Too White to Be Black Too Black to be White

a confused young man looked at his pie ran that's French Creole fur Godfather and asked what am I Who am I who are my ancestors kin I'm fair my brothers brown and my sisters of olive skin my mama says Creole what is that am I supposed to know you a typical Creole family was a family mixed with white black a touch of Spanish in in some cases a a bit of Indian blood and I think that didn't count a lot of New Orleans families like that the disadvantages because we were just a little different some people didn't take to that they gave us a rough time sometimes the advantage my daddy went into the painting business and I hate to say it but on many occasions he didn't tell the people what he was they accepted him for the way look some cases people found out later but once you've worked for him if they liked your work then you would be called back if you were a real dark skin often they wouldn't give you the chance to get in the front door the Creole is like the prototype of a melting pot man he has a little bit of this and a little bit of that so I think what makes Creole is that you have to recognize that you are part of many ethnicities you're not totally african-american and you're not totally French you're not totally special you're a combination of everything and I think recognizing that diversity is unique because you say this is who I am you accept me the way I am I have no control over the fact that I have several ethnic groups in three generations we a mix mixture of Caucasians and Africans that's in the family both on mother's side of the family on my dad's side of families he might say we are thoroughbred Creoles one one thing I could remember my mother on the telephone when she's talked to her sisters they always spoke in French and of course whenever they were talking about me I knew because they couldn't say Lord in French so I always got a kick out of that honey we went from dark brown to blue-eyed blondes my sister was a platinum blonde as a child a blonde with blue eyes and I have first cousins that a dog brown skin I had one uncle that was brown and thrillers that wolf one that blue buys naturally the Brahmin was teased and talked about it as a kid because they do that in their own families they call him the black sheep of the family and things like that many of the children of darker complexions felt inferior these children never fully were able to enjoy the in children they were so busy worrying about what they look like if you are brown but you had nice hair you know if your hair with move shared good head well then you were with that crowd with the light-skinned who may not have had nice hair but they have a fair skin so there was a lot of categorizing and and the children who felt inferior they carried this forever remember the Creole word to some people they get really upset over one of my co-workers I mentioned that word just a few weeks ago and he told me he said that's when you want to be white and you don't want to be black but to some extent we are in the middle we don't want to be uppity all I want to do is live my life and go on my daddy was a very independent poor he sitting it he loved business he loved it even though you love dairy farm and he loved cars my father received the tax bill for $600 on the farm and the cattle and whatever he he met with the juror Judge Adams and protested and he said since he did not have schools for his children he didn't see why he had to pay it he said he had to pay and he was sent his children tonight school and white school right down the highway Judge Adams told him for $3,000 I have all your records changed and everybody will be white and you can't go to hell and that was it how can I really know how I came to be how come we're different complexions what am I supposed to see all right the youth besieged him tell me why are we so many colors what does creel really mean you can I call my brothers am i black or white I do not understand what is my true birthright [Music]

Channel: Laurie-Anne Collins

Views: 1,808,788

Rating: 4.8098845 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, New, Orleans, Creoles, Maurice, Martinez, Too, White, Black

Id: 2tfVpHYyDcY

Length: 5min 36sec (336 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 12 2007

Reddit Comments

[u/Honeynose]

This is too real.

[u/MoldyGymSocks]

Neat. One side of my family is Louisiana Creole. We have a lot of super interesting records on Ancestry.

[u/Sweatpantsfan]

Thanks for posting this. My father was creole and would often tell me some of the same things that were said in the documentary.