So, I looked into the mirror the other morning and had quite a shock: FUCK I’m white!

Some of my best friends are … white… though you wouldn’t know if to hear them talk.

My great-grandmother was an Indian princess

We have Cherokee blood in our family

What is it with the Indians huh? Must be a California thing.

Me, I had relatives come over on the Mayflower, and they decided to stay for a spell. Great Great Grandpa, a Connecticut Yankee, went to Alabami with a pistol on his hip, and brought back all kinds of war booty … Great Great Grandma for one.

Is that my history book?

I tell people I’m Portuguese, grasping at cultural straws, but my grandfather wouldn’t let his sons learn the language.

I tell people I’m Scottish, and imagine myself tossing cabers, painting my face blue, looking like Mel Gibson. Do I look like Mel Gibson to you?

I EVEN tell people I’m Jewish. Well, I could be … Lots of Portuguese named Nunes who come from the Azores are … My Great Grandmother even lit a menorah at Christmas time fer Christ sake! … Then she went to Catholic Mass and took communion like all the rest.

You know what I am? I’m a blue-eyed devil.

See?

And though I grew up stacking firewood for pocket change, mending fences, catching run-away chickens, Old MacDonald had a farm … I ain’t no cracker … I ain’t no redneck. My father was a chemistry professor.

And though I grew up surrounded by Patchouli, pot smoke, The Mamas and the Papas, Jefferson Airplane, one pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small, HELL! Bob Dylan shopped at our Co-Op … I’m no hippie … no commune kid. My mother worked at IBM.

And though I love pizza, am a snob about bagels, curse like a sailor when I drive, walk fast, talk faster, whatthaFUCKyoulookin’at?! … I ain’t no New Yawker … How you doin’? My parents met in Berkeley.

So what am I? Who am I? Blue-eyed Devil? The face of the oppressor? Was it this face behind the whip? At the gas chamber door? In your families wood pile?

Who am I? You tell me.

Am I white? But I have all kinds of colors going on in here, none of ‘em that. (Not even my teeth) Pinks, blues, green, and black … yes … beige … purple … red … I got a whole crayola box in me. The big one too … with Indian Red … Negro Brown … and that one that used to be called Skin Color before they changed it to just plain peach.

Was I the slave ship captain? Singing Amazing Grace as I turned the boat around? Did you feel my whip on your back? Did I give you smallpox soaked blankets? Turn high-pressure hoses on your brother and sister that time in Alabama? Was it me who wouldn’t give his seat up? Turned the innocent word boy into a slur? Strung your father up by his neck? Raped your mother in the drying shack?

Who am I?

Is it as simple as my skin? Gender? Nationality? Eye-color? History? Cataloged. Recorded. Filed.

Who am I?

Blue-eyed devil? Riding the privilege train? Going to the college I want? Getting the job I want? Making all the money I want? Getting what I want when I want? All of it … none left for you … never knowing hunger? Never knowing pain? Never knowing shame? Never knowing?

Blue-eyed devil?

Is that me?

I’m done knowing the answer to that question

I never knew the answer to that question

I’m what you think I am … what you need me to be … I’m bad fusion cuisine … I’m a contradictory cocktail … I’m everything and nothing … I’m the product of a personal history. I’m bi costal, bi polar, binomial, binary oppositional pair, biparous, binate … Siamese twins born of privilege and fear … living two-faced lives … dreaming twined dreams of drunken shame-filled supremacy … two jiggers of guilt, one of hate, a splash of fear, shake for 1000 years …

Blue-eyed devil?

Bleeding-heart liberal?

Guy named Jason?

When you’ve figured it all out, you’ll have to let me know.