Skip to main content

Dear Sherlene: Why Are Some White People Dressing As People of Color?

Some may call it racist, I think it's really a personality dysfunction of wanting to know what it's like to be a person of color. Some whites may feel that blacks get more attention--good or bad--than whites.

My advice as a person of several races: Dress up like a person of color "at home," for a day, not in public. If you want to know what it's like to be of a different ethnicity, simply dress up or paint your face like one of your beloved friends or celebrity of color.

My Native American of color, great-great grandmother (maternal) had a white half-sister. The white-identity side of my family is from the Europe continent. They traveled from Europe and relocated to New York. My great-grandfather, Oscar Clarence Hicks, somehow ended up traveling to Maryland for work. He somehow ventured to the Rock Hall community of  Maryland which is close to a nearby Indian reservation (Piney Neck).

While working in the area, he noticed a young native of the area. Her family, the Rochester's, had lived on the reservation land for many years.  The young female was working for a white doctor at the time. Oscar eventually discussed with her employer, the doctor, about marrying her. Shortly after, Ethel Rochester and Oscar Hicks married. Neither of my great-grandparents was ever slaves. My great-grandfather knew how to read and write, but my grandmother did not. She would sign her name with an "X" on official documents. The Hicks made house or remained in the Piney Neck area for several years. They had several children while residing in their small, two-room Piney Neck home. Most citizens of Piney Neck never traveled outside of the community, unless a true emergency.

Historically, the Rock Hall area appears to have been zoned much differently when it comes to race. Rock Hall was considered a white-identity town. Before you can travel to the Rock Hall area, however, you must enter a small community. Edesville, Maryland, growing up, was basically a community population of a people of color. (Many older New York models and actors are familiar with the area.) One day, while coming home from school, my oldest great-aunt, somehow glanced and noticed that a white-owned country store was for sale in Edesville. She was at the time and still is a smart woman.  She rushed home to tell my great-grandfather about it. How did she know that he could even afford such housing option is beyond me. Perhaps, she overheard a conversation that my great-grandfather was having with my great-grandmother or someone else.

Several days later in the season of autumn, he ventured out of his community--which was only ten minutes away by vehicle--to see the house that my aunt so desperately wanted for the family. I can imagine him traveling to get there by borrowing someone's horse or perhaps walking several miles to take a glimpse of it.

My great-grandfather, who was an entrepreneur, bought that house. How did he do it? when he made so very little.  He said, "Children if you want to get into a more spacious house then you're going to have to help me." [We always have had family meetings through the generations of us Hicks. He was the primary speaker of such family gatherings until his death in early autumn of 1989.] He made everyone in his household, all of his children, pick vegetables to earn enough money to purchase their new dwelling place: a white two-story home or country store.

Ethel and Oscar packed up their family's belongings and settled into their newly bought home in the nearby town, Edesville, Maryland. They went on to have a total of 13 children to share with this country: an additional two, female children did not survive shortly after their births.  My long-standing, generational maternal family set has had their ups-and-downs like other families such as several accidental drownings of my people (two teen-aged males, another tragedy of a female, my great maternal aunt, who survived and lived out her life with only one lung), an unexplained horrific killing of a male cousin, and a drug overdose of two other male cousins. The discrimination of not being truly of African heritage in a country that would like to label the races by either being black or white has also been in the background of our life experiences: we're multi-racial.

As a family with varied skin tones of color, we can't classify ourselves by our great-great grandmother's mixed heritage (Native American and white identity) because we don't pass the brown bag test. We certainly understand that we're not full Native-American identity. Our great-grandfather brought us up to know that we are people and that we should strive to be morally grounded with discipline.  He tried to teach entrepreneurship to both his girls and boys but they were so frustrated with the lifestyle--the reflections of such occupation freedom, his actions were much different.  He lived a very low-income lifestyle, and they wanted much more for themselves. Some of his male children went on to be military soldiers, to see the world but came home as high-ranking, honorable veterans. Others of his sons stayed in the community and followed his work ethic and trade (fisherman, craftsman).  Their daughters all received a fairly good education and used their skills in ways of social justice. None of his children attended college universities, but the next generation and the generations after them have done so. The Hicks' original home still stands. The white exterior color is still the same as when my great-grandfather first bought it. Unfortunately, much of the land (an acre) is sinking which we now understand had been doing so all along. The land is settled next to now a busy traffic pattern and large, commercial-style corn fields. The home is still surrounded by entrepreneurs even if they're just rural farmers trying to make a living for their families.

There are now six generations of the Hicks within the U.S. who don't dress up to pretend that they are someone who they are not. We know who we are or most should by now, and most importantly we know that we strive to be productive faith believers--even if varied views of religion. Whether unusual or not of the forced teaching of blending or of white society: We are hundreds of people, six generations of Hicks, who don't desire to be of other racial identities because we were taught to accept who we are, a multi-racial identity, at home. That is where most teachings and our first introduction to our societies start--at home.


In closing, the Hicks name is a well-established name in Europe, so I am probably Queen Elizabeth's distant cousin. The name and our inheritance associated with the name isn't as important to us as the virtues that a man named Oscar, my great-grandfather, tried to instill in all of us before leaving this world. Some listened and absorbed his ways, and some didn't. That's life, and that's what we call choice.

On my great-grandfather's death bed, he said--
"Continue to love, when you feel like there is no love left, and continue to live in peace when you believe there is no peace left."