Read Online Can I See Your I. D.? by Chris Barton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Chris Barton
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lived black and life lived white. And though youâve known more than your share of unfamiliar, unsettling situations, none has been more bewildering than this one.
You have felt at least as alien in your own land as you did in France and the Pacific. Nothing youâve seen these past few weeks, however, can compare to what your eyes are witnessing here in Montgomery.
You arrived in town by bus just before Thanksgiving. The inhumane treatment youâve endured from whites has taken its toll, andâperversely, perhapsâyouâve decided to rejoin them.
Even before you got here, you quit taking the Oxsoralen pills. Now you keep indoors during the daytime, staying out of the sun so that its rays canât interact with the residual medication that would maintain your shade of brown. As the Oxsoralen and its resulting pigment work their way out of your system, you scrub at the stain you applied to your skinâs outer layers, shedding the darkened cells at the surface to make way for the pinker ones below.
You put on a white shirt, but it makes your skin look too dark by comparison. So you put on a brown oneâthere, thatâs betterâand venture into the white part of town.
There you find that all the comforts of a white manâs everyday lifeâa policemanâs friendly greeting, an open table in a restaurantâare once again available to you, though impossible to take for granted or enjoy.
Now you stroll into a black neighborhood, and what do you find? The people you pass on the street are looking at youâthe white John Howard Griffinâwith the same hate-stare that the black John Howard Griffin had come to expect from whites. You no longer sense from Negroes a shared, unspoken understandingâthat automatic intimacy is gone, reflexive resentment in its place.
You arenât dressed any differently than youâve been previously on this journey, arenât using a different name, arenât claiming any different biographical details other than the obvious one. This is all about the color of your skin. And you just know that, why, if you were to suddenly be black again right now . . .
Now thereâs an idea. The novelty, the recklessness of it are invigorating.
You think of it as âzigzagging.â Youâve returned with a bag in which youâve stashed skin dye, a sponge, cold cream, and tissues. A comic-book superhero and his alter ego may transform in a phone booth, but the white you and the black you need a little more seclusion for your quick changes.
Into an alley, white to black, and then youâre meandering about as a second-class citizen, befriended by Negroes and disregarded by whites.
Then, behind some bushes by the side of a road, black to white, and you begin retracing your steps as a person of privilege, embraced by other whites and instantly distanced from Montgomeryâs black citizens.
The white people you walk among have no idea that you have lived as a black man. It would never occur to them that any white person would make such a choice. Darkening up to get easy laughs from a crowd, now, thatâs one thing. But to assume the identity of one of them . . .
And when you pass those same white people while playing the role of Negro, well, letâs just say it doesnât call for much in the way of acting skills. Their hostility toward youâor, at the very best, neglectâhas nothing to do with how you act or who you are, and everything to do with how you look.
The same goes for the treatment you get while white among blacks. Would a closer inspection of you reveal a darker skin tone than that of other white passersby? A lingering hint of stain that could be misread as evidence of a Negro grandmother or great-grandfather? Perhaps. But youâve learned enough of the distance black folks keep for their own self-preservation whenever they can, enough to know that none of them will get that close. You look white, and
You have felt at least as alien in your own land as you did in France and the Pacific. Nothing youâve seen these past few weeks, however, can compare to what your eyes are witnessing here in Montgomery.
You arrived in town by bus just before Thanksgiving. The inhumane treatment youâve endured from whites has taken its toll, andâperversely, perhapsâyouâve decided to rejoin them.
Even before you got here, you quit taking the Oxsoralen pills. Now you keep indoors during the daytime, staying out of the sun so that its rays canât interact with the residual medication that would maintain your shade of brown. As the Oxsoralen and its resulting pigment work their way out of your system, you scrub at the stain you applied to your skinâs outer layers, shedding the darkened cells at the surface to make way for the pinker ones below.
You put on a white shirt, but it makes your skin look too dark by comparison. So you put on a brown oneâthere, thatâs betterâand venture into the white part of town.
There you find that all the comforts of a white manâs everyday lifeâa policemanâs friendly greeting, an open table in a restaurantâare once again available to you, though impossible to take for granted or enjoy.
Now you stroll into a black neighborhood, and what do you find? The people you pass on the street are looking at youâthe white John Howard Griffinâwith the same hate-stare that the black John Howard Griffin had come to expect from whites. You no longer sense from Negroes a shared, unspoken understandingâthat automatic intimacy is gone, reflexive resentment in its place.
You arenât dressed any differently than youâve been previously on this journey, arenât using a different name, arenât claiming any different biographical details other than the obvious one. This is all about the color of your skin. And you just know that, why, if you were to suddenly be black again right now . . .
Now thereâs an idea. The novelty, the recklessness of it are invigorating.
You think of it as âzigzagging.â Youâve returned with a bag in which youâve stashed skin dye, a sponge, cold cream, and tissues. A comic-book superhero and his alter ego may transform in a phone booth, but the white you and the black you need a little more seclusion for your quick changes.
Into an alley, white to black, and then youâre meandering about as a second-class citizen, befriended by Negroes and disregarded by whites.
Then, behind some bushes by the side of a road, black to white, and you begin retracing your steps as a person of privilege, embraced by other whites and instantly distanced from Montgomeryâs black citizens.
The white people you walk among have no idea that you have lived as a black man. It would never occur to them that any white person would make such a choice. Darkening up to get easy laughs from a crowd, now, thatâs one thing. But to assume the identity of one of them . . .
And when you pass those same white people while playing the role of Negro, well, letâs just say it doesnât call for much in the way of acting skills. Their hostility toward youâor, at the very best, neglectâhas nothing to do with how you act or who you are, and everything to do with how you look.
The same goes for the treatment you get while white among blacks. Would a closer inspection of you reveal a darker skin tone than that of other white passersby? A lingering hint of stain that could be misread as evidence of a Negro grandmother or great-grandfather? Perhaps. But youâve learned enough of the distance black folks keep for their own self-preservation whenever they can, enough to know that none of them will get that close. You look white, and
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