race until he proposed marriage) having serious issues wherever race was concerned. In contrast to what one would think, she turned out nothing like Grandma Lucy. My mother hated the idea of passing and the privilege it seemed to provide her with as the sole heir of the son of a Texas railroad tycoon. The importance Grandma Lucy placed on color, brooding over my mother’s dusky tan skin whenever the sun was high and insisting that my mother was “lucky” to have inherited my grandfather’s straight nose, rose-strained cheeks, and straight blond hair, ate away at her. Sometimes I felt as if my mother was always standing in between the lines of her color—the light side and the dark side. She was too afraid or embarrassed to embrace her light skin for all that it meant to Grandma Lucy, so she kept her blond hair dyed black, frowned when someone praised her light hazel eyes, and always seemed to feel a need to shower people with dark skin, including my father, with compliments. She wanted people to know that she was Black (with a capital B), she was down for the people and not, as they say, still passing.
With all that in tow, fast-forward about twenty-five years and you have my mother sitting in Julian’s parents’ brownstone. Two doctors who came from generations and generations of old Harlem doctors, they believed in self-determination and every man for himself achieving the American dream. Julian’s parents were staunch Republicans. They had money and they wanted to keep it…period. After listening to them share their political philosophies over many dinners in the past, it was clear that they felt that the more poor, ignorant black people there were out there, the less they had to worry about losing what they had.
My mother, who really didn’t have to work or go to school, for that matter, hated Republicans and specifically despised black Republicans for what she called “their nerve.” I know it sounds contradictory, but it was simply the kind of position my mother’s affluence and color afforded her. She didn’t have to worry about people taking what she had or to complain about higher taxes paying for government programs. There was an endless supply of railroad money in her life. She couldn’t spend it all if she tried—I would give that venture my all if someone would let me. But with that kind of good old American money comes a certain amount of shame. Somewhere between her lunches at Saks with other wives and days at the spa, my mother peeks out onto the streets of New York and feels bad for folks who have less than she does, folks who didn’t benefit from the history of having a passing mother and rich father. This empathy, I mean sympathy, leads my poor, guilty mother into the barrios—the ghettos—each weekend to do her part by painting houses with her sorority or the Links. Do good. Give back. It’s all a little pathetic, but hey, other people get to benefit from it.
Needless to say, my mother’s a Democrat. So on that precious night at Julian’s house, the two of us had two Republicans (Julian’s parents), a man staring into his glass hoping his wife didn’t smack someone (my father), and a Democrat who was really trying to make up for the fact that she’s filthy rich (my mother), talking black politics. Black politics.
Yes. Disaster.
Between revitalizing St. Nicholas Park and taxes, I knew my mother should’ve put her drink down. She gets this little white-girl nervous twitch when someone’s pissing her off. Her cheeks flush and then she keeps taking deep breaths to show how annoyed she is. Julian kept looking at me. Suddenly, his charming eyes that I always compared to a chipmunk’s, looked like a deer’s in headlights. He’d heard the stories about my mama drama. I was about to intervene by saying that I had to get to the library to study for my upcoming midterms when my mother had to open her big mouth. After Julian’s mother said, “You black Democrats need to see the big picture,” my mother’s glass hit the floor and she was on her feet. Dad picked up her purse and headed to the door. When my mother stands up, it’s like Oprah rolling up in the juke joint in The Color Purple: “It’s time to go.” Mama’s white-girl side makes her prone to slapping people at random. One time it landed her and daddy in jail. You just can’t go around smacking senators.
“What self-respecting black person calls themselves a Republican?” my mother said, looking up at the ceiling like she couldn’t even stand the sight of the rest of the people in the room. The twitch was growing to an all-time high. Damn near seizure level. “You’re like George Bush. You don’t love black people. You’re just a…you’re a…” I waved goodbye to Julian, I gave him the “I’ll call you later” look and grabbed my mother’s hand, pulling her to the door. We were almost out the door. Almost home free without my mother having said anything that would forever damage any possible relationship between Julian and my parents when the right words came to Mary Elizabeth Smith, a mixed woman from the Upper West Side who stunt-doubles as my mother. “You…you babbling bourgeois baboon,” she hollered somewhere between the threshold and the car.
Did I mention that Julian’s mother told him never to invite me over again? In the car, my mother looked over at my father, who was trying his best to keep his hands on the steering wheel and off her neck, and said, “Tell your daughter, my sweet Troy Helene, that I forbid her to see that man again.” She pushed a lock of stray black hair behind her right ear and turned to look at me in the backseat. “Darling husband, tell my baby Troy that idiots only give birth to bigger idiots and she doesn’t see it now, but Mama knows best. That Julian will only break my baby’s heart. She’s only 26. She can find someone else.”
Daddy peeked at me in the mirror and offered a look of condolence. Sometimes I felt like he was my only ally between my parents. We had an understanding. I stay in school and he pays my bills, calls me once a week at 8 a.m. on Tuesday just before his preferred tee time at our country club in Westchester, and when I need him, when I really need him, he’s there to listen.
Sitting in my car en route to the breakup party, I couldn’t get my mother’s words out of my head. “You babbling bourgeois baboon. You babbling bourgeois baboon. You babbling bourgeois baboon” was playing in my mother’s voice over and over. I was about to scream when my phone rang.
It was Tasha.
“I’m parking the damn car,” I hollered into the phone as I pulled into the parking lot down the street from Justin’s. It was the third time she’d called to make sure I was coming since I left my apartment.
“Well, get your ass in here, hoe,” Tasha said on the other end. I could hear Tamia in the background giggling.
“Time to party,” Tamia said.
Though my heart was in pain, I had to laugh at my girls. Ever since I met them they’ve always been down for a good party, and always down for me. When you mix a good party and me…well, there’s usually a fight over when to open the champagne.
I met Tamia my sophomore year. I was sitting in my first informational for what would soon become my sorority when Tamia walked in decked out in the cutest crimson cashmere sweater I’d ever seen—hands down. I smiled at her, thinking that any sorority with members who dressed so cute must be the one for me. That was right around when Tamia came and sat down next to me. This action, of course, confused me because the big sisters (who were all wearing crimson) were sitting on the other side of the room. As my mother instructed me to do during our morning telephone chat before I went to the event, I wore tan, so as not to “offend anyone by wearing aggressive colors.” Crimson was aggressive; crimson was their color. It was definitely a no-no to wear their color. I left all of my crimson attire at home in New York when I departed for school.
“I can’t wait to pledge Crimson and Cream,” Tamia said, snuggling into her seat. “My name is Tamia. Tamia Dinkins,” she added, reaching out to shake my hand. I wanted to look away and pretend I didn’t see her, but everyone was watching. Though I didn’t want to ruin my chances of pledging, I shook her hand anyway. And I’m so glad I did. Tamia turned out to be a sorority shoo-in. Not only was she directly related to the first black mayor of New York, David Dinkins, but she also had a 4.0 and her deceased mother, who died of a rare heart illness when Tamia was three,
