Stop That White Lady!
I have always known I was different. My father’s first wife was Black, so my half-brothers weren’t mixed like my little sister and me. No one ever questioned who their momma was; no one ever tried to rescue them from the a crazy, kidnapping white lady.
I still remember the day my mother had to convince a sweet, but clueless, little old lady that my sister and I were indeed her children. We were at the grocery store, our contrasting skin colors drawing the looks of old white folks the same way it always did. Sometimes I counted the people that stared to pass the time, but I never involved my sister in my game — I hoped she was oblivious to the fact that people apparently saw us as sideshow freaks.
Rarely did they have the courage to do anything more than gawk, but on this particular day, we ran into someone who thought my sister and I were twins. I’m short. Always have been, always will be. We looked very much alike, but because I was small for my age, people frequently assumed my sister and I were twins. When people they realized that we weren’t, they inevitably tried to guess which of us was younger. I’m nearly three years her senior, but not once did anyone guess I was the older sister. I hated it — she would be able to get tattoos and see R-rated movies before I could.
“What pretty little twins!” The old lady walked up to us and I just knew she was going to try to pinch our cheeks, so I hid on the bottom rack of the shopping cart where she couldn’t reach me. She was the type of woman you could see wearing an apron, baking cookies and giving you embarrassing kisses in front of your prom date. Solid white hair framed a lively face full of joy — they could have modeled Mrs. Claus after her.
“Oh they’re not twins,” my mother said.
“Oh!” Mrs. Claus bent over just a bit toward me. “I bet you’re the baby!” she exclaimed, proud that she channeled her inner Sherlock Holmes to deduce our order based on our heights.
“No, she’s the oldest,” my mom replied. She would have this conversation many times over the years. I’m surprised she didn’t add a sign to the shirts she made us from her McCall patterns proclaiming our non-twin status: Nope, not a twin! I’m three years older! I would have, but my mother is far more patient than I am.
“Oh!” Little Old Lady was surprised she was wrong, but not dismayed. “Are you babysitting?”
“No, they’re my girls,” my mom replied. She let that statement hang in the air. Looking back, I think she got some enjoyment out of watching people try to figure out how those little dark-skinned girls belonged to her. I learned to be amused by it too. It was much more fun than getting mad about it.
“Oh, how wonderful! I think more people should adopt! So many babies out there with no families. So sad.” This poor woman didn’t have a clue that she’d just stepped in it.
“Oh no. I gave birth to them. They’re mine.” My mother just smiled and watched that unlucky old lady squirm, her eyes darting back and forth, trying to come up with a solution to the Skin Color Problem. You could almost hear her elderly brain cells spin up like a computer hard disk, trying to come up with a more plausible reason than an interracial couple. Maybe we were sick — it had to be a skin disorder. Maybe they switched the babies at the hospital — but that wouldn’t happen twice with two babies that looked nearly identical. No, maybe we played outside in the sun too much. Anything but a Black daddy. Lord help her, anything but that.
“Oh, well they’re pretty girls.” With that, the lady took off toward the dairy section, power-walking like she was in her twenties again, and started inspecting egg cartons like there were diamonds hidden beneath the eggs. She wasn’t malicious with her inquiries. They never were. It was always the well-meaning strangers who made the comments that hurt the most. Blatant racism is easy to dismiss as stupidity, but racism cloaked by sincerity always takes you by surprise, leaving you standing on your island, wondering where your place is in the world.
Things didn’t get any better when I started school. I always rode the bus home, but one day my mother came to pick me up from elementary school like the other white parents did. I was so excited; I didn’t have to ride that hot, funky bus! A teacher stood with us kids out on the playground, making sure that we all went home with the right people.
My mom walked up to me and told me to grab my backpack. I ran to the pile of bags next to the teacher and, no sooner than I picked mine up, she grabbed my arm like I was trying to take off with her overhead projector. I looked up at her, wondering why she stopped me. She hadn’t stopped the other kids.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“My mom’s here,” I said, pointing to my mother.
“Who’s supposed to be picking you up?” she asked.
“My mom,” I replied.
The teacher knelt down. “You don’t have to go with that lady. Did she tell you that your mom told her to come get you? Let’s go call your mom and make sure you’re supposed to leave with her first.”
By now I was used to having to explain that the white lady was indeed my mother. “She is my mom!. My momma’s white and my daddy’s black.” I’ve said it so many times, it doesn’t even feel like a sentence anymore, just one long word: mymommaswhitemydaddysblack.
The teacher looked like she had discovered that I used to live in a leper colony. “Oh, ok then. Bye.”
Come to think of it, instead of making a not a twin shirt, maybe I should have had a mommy’s white, daddy’s black shirt. It would have saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of embarrassment. But where’s the fun in that?

