[ExI] Well-roundedness and character

[David Lubkin]

Spike wrote:

> From what I can tell, we are free to choose our race but not to 
> alter our appearance.  Of all oddball things for a society to 
> decide is the apex cardinal sin, it turns out to be darkening one's 
> skin.  Some of us have the DNA to prove our recent African 
> ancestry, but I have determined to never use that for any kind of 
> advancement purpose, anything other than an amusing bit of 
> scientific self-knowledge.

My mother's Austro-Hungarian Jewish father was a portrait 
photographer in West Philly. He was not prejudiced and needed to earn 
a living. So he had black customers but was simultaneously attune to 
the sensibilities of the day.

She remembers he had her brother deliver wedding photos to a black 
family in the Forties, to avoid his less-tolerant neighbors starting 
talking if they'd come by to pick them up. But the family thanked him 
for the sensitivity of having them delivered by "one of our kind."

My uncle had curly black hair and dark skin; he was often mistaken 
for "mulatto." Most of us have his curly hair; I assume the darker 
shade came from Hungarian Jewish. Two of my cousins have his 
coloration. I doubt they ever relied on it to pass for a "person of 
color" but no one would doubt that claim if they made it.

I'm curious if my uncle was ever stopped for DWB or was refused 
admission to somewhere designated whites-only. And, if so, what 
transpired. My guess is it's likelier someone mistook him for 
"eye-talian" instead, a lesser stigma than either being Jewish or black.


-- David.