Part One: The Cream In The Middle

Education and obedience were first and foremost in the household I grew up in (but not necessarily in that order). My parents had no tolerance for children who spoke disrespectfully, or for that matter, for children who spoke improper or grammatically incorrect English. I remember once mimicking the speech patterns of some of my White friends from school and getting a stern correction from my English-major-turned-English-teacher mother. She said something along the lines of "You're a little black girl and the world is judging you; you can't afford to speak like that." It took many years for me to understand what she meant by that. Over the years, and to this day, I've pondered her words, realizing the irony of them: in order to be taken seriously and respected, I had to speak proper English, when in reality my careful articulation and attention to grammar has been one of the very things that has alienated me from many of my black peers, and in a weird way, my white peers as well.

When I was in fifth grade, I won my class spelling bee, which elevated me to compete in the school-wide spelling bee. When I correctly spelled "m-e-a-s-l-e-s" after Tony Jackson missed it, I sealed my victory by spelling "o-c-t-a-g-o-n." I was elated; my mother was in the audience and the entire school was cheering me on...or so I thought. I later found out that several faculty members--all white women--were not discreet in expressing their displeasure that the black girl had won the school spelling bee. In fact, my homeroom teacher didn't even congratulate me once we all returned to class that afternoon. When I came in 6th place (out of almost 100 students) at the regional bee, only one teacher from my school--Mr. Levans, who I'd had two years previously--expressed pride in me. I was confused, because I was the student that all the teachers liked--straight A's, always obedient, ever-helpful. But it was almost as though they wanted me to be successful, but they didn't want me to be too successful...

In sixth grade, after being placed in the upper-placement English class and making the honor roll for several consecutive quarters, Shenita, a black girl who I didn't know very well but who was in my P.E. class, cornered me one day, sneering, "Why you talk the way you do? You think you white or something?" After looking over her shoulder at a group of black girls who were snickering amongst themselves at her comments, she continued, "You think you bad because you get good grades? You ain't white, you know." Then, turning to her friends, she mocked me, "Hey, y'all, she thinks she white!" Why did speaking correct English and getting good grades equate to me thinking I was white? Why would my black cohorts think it not okay for a black girl to be well-educated and articulate?

In ninth grade, Jamie, a white girlfriend of mine, was talking about some black classmates of ours who annoyed her for some reason. She finished her story by paying me a "compliment": "I don't really think of you as black, Lauren...you're not like all those other black people." I was stricken and embarrassed and extremely ofended. I knew she didn't mean to insult me, but she had. How could I not be like a black person, when I was black? And what were other black people like anyway?

Over the years, I've had a number of experiences that have reminded me that I am a black girl (or now, woman) in a world that thinks I'm too white. I don't know how many people have told me over the years that "I didn't expect you to be black; you sounded so white on the phone!" If sounding "white" means proper English and good diction, then people of any other race should be offended; why would white people have authority over speaking well? In school, I was in accelerated classes that were predominantly white. I belonged to extra-curricular clubs that were predominantly white. My group of friends were predominantly white. I plastered posters of New Kids on the Block all over my bedroom walls, and sang along to Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and Richard Marx. I watched "My So-Called Life" and read the "Sweet Valley High" book series. I studied German and Russian in school and did a study abroad to England in college. It didn't matter that I knew more about black history than the average black teen did, or that my desire to achieve and be successful was in accordance with what the Civil Rights Movement was all about. My self-esteem was shot; I was doubting myself, the life I was leading and the choices I had made. I was starting to believe all the people who told me I acted too white.

My father thought I did. He would drop snarky comments to my sister and me about "liking the white boys"--the New Kids on the Block, or some cute boy at school I had a crush on. "Why can't you like the black boys?" he'd ask. But I wondered, why did I have to have a reason for liking who I liked? No one else had to have a reason. My white friends could love Boys II Men or Bel Biv Devoe and date a black or Latin or Asian guy, and they were considered open-minded and cool. Latin and Asian girls weren't relegated to hanging out with friends, liking performers or dating boyfriends of their same nationality...so why was I? There just seemed to be something...almost limiting about being in a black skin. Black people called you a sell-out if you wanted to explore something--or someone--outside of your ethnic boundaries. White people found me...more acceptable?...less threatening?...for "not being like all those other black people." But sometimes, even white people would accuse me of "acting white," as though my tastes and preferences, while comforting to them on some level, also bordered on being too intrusive or overly familiar...it was as if I were invited to the party but no one really wanted me to come through the front door. I had loads of white friends, but none of the boys would have ever considered dating me (even though white girls could seemingly date whoever they wanted). Black guys, while interested, seemed to think of me as too snooty or distant because of the classes I took and the crowds I ran with. In essence, I was too white for my black peers and too black for the whites; I was stuck in the middle.

One of the more offensive slants I've heard toward people in my position is "Oreo"--dark on the outside and white on the inside. I remember reading an article in a teen magazine that was written by a young black woman who had essentially lived my life--well-spoken, an over-achiever in school, with lots of extra-curricular activities and mostly white friends and (so-called) white pop-cultural tastes. And, just like me, she was in the most unfortunate position of being told she was suffering from "an identity crisis" and didn't know who she really was. For her, going to college, making friends from all different backgrounds and learning that she didn't have to apologize for who she was--or the girl she used to be--was the antidote to a life of self-conflict. For me, it took a little longer to figure out how I could finally be comfortable in my own skin.

There was no singular event or experience that made me realize who I was, or allowed me to be comfortable with the person I had become. Like many girls, I suffered through body image issues, borderline eating disorders and emotional instability in order to grow into a self-assured woman; one who didn't care what family, friends or strangers thought about me, or how I talked, dressed, or what music I listened to. So I ended up being a black woman who loves folk rock a la Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls, and new-wave British synthpop, like Depeche Mode and Erasure. People give me incredulous looks. I have ceased to care. I went to school at NYU, and became friends with some of the most interesting and textured people--of all different ethnicities and backgrounds--I have ever met. I am educated and trained as a wildlife biologist, a field that is traditionally dominated by white men. I love what I do. I am an aetheist and a vegetarian who lets my dogs sleep in my bed, even though I come from a history of relatives who are southern Baptists (and Catholics) who eat food seasoned with ham hocks and bacon and consider dogs "outdoor animals." I married a white, Jewish man from Queens, NY. Are there people--white, black or otherwise--who care about the person I have become and the choices I have made? Probably, even likely. But I don't care anymore what other people have to say. As my husband likes to say, "Those people don't pay my bills, so they don't get an opinion on how I live my life."

Of course, it's not necessarily as easy as that when you're dealing with elderly relatives, potential employers or new friends. Inevitably, there's a part of me that braces, waiting for the seemingly unavoidable questions. But, I've found, the older I get--the more self-assured I get--the less likely people feel a need or a right to question who I am. I am what I am and that's all that I am. And I'm realizing that not only am I comfortable in my own skin now, but I always was. I used to let other people's discomfort and insecurities about me question my own lifestyle choices. But not anymore.

My senior year of college, I took a linguistic anthropology course. The final exam was a ten-page essay asking us to use labels to define ourselves, and then explain how that label defines or is defined by our speech patterns (and how we are able to converse with our speech/ethnic group). This was the assignment I'd been waiting for all my life. I wrote that paper in one night, barely stopping to eat. The words flowed as I used my experiences as a "black, middle-class young woman" to highlight my interactions with both the black community and the white community. My conclusion--that I actually use a middle-class dialect, not a "white" one, and that I, like everyone else, am a`product of my upbringing and environment--was not only the end of my essay, it was the beginning of the end of my insecurities about myself. To this day, I still have that essay in a folder. It got an "A."