Color Blind

Girl: What are you?
Me: I'm sorry, what.
Girl: What are you?
Me: A girl.
Girl: No, what are you? I mean, you're not black.
Me: Of course, I'm black! What else would I be?
Girl: (I have to paraphrase because my rising anger and the immense concentration needed not to smack her made it hard to listen.) No, but your hair is so straight.
Me: Are you serious? It's called a perm...

And with that I excused myself and walked away. This is an actual experience of mine and simultaneously fills me with a 90/10 ratio of both disgust and anger. I am truly disturbed that someone would attempt to judge my blackness by the texture of my processed hair. I guess I should have been pleased to know that my bi-weekly trips to the hairdresser to stamp out any notion of curl was working. I guess I could have laughed it off, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that I had somehow been insulted. I may not be the darkest sista and I'm rocking freckles instead of an Afro, but I know who I am and what I look like. Trust me when I say that I look like your average, brown-skinned, black girl.

I do, however, think that many people would be surprised to know how many people of color in post-Civil Rights America are still hung up on the color issue. I was reminded of this by CoCo, who was having a typical work chat with Shiva only to find out that she, Shiva, is unaware that she does in fact look Indian. (No, I do not mean Native American. I mean Indian from India.) She seems to think that she looks Italian, Mediterranean, maybe even Brazilian. I paused and thought to myself, "Self, she cannot be serious." I have seen Sophia Loren, Maria Menounos, and many Victoria Secret modeling Brazilians and she could not blend into a group of them. Selita Ebanks, Aishwarya Rai, and one of those ambiguous United Colors of Benetton models is more like it.

I know what you are thinking. There are people of different races all over the world. Yes, I know that people of every color can be born in any country, but stereotypes exist for a reason. That is why we are always surprised to hear actors like Idris Elba and Thandie Newton talk in their real voices. It is also why no one assumes Samarie Armstrong was born in Japan or guesses that Joaquin Phoenix entered into the world in Puerto Rico. In order for the casual observer to come up and say you "look like you are from" somewhere you have to look like the majority of the people from that area.

The thing that fascinates me about skin color is how color blind we are about ourselves and how entrenched some of societies issues really are. I know I said I would keep things light, so I am going to stay off my soap box. I just think it is funny that here is a grown woman with no concept of what she actually looks like. As she was saying this comment about how "fair-skinned" she was compared to CoCo and her constantly being mistaken for some kind of European another person who born with naturally blond hair (if you know what I mean) was in the conversation and said, "Well, you both look dark to me."

That to me was the best part of the story. No matter how different you think you are within your little group people on the outside can't tell. I know the feeling because most "natural" blonds (wink, wink) look the same to me!

It feels good to be a part of color blind society, doesn't it?