Winning the lottery
Editor, Yay, I won lottery — the skin color lottery, that is.
Lucky for me, my skin is reddish-white, so when I answer that rude question on forms about skin color, I always check the box beside “white” because the other colors don’t exactly apply to my skin tone.
Truthfully, I’ve always wished my skin was a lot darker. I have never been able to stay out in the sun long enough to get a decent tan.
And although my skin has a lot of red in it, sadly, I’m not Native American either. Therefore, I mark the box that says, “white.”
But each time I mark this section of a form, I wonder: Why is my skin color anybody’s dang business, in the first place? What difference does it make? We are all human beings, after all, are we not?
I’ll give the “powers that be” who dreamt up these forms this much: Until now, marking the “white” box has always served me well.
I was white enough to keep billy clubs off my head and bullets from piercing my not-quite-sowhite face. I was white enough to stay in the United States, even though my own Irish ancestors were deeply hated immigrants when they first set foot on American soil. Every person in America is an immigrant except for our own Native Americans.
Today, I’m white enough to remain free so long as I do not protest too loudly about the atrocities I am bearing witness to.
Silly me; all this time I thought I’d won the skin color lottery. But I was dead wrong.
— Mary Ellen Walls Sisterdale resident
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