Black like me White like me

Moore Jane

Description

“The baby’s cute . . . why don’t you adopt her?”



“If her own mother doesn’t want her, why would I?”



This conversation took place between two nurses in the
delivery room right aft er I was born to a 16-year old
unmarried mother. This was a precursor of the kind of
struggle my life would be unti l I stood up and shouted, “I
AM SOMEBODY!” Why did it take me so long???



I don’t want you to think I am harping on the bad things
that happened in my life. Despite everything, I am an
incredibly positi ve person, who has taken a licking and
kept right on ti cking! My saving grace is mentoring, and
standing up for those who just need someone to stand up
for them. Maybe one of these days, I will be more able to
stand up for myself. I’m getti ng there. This is just my life,
honey, simply the way it is. I am telling you my story. This
is a story about success, and giving back to a community
that mostly kicked me in the teeth.

Sujets

• Women
• Biography
• Story
• Complexity
• Success
• Jane
• Autobiography
• Chocolate
• Black
• Vanilla
• White
• Life
• Moore

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 02 novembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798369402788
• Langue: English

Extrait

Black like me White like me
(The complexities of a life lived in chocolate & vanilla)
Jane Moore

Copyright © 2009 by Jane Moore.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2009905211
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-4415-4003-4
 
Softcover
978-1-4415-4002-7
 
eBook
979-8-3694-0278-8
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 07/07/2023
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
583290
Contents
The Signs Of Blackness
Introduction
Age 1
Age 3
Age 4
Age 5 (The Age of Enlightenment)
Age 6
Age 7
Age 8
Age 9
Age 10
Age 11
Age 12
Age 13
Age 14
Age 15
Age 16
Wow, All Sorts of Stuff Happened At 17.
Age 18
Age 19
Age 20
Age 21
Age 22
Age 23
Age 24
Age 25
Age 26
Age 27
Age 28
Age 29
Age 30 And 31
Age 32
Age 33
Age 34
Age 35
Age 36
Age 37
Age 38
Age 39
Age 40
Age 41
Age 42
Age 43
Age 44
Age 45
Age 48 (What It Took)
Tha Low Down

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To my real parents

 
 
 
 
 
 
I want to acknowledge Linda Lyndell for being as black as she wanna be, even though she is a white girl.
(she recorded the original song, ‘what a man, what a mighty good man, back in 1968, which prompted the KKK to issue death threats against her)
 
 
Thanks for taking some of the heat off me, Linda!
THE SIGNS OF BLACKNESS
I have very nappy hair that has different textures, the most striking of which, is right in the front. No amount of Queen Helene Cholesterol tames the front of my hair down when I wear it curly. I use big palmfuls of greasy conditioners to tame it, and when I use those conditioners, and press it with an iron, it looks just like regular white people hair. I tend to prefer wearing my hair curly, though. My friends and my sons accept and appreciate my ‘black girl hair’.
I have grey eyes. Actually, when I am feeling romantic or happy, they are blue. When I cry, they are green.
My skin is light latte at this point. I used to call it café au lait. But I’m very light now. My complexion has changed many times throughout my life.
I have a white splotch just behind my left ear, at my jaw line.
My nipples are chocolate brown.
I have a ‘bump’ at the bottom of my back, just setting on the top of my butt.
My pubic hair is black and wiry, and there is a lot of it.
I have a dark strip from my vagina to the back of my butt.
I must be up front at all times.
I identify as a black woman. I feel my blackness defines me.
When there’s a phat bass line going, and I get up off of my seat, it’s goin’ down! I’m testifyin’ about my blackness when I get up and dance.
Then there’s ‘the nod’. Sometimes, I will be at the mall shopping, and out the corner of my eye, a brother will get my attention. Not in a sexual way. I just kind of sense his presence. As we pass each other, he will throw me a sort of a sideways glance as he nods his head. I do it back. I take it to mean, ‘I see you, sistah. I know who you are!’ Italians would express it as ‘paesan’. It always makes me feel welcome and black . Whenever I get the nod, I hold my head high, stick my chest out, and bounce proudly as I walk.
But if you saw me with my clothes on, even with my ‘black girl hair’ in its full glory, you would probably not even know that I am a colored girl.
INTRODUCTION
“The baby’s cute . . . why don’t you adopt her?”
“If her own mother doesn’t want her, why would I?”
This conversation took place between two nurses in the delivery room right after I was born to a 16-year old unmarried mother. This was a precursor of the kind of struggle my life would be until I stood up and shouted, “I AM SOMEBODY!” Why did it take me so long???
I don’t want you to think I am harping on the bad things that happened in my life. Despite everything, I am an incredibly positive person, who has taken a licking and kept right on ticking! My saving grace is mentoring, and standing up for those who just need someone to stand up for them. Maybe one of these days, I will be more able to stand up for myself. I’m getting there. This is just my life, honey, simply the way it is. I am telling you my story. This is a story about success, and giving back to a community that mostly kicked me in the teeth.
I wrote this book because my sense of self is finally more important to me than my family’s status quo. This book is exceptionally graphic. It will most likely be shocking to middle America because I lived a parallel existence, growing up in a middle America that most other people have not experienced or maybe never even heard about. (The names have been changed to protect the innocent – and the not so innocent as well).
Nonetheless, I want to thank my “real parents”, who were faced with an oppressive situation (pun intended), and did their very best to raise me right with limited resources and being right there on the front line all the time. They both did their best to stand by me, and I want to thank my dad for his sense of humor, and my mom for her graciousness. By the same token, I would like to hereby express my appreciation to my brother, and I’m trying real hard to understand my sister, who did not accept me or treat me like a member of her family. I’m tryin’, Lord. I guess I have to thank her because she was on the front line right along with everybody else in the family. It must have been so hard for them all to deal with everything that got thrown their way because of me. All other thanks are scattered throughout this chronology of events as the circumstances present themselves.
Imagine, if you will, that you are waiting to be adopted by an earth family. It is at a time when adoptions are closed. If whoever gave birth to you isn’t sure which planet your birth father came from (because she visited LOTS of other planets), then you don’t have a father named on your “papers”. You have been labeled illegitimate . Hopefully, some adoptive parents come along to legitimize your existence.
One day, your new parents come along. Halleluiah! Congratulations, you are now legitimate. The adoption agency sends you off to live with your new parents, assuring them that everything will be fine. You will be just like their own child. That is until you develop unmanageable alien hair, and incredible strength. Your skin color must be alien because it is different from anyone you have ever known. These things are normal on planet X, per all the literature your adoptive parents have read to try to understand the differences. But they are definitely not normal on planet earth. Then, noticing these differences when you start school, the general population starts having questions that they direct at you, the unsuspecting child. What hospital were you born in? How much did you weigh? What’s up with the hair? Why is your skin that color? Does it rub off? Why are you so strong? Do you come in peace? You don’t look right . . . tell ya what, just don’t come near me, OK? Then, without some essential guidance from any of the authority figures at school, it all goes straight to hell. Curiosity turns to cruelty. You thank God for one loyal friend who will actually allow herself to be seen with you at school, but you also curse that same God for putting you in this situation to begin with.
Pretty soon, you realize that you are the product of an extraterrestrial encounter between and earth woman and an alien. Although no one else will speak of it. You realize that there is no one who will answer your questions. There are obviously many questions you don’t have an answer for and probably never will.
Sometimes, they even have assignments in school where you are supposed to make a family tree, and you simply do not know the information that is supposed to go on the tree. When you answer honestly that you don’t know, because you were adopted, a collective gasp goes up from the class. You think to yourself, what am I supposed to put here, that I come from another planet? Why is my personality completely different from the rest of my family? Why does my adopted brother fit in so well and I don’t? Did they have a better Grade A selection when they adopted him? My sister is really theirs . I know that she will never have a problem fitting in. That only leaves me. I sure can’t write that most of my family is one nationality but I am not (german and some are italians). Can I? I’m willin’ to give it a shot to be proud of my alien skin. But no one else wants me to talk about it. No one.
Then, you have one question that keeps asking itself over and over in your mind. Where did I come from? You look up at the stars and you picture who you might look like. You wonder if they have a big telescope on their planet to keep an eye on you and be proud of you. You ask yourself if the woman who gave birth to you is still visiting other planets a