I Ain't A Nigger; My Kids Are.

"Let me tell all ya'll something. I ain't no nigger, my kids are. Now, one of ya'll better light my cigarette and bring me an ashtray."
My beloved mother, a mix of Irish and Cherokee, alcoholic, hurt and confused person, and all around troublemaker, uttered those famous words to my siblings and 13 year-old me.
Surprisingly, since it was said during a state of sobriety, we couldn't chock it up to her mere drunken honesty.
From that day to this one, I've been OK with who I am. Had it not been for my step-dad, a wonderful, honorable, caring, blue-black(code for very Miles Davis-dark) man, I could have let that label define me.
From birth to age 12 (less the 3 years, 31 days, 20 hours, 14 minutes, and 2 seconds spent in a couple of foster homes) I knew my mom only as a drunk. A loving as much as possible drunk, but a drunk nonetheless.
Growing up in a small community with well-defined racial boundaries, I often found myself stuck in the middle. The same black buddies who would share my bolgna sandwich would quickly turn on me and call me a halfbreed for no apparent reason or accuse me of talking white. Some of the white buddies who taught me to play hockey would not hesitate to remind me of my Jackie Robinson nigger status in this white man's game.
Yes, there was the that period during the early 1970s when I had to prove my "blackness". I grew the biggest and best kept afro(hairdo), had two girlfriends at all times, and could say "come heah bitch" the way it's supposed to be said, and spoke ebonics when out of my mother's hearing range.
So it was with mama's famous words and a few examples set by my step-dad that liberated me. I adjusted. I could go anywhere, hear anything, and work with anybody and not let their opinions of me bother me.
If I was just a nigger to my mother and she loved me in her own special way, then it didn't matter what others thought of me. Yet, ironically, it mattered to her what others thought of me.
Like the time a white 8th grade peer called me a nigger and we ended up in the principal's office. In the most mother-hen like manner, she spread her wings and climbed upon the white principal's desk and said, " If anybody in this school calls my son a nigger again, I'll whip your white ass all over this school."
Sitting back, proud but confused and in "shock and awe," I wanted to yell out, "but Mama, I am a nigger, remember, you're not."