Black Beauty

I grew up in poverty, raised by the television. My mother was busy working and earning her PhD, so there was limited supervision at the homestead, save for the cartoons. The hours that were not devoted to the old boob tube were spent trolling around on my pink and purple Huffy bike, which was stolen daily by a black kid in the neighborhood--as a flirtation. In retrospect I realize most of the people around were minorities, but at the time, I was sure I was black, or maybe a Smurf, but at least no different from everyone else.

One day, a girl named Natalie wanted to spend the night at my house. I said yes without asking and a few hours later we were drying off from the bath we had just taken together. Natalie pulled some hair grease out of her bag and worked it through her hair. I stared in awe and was quick to accept her invitation to use some of the bottle on my own 'do.

Cut to five days later, after rigorous scrubbing, the grease was still weighing down my white-girl hair as if it were wet and plastered to my head. That's when I found out I wasn't black. At least, not on the outside.

Cracker Jack

The Midwest is known for its white people, so it was really no surprise to see the whitest man alive standing in front of me on line at the post office. He had all the honkey tells: thinning brown hair with a bald patch at the dome, wire rimmed eye glasses, jean shorts pulled up to his bitch tits, a tucked-in green t-shirt, a brown, fading leather belt and black socks pulled to the knee. What was bewildering were the perfectly white and meticulously cared for FUBU sneakers. Nice curve ball, guy.