Still, there’s something about the way I look that gets black and white people to try to place me. This leads to what I call the “You Look Like” Game, where they explain my existence to themselves by telling me I look like someone else. The more they decide, the less control I have over my own personality.
Here are the “You Look Like” Game’s top scorers:
Kid from Kid ’n Play
The light-skinned guy from a fun early ’90s rap duo that did synchronized dances and starred in some movies that still pop up on cable. He was famous for his high-top fade, a cylinder of hair rising nine inches off the top of his head. He’s also a mixed brother, and basically my color.
The good part about being told I look like Kid is that people love Kid ’n Play. No one’s ever said, “You look like Kid ’n Play. I wanna fight those fools.”
On the downside, I think white people are into old-school black stuff like Kid ’n Play because it’s from the past, and can’t change anything right now.
Embarrassing fun fact: I can’t grab my ankle and jump over my leg to do Kid ’n Play’s trademark dance.
Justin Timberlake
He’s straight-up white, but has curly ramen hair, which I guess is where we sorta link up. He’s also a great dancer with hit songs for days. I actually get called “Timberlake” a lot by black people, but mainly associate it with drunk white girls pushing up on me at dance parties. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I’m jealous of how much black people like J.T.
Lenny Kravitz
He’s handsome, half Jewish and half black, and dresses like he’s from the ’70s—he probably has a whole shelf just for the leather vests he wears with no shirt. We look nothing alike. This one bugs me. Out loud, I say it’s because his music is bland and unoriginal. Truth is, I’m mad because he’s beating me at my own game: he’s got a better music career, money for cool vintage clothes, he looks blacker than me, and a couple of his songs are pretty ill.
“This light-skinned cat useta work with my sister at the supermarket”
This one’s followed by an expectant look, like I should know the name of this random high-yella cashier. But not all mixed people know each other. We don’t have brown bag parties where we listen to smooth r’n’b and make jokes about people working all day in the field. Sometimes I wish we did, though. Then I’d have someone to talk to about this stuff without feeling like a stereotypical halfie having an identity crisis.
Getting called “light-skinned” is a blessing and a curse, though. It’s cool because it means I’m black, just paler than the average black person. Since being mistaken for white erases half of me, and happens so often that I think I’ve failed at blackness, I cherish being called black. Still, it also makes me feel like I have to reject my white side. That’s why I feel guilty for loving punk rock.
After our set, I spread Paper Fire’s albums and T-shirts out on a sticky black table by the bar. Lucius presided over our merch from the back of the booth, the red-and-white beer light glowing off his white football jersey. He sipped a brown-bottled beer, actively ignoring me while I stood by the table. It was a good show, but he was clearly unhappy with the evening’s demographics. A hundred people had watched us play, gawking, nodding their heads or bouncing on their toes, and they were all white, an ocean of moons spreading back through the small club.
A dozen boys crowded around the booth, bought a record or a shirt, clapped my sweaty shoulder, and said, “Nice show.”
“Nice show” is a greeting and a compliment among the punks. You can only respond with a thanks or a self-deprecating, “But we (broke a string/messed up a bunch/played better last night),” because acting like you know you rock is to imply that you’re above the audience, and that’s not punk.
But it also means nothing. You could improvise an hour of free jazz country covers and everyone would still say, “Nice show.”
I felt guilty for thinking something that snotty, and for looking down on these kids for having a good time, and even for deciding that something that saved my ass as a teenager wasn’t good enough now that I was old enough to buy beer.
By the time the record-buying crowd dispersed, Mason and Russell had moved all of our equipment offstage to the corner by the back door. After the last band, we’d form an assembly line and load the van, lingering by its open doors and chatting with the locals to see if there was a party.
I picked up the beer I’d been nervously sipping and sat by Lucius.
“Been a minute,” I murmured, under the heavy metal that was pumping on the house system.
“Whose fault is that?” he asked.
I sipped again, still nervous.
“I see you takin’ some steps,” he continued. “But the records you play at home don’t count for much. If you go out and you’re the blackest one there,” he gestured around the room, “it ain’t black.”
I sighed and nodded in agreement.
“And, it’s the new millennium.” He clapped on the last two words. “Why’re you playing records, anyway? Ain’t you got CDs?”
“I like records!” I said, waving my hand over the Paper Fire records. “They’re cheap. And cool.”
A punk kid walking past gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up.
Lucius rolled his eyes. “Look, being black is bigger than whether or not you play old-school soul at home or scream music for a bunch of teenagers at the club. You know your Black Card’s set to expire. You ain’t done much to keep it.”
Heavy metal growled. I sighed.
“So, what do I do?” I asked, holding my head in my hand. “Head to M.L.K. Boulevard and ask the first brotha I see if I can kick it?”
“No, man. No.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “You gotta know you’re black. Then the rest will fall into place. Every time I see you in a group of white folks, it looks like you’re running from being black.” He scissored his elbows like he was running. “It’s time to stop, or it’s gonna let you get away.”
Since Lucius gave me the Black Card, I’d figured it was settled: I was black. I shook my head, starting to get worked up.
Mona would quiet this static in my head. This was my first time out of town since I’d started crushing on her, and I kept scanning the room for that soft baby-blue T-shirt she wears, willing her to appear with that Tupperware of salad she’d always bring to our shifts. Instead, I saw a room full of punks, mainly male, all white. I slugged my beer and wiped the condensation from my hand on the thigh of my damp jeans.
I pulled my phone out of the little shoulder bag I’d carried into the show.
Mona 7:43 pm
Tips were ok. How was your concert?
It’s called a show and I loved that she didn’t know that.
9:45 pm
Pretty good. Think we’re going to a party next.
Thanks for covering my shift.
JJ, the bassist for Kill All Their Infernal Soldiers, the local band whose name was longer than their songs, walked up. He skipped the southern summer punk uniform of limbless black tees and work pants