My family has these cheesy black-and-white pictures of my parents in high school. My favorite is of my parents holding hands. Their fingers, black and white, black and white, interlacing.
I’ve always wondered if my mother and father knew that their marriage would generate a conversation about race extending beyond the initial interracial union to their children. My siblings and I are walking racial question marks that individuals are constantly trying to change and pin down with sturdy periods.
What are you really? Can I touch your hair? And are you a black/white person or a white/black person? These questions have been constants throughout my life. As a result, I’ve been talking about race and fascinated by it since childhood. They are discussions I have learned to lean into rather than run from.
When a fellowship position focusing on race, culture and diversity opened at St. Louis Public Radio, I jumped at the chance, even though most of what I knew about St. Louis at the time was based on a Judy Garland musical and some vague understanding of a sports team called the Cardinals. I figured I’d been talking about race since I was in elementary school; I’d explored most of the issues around race in my lifetime. I figured any conversation I had about race in St. Louis would just be a rehashing of ones I’d already had.
I was wrong.
“You’re mulatto, right?”Five times in the five months since I moved to St. Louis I’ve been called a mulatto by people from varying backgrounds. Never has it been said in an intentionally malicious manner. It’s either a question or a statement of fact.
I’d let them know that I’m not OK with being called a mulatto, explaining the roots of the word. In some cases, this generated a longer dialogue; in others I was told, “But you are mulatto, though.”
“Isn’t it just like Detroit?” This was a question and subsequent conversation I had continuously with friends and family in Michigan regarding St. Louis.
First, let me say I love Detroit. I abhor the gajillion stories about Detroit filled with ruin and despair. But I know what people mean when they say “like Detroit” – decline, poverty and segregation. These are very simplified terms that in no way capture the complexities and nuances of these cities.
And while “poverty” and “segregation” are words that could be used to describe both St. Louis and Detroit, they are unique to each city. Over the past several months, I’ve found myself on the phone countless times trying to explain race in St. Louis, only to find myself at a loss for words.
“Ferguson.” The fact that I came to St. Louis to cover race, culture and diversity just weeks before “Ferguson” became a national byword has been described to me as both witchcraft and providence. It’s a conversation I never could have imagined being a part of. Ferguson generated an internal conversation about race and reporting I’ve never encountered before.
I’ve still not made sense of it and … that’s fine. For months I’ve had conversation upon conversation about race, but rather than feeling exhausted with the topic, it’s made me want to lean into it more.
This fellowship and city are not at all what I expected. I still don’t really know St. Louis all that well. I won’t pretend to. Most of what I know about the city is through the lens of my beat, which has left me with more questions than answers, and I’m OK with that.
St. Louis remains a question mark and I feel it would be a disservice to pin it down with a defining period.
