LeVar Burton Is Not Allowed To Die

This morning, I was explaining to my son the amazing LeVar Burton. And ... oh my.

You see, growing up on the farm, in white German farmer territory, everyone looked like me. Everyone was white. Even my elementary school was filled with white students and teachers. The rare Asian kids in school were children with white adoptive parents. Oh my Lord, the hoopla when the completely Jewish family moved into the Gar Creek community! I didn’t understand the problem. Eliyahu was cute.

My introduction to diversity was found down on Sesame Street and through the Reading Rainbow. Before then, the old westerns told me that dark skinned people were servants or slaves, ‘dumb’ injuns, or just plain worthless. Something just rankled me deep inside about that.

I’m not white.

For the first time today, I was recognized as ‘not white’.

By a black person.

And it felt awesome.

Confused? I’ll attempt to explain quickly.

I’m descended from several grandparents who are part Native American, though we only know one tribe for certain. My maternal grandfather’s mother was a full blood Apache adopted by a German couple. We were talking about hair styles, different lengths, textures, et cetera, et cetera, and so in the midst of showing photos of my various hair styles over the years, I shared my senior picture. In the preceding conversation, we had already established my current age. This woman looked at the photo, looked at me, and said, “Are you Native? Looking at that picture and you now, you are aging really well! I’m looking at that and thinking you ain’t white.”

Normally I have to actually tell people I’m not fully Caucasian for them to even notice. But she did.

And it made my day.