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.
One time, when I was two, I fell out of a stroller and cracked my head open. Growing up I used to always wonder what my old head used to look like cus I thought when you cracked open your head you got a knew one. So one day I asked my mom what my old head used to look like....
ReplyDeleteAnd that was the day I found out you only get one head. Even if you happen to crack it open.