Skin Color

Last week my man, the Top Mack, stated the following in his blog: "Even though my principle domicile is in Belmont Shores, my spezzy in Bompton, Oh I mean Compton is very close to my heart. I enjoy living in Belmont Shores, I live there so I can jog at tha Beach, however, if it wasn’t for that, I might live exclusively around Niggas. I cannot explain the feeling I get when I’m around a lot of Niggas, I just feel energized, even if the environment is dangerous. I kind of sensed this about myself when I was in college but I thought I was tripping. I am not racisist, I guess I just feel good around my own folks."

I met the Top Mack, back in college. True to his word he pledged a black fraternity and, as far as I know, hung out primarily with other African American's. I don't take this as him being racist. It was college life in America 1980something and that's the way it was. The Asian's hung out, smoking, in that one room of vending machines in Stevenson Hall. The hippies hung out in the pub in the student union. The white frat boys hung out on the wall in front of Stevenson. The middle eastern guys hung out together. Lastly, the African Americans tended to hang out together. Not racism, just life.

Fast forward 20 years and I think our races inter-mingle a bit more. I like to think my kids don't see skin color since we don't bring it up. I try not to identify people by skin color. On the other hand, at some point my kids will probably notice that some people are of darker complexion. Even I never describe a person using skin color they will notice people just look different? Or will they pick it up on TV? Or maybe from some friend who picked it up from his parents? In fact, got an email from D'latz talking about a plane trip with his boys recently. D was sitting with his younger son and the older son (who is about 8 years old I would guess) was sitting up toward the front of the plane. Toward the end of the flight, the older son, got up on his knees, turned around, and pratically yelling said, "everybody on this plane is white except YOU dadda." Other than knowing rap music D'latz is pretty damn white. He might have a little tan going but that's about it.

At first blush I was thinking the story of D'latz' boy shows kids do pick up the color differences no matter what. However, apparently he really doesn't know much difference since a dark skinned white guy becomes "not white." Now I am confused.

Conclusion to come in the future as I am not yet sure. Would love to hear what you think about color of skin....

Peace out.