I just returned from the most uncomfortable tea I have ever
attended in my life.
At first I was ecstatic to hear from Clare Kendry (well,
it’s Clare Bellew now, I suppose). She disappeared twelve years ago and I never
thought I’d hear from her again. There were rumors around town that she’d been
going around with white folks, specifically white men, so we figured she’d
begun passing. I was particularly interested in speaking with her regarding her
marriage to a white man. Ever since I married Fred, the people back home have
looked at me funny. I know what they whisper about me when I’m not around. How
could I have married a white man? And what kind of peculiar white man so
willingly married a colored woman?
Even though I’m not passing like Clare is, I thought we
would have an understanding of each other’s situations. This turned out to be
true for quite a few things. She told me she “nearly died of terror the whole
nine months” before her daughter was born, worrying she might come out dark. I
had the same fears before the twins were born! Fred didn’t care, but God knows
what I would have done if my kids had come out dark. Can you imagine how much
harder their lives would be? How people would look at our family even more
strangely than they do now? I’m glad I could commiserate with Clare for a
little while. Of course, Irene Redfield was there and changed the whole tone.
Having married within our race, she was clearly offended by our conversation.
But surely she must see the benefits of light skin, being quite fair herself!
Obviously she felt the need to defend her darker child, after which Clare piped
in, “I do think that colored people—we—are too silly about some things. After
all, the thing’s not important to Irene or hundreds of others. Not awfully even
you, Gertrude. It’s only deserters like me…” (169).
After she spoke those words, I began to understand how
clearly different our situations actually are. For Clare to condescendingly
call the rest of us colored people silly for worrying about skin tone put me
off. She implied that, since she’s passing, her life is just so much harder
than the rest of ours, that she’s got much more to worry about with children
since it will give up her great secret. Did she really expect me and Irene to
sympathize with her for a situation she put herself in in the first place?
She’d have less trouble if she lived her life honestly. And that ghastly man
she married. He made me sick to my stomach. It’s one thing to want to pass and
marry a white man to help you along, but to marry the lowest sort of white man,
the most racist, vile man I’ve ever encountered… What on earth was she
thinking? She’s out of her mind, if you ask me. And, as I later discussed with
Irene, how could she not give us some warning? She acted as though she could
not wait to introduce us to her lovely husband, knowing all the while that he’d
likely ridicule and dehumanize us without even knowing we were colored. The
nerve. Thank goodness they travel so much, for I’m not sure how I would respond
to another invitation…
Gertrude
This is a picture from the musical Show Boat. For some reason, I immediately thought of the characters Steve and Julie when reading about Gertrude and her husband Fred. Steve and Julie are actors on a show boat. The couple keeps it a secret that Julie is in fact part black. The secret is discovered while they are traveling in the South and they are threatened with arrest due to anti-miscegenation laws.
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