Do you remember when you chose your skin color? You don’t?
I sure do. Remember it like it was yesterday…
It was a day like any other day. Me and the others, hanging out in the wide expanse of nothingness. We were probably no bigger than twinkles in our fathers’ eyes at the time.
“Time to pick your color,” a loud voice said. “Color chart.”
A wheel of colors dropped down in front of us, like the kind you spin at a carnival. The one that goes “Click, click, click, clicka, clicka, clicka.
“Don’t you mean ‘color wheel’?” I asked.
“‘Scuse me?” The voice said.
“Well, it’s not a color chart. It’s a wheel full of colors. Don’t you think it more appropriate to say wheel and not chart?”
“Just spin it,” the voice boomed. “It’s almost time for conception. Spin and pick. Let’s get this over with.”
The guy next to me spun.
The wheel clicked past ‘Caramel Creme,’ ‘Daring Darkness,’ and ‘Pretty Pinkness’ until it came to a stop on ‘Butter Pecan.’
“Awright!” the guy whooped.
“Nice spin,” I said as the beautiful new soul was shipped off to a waiting womb.
“Your turn,” the voice said to me.
I was nervous. I’d been hearing some horrible things from down below. How getting the right skin color meant, well… everything.
I gave the wheel a heave.
The color choices blurred by then got clearer as the wheel slowed down. The pointer stopped on a color I hadn’t seen yet.
‘Cracker White.’
The girl’s eyes next to me opened wider than a barn door.
“You’re going down as a… as a… a white guy?”
I couldn’t speak. What could be worse? I’m not even in the world yet and already I was guilty of all the ills of the world, if not the entire universe.
“May I spin again, please?” My lower lip quivered.
“No!” the voice boomed again. “But tell ya what, I’ll give you another choice.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. For sure, I didn’t want to go down to earth with the skin color of a saltine.
“Here,” the voice said. “Pick one of these.” A dark brown bowler hat filled with slips of paper appeared out of nowhere.
I reached in and pulled one out. It read, ’Blushing Honkey.’
“What’s this?” I asked.
“You get to pick a shade of whiteness. Think of it as a booby prize. It’s the least I could do.”
“Gee thanks.”
“No problem. Off ya go,” the voice said.
After an agonizing nine months of preparing for the worst, I popped out into the world.
“Oh my,” the doctor said. “This isn’t good.”
“What? What???” I heard my mother shriek.
“It’s a boy,” the doctor said.
“And?” my father chimed in.
“And… he’s, uh. He’s white.”
“Can’t we have another color?” my father asked over the loud sobs of my mother.
“I’m afraid not. But tell you what…” The doctor reached behind him and retrieved a hat, holding it out in front of my distraught parents. “Pick one.”
My mother and father looked at each other, then Dad reached into the hat and pulled out a piece of paper.
‘Butter Pecan,” it said.
“Be right back,” the doctor said, exiting the room. He returned a few seconds later, shaking his head sadly. “The lady in 203 says ‘no way’ and ‘over her dead body.’”
My mother broke down into loud sobs again, but not so loud that I couldn’t hear what sounded like chuckles coming from my little butter pecan-skinned friend in Room 203.