I was one of the unlucky
ones. Born with just a smidge of melanin, I can't pass for coffee or any type
of tea; just a distant cousin of pink grapefruit juice. In cultural parlance,
I'm Caucasian. And even though I've never been persecuted for it (except one
time in New Mexico, but I'll get to that), I can appreciate how the amount of
melanin in one's skin affects who they'll become.
Consider the Melanin
Megastars: people with skin so black it's almost blue. They're melanin rich,
whether they reside in a poverty-stricken African country or in the United
States. Then there are the Melanin Middlin': people whose skin color may be a
toffee brown or other shade that reflects a blended heritage. Those who hail
from the Mediterranean, India, Latin countries, and Native Americans generally
fall into this category.
But the melanin-deprived
are a vast group, spread across the globe. We don't talk about being Melanin
Midgets; it simply isn't a subject for polite discourse. But it rankles. Why
can't our skin glow with the bronze hues other ethnicities take for granted? To
assuage our privation, some of us may occasionally use an epithet to describe
members of one of these privileged groups. It's an attempt to camouflage our
sense of inferiority.
Perhaps this is what
happened with Paula Deen, who made headlines recently because she admitted to
using the "N" word in the past. Ms. Deen was promptly and roundly
punished for her error, losing both face and finances in a very public way. It
was a temporary slip, long ago, she says. But as Oprah so trenchantly observed,
we're not yet ready for a "real conversation" about racism in today's
world.
One of my few direct
experiences of racial prejudice occurred nearly two decades ago, when I lived
in northern New Mexico, an area whose inhabitants are a mix of Latino, Native
American, and Caucasian, living an uneasy cultural détente. In the midst of a
labyrinthine healing quest from chronic illness, I was also opening to Spirit,
not working except on myself, and living on savings.
Shopping in a local
pharmacy for personal care needs, I observed that my cashier appeared to have a
cold. Solicitously I asked, "Are you sick? Maybe you should take a few
days off." She flared, "Look, Lady, I gotta work!
I don't have no sugar daddy!" Obviously, since it was the middle of the
day, she assumed I was a woman of leisure. I understood her rage, and that it
wasn't directed at me personally so much as at her life situation. It was
nonetheless shocking, because it was new to me. Yet this is what
melanin-endowed people experience perhaps every day of their lives.
What will it take to begin
the conversation? What if melanin was valued instead of money? African
Americans would be wealthy beyond measure; Caucasians, not so much. Just
because people of minimal color may be Melanin Midgets doesn't mean we have to
be mental midgets.
We have bigger issues to
resolve that affect us all, regardless of the amount of pigment in our skin. Let's grow beyond the Melanin Wars. We've transcended the apocalyptic
drama of 2012. Surely we can do this.
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