But please, put your pens and iPads down and read the rest of my post before you panic, get agitated and/or write me that horrible "Are you a crazy sellout with identity issues?" letter. I don't have identity issues. In fact, I'm very clear about my ethnicity and cultural background. As a multiracial Brown chick raised in Los Angeles that identifies as Bajan-American, I'm happy to be me. I'm Black, I'm Brown, I'm European; I'm a multiracial West Indian. But mostly, I'm just Tracey, one Brown girl out of millions. And everywhere I've ever been in the world, there are people that look like me and everywhere I go, I have this uncontrollable excitement about always wanting to be whatever culture I'm in the midst of (see Being Polynesian). It's just my very intense way of celebrating, I guess (shrugging my shoulders). Okay, so back to wanting to be White...and freaking people out...LOL.
So I just re-connected with some pre-school neighbor- hood friends of mine on good ole Facebook (shout out to Susan, Tina & Linda!). And these girls were the loves of my life back then and I have wickedly fond memories of them. Thinking about it now, they were my first real friends. (First loves are so pure, aren't they?) Just so happens that Tina and Susan are White, so as 4 year olds that spent a lot of time together, it made sense in our young minds that we would want to look alike (kinda like the couples in love that wear those matchy-matchy outfits), so we tried to figure out how to do it, only with our skin and not our outfits. I tried scrubbing my hands with soap so that my skin would get lighter and when that didn't work, I remember remarking how I could walk around with the palms of my hands exposed and flipped over since it almost matched Tina's skin (I'm so tickled by this). Tina did her part, of course, trying to rub dirt (not too much!) into her skin so that she could match my skin color. (For the record, it doesn't work.) We all went home telling our parents that we wanted to match one way or another...Tina could be Brown or I could be White, as long as we matched. Kids are hysterical.It was at that early tender age that I figured out for myself (with the help of my mom, of course) that true love is pure and comes from the inside and has absolutely nothing to do with skin color. In adult terms, we could be matchy-matchy from the inside out.
I'm pleased to say I've had that understanding ever since. =)
