Am I White?
By: Lyndon Moore
Tags: Bullying, Race Relations, Native Americans, Racism, American History

Am I White?

“Mommy he’s not white.”

It was a simple enough statement, spoken innocently by the nine year old daughter of a good friend — a woman of Haitian descent — that I had met for the first time as I joined them for a fun excursion of bowling and video games at a local bowling alley. We played a game on the lanes and I encouraged and coached her daughter on how to best guide the bowling ball to knock down the pins, but her words stuck with me, just as they continue to stick with me today upon writing this article. They reminded me that I don’t “look” like most White people.

To say that race is a complicated thing is an understatement of colossal proportion. While it is at one point a social construct, science and social understandings have established that there are, indeed, different ethnicities. People do look different from one another, and, regretfully, opinions and beliefs are formed based on those appearances.

For most of my life I’ve had people — the bold, curious, and socially maladroit — approach me, total strangers mind you , to ask the simple but dreadfully loaded question, “What are you?”

To some I am as White as the most pale skinned Caucasian, but to others I am decidedly something else. And yet while growing up in predominantly Black neighborhoods and attending predominantly Black schools, I was called all manner of ethnic slurs relegated towards Caucasians. I’ve been called a “honky,” a “cracker, and yes, a “white boy.” I’ve even been insulted, spit on, and even assaulted — simply for being the lightest skinned person in an otherwise dark skinned crowd.

Image 1) The author as a young man.

So why the confusion? The problem is that I don’t “look” like your stereotypical White person. I have dark features — with slightly olive skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes. Despite the bullying and colorism I experienced from my Black peers, I’ve never felt at ease around White people — and by that I mean those with light skin, fair hair, and blue or green eyes. They don’t “look” like me, and I’m all too aware that I don’t “look” like them. The words of my friend’s daughter, and the queries from strangers and associates, continue to reinforce the otherness I sometimes feel.

I recall once, when I was a teenager, a man stopped me on the street to ask the question that was fast becoming something I had grown to expect. “What are you?” he asked, staring at me as if I were a problem to be sorted out. “Are you Middle Eastern or something? Libyan?”

Once, while at a resort in Costa Rica of all places with my girlfriend at the time, the chef, a man of Latin American background, asked me, again, “What are you?” He ventured a guess, “Italian?”

I get Italian a lot. A woman I dated once, a transplant from New York City, asked me point blank upon meeting me if I was “Italiano.” Sometimes I get asked if I’m Jewish. Other times people ask if I’m part Hispanic or Middle Eastern. Once I was asked if I was “Black Irish” — a term used to denote those people from Ireland with typically black hair and dark features. The last thing anyone ever seems to guess is that I’m part Native American.

“No, I’m part Native American,” I answered the chef, hoping that this would assuage his curiosity and get him to drop his investigation. A broad, reassuring smile broke out across his face.

“My friend…” he said, his voice dripping with warmth and affection. In his eyes I had suddenly become one of the many great non-White peoples of the world. I was a member.

The problem with being Native American is that people inevitably want to know “how much.” Half? Quarter? An eighth? The truth is that I don’t know and I never will know. Most non-native people don’t realize that in order to be counted as Native American you have to prove your ancestry. Am I a card carrying Native American? No, and I never will be.

When I was a young boy I was told by my family that I had “a lot of Indian blood” and that my ancestors were Cherokee. Most federally recognized tribes in the United States require two things to validate proof of one’s native identity: you have to have a blood quantum of at least 1/16th native, and you have to provide documentation proving your relationship to a person with native blood.

Image 2) The author’s grandparents.

Unfortunately, “looking” native isn’t enough, and genetic phenotypes — the physically expressed appearances of our genes — means that some people can have blonde hair and blue eyes but still be as much as 50% native. The documentation is the most difficult (and ridiculous) part.

What other ethnicity or race requires “proof” of documentation? Does anyone have to prove that they are Black, White, Asian, or Hispanic?

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the President of the United States to negotiate treaties with the Native American tribes of the Southeastern states to remove them from their ancestral lands to be relocated to a federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for money and land on what would become “Indian Territory.” Some tribes saw the writing on the wall and negotiated treaties, selling their land to White settlers and getting what they could before being sent packing to the west, but in effect it was gunboat diplomacy — negotiations were made under the threat of force and military intervention.