Black Like Me?

The Feath is apparently not Black.

Sometimes, while icing her dodgy knee or getting her toes done, I look at her extremities, her odds and ends, and puzzle over how different we look. We do not look the same. The above confuses me to no end and, after the time we’ve spent together, I still don’t quite get it.

The Feath is Native American. I tell her many Native Americans in our neck of the woods owe the continuation of their existence to Black men. She denies this not but still insists on being called Native American.

While this musing is generally light in nature, something about it is rather weighty. As a person who, on paper and principle is “You love who you love,” I’m beginning to wonder if I ever really imagined myself with someone who was Not-Black.

The Feath falls in line with what my folks call my “type”–athletic light-skinned girls (and while you can chalk a certain degree of acculturation to that, there is a much more personal explanation which I offer when asked politely). But she is different in that she culturally attributes her lightskinnededness to being a Not-Black person; To being a member of a tribe, people who go to harvest festivals and wear buckskin and own more than a few carved things and really are on tribal rolls and really do get casino money. A tribe. Of Not-Black people.

More importantly, she’s different because I am, somehow, older than I once was and choice in partner has taken on a different complexion. The stakes no longer hinge on The Game weekend or Spring Break plans. Suddenly, for the first time, the reality of my choice has been thrown into stark relief; not because of The Feath’s personhood–her character is maddeningly beyond reproach–but because she not only looks different than I do, she also identifies differently than I do. And suddenly it seems to matter.

This contradiction, though subtle, continues to give me pause because I do not understand.

In that part of me that is small and not progressive, the fact that I cannot place her in a category that I “understand” drives me up a wall. She’s not “White”; she’s not “Latino and or Hispanic”; she’s not “Asian”; she’s…Almost-Black?

The Feath has many “Black” markers–some in the stereotypical ways; others in the ‘Black folks do that’ way. Yet when she talks about Black people, the tone is ‘you all’ rather than ‘we.’

I tell her she sings like a Black person. She shrugs.

I tell her she directs the gospel choir at my dad’s theatre. She says “So?”

I ask her what Native American things consist of. She’s not really sure. She asks me what some Black things are, what are some intrinsic markers of Blackness. I can’t answer quickly.

It’s not because I didn’t think I could call up examples, but because so much of Blackness is nothing less than an indescribable feeling for whom cultural signifiers are limiting and inaccurate; so much of Blackness is between the notes for those with the ears to hear.

I tell The Feath she is Black. She says she is not.

I don’t know what Native Americans from our neck of the woods do differently. That is my struggle. I understand it in practice but, upon observation, I just don’t see the difference. But The Feath insists it is there, insists that there are things done differently.

I just don’t get it. And maybe that’s the blessing.