Sometimes It Matters if You’re Black or White

This morning I read Big Mama’s post about Michael Jackson.

I wasn’t going to write about him.  I really wasn’t.  I was going to avoid it in the same way that I have kept my mouth shut about what I really think about Jon and Kate.  Ahh…but I just can’t.

When I was in Jr. High, I was in love with Michael Jackson.  My walls were literally covered with posters of the gloved wonder.  Every square inch was filled.  I saw his face every night as I went to sleep and again every morning when I woke up.

In retrospect, I’m surprised that my father never said a word about it. To me, anyway.

We come from Michigan and my father was born and raised in a small, country farming town.  We always lived in white rural areas as I was growing up, even when we moved to Indiana.   My schools were all white country schools.  My grandfather was a good man, but also threw the N word around fairly freely.  My father didn’t use it often, but wasn’t adverse to it.  My mother grew up in a more racially diverse town near my father, went to an integrated school, and didn’t have the same attitudes as my father.

Despite this upbringing where race was a silent undercurrent in our lives, my sister and I remained outside of its influence.  Periodically he would say something that would remind me of his prejudices.

I forget much of what he has said to me over the years, but particular conversations become crystalized in my memory.   My parents came to visit me in college and during an unremarkable dinner at the local Ponderosa, we saw an interracial couple having dinner.  My father looked at me and said, “If you ever bring one of those home, you can forget coming home ever again.”

At the time, I didn’t have any black friends aside from Terrance.  He wasn’ t really a friend – just someone whom I shared a walk to class with on a regular basis.   My father’s comment didn’t apply to my life then.  I never forgot his warning though, because I knew that he meant it.

When I went to grad school, the first person I talked to was a Kenyan man who sat next to me in class.  We began dating and I never told my father.  After all, I didn’t know where the relationship was going and there was no point in getting him riled up over nothing. At that point, I would characterize our relationship as fairly broken anyway.  I really didn’t confide anything in him about my personal life, so not mentioning I had a boyfriend was of little consequence.

After the demise of that relationship, I began dating my current husband.  I was honest with Ismael about my father’s attitude.  It was a non-issue until he began asking me to marry him.  I had to consider what my marriage might do to my family.

At one point, Ismael came to see me in the middle of the night after work and said he had thought maybe we better not get married if it was going to cause my father to disown me.   In that instant, I had my decision.

I was a grown woman. I could not let someone’s approval or disapproval dictate my future happiness.

Ismael and I were married and only afterwards did I inform my father.

As predicted, he sent me word through my mother that I was no longer welcome in his home.

He has not spoken to me.

Has not met his son in law.

Has not met his grandson.

He is missing so much.

I don’t think of these things often, but as I have been watching the MJ news coverage and music video marathons, it seemed like the right time to talk about it.

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