A cura di @Perodatrent.

Il Guardian racconta il caso di un piccolo centro abitato nello Ohio in cui per motivi economici e sociali gli abitanti sono stati storicamente classificati come neri pur essendo di carnagione chiara: era il centro in cui venivano ad abitare i lavoratori poveri che non erano ben accetti nella cittadina vicina.

Questa attribuzione razziale è vista come motivo di orgoglio dagli abitanti più vecchi, che fanno comunità nei confronti degli abitanti della cittadina più ricca, mentre i giovani del luogo si identificano spesso come bianchi, o nativi americani.

“I was about 12 and I decided I was going to be white regardless, so I told everybody I was white,” Alison continues, glancing over at her mother. “Look at my eyes,” she demands. “They’re blue. I’m not black.”

Shreck’s (her mother) mouth is clamped as she tries to let her daughter speak. But she can’t hold it in. “What’s wrong with being black?” she asks her daughter. “Nothing wrong if you are black,” her daughter retorts. “Your parents weren’t black,” Alison reminds her mother.

“They went by black even though they weren’t black. To me, that would be denying my parents and my heritage,” Shreck says.

They go back and forth for minutes before Shreck ends their argument with a refrain commonly heard among the older generation in East Jackson: “You can be what you want to be and I will be what I want to be.”

Immagine da Wikimedia.