Creole Fails DNA Test

[arisbe]

"My son was flabbergasted by the results," says Joseph. "He said, 'Dad, you mean for 50 years you've been passing for black?'" Joseph admits that, strictly speaking, he has. But he's not sure if he can or wants to do anything about that at this point. For all the lingering effects of institutional racism, he's been perfectly content being a black man; it has shaped his worldview and the course of his life in ways that cannot, and probably should not, be altered. Yet Joseph struggles to balance the intellectual dishonesty of saying he's black with the unimpeachable honesty of a lifelong experience of being black. "What do I do with this information?" he says, sounding more than a little exasperated. "It was like finding out you're adopted. I don't want to be disingenuous with myself. But I can't conceive of living any other way. It's a question of what's logical and what's visceral."

From AlterNet

Comments

[imago-gal.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of an interesting article about a black woman who married a white man and when they became pregnant, she spent a lot of time making sure her husband was prepared to have a mixed race child. When the child was born, she was entirely unprepared for the fact that her child looked more like her father than her mother.

She writes that she is often considered the nanny of the child rather than the child's mother. And when her child throws a tantrum in the store, she has to think about her actions because no one considers the child hers.

Racial identity is much more fluid than most people think...