When I Was White

by Sarah Valentine

  To say that my biological father was a black man who’d raped my mother sounded like the most horrible racist cliché. It spoke of the warning slave owners intoned about the need to keep the sexually ravenous black men away from the good, pure white women. I was still learning about black history, but I knew about Emmett Till, who, at fourteen, had been beaten to death for allegedly harassing a white woman. I knew there was a whole mythology of black rapists targeting white women, when in fact most sexual assault takes place between people of the same race. Interracial rape was rare, but not impossible. I felt torn between my newly discovered blackness and my—and my mother’s—gender. Was I supposed to feel more sympathy for the black man or the white woman? It felt like I had to choose. By telling me her story, my mother drew another line, and I would have to decide where I stood. If I believed her, I would have to disavow my biological father, whoever he was; if I decided to look for him, I would be betraying her. I didn’t think things had to be this way, but those were her feelings. Once again, I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

  Was it naïve of me to wonder if a black male student surrounded by white peers on a campus in rural Pennsylvania in the 1970s would take the risk of even being alone with a white girl in a questionable situation? Would a black college student not consider the political ramifications of that kind of act? The ’70s were a time of feminism and civil rights on college campuses, but maybe not at the small rural college my mother attended. Maybe drunk college students were just drunk college students and didn’t make good decisions, no matter the race or the decade. Maybe, at a house party with so many substances being consumed, no one cared who was hanging out with whom.

  Or were these just excuses? It felt dangerous to speculate.

  “There was no one I could tell,” my mother said when we were in New York. “Back then, no one took it seriously. You weren’t a victim—you were a sucker. You were asking for it. I wasn’t even sure what happened. Who was I going to tell?”

  Twenty-one

  Like Thanksgiving, Christmas at my parents’ house was always a big event. Every year, my parents hosted a Christmas Eve party for our closest friends, and the house would be filled with guests, good food, laughter, decorations, twinkling lights, and a decked-out Christmas tree in the front window.

  Each family had kids the ages of me and my brothers. Most of them were friends from school and, for my brothers, football. It made for a houseful of twenty or so. We served hors d’oeuvres on the island in the center of the kitchen. My dad took great pride in his task of boiling and chilling the basinful of jumbo shrimp for our version of shrimp cocktail, which was the centerpiece. Around it, there were plates of crackers and cheese, nuts, fruit and vegetable plates, and other dishes brought by our guests.

  Dinner was served buffet-style in the dining room: a whole glazed ham, a turkey, both of which were sliced on a platter for convenient sandwiches; a classic Italian American dish like stuffed shells or chicken parmesan, soft dinner rolls, more cheese, and a bevy of side dishes. Most guests brought plates of cookies, which they set next to pumpkin pie and my grandmother’s traditional nut and poppy seed rolls. My mother always made sugar cookies, which we as kids always helped decorate, and a gingerbread house for the center of the dessert table.

  Christmas Eve was one of the few nights during the year when my parents drank wine or mixed drinks, which made them merrier but less watchful than usual, and when we were in high school we would use this opportunity to sneak a bottle or two away into the basement while the adults enjoyed themselves upstairs.

  Our least favorite part of the evening was the family photograph. The moms and dads wore Christmas sweaters, while the rest of us were made to wear Christmas colors or at the very least dress up; for me, a pretty skirt and blouse, and for my brothers, corduroy pants, collared shirts, and plaid ties. Each family would take turns having their photo taken, usually a few times, in front of our festively decorated fireplace hung with embroidered stockings and surrounded by red poinsettias, flickering candles, and statues of Santa Claus.

  Even with the family photo looming, I always looked forward to our Christmas Eve parties. It was a time when my mother smiled, her cheeks rosy from wine, and all the arguing throughout the day that had led up to the event ceased. My parents were gracious hosts among their friends. They were at their best and were happy.

  As my younger brothers and I got older, first graduating from high school, then college, the Christmas Eve parties became smaller, quieter. Fewer families came by. Some stopped by only for a short time, for the sake of tradition, to wish us a merry Christmas and to drop off some cookies before visiting other friends or family. Still, we cooked a lot of food. We went to mass on Christmas Day and came downstairs Christmas morning to a pile of presents under the tree. Eventually, the gatherings became just a few good family friends and a chance to see my girlfriends from high school.

  This year, my parents decided before they left Princeton that there would be no party. This year when I came home for Christmas, my father and I would be taking a paternity test. It didn’t seem like the right time to celebrate with friends.

  When I flew into Pittsburgh, my dad picked me up from the airport. We were mostly silent on the long ride from the airport to Wexford. I was always amused and touched by the three statues that greeted me as I arrived at the Pittsburgh International Airport: a young, brown-haired George Washington in his blue-and-red lieutenant colonel’s uniform; a scaled-down replica of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton rearing up on its hind legs; and Franco Harris in his Steelers’ uniform and helmet, leaning down with a football in his hands, balanced on one leg, catching the Immaculate Reception.

  George Washington was part of Pittsburgh’s history because he helped the British take Fort Duquesne from the French during the Seven Years’ War in 1758. On that site, the British would later build Fort Pitt.

  The T. rex skeleton represented the life-sized one that formed the crowning exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I was awed at seeing the forty-foot skeleton as a child on a class field trip to the museum. It stood like a skeletal Godzilla, with its menacing jaws open and clawed hands ready to strike. The T. rex became the museum’s calling card and a symbol of Pittsburgh’s cultural importance.

  The Immaculate Reception was one of the most legendary plays in the history of football, with Franco Harris scooping up a botched pass and running it for a touchdown to bring the Steelers a playoff victory. The game took place at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh against the Oakland Raiders just two days before Christmas in 1972. It must have seemed like a Christmas miracle. Growing up, it felt like the Steelers were part of the pantheon of saints, so it was fitting that Myron Cope, our famous sports announcer, named the play after the Catholic Church’s most sacred event, the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception of Jesus Christ. To me, the statue of Franco Harris catching the Immaculate Reception symbolized all the pieces of my childhood rolled into one.

  When I was younger, I thought people were saying Frank O’Harris, and never having seen the player, I assumed he was Irish. When I was a teenager, my mother and I were eating at an Italian restaurant in the mall after what must have been for her an exhausting afternoon of shopping. A large, dark-featured man sat at a table in front of us.

  “That’s Franco Harris,” my mother said and motioned toward the man. Later, I learned that Harris was Italian and African American.

  Those three figures, which I had seen upon my arrivals to Pittsburgh for years, seemed like a Holy Trinity of sorts and summed up Pittsburgh and its values better than any words of welcome ever could.

  As we drove north, I watched the city give way, as it always did on this drive, to rolling hills covered with bare trees and a wide, gray sky. It was getting dark, and by the time we reached Wexford, the Christmas lights on the houses in our cul-de-sac shone through the dark, along with illuminated, inflated candy canes, Santa on his sleigh pulled by all eight reindeer, and a family of giant inflated snowm
en. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, but it wasn’t snowing. Things felt surreal, as if I were experiencing them from far away. Home was familiar and alien at the same time. I was both comforted and irritated by the displays of holiday cheer I saw on Ash Court, as if everything in the world were fine and there was no cause for outrage. It was a suburban cocoon, and I wondered if any of its residents, including my parents, cared about the world outside. It wasn’t fair: I didn’t know the other families on our street or how they lived, but the place had become symbolic. It represented my own ignorance, a place where we could hide and push the rest of the world away.

  As we pulled up the steep driveway to our house, I could see the white lights of our Christmas tree twinkling in the front window and the colored lights on the trees and shrubs in our front yard. When the groaning garage door sounded, so did Bailey’s barking. Bailey was a golden retriever husky mix my parents got after Knight passed away. She was sweeter and less bold, though just as poorly trained.She knew Dad was coming home. The flight wasn’t long, but my limbs felt stiff and numb as I got out of the car, climbed the steps, and opened the door to the kitchen.

  Bailey accosted me right away, jumping, licking, barking; even though I hadn’t been home in a while, she remembered my scent. The house was still decorated warmly and festively as usual, all my mother’s Santas and holiday keepsakes on display. Cinnamon-scented candles still burned in the kitchen; my mother was rolling out dough on the counter. She turned from the sink and came to give me a hug. We pushed the big, excited dog aside and embraced just as my dad came in from the garage carrying my bag. I didn’t see his face in that moment, but I had a feeling he was relieved to see me hug my mom. In a way, I was relieved, too.

  “Everything looks great!” I exclaimed as the sights and sounds brought back memories. There were carols playing on the radio; the stockings hung over the fireplace; and a gas-lit fire flickered in the hearth. “What are you baking?” I asked.

  “Oh, the usual,” my mom said, returning to the counter. “Grandma Mary and Granddad will be coming over on Christmas Day. Rob and Lorie and the kids might come, too.” Her tone was flat, attempting cheerfulness. I wanted to ask if they’d gotten the DNA tests, but I knew the time wasn’t right. I watched her back and bowed head working dough on the counter for a piecrust.

  “Want any help?” I ventured, though the last thing I wanted was to stand in the kitchen alongside my mother pretending this was a holiday like any other.

  “That’s okay,” she replied. “I’m almost done anyway.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m going upstairs—need to catch up on sleep. Good night.” I was relieved as I walked up the stairs, but still felt trepidation about what the next few days would bring. My dad had taken my bag up to my room and had quietly gone to sleep. The house felt cold and it kept me on edge.

  As I layered myself in sweatshirts and sweatpants, I tried to settle into my youngest brother’s old bedroom, which now served as the guest room. The heavy oak furniture, the quilted bedspread, and radio on the nightstand brought me back to an earlier time. There were high school sports photos of my brothers and me in the bookcase; me, in my team uniform, down on one knee holding a basketball at my side, the other hand on my hip, with my puffy hair pulled partway back, falling in triangles above my shoulders. It was hard to look at these photos, which seemed like they were from another life. My brothers were no longer the football and baseball stars that lived in these photos, and I was no longer the varsity athlete that made my parents so proud.

  The next day, the morning of Christmas Eve, my father and I did the DNA tests. I swabbed the inside of my cheek hard, until it hurt, to make sure they got enough skin cells to analyze the sample. We paid for expedited service so that we’d get the test results in a few weeks rather than a few months. A lot was riding on those spitty cotton swabs. My dad drove the tests to the post office, making an awkward joke about not wanting them to get lost in the mail. My brothers arrived later in the day, and my dad picked them both up at the airport. He would never consider us taking a taxi or getting a ride from someone else.

  “I’ll meet you in the usual place,” he’d say, which was just beyond George Washington and Franco Harris.

  After going to the post office, my dad came home with Chinese takeout for dinner. It was Christmas Eve, and we all felt the disparity between the current meal and our traditional repast.

  “At least it’s not the Wawa,” my father said, trying to inject some levity into the apprehensive room. No one laughed.

  In the weeks following Thanksgiving, my mother and I had countless arguments over the phone. They always ended with her saying that she wished she’d never told me in the first place. For her, it was all in the past. But her past was my present.

  I felt immature and ungrateful—two words she often used—for insisting we talk about the forbidden subject. I wanted to know who my father was, no matter the circumstances. I knew it hurt my mother, but I wasn’t able to sweep the subject under the rug like she did. It meant too much to me. Wasn’t it something I had a right to know?

  “I don’t know a lot about my own father,” my mom would retort. “I barely know any of my relatives. They don’t care about me!”

  “Mom, that’s not the same. You know where you come from. You’ve had your father your whole life.”

  “So have you.” It was true. I grew up with a loving, devoted father who called me his princess and bent over backward to make me happy.

  And yet.

  What I couldn’t articulate then was that the condition of my whole upbringing had been an insidious lie; that to be part of my loving family, I had to tacitly agree to pass for white. I thought about sitting in the car with my dad after high school basketball practice when he’d told me it would be dishonest of me to apply for minority scholarships and not to mention it to my mother. Looking back, I couldn’t tell if he honestly believed I was white or if he was just steering me away from a dangerous subject. If he really believed I was white, why would he tell me not to mention the subject to my mother? My heart sank to think they were both in on the lie, both colluding to keep the subject of race—my race—out of our lives.

  So that was the agreement—to not ask questions, to avoid and deflect the queries of friends, acquaintances, and strangers. If I openly identified as African American, I was the one being dishonest.

  Now that the truth had come out and I realized that people outside my family were correct in their assumptions about my identity, I felt like my parents were asking me to avoid the subject for their sake, not mine. To my mom, my biological father wasn’t a real person. When I referred to him as my biological father, she snapped, “Don’t call him that! That’s not a father!”

  When she did refer to him directly, which was seldom, she called him “the donor.”

  Weeks passed, then months.

  We asked my mother if she had gotten the results of the paternity test. She said no, they’d never sent them.

  More weeks passed, and we waited.

  I came home for spring break. We asked her again. She said that she’d lost the password and could not access the results online.

  Finally, my father took a stand—something that rarely happened—and made her give us the results. In the months since Christmas, my father had taken a job that relocated him to Scranton, Pennsylvania, which was close to Princeton but about three hundred miles from Pittsburgh. My mother worked as a nurse and did not want to give up her job at the hospital, so she stayed in Wexford with the rambunctious Bailey and the reclusive cat, Tilly. My parents never spoke of my father’s relocation as a separation; it was strictly for his job. From what I could tell, the mood between them had changed. My father was used to commuting and traveling for work, and he usually flew home to Pittsburgh on the weekends. The arrangement didn’t seem out of the ordinary, and we all went to Scranton to see my dad’s one-bedroom apartment filled with rented furniture. We made jokes about Scranton and The Office, but ever
so carefully, my father was creating space between himself and my mother.

  My mother revealed that the results from the DNA test had been in her desk the whole time; she just hadn’t wanted to face them.

  My dad read them first.

  They proved what my parents had been so unwilling to admit for all these years: my father and I were not biologically related.

  By this point, the verdict was not surprising at all, and yet, at the same time, I was surprised. It was the first piece of indisputable, scientific evidence that I was another man’s child. My looks on their own had never been enough for my parents to admit the truth. They liked to point out that my dad’s skin was darker than mine, and that I was trying to manufacture or exaggerate my difference. I wondered if the test results would change their minds. I was shocked and elated and devastated and heartbroken and hopeful and curious all at the same time.

  Even though, to the outside world, my appearance alone was enough to signal that I was black, half-black, or a person of color, in my family, that part of me always felt invisible. The part of me that spoke of difference, even though it was staring them in the face every day, was not enough to convince my family that there was something we needed to address. Their dismissal made me feel like I was not enough, that there was something inadequate about my looks that didn’t properly signal race or ethnicity like everyone else’s. I experienced what I would describe as racial dysphoria. I never felt black enough for references to my race to seem any more than an uncomfortable joke, and, despite my parents’ insistence, I wasn’t white enough to blend in with those around me. Growing up, I wanted my skin to be darker so that I wouldn’t look so ambiguous and so my family couldn’t just ignore that part of who I was. In high school I used tan foundation, and my mother would say, “That’s too dark for you,” and give me a tone that made my cheeks chalky and pink.

  Now was the time for the conversation I’d been waiting for. Since we had established that my dad was not my biological father, my question—the logical question—was: Who is?