{"id":43741,"date":"2015-11-04T04:08:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T04:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=43741"},"modified":"2015-11-04T04:08:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T04:08:31","slug":"any-new-kid-i-met-black-white-or-%c2%adwhatever-had-just-one-question-for-me-what-are-you-always","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=43741","title":{"rendered":"Any new kid I met\u2014black, white, or \u00adwhatever\u2014had just one question for me: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d Always."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>In school, there were rules. You stuck with the kids from your neighborhood. In the instances when we were forced to interact with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/East_Boston\" target=\"_blank\">Eastie<\/a> kids, especially the black kids, it was confusing for everybody\u2014I know I\u2019m supposed to hate you but I have to pick you for my <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kickball\" target=\"_blank\">kickball<\/a> team. So then we would be friends for that brief period of time, but it was a distant, temporary friendship. I was aware that I couldn\u2019t get too close to them. I figured if I were friends with a black kid, it would confirm to everyone that I was really black. I was managing an already teetering identity in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/South_Boston\" target=\"_blank\">Southie<\/a>, and I couldn\u2019t afford it. Besides, they didn\u2019t want to be friends with me either. They saw me as a race traitor, a white wannabe, a defector.<\/p>\n<p>Any new kid I met\u2014black, white, or \u00adwhatever\u2014had just one question for me: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d Always. I learned quickly that my mother\u2019s answer didn\u2019t work. \u201cI\u2019m Irish\u201d was met with skepticism, laughter, or confusion: \u201cAnd what else?\u201d Even adults would give me a fake smile, and I knew they didn\u2019t believe me. Black kids would say, \u201cOh, you think you\u2019re white, bitch?\u201d Spanish kids just spoke Spanish to me\u2014\u201c\u00bfC\u00f3mo se llama?\u201d\u2014and when I stood there in silence, they called me \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/puta\" target=\"_blank\">puta<\/a>,\u201d sucked their teeth, and walked away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jennyftb8\" target=\"_blank\">Jennifer J. Roberts<\/a>, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=37999\" target=\"_blank\">One of Us<\/a>,\u201d <em>Boston Magazine<\/em>, November 2014. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonmagazine.com\/news\/article\/2014\/10\/28\/jennifer-roberts-irish-black-race-southie\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.bostonmagazine.com\/news\/article\/2014\/10\/28\/jennifer-roberts-irish-black-race-southie\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In school, there were rules. You stuck with the kids from your neighborhood. In the instances when we were forced to interact with Eastie kids, especially the black kids, it was confusing for everybody\u2014I know I\u2019m supposed to hate you but I have to pick you for my kickball team. So then we would be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3711,18301,18303,21762,3712,18300,18302],"class_list":["post-43741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-boston","tag-boston-magazine","tag-jennifer-j-roberts","tag-jennifer-roberts","tag-massachusetts","tag-south-boston","tag-southie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43742,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43741\/revisions\/43742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}