by Frances Raybaud
When I was four years old
(my father loves this tale)
I took the bus to school with
my father every day.
one day an old woman
asked me if he was my dad
He’s Papa,
I said
she thought he was
kidnapping me.
because I was this
tiny
little
blonde
and he was six feet tall and black.
when I was twelve
My hair was different
I am white.
my friends call me white-passing
But I know I am white
My father’s melanin
did not decide to reach my skin
but I got his hair
I had a blonde afro
for several years
my mother would burst
in on me in the shower
rip the locks apart that
had begun to form
Brush the ringlets out
until everything was on the floor.
when I’d go to the salon
she’d ask for a blowout
So it was soft and straight
And normal.
“Your hair looks terrible”
she will still say when it gets too big.
In college I learned this was a
micro-aggression.
I’ve had a skin tag
behind my ear
that bleeds on occasion
my whole life.
We’ve tried to freeze it,
burn it,
but it comes back.
The only people I know who have similar
are black.
But I’m white,
So the doctors tried to burn it off.
called it a deformity.
my father calls it a birthmark.
I am twenty,
and my cousin has just asked me if my boyfriend
who is brown
speaks Arabic.
I said no;
he’s Indian.
oh
Does he speak curry?
My boyfriend laughs at this later
“She was making a joke”
but just like that,
in the moment,
I’m 4
I’m 12
I’m 10,
Explaining to a little white girl
that my brother isn’t a threat
he’s a little boy like her
-just DARKER
I’m hearing my best friend
tell me she’s called the
n-word
feeling my chest get hot
And my skin crawl
because there’s nothing she can do.
People don’t always know they’re being racist.
sometimes,
they don’t care.
I will keep calling it out
because every fucking time
it hurts
and every time
it’s like me,
or my friends,
or someone else I love.
