Toni Morrison - God Help the Child

Its not my fault. So you cant blame me. I didnt do it and have no idea how it happened. It didnt take more than an hour after they pulled her out from between my legs to realize something was wrong. Really wrong. She was so black she scared me. Midnight black, Sudanese black. Im light-skinned, with good hair, what we call high yellow, and so is Lula Anns father. Aint nobody in my family anywhere near that color. Tar is the closest I can think of yet her hair dont go with the skin. Its different straight but curly like those naked tribes in Australia. You might think shes a throwback, but throwback to what? You shouldve seen my grandmother; she passed for white and never said another word to any one of her children. Any letter she got from my mother or my aunts she sent right back, unopened. Finally they got the message of no message and let her be. Almost all mulatto types and quadroons did that back in the day if they had the right kind of hair, that is. Can you imagine how many white folks have Negro blood running and hiding in their veins? Guess. Twenty percent, I heard. My own mother, Lula Mae, could have passed easy, but she chose not to. She told me the price she paid for that decision. When she and my father went to the courthouse to get married there were two Bibles and they had to put their hands on the one reserved for Negroes. The other one was for white peoples hands. The Bible! Can you beat it? My mother was housekeeper for a rich white couple. They ate every meal she cooked and insisted she scrub their backs while they sat in the tub and God knows what other intimate things they made her do, but no touching of the same Bible.

Some of you probably think its a bad thing to group ourselves according to skin color the lighter, the better in social clubs, neighborhoods, churches, sororities, even colored schools. But how else can we hold on to a little dignity? How else can you avoid being spit on in a drugstore, shoving elbows at the bus stop, walking in the gutter to let whites have the whole sidewalk, charged a nickel at the grocers for a paper bag thats free to white shoppers? Let alone all the name-calling. I heard about all of that and much, much more. But because of my mothers skin color, she wasnt stopped from trying on hats in the department stores or using their ladies room. And my father could try on shoes in the front part of the shoestore, not in a back room. Neither one would let themselves drink from a colored only fountain even if they were dying of thirst.

I hate to say it, but from the very beginning in the maternity ward the baby, Lula Ann, embarrassed me. Her birth skin was pale like all babies, even African ones, but it changed fast. I thought I was going crazy when she turned blue-black right before my eyes. I know I went crazy for a minute because once just for a few seconds I held a blanket over her face and pressed. But I couldnt do that, no matter how much I wished she hadnt been born with that terrible color. I even thought of giving her away to an orphanage someplace. And I was scared to be one of those mothers who put their babies on church steps. Recently I heard about a couple in Germany, white as snow, who had a dark-skinned baby nobody could explain. Twins, I believe one white, one colored. But I dont know if its true. All I know is that for me, nursing her was like having a pickaninny sucking my teat. I went to bottle-feeding soon as I got home.

My husband, Louis, is a porter and when he got back off the rails he looked at me like I really was crazy and looked at her like she was from the planet Jupiter. He wasnt a cussing man so when he said, Goddamn! What the hell is this? I knew we were in trouble. Thats what did it what caused the fights between me and him. It broke our marriage to pieces. We had three good years together but when she was born he blamed me and treated Lula Ann like she was a stranger more than that, an enemy.

He never touched her. I never did convince him that I aint never, ever fooled around with another man. He was dead sure I was lying. We argued and argued till I told him her blackness must be from his own family not mine. Thats when it got worse, so bad he just up and left and I had to look for another, cheaper place to live. I knew enough not to take her with me when I applied to landlords so I left her with a teenage cousin to babysit. I did the best I could and didnt take her outside much anyway because when I pushed her in the baby carriage, friends or strangers would lean down and peek in to say something nice and then give a start or jump back before frowning. That hurt. I could have been the babysitter if our skin colors were reversed. It was hard enough just being a colored woman even a high-yellow one trying to rent in a decent part of the city. Back in the nineties when Lula Ann was born, the law was against discriminating in who you could rent to, but not many landlords paid attention to it. They made up reasons to keep you out. But I got lucky with Mr. Leigh. I know he upped the rent seven dollars from what he advertised, and he has a fit if you a minute late with the money.

I told her to call me Sweetness instead of Mother or Mama. It was safer. Being that black and having what I think are too-thick lips calling me Mama would confuse people. Besides, she has funny-colored eyes, crow-black with a blue tint, something witchy about them too.

So it was just us two for a long while and I dont have to tell you how hard it is being an abandoned wife. I guess Louis felt a little bit bad after leaving us like that because a few months later on he found out where I moved to and started sending me money once a month, though I never asked him to and didnt go to court to get it. His fifty-dollar money orders and my night job at the hospital got me and Lula Ann off welfare. Which was a good thing. I wish they would stop calling it welfare and go back to the word they used when my mother was a girl. Then it was called Relief. Sounds much better, like its just a short-term breather while you get yourself together. Besides, those welfare clerks are mean as spit. When finally I got work and didnt need them anymore, I was making more money than they ever did. I guess meanness filled out their skimpy paychecks, which is why they treated us like beggars. More so when they looked at Lula Ann and back at me like I was cheating or something. Things got better but I still had to be careful. Very careful in how I raised her. I had to be strict, very strict. Lula Ann needed to learn how to behave, how to keep her head down and not to make trouble. I dont care how many times she changes her name. Her color is a cross she will always carry. But its not my fault. Its not my fault. Its not my fault. Its not.

Im scared. Something bad is happening to me. I feel like Im melting away. I cant explain it to you but I do know when it started. It began after he said, You not the woman I want.

Neither am I.

I still dont know why I said that. It just popped out of my mouth. But when he heard my sassy answer he shot me a hateful look before putting on his jeans. Then he grabbed his boots and T-shirt and when I heard the door slam I wondered for a split second if he was not just ending our silly argument, but ending us, our relationship. Couldnt be. Any minute I would hear the key turn, the front door click open and close. But I didnt hear anything the whole night. Nothing at all. What? Im not exciting enough? Or pretty enough? I cant have thoughts of my own? Do things he doesnt approve of? By morning soon as I woke up I was furious. Glad he was gone because clearly he was just using me since I had money and a crotch. I was so angry, if you had seen me you would have thought I had spent those six months with him in a holding cell without arraignment or a lawyer, and suddenly the judge called the whole thing off dismissed the case or refused to hear it at all. Anyway I refused to whine, wail or accuse. He said one thing; I agreed. Fuck him. Besides, our affair wasnt all that spectacular not even the mildly dangerous sex I used to let myself enjoy. Well, anyway it was nothing like those double-page spreads in fashion magazines, you know, couples standing half naked in surf, looking so fierce and downright mean, their sexuality like lightning and the sky going dark to show off the shine of their skin. I love those ads. But our affair didnt even measure up to any old R-&-B song some tune with a beat arranged to generate fever. It wasnt even the sugary lyrics of a thirties blues song: Baby, baby, why you treat me so? I do anything you say, go anywhere you want me to go. Why I kept comparing us to magazine spreads and music I cant say, but it tickled me to settle on I Wanna Dance with Somebody.