I used to be black!
Some thoughts on racism and what it is.
I’m by no means trolling, or looking to make any arguments. I am just trying to convey a personal experience.
My ethnicity is a mix French, Native American and who ever else landed on the eastern shores of Canada in the past few hundred years. That’s my mothers side. My fathers side all from England.
So my 'race' would be considered to be ‘white.’ Though people often take me for Italian, or sometimes Greek or Arab [lets just say Mediterranean] due to the fact my skin is somewhat darker than most whites and my hair it dark and course.
In the summer my skin gets brown, literally and my hair gets more course further making me look Mediterranean.
Now many years ago I decided to stop cutting my hair. Being course black and pretty curly it grew into an afro. Once it was out to my shoulders I decided to dread it.
So I started shopping around some hair dressers from the Caribbean for some dreads. Much to my amazement they ALL thought I was part African. I kept getting comments about you don’t get many mixed race people with good African hair. I was never offended I just found it to be hilarious.
I ended up with a lot of really thick dreads. More than most whites would get in the process. I had them for about 6 years, they grew down to my waist.
In that time every where I went, especially more in the summer due my skin getting darker black people always called me brother. They were much more cordial and polite with me. Always starting conversation.
I rather enjoyed it as it was unique experience and many would laugh when I would say I was generally English-European with a little bit of native in me.
Then one day I was downtown and I was going to a bar to meet friends and I was alone. I was headed to a pub and beside it was a club that was generally filled with black people. I walked by and they were all “what’s going on brother?”, etc….Pretty nice guys.
Then a few minutes later my buddy showed to me meet me. He’s a tall kind of lanky pale guy with red hair. He comes in and says he was walking by the club next door and all the black guys started saying “Keep walking white boy.”
I then realized since most blacks assumed I was “part black” I was being given nicer treatment than a guy who was clearly “white.”
Some time later I shaved my head because I wanted a change. 8 years with out a hair cut had grown old.
Since I shaved my dreads off I have never had a single black person start a conversation with me, call me brother, etc. Granted I have not been wronged by any black people either.
I don’t hold any contempt at all toward that community over it but it is clear to me that in general there is one degree of outwardness for “brothers” and another for those who aren’t.
To be honest I found it to be a lot of fun for people to think I was. It seemed to break down a lot of barriers.
Part of me things that a large part of that barrier is due to the stigmas and economic conditions that are in most black communities and lingering defence issues for the fact that just a few generations ago most people regarded blacks as property and possibly not human.
And I think on some levels I can understand that. Maybe thinking I shared part of their bloodstock allowed a lot defences to be lowered and certainly no one ever became rude to me when I would tell them I have zero black blood in me. They would laugh out loud and keep being polite.
Now days when I see a black guy with dreads I says in my whitest possible voice “You are making me miss having my dreadlocks brother.”
Which will always cause them to laugh and it starts a conversation.
I don’t really have an endgame to this post. I was just taking the opportunity to share my experience with people thinking I was black.
I’m by no means trolling, or looking to make any arguments. I am just trying to convey a personal experience.
My ethnicity is a mix French, Native American and who ever else landed on the eastern shores of Canada in the past few hundred years. That’s my mothers side. My fathers side all from England.
So my 'race' would be considered to be ‘white.’ Though people often take me for Italian, or sometimes Greek or Arab [lets just say Mediterranean] due to the fact my skin is somewhat darker than most whites and my hair it dark and course.
In the summer my skin gets brown, literally and my hair gets more course further making me look Mediterranean.
Now many years ago I decided to stop cutting my hair. Being course black and pretty curly it grew into an afro. Once it was out to my shoulders I decided to dread it.
So I started shopping around some hair dressers from the Caribbean for some dreads. Much to my amazement they ALL thought I was part African. I kept getting comments about you don’t get many mixed race people with good African hair. I was never offended I just found it to be hilarious.
I ended up with a lot of really thick dreads. More than most whites would get in the process. I had them for about 6 years, they grew down to my waist.
In that time every where I went, especially more in the summer due my skin getting darker black people always called me brother. They were much more cordial and polite with me. Always starting conversation.
I rather enjoyed it as it was unique experience and many would laugh when I would say I was generally English-European with a little bit of native in me.
Then one day I was downtown and I was going to a bar to meet friends and I was alone. I was headed to a pub and beside it was a club that was generally filled with black people. I walked by and they were all “what’s going on brother?”, etc….Pretty nice guys.
Then a few minutes later my buddy showed to me meet me. He’s a tall kind of lanky pale guy with red hair. He comes in and says he was walking by the club next door and all the black guys started saying “Keep walking white boy.”
I then realized since most blacks assumed I was “part black” I was being given nicer treatment than a guy who was clearly “white.”
Some time later I shaved my head because I wanted a change. 8 years with out a hair cut had grown old.
Since I shaved my dreads off I have never had a single black person start a conversation with me, call me brother, etc. Granted I have not been wronged by any black people either.
I don’t hold any contempt at all toward that community over it but it is clear to me that in general there is one degree of outwardness for “brothers” and another for those who aren’t.
To be honest I found it to be a lot of fun for people to think I was. It seemed to break down a lot of barriers.
Part of me things that a large part of that barrier is due to the stigmas and economic conditions that are in most black communities and lingering defence issues for the fact that just a few generations ago most people regarded blacks as property and possibly not human.
And I think on some levels I can understand that. Maybe thinking I shared part of their bloodstock allowed a lot defences to be lowered and certainly no one ever became rude to me when I would tell them I have zero black blood in me. They would laugh out loud and keep being polite.
Now days when I see a black guy with dreads I says in my whitest possible voice “You are making me miss having my dreadlocks brother.”
Which will always cause them to laugh and it starts a conversation.
I don’t really have an endgame to this post. I was just taking the opportunity to share my experience with people thinking I was black.