No Race Mixing Allowed...unless...

My boss at the Afrocentric clothing store where I worked constantly berated me for dating a white guy, even going as far as making references to the size of his “anatomy” saying that I wanted a white boy because he couldn’t hurt me.

One afternoon I helped a young, Caucasian customer wrap his long dreadlocks in the head wrap that he bought. As soon as he left my boss teased me, “I know you loved that,” he said.

A month later, I overheard my boss discussing the modeling agency he planning on opening with his business partner. “I want the exotic ones. The sisters with the green eyes.” is what he said.

Exotic. I could fill in the blanks. Green eyes, “good hair”, light skin tone. Apparently race mixing was ok with him when it produced exotic-looking Black women.

Karate Man

I was sitting on the bus and a little black girl, who looked to be about four or five years old, was looking around and admiring everything and everyone on the bus. She then looked at the man in the seat next to her then looked back at her Mommy and said, “I see a face that looks like a Karate man!” The Chinese gentleman just looked at her and smiled.

Are you Spanish?

It was a slow day in the cafe where I was working and a little boy, who looked to be about 11, stood there talking to me after he bought his candy. Somewhere in the conversation, he asked me if I was "Spanish", and I said, "No, I'm black." He said, "You don't look black." I said, "Well, I am." He then looked at my curly hair for a few seconds. "Do you have a weave in your hair?" He asked.

Apparently "Spanish" people could have curly hair, but black people couldn't.

Is It Real?

I was working in a chocolate shop and I went to another location to do some training. At some point, a coworker (a middle-aged Pakistani gentleman) asked me how much it cost to get my hair done.

"Excuse me?" I said. It's not that I hadn't heard him, it's just that I was surprised.
He repeated himself and I shrugged. "I don't get my hair done."
"Oh, it's your real hair!"

My hair is curly and down to my shoulders and people are always assuming that it's fake just because I'm Black.

The same thing happened with another new coworker(He was African-American with hair that was the texture of Barbie doll hair!)
"Is that your real hair?" He asked after knowing me for about 15 minutes. What nerve!

Bronzed

I opened a new bottle of coconut syrup one day as I was working at a local coffee shop and the sweet smell wafted through the air.

My coworker, Laurie, smiled. “Umm! That smells just like that suntan lotion…um…what’s the name of it?”

I was clueless and I just looked at her waiting for it to come to her.
“You know that kind. Remember when you were a little kid and your mom put that suntan lotion on you, everybody used it…”

I just looked at her and I wasn’t going to say anything. She looked back at me for a few seconds.

“Oh!”

It had just dawned on her that Black folks didn’t use suntan lotion.

Mixed World

Funniest thing I ever saw. I was on a date one afternoon and the Chinese restaurant, Yummy House, was still pretty empty. Anthony and I took a seat and after few minutes, we placed our orders. We talked as we waited for our food, and as we talked, I glanced around and noticed that there were only two other couples in the restaurant.

“Do you notice anything unusual?” I asked him.

He then looked around. “What the…!”

By the right wall, there was a Black girl and a White guy. Near the window, there was a Black girl and a Latino guy. Then there was us, I, of course am Black and Anthony was Chinese.

It was one of the rare moments in life where I felt that the proverbial melting pot truly existed.

Chinky Eyes

I overheard my boss, Natalie talking about her newborn baby with a patron at the coffee shop where I worked. I believe she was referring to another customer when she said “She asked if the baby had chinky eyes.”

Natalie’s husband, Nguyen, my other boss, was Vietnamese.

I butted in. “She really said that?” I asked, in shock.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe it!”

“Me neither. Nguyen said he wasn’t offended.”