We Long to Belong
Jasmine Holmes
Last year my fifth-grade students sharpened their number-two pencils, looked down over their scantrons, and raised their hands to ask a million questions before taking the standardized test.
“I’m 1/256 Native American, can I fill in that bubble?”
This started a conversation about the miniscule fractions that my predominately white classroom held in their heritage. The distraction lasted so long that I brought down the hammer: “Listen. Whatever you mostly are — just fill that bubble.”
A lone hand shot up. “I’m ¼ Japanese, ¼ Brazilian, ¼ Indian, and my dad’s mom is a white lady from Conroe. What can I put?”
I laughed. “I guess you’re the guy who gets to put whatever you want.”
The choice is becoming all too common in what some have deemed to be our post-racial society. As instances of interracial marriage and racial tolerance rise, so does a generation of ethnically neutral Americans. It takes more than a precursory glance to ascertain someone’s origins.
Of course, in the black community, precursory glances have been faulty for hundreds of years. Black Americans come in a variety of shades, and Rachel Dolezal, the NAACP leader in Spokane, Washington, tested that theory by allegedly passing herself off as a black woman when she is, in fact, white.
Three thoughts swirl to the surface as I process this bizarre turn of events.