Mixed: My Life in Black and White by Angela Nissel

Author:Angela Nissel [Nissel, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, Cultural Heritage, Nonfiction
ISBN: 0345481143
Google: bgpSK4Xl26UC
Amazon: B000XU4TC2
Publisher: Villard
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

Nation of Islam Lite

In an unusual research project conducted in 1968, anthropologist Melville Herskovits measured the lightness of skin and width of facial features in Blacks of two different socioeconomic groups. . . . The well-to-do men were found to have generally lighter skin color, and their noses were an average of 3.8 millimeters narrower than those of men in the poorer segment of the research group. Similarily, the average lip thickness in the well-to-do group was 1 millimeter less than the thickness found in the other group.

—Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall, The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans (detailing the only kind of study I wouldn’t have signed up for in college, no matter how much it paid)

“You are so blessed. You got into one of the top schools in the country, and you can’t go to church and thank God for that?” my mother said, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, I have to work,” I replied. I did have to work, because I had signed up to work every Sunday so I could get out of going to church. The Christian God was for white folks. So was that school I’d been accepted into and I had debated not even attending. My new boyfriend and I had plans to open up a nonprofit school for black children. After some thought, we decided that since so many black people worship the white man’s educational degrees, my having a degree from an Ivy League school could help us convince more black parents to enroll their children.

Mah (short for Madani; he’d chosen the name for himself out of a book of Muslim baby names) was the love of my seventeen-year-old life. He was an intelligent hoodlum, the type of man we suddenly righteous black girls dream about. Mah had no problem punching someone in the face, but he also found time to go to museums with me and draw white people into debates on whether or not Egyptians were black (“Look in the artifacts case! That’s a pick! Since when do white people use picks?”). The more white people he offended, the prouder I was.

Mah and I met on the subway. I was reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I wanted to read the book before Spike Lee’s version hit theaters.

“It’s so nice to see a sister dressed righteously and reading,” Mah said, leaning over me. My outfit wasn’t put together with righteousness in mind. I was a size 18, and the plus-size stores didn’t stock too many skin-baring outfits. If I was a size 6, I’d have had half my ass hanging out.

My size didn’t matter to Mah. During our first date, he told me that my mind was more important than my body. “White men want those skinny girls because they want to keep them small and controllable like children,” Mah said. “I want a woman who can think for herself.”

On our second date, we went to a black bookstore where he read to me from How to Eat to Live by Elijah Muhammad.

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