I couldn’t stop thinking about our attitudes about race in this country after President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There seemed to be such rancor about his prize from half of America. Yes, I know a lot was because he hasn’t finished the war that the “other” guy had started. But underlying all of that was the question of race.

Why I felt this was so poignantly was compounded by the fact that I was in Texas—not in the milquetoast world of pacific political correctness, Seattle, but in the heart of my childhood memories of the segregated south.

Oh, you don’t have to tell me that things have changed and I can see that. We, meaning Negroes, can shop where we want to, live where we have the money to live, date whom we please, and celebrate the fact that we have a Black man as president.

I was reminded about this over and over again when I had lunch with seven octogenarians at my uncle’s house in San Antonio.

They all had stories to tell of the war and how they remember being treated. We all know the U.S. Army was segregated during World War II, but these African-American officers were subjected to the same harsh reality as regular black folk—humiliation, degradation, and separation—even while dressed in uniform ready to die for their country. These upright citizens were not as highly regarded as the German prisoners of war who, while here in America, had privilege, had respect and even luxuries that were forbidden the colonels, lieutenants, and their long suffering wives, these natural, African-American citizens of our country.

The stories kept coming. These dapper gentlemen and their lovely wives urged me to write this down, to tell the tale as they dwelled on the subject of race and color. The ladies had an interesting story about one of their girlfriends, Betty, who was so light-skinned that she could go into the department stores without challenge. She would model clothes in front of a storefront window for her darker “complected” friends. They could then pick out what they wanted like a live color catalogue.

The color awareness continued throughout my trip. I didn’t, however, see people of color in Austin; but that was probably because I was on the wrong side of town.

I did meet a cousin, whom I hadn’t met before, named Selene. She had operated a nightclub in Austin, a black club called the Midline. As it burned to the ground, she was able to get footage of Austin cops watching the fire, sending messages to each other extolling, “Burn Baby Burn,” glad to see the club burn to the ground. This happened in 2005.

I returned to the small, historic Black community where my mother had been born, and in which my ancestors were brought to in 1841 as slaves. It was now just a ghost of its former self. All of the young people have moved away; what is left are a few houses, churches and cemeteries.
Darlene Porter operates the Pelham Museum, which houses stories of the families that settled the area. My uncle who is deaf, can’t see too good, hunched over time, but still retains a prodigious memory, regales us with stories of our family.

What strikes me so strongly is this culture of the children of the slave masters and their women. People are aware of their mixed heritage, of whose mother was a “mulatta,” about old Mister Graham’s white children and his black children coming to his funeral. Conversation centered around color, white, light-skinned, dark-skinned; the reality of the differences stands out to this day.

Are we ever going to overcome this so 20th-century reality and forget about the color of our very external skin? I don’t think this will happen in my lifetime.

But I do see a glimmer of hope in future generations. Every time we see news about some stupid remark or action, like the ignorant judge in Alabama who denied a marriage license to a mixed-race couple, or the racist remarks and innuendo that still thrive here in the 21st century, we cringe in unison. We carefully watch ourselves for any racial transgressions.

Kids are being taught to see people in many tones of shades. I can now be sorta brown; you might be pinker than usual, mauve really. She is now sandalwood, burnt sienna, or crème de chocolate; he is the color of wet plywood or fallen maple leaves.

We are the racists, because we still live in a world where people do measure you by the color of your skin. I feel this every day. It’s something we African-American people do.

I would like to disregard this fact of life; but when I read that out of the 2009 University of Washington freshman class of 5000, only 115 were black, I have to comment, I have to recognize.

Being confronted with memories of my southern childhood made it impossible to forget something that never should have been.