Nobody knew.

Not the black woman with the business-like smile in Seafood.

Not the blond-haired, blue-eyed dad tugging two little boys through Fresh Produce.

Not the Spanish-speaking cashier.

And not the trendy suburban teen in Baked Goods.

Nope, none of these folks at the grocery store tonight had a clue about me.

Sure, they were picking up new products in pretty packaging. They were reading Nutrition Information and Ingredients lists. They were getting a run-down on what’s in the gourmet brownie mix… the granola… the garlic-pepper grinder.

But the human package named Elizabeth — as I whizzed past with my shopping cart — offered no such explanations.

They saw the package of sun-bleached hair, tanned skin and green eyes that sparkle with special intensity during summertime.

So passers-by probably assumed that Elizabeth’s main ingredient is White.

Yes, my all-American blend includes English and French, but it also contains Native American, Italian and African American.

But if my multiracial mix is invisible…

And nobody around me knows it, then…

AM I PASSING FOR WHITE?

By simply “being” — am I deceiving the world?

Yes. And no.

I don’t owe strangers an explanation of my ethnic or racial background. When I’m in the grocery store, I don’t have to stamp an INGREDIENTS list on my forehead listing the DNA blend this is unique Brand BLISS.

Because my manufacturer — His name is God — created this product to serve humanity as a voice of harmony.

How? By raising provocative questions about how we think and talk and evaluate each other when it comes to race and ethnicity.

That’s why I divulge details of my DNA during speaking engagements… in media interviews… in books… in poems… in conversations with strangers… and right here on my blog. I explain and reveal because I am a powerful catalyst for change. I enjoy sharing my story, my viewpoints, my experiences, for the sake of edu-taining folks to think and talk about race and ethnicity with a new and improved passion for harmony.

This is the opposite of passing for white.

Back during slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crowe, the Civil Rights Movement and even now — “passing” is the word used to describe a person who was white-looking enough to HIDE his or her African American heritage for the sake of social and financial gain. Lies, deception, denial and self-hatred were the name of that game. This often meant abandoning one’s family to start a new life as a white person, as Sarah Jane did in the 1959 tear-jerking movie Imitation of Life.

Other times, black men and women “passed” during the day to get and keep a good-paying job that only a white person could get–then they’d return home (paycheck in hand) to their black families and communities.

But don’t think times have changed so much that folks don’t still pass for the perceived benefits of social and financial gain. Just watch The Human Stain with Anthony Hopkins and Wentworth Miller.

Or talk to the dozens of people who purchased my second book, Dark Secret — a sexy, scandalous story about a biracial woman who’s “passing” as a rich white woman — even as her black mother is dying in Detroit! Too many readers told me stories about friends and family members who had crossed the color line…

You know that saying, once you go black, you never go back? Well, once they went white, they were forever out of sight!

Not me.

My package might say White. But I proudly display my Ingredients as a unique face of race in America (and the grocery store)… a sprinkle of sweetness in our magnificent melting pot!

Posted: August 7th, 2007 under The Bliss Report.
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