YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A SELF HATING NEGRO

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I know you always wanted to just 'white' your way through life.

I know that you wouldn't wish that black grandmother from Bacara on your worst enemy. Who wouldn't want excel in life and exceed all expectations as the white son of a multi-millionaire? No one would trade that in for the dubious privilege of having some black baker woman slaving away over an oven in the ghetto, lurking around your past, infesting your gene pool with her un-blonde-ness.

All  this is made so much more complicated by the fact that while your Daddy is the one with the Moolah, he is also the one with the Black Gene that could random pop up and destroy future generations of your offspring.

But there is no need to be ashamed. No need to wake in the night screaming and sweating because Black Boogie Grandmother is running you down in your nightmares. There are others like you. And they are not ashamed. They cool with it. Most of them. Let us share stories of the other quarter blacks with you.

Jennifer Beal. Flashdance. The L Word. Super hot. She has an Irish American mother and an African-American...what? Too black for you? Bad example? Ok. Let's try again.

Kris Humphries. Kim Kardashian's ex. Quarter black. For real. Kim is consistent. She wants the taste of chocolate. See? There are some advantages to being melanin enhanced. You are  never going to find some Nordic blonde sporting that self-aggrandizing trophy called Kim K. A dubious honor for men of African descent everywhere. But a great ass. The perfect Saturday night girl.

Michael Gladwell, successful author of The Outliers, Tipping Point and Blink. British father and Jamaican...hmmm, too black? The mother might be a shabine....you should keep your mind open...

 

Okay, before you write her off, she's half-black but her black in Latino Black so it doesn't really...fine. Too black, bad example.

Maya Rudolph. Saturday Night Live sensation and daughter of soul legend....nevermind. Too black. Bad example.

Pete Wentz. The good looking one from Fall Out Boy. Quarter black. Apparently, he uses a flat iron to get that emo boy look. Without it, he has a natural 'fro. Mother's family is mixed race Jamaican. Black grandfather served as US Ambassador to Sierra Leone. Cousin to Colin Powell.

Rashida Jones. So light skinned and Euro, she gets white roles easily. Accomplished actress. The Office. Parks & Recreations. Daughter of Quincy Jones. What's that? Too black? Sorry. Bad example. I'll try to keep it at less than half. Don't want to over extend you.

Slash. Legendary guitarist born in England to a Jamai...nevermind. Too black. Bad example.

Soledad O'Brien. CNN Anchor, daughter of an Afro-Cuban...too black, bad example.

Wentworth Miller. Played the young version of Anthony Hopkins in The Human Stain about a mixed race man who secreted his Negritude. Also starred in Prison Break and that Mariah Carey video where....oh they're all the same. Unlike Hopkins, Miller wasn't pretending to be mixed race. He has nof negritude, insisting that his mixed race father is Black. He ain't running from nothing. He's embracing it.

 

Too black, bad example.

Too black, bad example.

Too black, bad example.

Whoa! You must be joking? This guy considers himself a person of color? This guy has a black father? Whoa! I have to give those Vin Diesel movies a second chance. Because it's not that race changes anything. It's that truth improves everything.

 

So what do you say, bro? You want to give it a try? You don't have to be all black. Just an honest to good 25%. Don't feel like you're all alone. Your wife is a DuBoulay. The DuBoulay boys will help you. They are experts at being perfectly St Lucian. Which in our society is just as good as being black.

 

(Frankly, I don't know how some of it didn't rub off on you before.)