So I was babbling recently about race and being “mixed,” and I wanted to share a couple thoughts I had while at the grocery store. You can’t do anything publically in America and not have a ’race moment,’ if you’re non-/not all/less the fully white.

I once had an advisor who was really, really brainy and smart. If you’ve seen Defending Your Life you’ll understand* when I say she was one of those who use “51% of their brains.” She played a big part in getting me into the grad program of my choice, and loved me a lot as a person (and I love her still to this day). Once, when my marriage was breaking apart and she was worried about me flunking out of the program as a result, she took me to see a play.

I was so bored. I’m not really a ’theatre person,’ and the subject matter went waaaay over my head. To this day I’m not sure what it was about. It was a play written by one of those rarified, high brow literary types- the kind of material fewer and fewer people in this country can appreciate, let alone understand, but that people like herself loved. Afterwards, I said as much. Politely, of course, I don’t insult people who are trying to help me.

It was a watershed moment in our relationship. She said to me, “you’re not really that clever after all, are you?” And I wasn’t insulted- in comparison to people like her, I’m a dim witted, slack-jawed clod. Here on the intertubes, I can get away with pretending to be a Real Intellectual, but I don’t kid myself, I’m not, not even close. Not by the Olde Standards, at least. Certainly not by hers (Oxford, Berkeley, Chicago, multiple PhDs, ~12 languages, London Review of Books, etc.)

Anyway, at that time (and of course I kept it to myself) I thought, “you’re really and finally perceiving me for the first time, aren’t you?” It hurt a little, to realize that even this great mind hadn’t really allowed herself to “see me” for what I am, I really am, and not what she wanted, or believed me to be. I think the reason why she overestimated my love for bookish, dialogue-centered plays on the history of po-mo writers was because of my ’race.’ People look at people who look like me, and assume we’re “different.” Different than white, different than black, different in whatever way people need to understand how ’the races mix’ and to what result.  Read more