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Black & White

A big thanks to my friend Shellie Summers for the artwork!

August 29


I debated for several days about posting this dream. I was so conflicted about it that in my dream last
night, I was confronted by my dad who told me to go ahead and post it - so I will. In this incredibly
short dream, I was listening to a woman who was visibly upset and venting her frustration to me in
regards to her ethnic Identity. She looked white, but she was black. Her frustration was centered around
a conversation she had with an African-American man who denied her African heritage due to her white
skin tone. After lending her my ear in a random grocery store, I found myself shocked to hear that she
was black, "Was she speaking about the ‘one-drop rule’ or something?" Of course, I am pretty sure she
was not talking about the one-drop rule.

Dream Sequence Over: 

From a waking perspective, this made no sense. I have many cousins that look totally white despite
having African-American ancestry or an African-American parent. I think the confusion was birthed
from the perspective that brown skin is a dominant genetic trait, whether this is true or not I don't know,
but it is obviously not true in every case. 

Recently my parents took a DNA test, and the results somewhat surprised me. Both of my parents have
Native American and European ancestry (something we already knew). On my dad's side, we saw European
ancestry, again, something we already knew. On my mom’s side, however, we saw not only European ancestry,
but we also saw Native American ancestry.

Maybe this is why I randomly have super long straight hair sticking over and above my afro. I love it because
it makes me laugh when I find them and I like to go and show them off. Maybe this is why my mom has such
a unique skin tone (I like to say she has a golden skin color). I am definitely gonna be looking for other Non-
African traits and see if I am displaying any others. As common as this level of genetic diversity is in a place like
America, why are we as individuals expected to embrace the cultural identity of whatever racial
characteristics we most prominently display? I am proud to have a mixed heritage.
One plus one does not equal black, one plus one equals me.

Editing for this post is courtesy of my friend Midnight Philosopher over at https://www.lionsandworms.com/?m=1.

Here are a few other dreams circulated around the topic of race.
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