How I Missed the Lessons on Being Black
Words by Eunice Brownlee
When you think of mixed-race families, it seems that my parents broke all the “rules.” My dad is White, which, in and of itself, is rare among mixed-race couples. I never really thought about it until I started hearing, “Wait. So your dad is White?” I met a woman recently who studied sociology and criminal justice and she explained to me why it’s rare to see a White man and a Black woman together.
In the historical order of things, White men have always been regarded as the “ideal human”, and as such, they carry the most privilege (thus perpetuating the myth of White Supremacy). Black men, despite how we see them treated today, were given rights that women did not have, positioning men as better than women regardless of race. Therefore, a Black woman is treated societally as the least of these, carrying the least amount of privilege (which is still reflected in the wage gap—Black women make $0.62 for every $1 a White man makes, compared to the $0.79 White women make). For a White man to marry a Black woman used to be seen as him marrying down, which is why you don’t see it as frequently with mixed-race couples as a White woman marrying a Black man.
On top of that, my dad grew up very poor. So poor, in fact, that he lived in a Black neighborhood in Boston. My mom grew up with her grandparents, who were prominent business owners in Savannah, Georgia, prior to moving to Boston when she was about five. When my parents decided to get married, they moved out west to protect their future children from the kind of overt racism that they had both grown up experiencing.
I grew up in northern Arizona and was surrounded by a mix of kids of different races – mostly Navajo, White, or Mexican. My experience of racism was always as a witness to someone else being subjected to unsettling comments. I understood the concept of racism, but at the time, I really believed I hadn’t been on the receiving end of it.
We didn’t get steeped in cultural identity from either side of our heritage (although my sister did have a phase where she was determined to learn everything about our Irish roots). My mom could fill our bellies with Southern cooking like no other, but aside from that, everything we learned about where we came from happened in school. The only time we really experienced what it was like to be Black were the few times we visited our grandpa in Savannah, which was always quite the culture shock.
I remember going to visit our grandpa one Easter when I was about 11. My sister was 8 and my brother was 4. We got dressed to the nines—hats, gloves and all—to go to church. Aside from my dad literally being the only White guy in the building, church was nothing like it was back home. My grandpa proudly introduced us around and we took our seats as the gospel choir belted out “Hallelujah!” from Handel’s Messiah.
As the preacher took the pulpit and started in on his sermon, you could hear the occasional “Praise Jesus!” or “Amen, brother!” or “Uh, huh, thank you Lord!” coming from around the room. My sister asked my mom why all those people were being so rude and interrupting the pastor. My mom told her that they weren’t being rude, that’s just how it was done at this church. Not missing a beat, my sister shouts, “Praise Jesus!” at the top of her little lungs. Fifteen years later, a similar gospel choir sent my great-grandmother, affectionately known by her church friends as “Sister Myrtle,” home to heaven. It was like nothing like the funerals I had attended in my life.
. . .
In school, there were a fair number of other Black kids, but I didn’t really have any Black friends at all. I generally made friends with people I had things in common with, but I didn’t see the point of joining the Black student union. I believed that I wouldn’t fit in, so I didn’t bother. I think my parents might have disowned me if I joined another extracurricular activity anyway.
The first time I realized that I wasn’t “Black enough” was my sophomore year in high school, when someone asked me if I liked chitlins. Unsure if I was about to make another Vanilla Ice mistake (in fifth grade, a friend asked me if I liked Vanilla Ice and my response was, “I don’t know, I’ve never tasted it. Is it like a slushy or something?”), I stared blankly and simply responded, “I don’t know what that is.” To which the person who asked me laughed hysterically and said, “Aren’t you Black?” I laughed awkwardly and changed the subject. I went home later that day and asked my mom about chitlins and she said, “First of all, that was a pretty racist thing to ask. And secondly, you wouldn’t like them.”
My siblings and I were never given “The Talk”—the one that most Black parents give to their kids to remind them how to act in White spaces so they don’t get the police called unnecessarily, or worse, killed. My mom held a firm belief that looking to be treated differently meant that you could expect to be treated differently. I guess you could say that I grew up learning how to assimilate with White culture.
As I got older, I fielded strange questions about whether or not my hair was real, how I felt about “passers”, and was nicknamed Kunta Kinte. With each question, I didn’t get what people were saying at all. I never realized how completely ignorant I was to the Black experience until recently.
. . .
In 2017, discouraged by the results of our presidential election, a friend of mine started a book club. She wanted to do her part to help combat the systemic racism we see every day. She committed to reading books written exclusively by American women of color. A teacher by profession, she believed that reading other perspectives would be the best sword we could arm ourselves with in this battle.
I will never forget the month we read The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas. If you haven’t read it, it’s about a Black teen who lives in two worlds: the Black and proud, but gang-ridden neighborhood, and a predominately White prep school. She’s the only witness when her friend is murdered by a police officer at a traffic stop. When our leader asked us what we thought of the book, the first thing out of my mouth was, “I have never felt so White. I do not relate to the experience of these characters at all.” It was then that I realized that racism is still very real and very much a part of the lives of Black people, including me. It was eye opening.
I don’t think it was that my parents wanted to hide our heritage from us, but rather, they felt that they were doing their part to live the life they thought the Civil Rights movement granted us. They wanted to believe that the era that they grew up in had passed and that we really did live in a society that was equal for all. What I think they, among many others, did not anticipate, is that how we best build a society that benefits us all is to acknowledge and embrace our differences, rather than pretending they aren’t there.
About the Author:
Eunice Brownlee has spent her career finding the balance between her left and right brains. She is a passionate writer and writes regularly about mental health, trauma, and abuse. As a survivor of all three, she uses her experience to help others open up and tell their stories. She's also a single mother, striving to raise a daughter who is strong and outspoken. When she’s not doing any of the above, she can be found seeking her next passport stamp and drinking wine.