t giving me the answers that would satiate my curiosity. It just didn’t make sense. ‘You are NOT white-look at me and look at Sammy (my father). You came from us.’ I just sat there, getting the brush yanked through my scalp and getting scolded by my Mom: frustrated.

People would ask me all of the time-‘what ARE you?’ And I would say ‘Black’ and they would look at me like I was out of my mind. ‘No you’re not.’ ‘Yes I AM.’ ‘You’re a white or Puerto-Rican, but you not black,’ is what I would hear time and time again. It wouldn’t be until I was a round 10 that I’d learn the specifics. My mother’s mother was full-blooded Spanish and her father was Black. My father’s mother was Black and Creole and his father is Native-American and Black-I happened to come out with the fair-skin, sharp features, and dark curly hair. To this day people see my sister and I and will sit there and TELL us ‘ya’ll ain’t sisters.’ Today, I don’t take that ignorance to heart-but, as a young girl struggling with her identity and feeling like a social outcast to my own damn kind, being told that my flesh and blood sister ‘ain’t my sister,’ was hurtful. Why would you tell me that she is NOT my sister? I HATED being told I’m not what I KNEW I was. I HATED when people called me ‘White.’ And I HATED people telling me that Dae Dae was not my sister. It was early on when I learned how ignorant and insensitive people, particularly my people, could be.

Fried?

From my second grade classroom, to the kids on the block, I always felt slighted for not looking ‘Black’ enough. Even my cousins called me ‘White girl.’ Although it was in jest, I hated when they said that. It was another way of making me feel like I didn’t belong to my own kind. To top that off, I was intelligent and had diverse interests-so that really made people question my Blackness. People always wanted me to prove myself; but I knew who the hell I was. African-American culture was the only culture I fully identified with. I was raised on fried-chicken, macaroni n’ cheese, ramen noodles, listening to Al Green and Tupac, drank Kool-Aid, and attended nothing but public school. I slept in the bed with my mom and two sisters in a one-bedroom roach-infested apartment. I had to wear ‘Payless’ shoes. I had to baby-sit as a seven-year old so my mom could go to work. I got whoopings and I got yelled at. My aunt was murdered and hung from a tree. I lost teenage male friends to gun-violence. I’ve seen just about every male figure in my life get locked up. My father and my uncles sold drugs. There was nothing anyone could tell me about not being ‘hood’ or knowing what the fuck it meant to ‘struggle’ all because I’m ‘light-skinned.’ That has nothing to do with experience and this is something I recognized very early on.

Regardless of the way I grew up, those factors don’t define me. Cultural aspects, such as the music, food, and jargon are natural influences and I agree that many people are products of their environment. However, God blessed us all with a free will. Just because my father went to jail, that does not relegate me to do a bid. And just because my mother had me when she was 18 doesn’t mean that I’m popping one out fresh out of high-school. We all make our own choices. I chose a very different one. Seek and ye shall find. It’s unfortunate that many Black people end up making the same bad decisions that others have made. I always knew where I came from-respected it, appreciated it; yet, I also knew there was more than the world outside of my window.

Corn?

‘What are you?’ has got to be the most annoying question when put in terms of race. It’s natural to be curious, and I have no problem with being asked the specifics of my origins only when asked with a little more grace, you know? When that’s the very first thing someone asks me, it comes off as brash and small-minded. As if my racial identity will qualify me for further interaction. I always think, ‘what do you mean, what am I?’ It sounds as if they’re asking if I’m an extra-terrestrial or a barnyard animal. The answer to this question is very obvious. 1) I’m a human being, 2) I’m a female, 3) I’m a child of God. So aren’t those three factors clear and good enough? Or would they prefer me to say ‘I’m a rare bird from the northern hemisphere?’

It’s sad how some grown-ass people still don’t understand the basic concept of genetics. Genes are passed down and if one person out of 1000 grandparents had blonde hair and blue eyes, there is a chance that you’re child may have it too, even if you are honey-brown with dark eyes. If you’ve ever indulged in a little daytime TV, you would see men getting DNA tests on Maury Pauvich to determine if a child, with the same damn nose, eyeballs and ear shape belongs to them because they have a ‘different skin tone.’ They know good and well that that child belongs to them. Yet, they try to pull that 'color-card' bullshit. So sad.No matter how much you may have in common with others, even as significant as sharing the same parents, people will always look at what makes you different, and dwell on that. If you look different, you are assumed to have major differences in your internal wiring-which is simply not true. In fact, scientific evidence proves that the genetic difference between ANY two people on the planet is .2% or less. That means we are ALL 99.8% the same. Isn’t that amazing? Regardless of being pasty pale, charcoal black, freckle faced, kinky-naps or puggly-pig nosed-what we share far outweighs how we differ.

Tamales?

There are not many drastic differences in ‘White’ features per say, yet there are some. African-Americans, Caribbean, Native Americans, Latinos, Indians, and Africans come visibly in more varieties. Most of these groups, particularly the Blacks, Latinos, and Indians have negatively embedded social views of the darker-colored members. I know that’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s the truth. And if you are a member of any of those ethnicities, I can guarantee you have witnessed this prejudice on some level. While most possess a deeper hue of ‘brown, red or yellow’ those of us who are members of these ethnicities, and lack the melanin, are often questioned, favored socially, or deemed more beautiful by the majority. This mentality stems back to the oppressions of slavery. The Willie Lynch letter was the blueprint to self-hate. Europeans had the power and made Africans, Latinos, and Indians submit, and broke down their self-value. The false ideology of ‘white supremacy’ was heavily embedded into the colored-conscious, period. We have come a long way in escaping it; yet, the esteems of our cultures are still very much affected by it. Nothing against any of my White brothers or sisters, but this is factual. It was very powerful and effective way to focus on the differences and keep us separated instead of unifying-and it still works.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth-Acts 17:26

I meet a lot of people-from various social-classes, religions and ethnicities. Many of these people, while being so different from me on the surface, after digging a little deeper, it’s easy to make a connection. What many Black folk don’t realize is that just because you may use the same damn Palmer’s cocoa butter to heal ashy skin, this does not mean that we are socially in tuned with one another. A guy I just met asked me ‘what’s your background?’ I replied, ‘educational background? Work? Criminal record?’ I had no idea what he was getting at. But of course, he was asking me my race. It’s ironic how the same qualities, once viewed as negative, that people used to separate me are now positive. Actually, they have always been positive-I simply couldn’t accept or fully understand it. But, now I do.

Our differences don’t lay in the actual pigmentation of the skin, or the texture of our hair. It’s the cultures that bring about our commonalities and help us relate and understand one another. -Food, music, jargon, fashion and the collective mentality are major aspects. Then again, as a modern society, we all can identify with the most important things. Characteristics, like artistic transcends ethnicity. There are artists from every culture on this planet. There are always going to be differences and ways to sub-categorize our similarities. For instance, 13 year-olds take interest in many of the same things because they have a similar mindset as a whole. Punjabi Sikhs recognize and bond when they encounter each other in passing- just from the head-wraps they have on. Percussionists all have a common thread. Fashion designers share a special bond and so do senior citizens. While people of Color do share that same visible reality-there is so much more to what we share with many others, regardless of that .02% difference. It is the sub-cultures that divide and unite us on micro-levels.

No matter how we dice ourselves, how many niches are carved, we all bleed red. We all feel pain when pinched. We all were conceived in coitus. We all must eat to live. We all breathe at least one breath. We all come from the Earth and will go right back in it when we die.

Even Jay-Z recognizes that he’s no different from anybody else. And in the end, we really are all the same.