Frustrations on Racism Connected to Caucasia

Technically, I do have a race; I’m white… However, I don’t think of myself as “the white guy.” This is probably because I’ve never been thrown into a situation where I’ve felt out of place due to my skin color. Also, I think that if I were to feel slightly out of place due to my white skin color, I’d just hope that people would look beyond my color and into what truly makes me the person that I am today.

Racism is so frustrating to me. I know that it’s impossible to make it completely disappear, but I know that our country has been improving significantly with racism. We have a black president now; I believe that’s clearly enough proof of the country’s improvement… Yet, we can’t help but still find traces and remnants of racism where we go in life. The main reasons for my mauling over my frustrations with racism is because I can’t stand how certain people have the ability to see the color of somebody’s skin and make an innumerable amount of ignorant judgments about them just from the color of their skin. To say it bluntly, it pisses me off.

As we’ve been reading Caucasia, I decided to actually get a jump on the reading due later this week, and I stumbled across a part of the book that I truly enjoyed that connected to my thoughts on racism. On pages 321-322, Aunt Dot began sharing her soulful theories on life in general. One of which was her theory on people’s “invisible color.”


“It’s the color of your soul, and it rests just beyond the skin.”


How very interesting this idea was to me! @.@ I pictured this “invisible color” to be the color of a person’s “true color,” the synthesized product of all the descriptive adjectives, the actions, and thoughts of that person. This “invisible color” would be the rawest and most pure form of that person.

To further extend off of this idea, Aunt Dot then goes on to describe the “colors” of Birdie’s family. As soon as she said that Cole’s color was purple, I was suddenly struck with this feeling that this “invisible color” was connected to the Christmas where Birdie and Cole were given sweaters on page 270 of the book, where originally Birdie’s was purple and Cole’s was red. They did switch, however, leaving Birdie with red and Cole’s with purple.

Anyways, Aunt Dot later describes Birdie as a “deep, dark red.” This was when I knew for sure that the sweaters and this “invisible color” of the sisters were connected. Thinking about it more thoroughly, I could only wind up at the conclusion that Birdie and Cole aren’t very sure on what their true colors are because they are mixed, which is why they decided to switch sweaters at the time. When imagining a person’s “invisible color” though, I would think that they’d be more mixed or multi-colored than just solid colors. In the end, I absolutely loved Aunt Dot’s theology on this “invisible color” and wish we could be more like Dot and see people’s “invisible color.”

And holy crap! Sorry for the long post! >.<

Initial Thoughts on Caucasia

"Before I ever saw myself, I saw my sister. When I was still too small for mirrors, I saw her as the reflection that proved my own existence.”

And so begins the story of Caucasia written by Danzy Senna, and I have to say that the opening introduction did pull me in enough to grasp my attention. I think that it was the situation that the protagonist, Birdie Lee, was caught in that interested me the most, growing up in a biracial family. Birdie’s mother Sandy, who was white, married a black professor named Deck. This kind of marriage arrangement was greatly looked down upon back in the book’s setting of the 1970s, and it also created a lot of stress on the family’s affairs.

However, it was their kids, Birdie and her sister Cole, that provided a very fascinating dilemma for us readers. Because their parents were white and black, this gave the two sisters different skin tones. Birdie, who was more predominantly white, contrasted greatly with Cole, who was darker like her father. I really enjoyed this creative set up by the author because it was neat to see how other characters in the book would react to the sisters.

One part that really pulled me in was when the two girls had their first day at their new school, which focused on Black Power. Cole, who managed to fit in perfectly due to her skin tone, greatly differed Birdie’s situation, who was having her hair threatened to be cut off in a bathroom by two bullies.

I will say though that at times, the book could seem to slow down, but luckily creepers like Redbone and Hans, the German doll collector, would manage to draw me in with their oddities. I am slightly afraid though that Nicholas will turn out to be a major, drugged-out creeper and drag Birdie into some dangerous trouble… In the end, I’m excited to see how the story will progress; I especially want to figure out what the mom did that pushed her into her paranoid frenzy! O.o