Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I’m not a fan of former President Donald Trump, so when he accepted the invitation from the National Association of Black Journalists, an organization I’m a part of, I was not enthused about his appearance. Because a duck is going to quack, Trump popped out and showed … us … exactly who he is and who he has always been, and pretty quickly — a racist, misogynist, factless hack of a human being. At one point, though, unprompted, he unintentionally hit me at my core: He pointed out a truth that I share with Kamala Harris that I’ve been scared to speak about for my four decades of life — like Kamala, whose parents are Jamaican and Indian, I also turned Black one day. His comments compelled me to share my truth because it’s been weighing heavily on me for so long.
Today, I share my story — my truth — about when I turned Black.
I can remember that thang like yesterday. It was a clear black night and there was a clear white moon — the Lakers had just beat the Supersonics. I was rolling down the street smoking indo, sippin’ on gin and juice, heading to a house party on the campus of Mission College. Or maybe it was Atlanta A&T. Maybe it was Truth University. It escapes me, but I was on the way to get up a get-get-get down.
I pulled into the parking lot and saw what there was to see. The scene was so thick, low riders, 77 Sevilles, El Dawgs … nothing but them ‘Lacs. All the players and all the hustlers were there … for real, I’m talking about a Black man heaven, which was especially good for me considering what was about to happen to me.
I suppose it’s important to note that I have no recollection of what I was before I turned Black. Like Kamala, I am mixed, but as they say, once you go Black you never go back, but they never mention that you also forget what you were before. They sure know everything, don’t they? According to my father (also Black), I was never white but that’s unimportant since I’m here now.
I walked into the party and De La Soul’s “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’” was on the box and folks were shaking what their mamas had given them. The party was at a little spot where young men and young women go to experience their first little taste of the nightlife. Me? I’d never been there. Well, perhaps once before, but I was so engulfed in the Old English that I can’t truly say one way or the other.
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Folks were sitting around playing cards or dominoes, whatever was to their liking. I remember there was a dude named Kane, O-Dawg, Doughboy and Dookie on one table; they didn’t look like students of college but students of the game. I saw another table with a seat open and a beautiful woman sitting across from it. I asked if I could sit down and the woman told me yeah. I said “What’s your name, she said “Renee” and I said, “I got a whole lot to say.”
She was clearly a student. She told me what she was in school for. She said to be a lawyer, in other words, Renee studies law. She let me be her partner because I told her that if I didn’t define myself for myself, I’d be crunched into other people’s fantasies of me and eaten alive and she told me she, too, loved Audre Lorde. She also told me some folks call her Candy, but that’s another story for another day.
Anyway, we sat down at the table. Renee/Candy and I versus these two cats named Merch and Harper. Harper was some kind of writer, but I heard he got a pretty solid beat down over one of his books. His story didn’t end all bad though; he won a Pulitzer for some slave romance novel he wrote. Good for him. Anyway, while I’d played spades before, I couldn’t call myself a professional but that night, Renee/Candy and I were killing the game.
And then it happened. The moment. The moment I turned Black and never went back. That last hand we had a perfect hand. I had the Big Joker, Little Joker, two of diamonds and two of spades. Renee had the Ace and King and a few of the smaller spades. We were running a Boston on those two silly suckas. Right as we were about to collect the last book, I stood up with my Big Joker in hand, slapped Merch with it, slammed the card down then picked it up and slapped it back on the table with the most impressive spin you’d ever seen. They tell me the card is still spinning on the table, now. A song called “Ridin Spinners” started playing in the background and some cat I don’t know hit me a 10-movement dap that I’d never done before but I didn’t miss a beat or a connection.
There was a bass guitar in the corner of the house, I picked it up and played the meanest bassline you’d ever heard. It was then that I turned Black and it’s been all up ever since.
I got back in my car, turned on “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and hummed the second and third verses. It was a good day.
This is my story, this is my song.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
