by Paul Beatty
(Pause)
LILY: Uh uhnn.
GEORGE: Oh. Gimmieuhhint.
LILY: "My image—"
GEORGE: Oh oh oh. "My image—which you keep with such care in your heart, my image, fair as it may be is not so nearly as fair as—"
LILY: Uh uhnn. "My image, Sir, is merely a—"
GEORGE: "My image, Sir, is merely—a reflection in that safe keeping mirror of your heart."
LILY: Good.
GEORGE: "As gardens should be judged by their caretakers so should my image be judged by your care. Base rocks are bulwarks to the great ocean but they too sand in time. And time itself is a round thing, a round thing that—that—that—"
LILY: Thatll do. Now. —. Uh—en francais?
GEORGE: En francais?
LILY: Uh huhnn. Go on.
GEORGE: Oui oui! Oui oui! Uh—. Monsieur. —. Uh—Monsieur—. Uh—.
Gimmieuhminute.
(Enter Odelia Pandahr)
ODELIA PANDAHR: Madame Mama Lily and the most fought over Mademoiselle Miss George! I arrive today triumphant gather round gather round! I bring you: Yes! The Victor! The Victor, Miss George, the true suitor who has won through the truest test your hand! The Victor, Miss George, smiter of the victim! Stand back stand back! Now! Wait right here!
LILY: "Patty." "Patty." We'll call ya "Patty," Patty. Patty?
PATTY: How I look? Wedable?
LILY: Patty. Love of uh girl.
PATTY: I look all right?
LILY: Like uh happy ending.
PATTY: Huh. ThatU do. Whats our word? Our words "Devotion." We will hold fast. Unto thuh death. We will not come all asunder. We wont flinch. I'll see him and he'll see me. We will exchange words of love and fall fall fall into eachothers arms—.
LILY: Thats my girl. Here they come, honey. —. Suck in your gut.
ODELIA PANDAHR: May I present to you Madame Mother Lily and beautiful most fought over bride-who'll-be Mademoiselle Miss
George: The Victor!
PATTY: Thuh Victor!
LILY: Thuh Victor!
ODELIA PANDAHR: Voila!
PATTY: Voila!
LILY: Voila!
(Odelia Pandahr uncovers a head on a platter)
PATTY: Oh.
LILY: Presto.
PATTY: Wheres thuh rest of im, Madame?
ODELIA PANDAHR: He's full of love for you, Mademoiselle George. His lips are pursed in a kiss. His eyes only for your fair image, Mademoiselle. I recounted to him the story of your waiting. The history of the gifts you gave. The story of the tears you shed for him. The tale of your devotion. The way you wrung your hands. There is only one word for such a show of bravest bravery,—PATTY: Wheres thuh rest of im?
ODELIA PANDAHR: There is only one word for such a show of bravest bravery, Mademoiselle George—
PATTY: Patty.
ODELIA PANDAHR: Patty?
LILY: Presto.
ODELIA PANDAHR: —Patty—. There is just one word for such valorous valor just one word for such faithful faith just one word, Mademoiselle George for—PATTY: Patty.
LILY: Patty.
ODELIA PANDAHR: Patty?
PATTY: Patty.
LILY: Turn it off.
ODELIA PANDAHR: Now your suitor, Mademoiselle—Patty, may be just a head—a head kept alive by a wealth of technology, the fruits of our modern age. Your suitor may be just a—head—uh head-stone of thuh former self but as we are schooled in Madame Odelia Pandahrs, the head is the place where sit thuh lofty—the lofty-most thoughts. Weve, you could say, done away with thuh base. We would do away with this base but then of course your handsome and devoted suitor would have difficulty standing you understand.
LILY: Turn if off. Turn it off Patty.
PATTY: Patty. Pattysgot uh happy ending to it. Arent him and me supposed tuh fall into eachothers arms?
ODELIA PANDAHR: It is true that in the rage of battle suitors ThisOne and ThatOne were thick as tigers around an old gum tree. Even Steven blow for blow a perfect match! They always did look uh bit uhlike, Mademoiselle—Patty. There has been a bit of debate down in your valley as to just which one this is. Some say ThisOne some say ThatOne. There is talk of the two opposing camps taking up arms to settle the matter. But that is not our affair now is it. I myself think well I myself know this to be ThatOne. I am after all his mother.
LILY: Turn it off. Turn it off. Zit off?
ODELIA PANDAHR: PATTY! Patty!? ThatOne looks as if he's uhbout to speak!
LILY: Speak?!
ODELIA PANDAHR: Words of love!!
PATTY: Love?!!
ODELIA PANDAHR: Lean in close, love of uh girl. LEAN IN CLOSE. Some need a little prodding I understand. Ive seen it all. LEAN. IN. CLOSE.—. See? See? Thuh lips twitch. Oh—ssssssssh! Hear? Hear? —. —. Now hows that? Uh happy ending!
PATTY: Oh. Oh. Mama? Oooh. Mama? He said: "Be Mine."
LILY: Oh! "Be mine!"
F
At the Front. Patty with a microphone.
PATTY: Once upon uh time way up there in uh garden in thuh middle of nowhere there were 2 who got married. After thuh marriage thuh boy it seemed soon forgot his home-town lingo. To woo her he had used thuh words "be mine." Now "be mine" is fine for uh woo but it iduhnt enough tuh build anything longlasting and stable on. Sheud ask him tuh say something. Sheud plead with him tuh say anything. He'd just say "be mine" and although they were in love that "be mine" got rather old rather quick. Soon even his "be mine" dried up. And she realized that he had forgotten his hometown lingo. And she realized that he couldnt pick it up again. So she did what she had to do. She left her wordless husband and went journeying. Abroad. To Gay Paree. And lived over there amongst them. For 12 long years. Full of her new words and phrases she then came home to him. Where he waited. She took off her traveling cloak and did what any anybody would do, that is, she taught him French. It was rough going at first, but he was eager.And soon they could make decent conversation. They became close. In their way. Made a go of it. Raised uh family. Thuh usual.He told his war stories en francais. She opened up uh finishing academy and they prospered. And they lived that way. Lived happily ever after and stuff like that. Talking back and forth. This is Ms. Patty. At thuh Front.
WILLIE PERDOMO
nigger-reecan blues
1996
—Hey, Willie. What are you, man? Boricua? Moreno? Que? Are you Black? Puerto Rican?
—I am.
—No, silly. You know what I mean: What are you?
—I am you. You are me. We the same. Can't you feel our veins drinking the same blood?
—But who said you was a Porta-Reecan?
—Tu no ere Puerto Riqueno, brother.
—Maybe Indian like Ghandi-Indian?
—I thought you was a Black man.
—Is one of your parents white?
—You sure you ain't a mix of something like Cuban and Chinese?
—Looks like an Arab brother to me.
—Naahhh, nah, nah . . . You ain't no Porty-Reecan.
—I keep tellin' y'all: That boy is a Black man with an accent.
If you look real close you will see that your spirits are standing right next to our songs. Yo soy Boricua! Yo soy Africano! I ain't lyin'. Pero mi pelo is kinky y curly y mi skin no es negro pero it can pass . . .
—Hey, yo. I don't care what you say. You Black.
I ain't Black! Every time I go downtown la madam blankita de Madison Avenue sees that I'm standing next to her and she holds her purse just a bit tighter. Cabdrivers are quick to turn on their Off-Duty signs when they see my hand in the air. And the newspapers say that if I'm not in front a gun you can bet I'll be behind one. I wonder why . . .
—Cuz you Black, nigger!
Don't call me no nigger. I am not Black, man. I had a conversation with my professor and it went just like this:
"So, Willie, where are you from?"
"I'm from Harlem."
"Ohhh . . . Are you Black, Willie?"
"No, but we all t
he same and—"
"Did you know our basketball team is nationally ranked?"
—Te lo estoy diciendo, brother. Ese hombre es un moreno. Miralo!
Mira, pana mia, yo no soy moreno! I just come out ofJerry's Den and the coconut spray on my new shape-up is smelling fresh all the way up 125th Street. I'm lookin' slim and I'm lookin' trim and when my compai Davi saw me he said: "Cono, Papo, te parece como un moreno, pana. Word up, kid, you look just like a light-skin moreno."
—What I told you? You Black my brother.
Damn! I ain't even Black and here I am suffering from the young Black man's plight / the old white man's burden / and I ain't even Black, man / a Black man I am not / Boricua I am / ain't never really was / Black / like me . . .
—Y'all leave that boy alone. He got what they call the "nigger-reecan blues."
I'm a spic! I'm a nigger!
Spic! Spic! Just like a nigger.
Neglected, rejected, oppressed and dispossessed
From banana boats to tenements
Street gangs to regiments
Spic, spic, spic. I ain't nooooo different than a nigger!
DANZY SENNA
the mulatto millennium
1998
Strange to wake up and realize you're in style. That's what happened to me just the other morning. It was the first day of the new millennium and I woke to find that mulattos had taken over.They were everywhere. Playing golf, running the airwaves, opening their own restaurants, modeling clothes, starring in musicals with names like Show Me the Miscegenation! The radio played a steady stream of Lenny Kravitz, Sade, and Mariah Carey. I thought I'd died and gone to Berkeley.But then I realized. According to the racial zodiac, 2000 is the official Year of the Mulatto. Pure breeds (at least the black ones) are out and hybridity is in. America loves us in all of our half-caste glory. The president announced on Friday that beige is to be the official color of the millennium. Major news magazines announce our arrival as if we were proof of extraterrestrial life. They claim we're going to bring about the end of race as we know it.
It has been building for a while, this mulatto fever. But it was this morning that it really reached its peak. I awoke early to a loud ruckus outside—horns and drums and flutes playing "Kum ba Yah" outside my window. I went to the porch to witness a mass of bedraggled activists making their way down Main Street. They were chanting, not quite in unison, "Mulattos Unite, Take Back the White!" I had a hard time making out the placards through the tangle of dreadlocks and loose Afros.At the front of the crowd, two brown-skinned women in Birkenstocks carried a banner that read FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED JEW BOYS WHEN THE NEGROES AIN'T ENOUGH. A lean yellow girl with her hair in messy Afro-puffs wore a T-shirt with the words JUST HUMAN across the front. What appeared to be a Hasidic Jew walked hand in hand with his girlfriend, a Japanese woman in traditional attire, the two of them wearing huge yellow buttons on their lapels that read MAKE MULATTOS, NOT WAR. I trailed behind the parade for some miles, not quite sure I wanted to j o in or stay at the heels of this group.
I guess I should have seen it coming. Way back in the fall of 1993, Time magazine put on its cover "The New Face of America," a computer-morphed face of fourteen models of different racial backgrounds, creating a woman they named Eve. The managing editor wrote:
The woman on the cover of this special issue of Time does not exist except metaphysically . . . The highlight of this exercise in cybergenesis was the creation of the woman on our cover, selected as a symbol of the future, multiethnic face of America . . . As onlookers watched the image of our new Eve begin to appear on the computer screen, several staff members promptly fell in love. Said one: "It really breaks my heart that she doesn't exist." We sympathize with our lovelorn colleagues, but even technology has its limits. This is a love that must forever remain unrequited.
Of course, anyone could see that women just like the computer face they had created did exist in Puerto Rico, Latin America, and Spanish Harlem.But the editors at Time remained unaware of this, seeming to prefer their colored folk imaginary, not real. As I read the article, it reminded me of an old saying they used to have down South during Jim Crow: "If a black man wants to sit at the front of the bus, he just puts on a turban." Maybe the same rule applied here: call yourself mixed and you just might find the world smiles a little brighter on you.
Mulattos may not be new. But the mulatto-pride folks are a new generation. They want their own special category or no categories at all.They're a full-fledged movement, complete with their own share of extremists. As I wandered at the edges of the march this morning, one woman gave me a flyer. It was a treatise on biracial superiority, which began, "Ever wonder why mutts are always smarter than full-breed dogs?"The rest of her treatise was dense and incomprehensible: something about the sun people and the ice people coming together to create the perfectly temperate being. Another man, a militant dressed like Huey P. Newton, came toward me waving a rifle in his hand. He told me that those who refuse to miscegenate should be shot. I steered clear of him, instead burying my head in a newspaper. I opened to the book review section, and at the top of the best-seller list were three memoirs: Kimchee and Grits, by Kyong Washington, Gefilte Fish and Ham Hocks, by Schlomo Jackson, and at the top of the list, and for the third week in a row, Burritos and Borsht, by a cat named Julio Werner. That was it. In a fit of nausea, I took off running for home.
Before all of this radical ambiguity, I was a black girl. I fear even saying this.The political strong arm of the multiracial movement, affectionately known as the Mulatto Nation (just "the M.N." for those in the know), decreed just yesterday that those who refuse to comply with orders to embrace their many heritages will be sent on the first plane to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where, the M.N.'s minister of defense said, "they might learn the true meaning of mestizo power."
But, with all due respect to the multiracial movement, I cannot tell a lie.I was a black girl. Not your ordinary black girl, if such a thing exists. But rather, a black girl with a Wasp mother and a black-Mexican father, and a face that harkens to Andalusia, not Africa. I was born in 1970, when "black" described a people bonded not by shared complexion or hair texture but by shared history.
Not only was I black (and here I go out on a limb), but I was an enemy of the people. The mulatto people, that is. I sneered at those byproducts of miscegenation who chose to identify as mixed, not black. I thought it wishy-washy, an act of flagrant assimilation, treason, passing even.
It was my parents who made me this way. In Boston circa 1975, mixed wasn't really an option. The words "A fight, a fight, a nigga and a white!"could be heard echoing from schoolyards during recess. You were either white or black. N o checking "Other." No halvsies. N o in-between. Black people, being the bottom of the social totem pole in Boston, were inevitably the most accepting of difference; they were the only race to come in all colors, and so there I found myself. Sure, I received some strange reactions from all quarters when I called myself black. But black people usually got over their initial surprise and welcomed me into the ranks. It was white folks who grew the most uncomfortable with the dissonance between the face they saw and the race they didn't. Upon learning who I was, they grew paralyzed with fear that they might have "slipped up" in my presence, that is, said something racist, not knowing there was a Negro in their midst. Often, they had.
Let it be clear—my parents' decision to raise us as black wasn't based on any one-drop rule from the days of slavery, and it certainly wasn't based on our appearance, that crude reasoning many black-identified mixed people use: if the world sees me as black, I must be black. If it had been based on appearance, my sister would have been black, my brother Mexican, and me Jewish. Instead, my parents' decision arose out of the rising black power movement, which made identifying as black not a pseudoscientific rule but a conscious choice. You told us all along that we had to call ourselves black because of this so-called one drop. Now that we don't have to anymore, we choose to. Because black is beau
tiful. Because black is not a burden, but a privilege.
Some might say my parents went too far in their struggle to instill a black identity in us. I remember my father schooling me and my siblings on our racial identity. He would hold his own version of the Inquisition, grilling us over a greasy linoleum kitchen table while a single, bright lightbulb swung overhead. He would ask: "Do you have any black friends?" "How many?" "Who?" "What are their names?" And we, his obedient children, his soldiers in the battle for negritude, would rattle off the names of the black kids we called friends. (When we, trying to turn the tables, asked my father why all his girlfriends were white, he would launch into one of his famously circular diatribes, which left us spinning with confusion. I only remember that his reasoning involved demographics and the slim chances of him meeting a black woman in the Brookline Public Library on a Monday afternoon.)
But something must have sunk in, because my sister and I grew up with a disdain for those who identified as mulatto rather than black. Not all mulattos bothered me back then. It was a very particular breed that got under my skin: the kind who answered, meekly, "Everything," to that incessant question "What are you?" Populist author Jim Hightower wrote a book called There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos. That's what mulattos represented to me back then: yellow stripes and dead armadillos. Something to be avoided. I veered away from groups of them—children, like myself, who had been born of interracial minglings after dark. Instead, I surrounded myself with bodies darker than myself, hoping the color might rub off on me.
I used to spy on white people, blend into their crowd, let them think I was one of them, and then listen as they talked in smug disdain about black folks. It wasn't something I had to search out. And most white people, I found, no matter how much they preach MLK's dream, are just as obsessed with color and difference as the rest of us. They just talk about it in more coded terms. Around white folks, I never had to bring up race.
