Tag: race

Posted on

The Color of Normal

As a white guy, my whole life I have heard comments about white “chicken legs” when shorts make their first appearance of the summer. Comments like “Jesus man, don’t those legs ever see the sun?”

Well no, they don’t, actually. All winter long I wear long trousers to stay warm. And in the summer, I’m careful not to intentionally expose my legs to the sun too much because they burn easily. So no, I don’t expose my skin to the sun just to darken my coloration. Because melanoma is no laughing matter. Continue reading “The Color of Normal”

Posted on

Black and white (and red all over).

There has been a lot of buzz and even vitriol lately about Rachel Dolezal, the white woman in Spokane, Washington, who has been passing herself off as a mixed-race black woman for the past few years. Mostly the talk has been about the disbelief that she would falsely claim black heritage. But the one part that is almost always overlooked is her dubious claim of Native American ancestry. She even claims to have been born in a teepee in Montana. Because Indians were still living in teepees in Montana in 1977, apparently. Continue reading “Black and white (and red all over).”