NEVER ASSUME 2/14/98 - 6:14A

NEVER ASSUME
2/14/98--6:14A

I don't know why I have to address this up here, but since the topic keeps coming up in my life, like it or not, I figured this is as good a place as any. I've never had to defend myself on this score--not that I've never questioned myself about it, but--well, fuck it, here it is.

People look at me, and, judging from my fluorescent glow, just assume that I'm "white". White people look at me and assume that they can include me in their little "club" or some such shit, like it's okay to make half-hidden references to "those people" and to certain areas, like Orleans Parish, as being "too mixed", and that shit's supposed to be okay with me. Like, it's safe to assume that I won't get pissed off at their cracker attitudes, because, hey, I'm white, so I must be a bigot, too, huh? Lost a good temp job because of that horseshit.

Black people look at me, and I don't always know what they think, because reactions vary. Some of the snottier people look at me and mutter half-assed insults about "white bitch", as their boyfriends are smiling at me. My friend Tanisha tells me, "You may look like some bright-white girl, you might have been raised by rednecks, but you ain't white. I don't know how else to tell you this, but, girl, you're black." I'm not sure how to take that, but I tell her I'll take it as a compliment. She laughs, and says that I should.

My former Chinese friends looked upon me as some sort of novelty, I suppose. Although I never could quite get the hang of their rigid social codes. I had a Korean-American friend at LSU whose parents never could stand me, seeing as how I was such a bad influence on their once-studious, formerly-obedient daughter. The Cuban parents and the Arab parents of some former friends thought I was the shit--they were surprised, I suppose, that some Southern white chick could be, oh, I dunno--dependable and friendly to their kids? Those mamas never would quit trying to feed me & trying to convince me to have kids. And my Indian friends keep teaching me curse words in Hindi.

Then there was the Israeli chick, whose husband was a native New Orleanian black guy. They were neighbors, drinking buddies, I'd known them almost two years. And then, last year, I had to cut them out of my life. This dude, this young goofball who fancied himself to be the stud, shows up at my house one afternoon, way before my usual awakening time, and tries to bullshit me into giving him a quickie. Now, do you think it ever crossed his mind that I was never attracted to him in the first place? Nope. I know how ironic it must seem, me, throwing somebody out of my house and out of my life because I didn't want to fuck him, but that's what happened. He just had to go and piss me off. And I flat-out told him no.
Is it so hard to believe that even if I had wanted to fuck him, WHICH I DIDN'T, I still wouldn't have, because his wife, who was too goddamned scary for the ISRAELI ARMY, would have fileted me like a catfish? And whether it was wounded male ego or pure stupidity, his knee-jerk response was to fight dirty. He accused me of being some kind of "closet racist", and if I wanted to prove--TO HIM--that I wasn't--I should, of course, "fuck the black man." Uh-huh. Excuse me, but do I LOOK that fucking GULLIBLE?!?!?! He didn't even pause to think that it might have been those seven gold teeth, or the breath that would knock a buzzard off a shit-wagon at fifty paces--that would keep me from wanting to fuck him. As if a woman telling him NO is such a rare goddamned thing. As if I needed a fucking reason.

He just played the weakest card in the deck, like I'm your average white-guilt Southern liberal who's never been outside of the subdivision. DON'T FUCK WITH ME, JUNIOR--I LIVED IN THE SEVENTH WARD. I didn't escape Livingston Parish and the Ku Klux Klan for this shit.
I didn't fall for that "conform or die" mentality when I was trapped in Denham Springs, I'm sure as hell not going to fuck some guy to prove my moral fiber now. I was too weird, too country, too tomboy for the prissy-ass middle-class white girls in elementary school. When I wasn't arm-wrestling the boys (and I always won, too--until they hit puberty), I was hanging out with the black girls--I could play the dozens, I could keep up with them verbally--I was "good enough" for them.

I was standing on Tanisha's porch the other day, down in the 9th Ward, and this small clique of pre-teen black girls passed by the corner. "What's that white girl doin' here? Why's there white people in my neighborhood?" Tanisha laughed it off. I wanted to snatch those little wenches bald-headed.

So, yeah, I do get pissy when people look at me and see "JUST SOME WHITE BITCH". "Just Some"? Nah, I'm a little too far-off of "everyday" to be "Just Some", like it or not. "Bitch"? Well--depends on when you meet me. Most people would verify that one.

BUT-- "White"? Nope. Can't hang that label on me. Do some fuckin' research before you try to put me in a demographic niche. I fuck up the census and the EEOC every time--I'm probably the palest Indian you'll ever meet, but I'm two full parts: Cherokee and Iroquois. And I'm Welsh, and Scottish, and Irish, Dutch, and German. I'm made up of half the races that that have had their asses kicked, at some point, by the fuckin' WHITES! Slack-jawed, thin-wristed Anglo pussies--if they couldn't fuck it or steal it, they'd kill it. John Smith and Pocahontas, my ass.
I have NEVER let anyone, no matter their income or lineage, tell me who I could play with, and I'm not about to start now. I guess that's another reason why it pisses me off when people--who have no fucking clue about ME or the South to begin with--ASSUME that "white" plus "Southern" equals "KNUCKLE-WALKING INBRED BIGOT."

But guess what, folks--this is the NEW SOUTH. And those freaks-of-nature among us who were born here--WITH above-vegetable-I.Q.s--are taking it back. So take your sheets, and grab your hoods, and carry your crosses back to the woods, because us MULTI-COLORED motherfuckers are takin' over now. And we don't have to prove shit.

I guess some people believe the Southern stereotypes they see on TV, and some people know better. I used to drive a pick-up truck, but that's about as close to the slack-jawed hayseed cotton-pickin' cousin-lover redneck cliché' as I get. It's okay if you want to assume your stupid stereotypes--we like it when you underestimate us. Kinda gives us the advantage, doesn't it.