It’s 1967 and the young protagonist in my WIP gets a visit from her school principal who happens to be black. In those days the polite way of referring to a person of African heritage was to call them “colored.” While this scene is completely fictional, I did have a wonderful elemetary school principal named Mr. William Pitts on whom the principal character is based.
When I heard the slowing of a car engine and then the crunch of gravel, I hopped down down the porch steps and to the driver’s side of the car to met Mr. Webb as he got out.
“Wait!” I grabbed his arm. “My mama doesn’t know you’re colored.”
His hands flew to his face. “Oh, no! I’m colored? What color am I?”
“Huh?”
In the dim porch light I saw a smile spread across his face. “Yes, I’m a Negro.”
He paused and I saw only kindness looking down at me. I nodded and he continued.
“Let me ask you this, If I had the same color skin as you would you have run out here and said, ‘Mr. Webb, my mama doesn’t know you have the same color skin as us’?”
I looked down at my shoes. “Uh, no.”
“Then why would it matter that I’m a Negro?”
“Because we’re white.”
Mr. Webb jumped back like he was surprised. “Then you’re colored too!”
“No we’re not.”
“Last time I checked white was a color in the crayon box.”
“We’re not that color of white. We’re more like beige.”
“Exactly. We’re all colored. That’s what makes us special. You have beige color and I have brown color. But do you think God sees our skin color?”
Comments regarding racial sensitivity and representation welcome.
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay