You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but my mother’s family is part black. My Irish-descended father lightened me up quite a bit. My uncle on my mother’s side, however, had no such lightening. When he tans, he gets dark. A deep, chocolate brown dark. Combined with his Sicilian heritage, which gives him very tight, curly hair, he has passed for African American many times. One of his dates was surprised to meet my mother. “Oh, you’re sister is white?” “Yes… Wait, you know I’m white, right?” “No… You aren’t white…” It was an awkward conversation. It didn’t help that my uncle had a rather large Afro going at the time.
So, around the early 1980, while Reagan was in office in his first term, my uncle buzzed off his Afro. In the 1970s, during the disco era, it wasn’t a problem for him. However, things took an ugly turn for him in the ’80s. He started getting pulled over… A lot. Police had a different attitude with him. He got manhandled more than once. They questioned his ID, as they’d never heard of no “n****r” named Zaninno. It hit him pretty hard.
He got the message. You don’t want to look black in America. It goes poorly for you. He had to cut his hair, it was too dangerous not to. He lost a lot of friends over it. He said they were angry because he could just cut his hair, and use sunblock, and he was safe. They had to live with that danger every day.
So don’t tell me that White Privilege doesn’t exist.
Don’t tell me that American blacks aren’t treated differently because of their skin.
And until this changes, don’t tell me that “All Lives Matter,” because obviously, some matter less than others.
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