This past Thursday, I attended the Black Heritage Program at my school. I was impressed by the diversity of talent shown by my Black students and was so proud that many of the performers had received recognition for maintaining at least a 3.0 GPA. I was caught off guard when they started handing out certificates to recognize Black faculty and staff. If I’d known I would receive an award, I would have dressed a little nicer–I was just in my usual humdrum teaching clothes. Plus, I thought it was a little funny to receive an award for being a Black teacher. I know that there’s so few minority teachers, but to receive an award for it?
At the end of the program, I went up to one of my advisory students and gave him a hug for maintaining at least a 3.0. The first thing he said to me was, “Ms. Roberson, I didn’t know you were Black!” I just laughed and thought to myself, “Hmm, maybe it’s a good thing I did get an award for being a Black teacher after all!”
Reminded me of when I taught in Tanzania as a Peace Corps volunteer. I stayed with a host family for the first two months. Several adults who lived on my host mother’s compound could speak English. One host sister was looking at my mini-photo album and after a while, she excitedly exclaimed, “Oh, you’re the African American!” Apparently, they had all heard that there was one out of the 29 volunteers in my group. Looking back, I could hardly blame her for not recognizing my “Blackness” for a few days. After all, I was much lighter than the average Tanzanian, I had freshly permed straight hair that usually wore in a French roll–something I quickly stopped doing since it wasn’t worth the effort!
After it was established that I was Black, then Tanzanians wanted to know which one of my parents were White (neither), how did I make my skin so light, if I came to Tanzania because of Eddie Murphy’s movie “Coming to America” and if I knew Michael Jackson!
While living in Tanzania, I also had other foreigners mistake me for being a mixed Tanzanian and compliment my English-speaking ability. I’d smile and tell them that where I was from, we prided ourselves on our ability to speak English, which of course led them to ask where I was from. Imagine my million dollar smile as I told them The United States.
When I taught in South Korea, Koreans knew I wasn’t one of them, but would ask if I was a Filipino. Egyptians thought I was Egyptian if I was walking around by myself until they attempted to talk to me in Arabic. I’d learned a few phrases of Arabic in the two years I’d taught there, but had begun teaching myself Spanish when I got my next teaching job in Mexico.
Of course, my dreadlocks made me stand out in Mexico, where most people thought I was Brazilian, which I took as a compliment since I’d just started studying capoeira. I then moved to Honduras three years later and was initially mistaken for Mexican because of the way I spoke Spanish.
When I moved to Austin, Honduras had just undergone its coup. I still had a valid Honduran driver’s license, which showed my date of birth; so Iwould use it to get into clubs. At least one guy allowed me to enter without paying a cover since my country had just suffered a coup. I just smiled and thanked him. Since I was unemployed at the time, I was happy to save a little money for a drink!
Yes, I certainly have a global look and the saga of not being recognized as a Black woman lives on. Kind of makes me wonder who people have in mind when they think of a “Black woman”?