Been looking all over for the Natasha Raymond poem by that title. Natasha and I performed it with my friend Elise (menshed in “My Favorite Beatle” below) in venues around Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Natasha, like most mixed race people, got that question a lot, and as a light-skinned black woman I could and can relate. “What are you?” these inquiring minds always asked her. The poem runs through her various possible responses: human; a woman; various fractions of Hitler, Mussolini, and Kim Jong-il. It ends with her fantasy of turning the tables, questioning her questioner, then deciding there’s no need for that, “because I already know what you are.”
I get that question from white people and from blacks. Bus riders, online daters, anybody and everybody sees me as fair game for it. Whites are a little more circumspect in recent years about voicing the question, but it still hangs on the hedges of their teeth, behind the roses of their mouths, wishing it could utter itself.
What am I? I identify as African American, black for short. That’s one answer. If you look at me you can see some European heritage, pretty obviously, but no whites in my families’ woodpiles for five generations back. Unless you count the ones that passed, like my paternal grandfather Vandeleur Rickman.
But that’s another story.
What am I? If I want to get technical with my answer, I use the term ”high yella.” Then I’ll talk a bit about the history of color consciousness. My father’s family and most of my mother’s belonged to the “paper bag club.” That is, their skins were no darker than your typical grocery bag. How relieved June’s and Denny’s folks must have been when they found each other, two properly pale people. Yes, they loved one another, but the main thing was that they’d have paper bag babies. But my middle sister, Julie, was born darker than either of them, darker than me; she was saved from ostracism only by her “good” hair. Then, when I was six years old and she was four, I cut it all off her head.
That’s also another story. I’ve already written and sold it. It’s called “Cruel Sistah,” and they reprinted it in the Year’s Best Fantasy #19.
What am I. When the dreadlocky man on the sidewalk outside Ross Dress for Less asked me that I igged him. He didn’t want an answer anyways, I could tell that from how he kept on saying the same thing over and over again without waiting for me to reply.
To riff off what I wrote in my first post here, maybe you’ve never wanted to ask that question, because you thought you already knew me? Or maybe not. Could be you’re unsure now and always have been. Could be that unsureness is quite all right with you.
What am I? I am beyond what, and way, way into who.
And this is my last post. If you don’t know me by now, you will never, never, never know me. Woo-oo-oo.
Thank you, Tempest, and thank you everyone who has commented me.
And now a word from our sponsor…
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So am I correct to assume that you oppose Affirmative Action, on the grounds that one would have to answer “What Are You?” in order to determine if one qualifies?
I get that from time to time, too. Funny thing is, (if by funny one really means depressingly and ironically racist), I’m white. But I live in Minnesota, the Great White North, where my deep black hair is cause for concern. Which really just points out how racist that question really is (aside from the what, which turns one into an object, and the follow-up question, which is usually “Where are you from?”). The first time it was asked I was so confused I didn’t really have anything clever to say. Now when I’m asked I use the opportunity to point out exactly how racist, presumptuous and intrusive that question is. I mean really, what does it matter to the asker? What could they possibly gain by knowing “what I am”? The only purpose of it is to point out “You are different from me and I am entitled to know exactly how.”
Huh. It would never occur to me to ask this question of anyone. In all honesty, I suppose I might have thought it, especially when I was younger, but I don’t even think it any more. Doesn’t have anything to do with thinking you know someone or don’t. Just wouldn’t occur to me to ask. Yeah, unsureness is cool with me. (After all, I’m an agnostic!)
“Whites are a little more circumspect in recent years about voicing the question, but it still hangs on the hedges of their teeth, behind the roses of their mouths, wishing it could utter itself.”
Beautiful. I will miss your posts; they provoke both my critical thinking and my aesthetic imagination.
I have loved your posts! Never had a substantive comment but just wanted to thank you. Also loved your story in the second Dark Matters anthology.
K
Dear Nisi,
Sorry to see this is your last post. I’m with PG on her comment above – and want to add I hope you come back and post here again sometime.
Last post? Damn. I’ve looked forward to your posts here. Thanks for sharing and I wish you well in whatever you endeavor. Your writing here has reminded me of taking a walk with a friend – truthful, insightful, sometimes irreverent – a moment in time that goes to posterity faster than you wanted it to fly. Thank you.
Wow. I was sure “what are you” was a pretty common question. how can you really know your friends if you spend all your time trying to avoid knowing their cultural background? this is asked of everyone; white, black, asian, whoever.. i don’t have a single friend whose cultural background i don’t know, and i’m pretty sure they all know mine. i really don’t think we should be promoting this kind of ignorance.
Liz – just because something is “common” doesn’t mean it’s also good. In fact, I’d say that sure, it’s “common” to ask “what are you?” – for the definition of “common” that means “vulgar or tasteless.” (let us not allow the classism implicit in that definition to go unacknowledged, however…)
Asking a human being “what are you?” is rude and condescending. That person is human.
And there are ways, within the context of an established and friendly relationship of equals, to inquire about someone’s cultural heritage as a means of knowing them more intimately, ways that are respectfully curious rather than imperiously demanding, ways that keep the relational playing field level between both parties, that include mutual disclosure instead of unilateral interrogation, and that make it clear that you are not assuming you have a right to know or that the other party is bound to answer you.
“What are you?” is, to put it mildly, not one of those ways.
Liz,
To add on to what Elusis said, while I’m aware of my husband’s ethnic background (1/16 Native American, plus English and Scottish), I never asked him “what are you?” It was something he brought up, or I would ask due to its being relevant to context (e.g. his mentioning that his mother had taken an interest in some Native American spiritual practices, I’d ask, “Oh, is your family partly NA?”).
This also has been how polite people have inquired after my ethnic background: “Oh, P is such a pretty name, is it Indian?” Or in a less complimentary but still respectable vein, “You mentioned something about your ‘ethnic community’; which ethnic community would that be?” (That would be an example of asking about my ethnicity because it’s relevant to something that I brought up in the first place.) People who have asked me spontaneously “What are you?” are inviting the smartass replies noted in the OP.
PG – yes, the “is it a relevant question or out of the blue?” point is important too.
I apologize for bowing out at the other race conversation currently going on, but I am too overwhelmed with RL projects to take on that much of an uphill battle. Thank you for putting in the effort.
Rich B. — serious, potential ban warning.
I’m sorry you won’t be posting anymore, Nisi.
I have to admit that when I saw the subject line I thought it was a trans-discussion — that Amp or someone had found a tragedy about a transgender man or woman who’d been arrested or found dead and thoroughly confused the police. I’ve never been asked “What are you?” in the context of my sex — tall, slender, high cheekbones, full lips, all apparently courtesy of whatever melting pot of ethnicities I happen to be (Anglo, Native American, Jewish, who knows what else). But I hear that from friends — “What are you? Are you a man or a woman?” Or my of my old favorites — “Do you date gay men or straight men?” — the roundabout way of asking “What are you?”
I agree with Leah’s comments — the need to classify and categorize runs pretty deep in some people. I caught a bit of that in elementary school — my brothers looked very Anglo, while I wasn’t as Anglo looking as either. I’d get “Are you part XYZ?” from time to time. Not because I was into XYZ culture, but just because I wasn’t this Anglo looking kid.
The “What are you?” question goes hand-in-hand with any marked identity. Total strangers will begin their very first words to me with, “So, why are you in that wheelchair?”
If you’ve enjoyed Nisi’s posts as much as I have, proceed directly to your local bookstore or library and read her short story collection, Filter House. All the insight and lovely prose, plus plots! characters!
Yeah, Liz
I was thinking the same thing as the others have said. This is all about context.
My partner and I have disabilities that are very visible. Of course, all of our friends know at least something about how and why we are disabled and what our disability entails, etc. They have found out in an organic way, over time, when the subject came up naturally and as it is a part of the mosiac of everything else that we are.
That is entirely different than what Nisi is talking about here. Which is some kind of insistence by total strangers or even people you know somewhat that you OWE them and explanation RIGHT NOW about whatever freaky thing about you that they are curious about or they can’t possibly go on with the relationship/interaction. My partner uses a wheelchair, and I can’t tell you how often we have just walked into an elevator and someone has said, “What happened to you?” Or times when we have gone to the pediatrician for our children’s check ups and the doctor can’t even focus on our children’s health because he is so curious about our own disabilities and diagnosing us (as if we need it) that our 20 minute appointment time goes to waste because of his demand for his curiosity to be fulfilled. It is the difference between someone being like, “I am interested in you as a whole person so I’d like to learn about all the different things about you” vs. “I am entitled to know RIGHT NOW why you are different from me and it is YOUR JOB to satisfy my curiosity and make me comfortable about that difference.”
I’ll note that Nisi has an invisible disability (which she’s talked about in her writing, e.g. in Writing the Other), so she’s aware of this issue from multiple contexts.