Chapter 6
SANDY
The subject is a slim, willowy nineteen year old office worker with reddish hair, delicate features and a very light complexion. Sandy looks so much like a white girl that she once crossed the color line.
Many Negroes pass as whites each year. Some light skinned children are born to very dark parents who carry racially mixed genes. Sometimes these genes can be passed from generation to generation without coming to the surface until decades later which is true in Sandy's case because both her parents are dark.
The following interview took place in the home Sandy shares with her parents and two younger sisters.
"Both my sisters are as dark as my parents so that I've always felt like the odd girl out. As far back as I can remember I was taken for a white girl which made my social life a rocky one.
"My sisters, who were born after me, always used to tease me about my light coloring and I would react by calling them niggers. My parents did their best to keep the peace but they sometimes slipped and called me 'the ofay' which was a pig-Latin term used in my day meaning 'white foe'.
"My family on both sides have been in America for as long as we can remember which means that my ancestors were slaves. This also meant that there had been some inter-racial breeding way back then because white men always singled out pretty black girls for their pleasure.
"This is where my 'white' features and pale skin comes from. They are reminders of long dead rapes.
"When I went to school I had problems because it was as racially mixed as my genes. I naturally thought of crossing and declaring myself white. Every Negro who was ever born with a light skin and non-Negro features thought the same way.
"But I didn't want to hurt my parents even though I found myself blaming them for my white looks. I lived in a middle class community where blacks and whites got along well so there was no real pressure for me to change from one ethnic group to another.
"If I had been born in a ghetto I probably would've crossed that color line as soon as I was able to see that I could get away with it.
"When I reached my dating age the problem began to get earnest. Although the races got along well enough, inter-racial romances were discouraged. White boys who were new to the school and who were not familiar with my background asked me for dates and I had to refuse.
"I didn't want them to find out later I was really black. When I dated boys of my own race who knew my background, strangers would glare at me in the street. I knew what they were thinking. They were wondering what a 'white' girl was doing with a black.
"I wasn't the only one who was ill at ease. The Negro also felt edgy because there was an element of racial hate even in the most integrated communities.
"I remember the time this black boy took me to a dance. We were both sixteen and had known one another for years. Jerome was dark and clearly a Negro while I looked my usual white self.
"At the dance a drunken white boy I had never seen before tried to dance with me but I refused. 'You're a nigger lover, huh?' he snarled. 'You've been hanging on to the black stud since you came.'
'"I happen to be a Negro myself,' I told him coldly.
"His face contorted into a mask of hate. 'Don't give me that crap!' he shouted. 'You think you're black because you sleep with that nigger!'
"At that moment Jerome came running over. He struck the white boy hard on the jaw and sent him sprawling. This brought two of the white fellow's friends and all three started hitting my date.
"Jerome's friends, both black and white, came to his aid. Girls started to scream as blood appeared on the faces of the fighters. I was so revolted by the whole mess that I ran home.
"I stared into a mirror and a white girl stared back. It was easy to see why I had been mistaken for a white. Even my hair was more red than black. It was for that reason my parents had named me Sandy. As if I hadn't had enough reminders of my whiteness.
"My parents wanted me to go on to college, but, after all those social problems I had had in high school, I wanted to get out into the business world on my own as soon as possible. I also wanted to cross the color line and that would be easier to do when I was far away from home and not dependent on my parents for support.
"I went to San Francisco because I had heard that it was a beautiful city. It was a beautiful city and I spent a week seeing the sights before I knuckled down to the serious business of finding a job.
"I was good at typing and steno so I decided that office work would be the easiest for me to find. There used to be a time when job applicants had to fill in a box listing their race on forms. That was done away with but firms had ways to weed out people they didn't want.
"One way is for the applicant to send in a picture along with the form. I knew I was safe on this score, but, just to be sure, I teased my hair in the 'whitest' fashion and dressed in my 'whitest' clothes.
"I had a bunch of pictures made of myself and picked only those that made me look the 'whitest'. Thus armed I went job hunting.
"I answered an ad along with a large group of other girls just out of high school. At least twenty percent were Negro and I wondered just how many of the 'whites' were really as black as I was.
"The woman who took my application smiled at me. When she asked questions I answered crisply, knowing that I didn't have the slightest trace of a Negro accent.
"I had had the good fortune of being brought up in a well integrated neighborhood and had gone to racially mixed public schools. It was only the poor blacks brought up in ghettos who talked with a Negro accent.
"By the way the woman conducted the interview I could see she liked me. I assumed she was taking me for another white. When a black girl took my seat as soon as I left this same woman sounded curt.
"I didn't know whether or not it was my imagination. It was easy enough to become paranoid when you're a black who is always being taken for a white.
"A few days later I got a letter telling me to report to work. I had been hired for my first job! I went to work feeling that the world was mine.
"I was put in a steno typing pool with a lot of other teenaged girls and I recognized several who had answered the same ad as I had. I also noticed that, of the some dozen black girls (not including myself) who had applied, only one had been accepted.
"When I looked about the large room filled with close to fifty girls, I discovered only two in the whole batch were black. Again I tried not to be paranoid and told myself the black girls who had applied hadn't been able to pass the tests the company gave. Ghetto schools were noted for their lack of real education.
"At no time did I ever come out and say I was white, but I simply allowed others to accept me as such. For all I knew some of the girls might have doubts about my race since I was, after all, olive skinned with brown eyes.
"These doubts were cleared up when one of the black girls passed by a bunch of trainees in the lunchroom. A blonde nudged me in the side with her elbow. 'Damned nigger thinks she's white,' she whispered.
"For a ghastly moment I thought she meant me and then I realized that she was talking about the very dark, obviously Negro girl who had walked by. Comments like this had been made to me before back home by people who had taken me for a white and I had always made a point of telling the bigoted one off or coming out and saying that I, too, was a nigger.
"But for the first time I let it slide by. I smiled. And that's how I began to lose my soul.
"A couple of girls who worked with me (whites, of course) asked me to join them in sharing an apartment. I accepted right away for this meant they liked me as a person.
"I knew damned well they wouldn't even have considered taking me on as a roommate if I were clearly a Negro.
"Joan and Evelyn were very attractive, lively girls and I was certain that we would all have wonderful times together. The man who rented us the apartment that overlooked San Francisco Bay was very overt in his racial feelings once he handed us the keys.
"'Glad you girls came. I was afraid some blacks would show up and I'd have to rent to them or go to jail.'
"I smiled and said nothing.
"I gazed out of the large windows at the view of the city and the bay that would've been denied me if it were known I was a Negro. San Francisco was supposed to be a city that held liberal views on race but I could see that bigots were everywhere. Every Eden has its snakes.
"Once I got settled in my apartment I had time to think of boys. The office held dances every now and then and I went to one of them with my roommates. Some blacks were at the dance and I was afraid one of them would discover my secret.
"It takes a black to know a black. I felt a lot safer being around whites because very few knew that there was such a thing as crossing the color line. Whites simply didn't believe that there were Negroes who were lightly colored as they were.
"As a matter-of-fact, there were some whites so deeply tanned that they could pass for blacks. In the office I sat next to a girl of Latin descent who refused to sunbathe because, as she put it, the sun turned her into a nigger.
"As always I smiled when she said this. The smiles kept coming easier and easier as I thought white besides looking white.
"At the dance a Negro male looked at me briefly and then walked by. For a moment I was afraid he was going to ask me to dance. Then a white fellow about twenty came up and introduced himself.
"His name was Norman and he worked in another part of the company. His hair was blonde; his eyes were blue. He was Mr. WASP in person. I could tell by the expression on his almost pretty face that he took me for a fellow white.
"Norman asked for my telephone number and that was how our relationship began. He, like me, was sharing an apartment with a couple of other bachelors. I introduced them to Joan and Evelyn and all six of us became friends.
"I still stayed with Norman, but I tried not to fall in love with him. Where would love lead to? If he asked me to marry him I would have to reveal my color. If we ever had a child it could quite easily be more black than white.
"Up until our fifth date Norman didn't try to make any really sexual advances. Then he took me back to my apartment when Joan and Evelyn were out.
"He took me in his arms and kissed mc hard. When he pressed me against the sofa one of his hands slipped under the top part of my dress and grabbed a breast. This was as far as I ever let any boy get; this was the line I had always drawn.
"But, I was eighteen now and living on my own. It was time that I became a woman and I wanted Norman to be the one to change my status from a child to an adult.
"'Sandy,' he told me thickly, 'I want you.'
"He brought the top part of my dress down and uncovered both of my breasts. I was afraid that my very dark nipples would give my race away, but he kissed each one and sucked on them.
"He brought my dress down still further and I helped him remove it. I took off my panties and exposed my dark pubic hair. Once again he kissed this intimate part of me. 'Sandy,' he said, 'I love you. I want you to be my wife.'
"I jumped as if touched by an electrical wire. My first proposal and I couldn't accept it. If I had been born white, I would've accepted it in a minute. I could've been married to Norman right now and living in San Francisco.
"How I fought down the urge to accept his proposal and let the future worry about itself. As the saying goes: Marry in haste and repent in leisure.
'You don't have to marry me, Norman,' I assured him.
'"I'm not telling a lie just to have your body,' he answered. 'I really want to marry you.' '"I know,' I told him. '"And you don't want to marry me?' '"We're too young,' I told him by way of an excuse, any excuse. 'Let's just have fun. You don't have to worry about making me pregnant because
I've taken the pill.'
"His deep blue eyes smiled along with his mouth. 'I never thought a girl as pretty and as sweet as you would be such a swinger,' he said.
'"That just goes to show you,' I said in an ironic undertone to myself, 'that appearances are deceiving.'
"Once Norman realized that I was just waiting to be had without strings, he quickly stripped off his clothes. He had a fine body with narrow hips, a trim waist, a broad chest and a sex organ that stuck up and out in a full, throbbing erection.
"Norman rubbed his hand over my pubic area and said, 'I always had the idea you were a virgin, Sandy.'
"i am.'
"His hand stopped moving on my vagina. It was as if he were now touching something sacred. WASPS had a hang-up about virginity. They had the out dated notion that women were divided into two categories; the sluts who did and the saints who didn't.
"I suppose I had him completely confused because first he had taken me for a saint, and then a slut, and now a saint again.
'"I'm a virgin now, but I don't want to be one all my life,' I told him trying to sound flip and shallow.
"Norman shook his blonde curls. 'I'll never understand females,' he said. With that he placed his white body on my slightly darker one.
"The handsome boy seemed to know what he was doing and it was obvious he had left his own virginity behind him years ago. I was no expert on sexual intercourse but he did seem to go about all the erotic moves with an assurance that could only come from experience.
"Norman slipped the tip of his aroused part along my cleft and he could tell how virginally tight I was. He didn't try to plow his way into me right away. He kissed my face several times and then urged that first glorious inch in ... and then another...'Sandy,' he whispered as he created a woman where a girl had been.
'"Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh!' I cried out when Norman pushed his rod of sex through my virginal veil.
'"Am I hurting you, darling?' he wanted to know.
"How like my favorite WASP. In the middle of extreme passion he was still considerate. When I begged him to continue he slipped in the rest of his penis and started to move up and down as he began my first act of fornication.
"My problem with my color had always prevented me from getting too close to boys, black and white. All my life I had tended to withdraw from deep commitments but now I was committing myself fully. I was going to make up for all the love that had been denied me because of my damned skin condition.
"'Faster!' I told the boy. 'Do it to me fast and hard!'
"Sensitive, tender affections were out for me. For a girl who didn't want to marry or bring odd colored children into the world the pill and the penis were her real companions. 'Norman!' I cried in sheer lust. 'Give me your body!'
"The boy rammed with full force and power. My starved vagina swallowed his male flesh and chewed on it with toothless gums. Norman rammed his body up and down against mine as hard as he could and then spewed an orgasm into me.
"We embraced hard and kissed one another. We stayed in this position as he spilled all his fluid. When it was gone he lifted his handsome, white face. 'Sandy,' he grinned with delight, 'you screw like a nigger.'
"My body reacted and went cold. And then I smiled.
"When Norman pulled out of my cleft he was surprised to see that I had actually been a virgin. I went into the bathroom and cleaned myself up.
"Norman leaned against the shower stall and gazed at me with liquid blue eyes. 'I never knew a cherry to be so hot,' he said.
"'You've had a lot of experience with cherries, have you?' I asked as I rubbed my now matured vagina.
"'Well ... some," he admitted. 'The girls were always scared. You were different. You went all out.'
'"Like a nigger?' "'Huh?'
'"You said I screwed like a nigger. I suppose you've had some experience with black girls, too?'
'"Well, no,' he stammered. 'That was just a figure of speech.'
"I hated to press the point but I couldn't help myself. 'Then how do you know how black girls fornicate?'
'"Oh, Sandy,' he complained, 'let's drop the subject. What are we talking about niggers at a time like this for anyhow? Let them screw their own kind, right?'
"I swallowed hard. 'Right,' I replied.
"Norman stepped into the shower stall with me and started cleaning my back and buttocks. He slipped his soapy, damp hands around to my rather small breasts and cupped them. He pressed in against me with his damp, erecting penis between my butt halves.
'"You have such a pretty body,' he told me. 'I'd like to bang you every night of our lives. That offer of marriage still holds. See, I didn't propose just to have your body. When a guy asks a girl to marry him at a moment like this you can be sure he really means it.'
"I ached to say I wanted him to be my husband. As much as I tried to act the swinging single on the pill, I was really old fashioned enough to want a good home and husband. But my color problem made me answer, I'll think about marriage when I'm over thirty.'
"Norman pressed his now erect sex organ against my rear opening. 'Maybe you're right,' he said. 'Thirty is a good time to marry. By then we all would have sown our wild oats.'
"I bit my trembling tongue and tried to keep from weeping. How I wanted Norman to be my own ... always. Yet I made myself say with phony brightness, 'Speaking of wild oats you've got a bunch coming up now in that whang of yours.'
"Norman laughed and pushed his lust hard manhood against my anus. It hurt when he tried to penetrate me and I told him not to sodomize me.
'"Greeking takes some getting used to,' he told me. 'One of these days I'll take your anal virginity. Sandy, I want to teach you all there is to know about sex. For a girl who wants to have fun for the next twelve years before she marries I want to get you off on a good start. Here's just a little taste of things to come...'
"The nude boy kept running his hard sex organ up and down along the crack formed by my butt halves, probing against my anus at the same time. As he squeezed my breasts he pushed against my rear. For a boy who looked so clean cut and all American, he sure did have a wide variety of erotic desires.
"Norman pumped and pumped against my rear and then he shot his juice. It poured warmly over my anus and butt halves, then slithered down along my legs.
"The sexual act, that many would think of as degenerate, thrilled me and I leaned against the naked young white man. Norman buried his mouth in the side of my neck and sucked a hickey mark there.
"The shower still poured warm water down on both our naked bodies and I had the idea it was all male sexual fluid encompassing our lust mad bodies. After a lifetime of sexlessness suddenly everything took on an erotic meaning.
"We dried ourselves after the shower and walked into the living room naked. It was thrilling to me lo he naked with a naked boy. Norman put on a record and we danced next to one another with our bodies touching. We kissed and I felt my nipples become hard points of sheer desire.
"'Teach me everything about sex, Norman," I said wickedly.
"He held me tightly. 'Ever sixty-nine?'
"I knew that kids wore that numeral on their sweaters and it had some kind of sexual meaning hut I never found out what it was. Then Norman told me. When a couple performed oral sex acts upon one another at the same time their bodies formed the number 69.
'"Want to try it?' he asked.
"I'm ready for anything,' I told him.
"We went into my bedroom and Norman stretched out over the bed. Excitement made his hard working penis engorge slowly again. Following his orders I stretched out on top of Norman's body with my pubic area against his face and my mouth only inches above his sex.
"Norman put his hands on my buttocks and pressed my vagina against his mouth. He then began to lap inside my opening.
"I licked his waiting meat and my entire being shook with lust. I took his flesh tube orally and felt it enlarge in my mouth as I performed the act.
"Norman began to chew my crotch with increased passion and I kept mouthing him until, once more, he erected. I couldn't get enough of his manhood and bobbed my head up and down quickly.
"Norman released his orgasm and I gagged for a passing second but then fellated him until he was dry. We kept mouthing one another for a long moment afterwards until Norman rolled over on his side and sat up.
'"Now I've got your oral virginity, too,' he said. 'How lucky can a guy get?'
"'I feel pretty lucky myself,' I told him as I gazed at his beautiful young body.
"i still would like to marry you, Sandy,' he said, i could search the world and not find another girl as perfect. You're just what I've always wanted, a sweet kid who is a tiger in bed.'
'"Let's drop that subject, Norman,' I urged. 'We have lots of time to talk about marriage.'
"Norman did drop the subject. Another girl would've grabbed him on the spot because, although he was only twenty, he had a good job in the company and he was headed for an executive position. I was sure that some other girl would grab him off in not too many years and I would lose the first man I ever really loved.
"We did have a happy single life together, though. We slept with one another and I kept a large supply of birth control pills on hand at all times. When Norman suggested that we share an apartment I quickly agreed.
"But it wasn't all that simple because, first, we had to find other roommates for the ones we were leaving behind. When three people share an apartment there is always the danger of one leaving suddenly and forcing the other two to keep up the rent until a replacement could be found.
"If you didn't like your roommates then it was easy enough to pick up and leave with no notice. However, I liked Joan and Evelyn and told them about my plans to live with Norman.
"I wanted to find a replacement for me at the apartment. Norman told his friends about the same plan and that was the situation when I got a surprise visit from my parents.
"I was sitting in the living room with Norman, Joan and Evelyn when the doorbell rang. Since we were expecting Norman's roommates over Joan pushed the buzzer and we listened to the elevator being started, certain that it was the boys.
"After a moment there was a knock on the door and Joan went to answer it. 'Hello,' I heard an only too familiar male voice say, 'we're here to see our daughter, Sandy.'
"My blood went cold. Of all the times my parents picked for surprise visit!
"'Sandy?' Joan repeated somewhat edgy. 'Well, we have someone here, but she's white.'
"There was a heavy pause and I heard my father say dully, 'Oh, I see.'
"He knew, of course, I had passed. He didn't say that he was my father and was about to leave when I cried out, 'Dad!'
"I just couldn't deny my parents. I knew what I was losing in claiming them for my own. When my parents stepped inside the apartment I rushed to embrace them and kissed their black faces. 'Everyone,' I said, 'this is my mother and father.'
"Norman, Joan and Evelyn looked stunned. For the first time they realized I was a Negro. They managed to make some polite remarks to my parents but I knew that it would never be the same again between us.
"I took my parents out sight-seeing for the next couple of days and they never mentioned my crossing the color line until we reached the airport on their way back. 'Sandy,' my father said, 'if you want to be white we'll not stop you. We won't drop in on you again as we had the last time.'
"Tears welled up in my eyes. My own parents were willing to let me deny them if it meant my happiness. 'No, dad,' I told him. i just passed to see what it was like. You know how it has always been with me.'
'"Are you happier as a white girl?' my mother wanted to know. 'That boy, Norman, seems nice.'
'"Yes, I was happy, mom,' I told her. 'And, yes, Norman is nice. I don't know how nice he'll be now that he knows. I haven't spoken to him since your arrival.'
"My mother placed her black hand on my white one. 'I'm sorry I ruined it for you, Sandy,' she said sadly, patting me.
"This remark and this touch caused me to weep openly. 'You're mine!' I cried. 'Both of you! You're my parents!'
"'Sandy,' my father warned, 'people are watching.'
"i want them to watch!' I exclaimed, i want them to know you're my parents!'
"People gazed at me wondering why a white girl was shouting at the black couple who were my mother and father. My parent's plane was announced and I kissed them in front of everyone, something I had usually avoided doing in public.
"I waited until the plane took off and then took a cab back to my apartment where I knew I had a lot of questions facing me.
"The apartment was empty when I entered it. Joan and Evelyn were still at work. I had taken off the day to see my parents to the airport. The girls came home and we all engaged in stiff, empty chit-chat.
"I knew that the girls had been discussing me ever since my parents dropped by. We used to be so friendly and now there was this change.
"I was sure they were remembering all the racial slurs they had expressed while we lived together and all tin times I had smiled in response.
"I'll leave if you want me to," I told them, bringing matters to a head. 'You might say I'm here under false colors.'
"'Sandy,' Joan said nervously, 'we're not bigoted or anything like that. You can stay as long as you want to.'
"I knew that the girls liked me but there was still the fact that I was a Negro. There seemed to be a natural barrier between races and this was now placed inside the apartment and it made all of us uncomfortable. Paranoia again? I doubted it.
"'I was planning to move anyhow,' I told them. 'I just don't know if Norman's changed his plans.'
"When I went to work the next day I felt eyes bore into the back of my neck everywhere I went. Conversations stopped when I came near a group and started after I passed by. I wasn't imagining it; I was being pointed out.
"Girls who had been so friendly before now seemed ill at ease in my company. When one slipped and dropped some racial remark another would kick her under the desk. Yes, there was a change. I was no longer a sister white, but an alien black.
"I met Norman for lunch in the firm's cafeteria. It was common knowledge that we were going steady and now everyone wanted to see what was going to happen to our relationship once my true identity was revealed.
"Norman reminded me of all those black boys who used to date me when he glanced nervously back and forth realizing he was seated with a girl of another race. Although I was still white looking everyone knew I was black.
"Norman was sitting and eating with a nigger. And, of course, they all knew he had gone to bed with one. He was glad when lunch was over and he was free of my company.
"Although he tried to appear friendly there was this change in him, too, the boy who had experienced every possible sexual position with me.
"Since Norman never mentioned about our moving together again, I realized that he hoped I would end our relationship with as little fuss as possible. I never brought up the subject of our impending love nest and let the matter die a natural death.
"Norman never called again and soon he made a big show of being seen with a girl who was even whiter than he was. My first real love affair was now over.
"I couldn't stay on in the company any longer or bear the tension in the apartment I shared with Joan and Evelyn. I told the girls I was quitting the company and I wanted them to get another roommate. Both were obviously pleased by my decision and they announced they already had a girl picked.
"We had been such friends before and now they couldn't wait to get rid of me.
"I didn't want to leave San Francisco, my job, the apartment, and Norman, but there seemed no other way out. When I picked up my last paycheck I had the urge to go to another city and pass as white, but, instead, I went home.
"Right now I'm going to a nearby college where everyone knows me as black. I'm feeling more comfortable in my true identity and I'm going with a fellow black student
"He knows all about Norman and my journey into another race. I don't think I'll ever cross that color line again. It is so much more honest to be one's real self. I've regained my soul."
Diagnostic reaction:
When a light skinned black crosses the color line he usually stays there ... if he does not marry. Marriage brings with it the problem of children. Some light skinned Negroes have the false notion that, by mixing with a white, their children will lose all traces of Negro blood, or, at least, enough of it so that they could be accepted as whites in any society.
Franklin Frazier, in his book, BLACK BOURGEOISE, tells of many tragedies in which very dark, obviously Negroid babies were born to couples where one partner had lied about his heritage.
Sandy avoided the problem of marriage. If her parents had not arrived on a surprise visit, she would be living with her white lover now. But as a result, she realizes that there are more important things than social acceptance.
Once blacks achieve financial equality there will be less reason for them to pass as whites. Social inequality, however, will continue to drive them over for years to come.