Oh god, someone got me talking 'bout race

June 07, 2006 - 6:48 p.m.

The very first day that I attended my summer class, the classroom was empty, and I went around, opening doors to every classroom and never found my class. Jumped on the school’s intranet, which directed me to a second wrong classroom location, and then the bookstore, which had never even heard of my class. Typical UIC bullshit, thanks for the memories assholes, why don’t we just rename the administration building “Jane Goodall’s Chimp Sanctuary,” cuz that’s what ya’ll is. I turned around and left, what a waste of a day.

So I contacted the professor and the TA and they were like, “Yeah, the classroom moved.” GREAT, but more importantly, dig my racial profiling: The prof’s name is totally white bread, like David Johnson. So I’m thinking: Hi, honkey! But then he emailed me and his signature was David Lamarr Johnson, and then I’m like: Whoop! “Lamarr”?? Hassss to be black. And then the TA wrote me and his name was like Joshua Choy, so I thought: “Hello Frisco! ASIAN!” and this assumption was backed up by the fact that the school is like 30% Asian, and they are notorious for being TAs, though I have no idea why that is.

But when I got to class, I found the TA and boy if he wasn’t ARYAN! Whiter than white, like 100% white. And as he handed me a syllabus he gave me the wrist, lisp, sashay, and then he flamed across the room to his desk. Whuuu thuuu? A gay white Choy? How dare he fly in the face of my racial stereotyping!

Then comes in Lamarr Johnson, and hell - he wasn’t black! But he sho won’t white either! He was one of the very few people I ever encounter who is so utterly mixed you can’t begin to guess what the hell he is without listing off every race and 30 different ethnicities. I stare at people like this. And I’ll go cuckoo trying to figure it out, and I’ll have ants crawling all over my brain until someone tells me the truth. His skin color was definitely olive and he had straight hair so I was thinking at least ¾ Hispanic/Latino.

Turn my world upside down, WHITE CHOYS and PUERTO RICAN LAMARRS!

(Where did the Choy come from? WHERE? I need to know!)

But another aside about Lamarr, he was dressed razor sharp in a *fine* suit that was colorful yet sophisticated, stylish yet professional. He could have worn it straight from the classroom to the club and it would have been perfect in either place. You know what that means, right? One of two things:

1) Gay, or
2) Black.

Because no white man would ever have the confidence to wear such a suit, and there are only two groups of people who know how to dress sharp and that’s gay and black. You know it.

So now Lamarr is really confusing me.

And let me go further and say that he had a Mohawk and earrings and extremely stylish eyeglasses and a line shaved down the side of his head. Hot damn! First he goes and throws a monkey wrench in my program, and now a hatchet as well! To be clear, it was not a punk-rock Mohawk, nor a Mohican Mohawk. It was a Hipster Hawk, about 3 inches long, kind of swooped to the side, and still some hair on the sides of his head, though there was that swoopy line shaved down the side. Where does this leave us? I’m starting to doubt the gay thing and the black thing.

So I’m staring at Lamarr and my brain is in overdrive, watching him walk, his mannerisms, trying to pick up any cultural references.

He starts talking and he speaks very deliberately and concisely, like he’s trying not to reveal any dialect or slang that might indicate his background.

I note that he has a very long, narrow nose and high cheek bones, and straight hair, which would lead me to White. Although it is possible that he straightens his hair, but his beard is straight too. Hmmmm.

And then he slipped up.

Ruh-row, he got too comfortable with the class and accidentally unleashed his native tongue.

He’s a Brother!

No doubt about it, that was definitely a black tongue.

But I was still staring at his narrow nose and straight hair and olive skin and even though I was hearing black, I know what I saw and my brain could not reconcile this, it started to go all Short Circuit, my motherboard smoldering: “DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.”

“ERR-OR! ERR-OR!”

Then he was talking about the aisles of beauty products at Wal-Mart and he casually listed off 4 or 5 brands of African American hair products and relaxers, and sorry, but no non-black could list five black name brands right now off the top of their head. Go ahead and try it, non-blacks. I’ll give you one minute, starting – NOW!

Uh, Jheri Curl! Yeah!

And uh…Soft and Lovely? Something and Lovely.

Aphogee Sheen! Seriously! I have a big pink can of it at home!

And then there’s…um. I can see the packaging…I know it…there’s a green one, and a pink one, and one in cursive…uh, damn!

*ding*!

Times up. I got almost 3. And I have a hugely unfair advantage because I was JUST at Sally Beauty Supply a few days ago and I was all in a daze and found myself standing in front of the black products for several minutes before I even realized it, but my eyes had already scanned all of the products and read the names, and I STILL can’t name them!

At the end of class he announced a pop quiz. He said, “Before you leave, I want you to take out a piece of paper and write down what race you think I am. And underneath that, I want you to write my ethnicity, and then give specific reasons for why you chose them.”

Hooooo-yeah! What the? How did he know that I just spent 3 hours obsessing over his race and ethnicity, and had already played out every scenario in my head? Wooop! Score one for me!

I had already decided that he was black and white and threw all other races out the window. So I wrote that he is 75% white and 25% black, with an ethnicity of African-American and a mix of Western European, maybe German and Irish. I only picked these because statistically, they make up the majority of all peoples who have immigrated to the U.S. – so I was just going by odds.

And then I just listed off all the neurotic shit that I just told you, like straight hair, etc.

The next class he walked in with a stack of papers, all of the students’ pop quizzes, maybe 70 or more. He tells us he wants to share with us some of the responses. He shuffles through them while talking about how every answer was different and it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, he just wants to get a feel for how we perceive race.

*shuffle-shuffle*

Lamarr: There was one response in particular….

*shuffle*

Me:….

Lamarr: That I wanted to share…

Me: Uh-oh…

Lamarr: Because it was just so….*chuckle*

Me: There’s no way it’s mine….

Lamarr: Ha ha ha….I really had to wonder about this one….

Me: Please, no…..

Lamarr: …Here it is! SHAWNA? Shawna, where are you, raise your hand please.

Me: FUDGE *raise hand*

Lamarr: Ha ha ha! *reading* “I think that you are 75% white and 25% black.” 75 PERCENT? What does that even MEAN? Can you explain that please?

Me (fully confident in what I had written): It means that I think you have one parent who is white and one parent who is half white and half black. Everyone’s racial and ethnic background can be broken down by percentage.

Lamarr: Ohhhh! Ha ha! Ok then!

Um....what exactly was there to not understand?

Did I miss something? Is saying that someone is 75% white like, out of hand? This is why I never leave the house. I just don’t get people.

So finally, later in the class, he reveals to us the big gahdamn mystery of his race and you know what he projects on the overhead?

Race: Black

Ethnicity: African American.

S’cuse me? Uh….hold the phone.

He’s claiming only African heritage…when he is clearly mixed with white. I mean, does he think that in Nigeria, that two black Africans sometimes give birth to a super-light skinned baby? With pin-straight hair? I don’t think so.

So even if he looks at his parents and they’re both black, and his grandparents, and back through the family tree, and they all are “black”…wouldn’t you still assume that there’s a white person in there somewhere? Thanks to slavery and all the white “masters” there was plenty of mixing, and there are hardly any African Americans that have no white ancestry anywhere. The man I see in front of my class could not possibly be a Native African. And btw, only like 3 people in the class even included “black” in their racial guess, one said Filipino, and the rest ALL said Hispanic.

Well anyway…I’m enjoying the class none the less, and I’m excited to be reading and writing about race. I just hope I learn something. And I hope I don’t end up teaching the class myself. Cuz you know how I love to break it down: by race, class, gender, ugly, purty, fat, skinny….freckled ass. I divide the world into two categories: Freckled Ass and Non-Freckled Ass. Who’s the Freckled Assiest?

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