Switch

by Ebony Haywood

I did my homework. I selected several artists whose songs I intended to learn to play on the guitar. I was fresh out of high school and excited to take my first private lesson. Sitting in the tiny studio with my guitar across my lap, I watched the teacher as he perused my song selections.

"Hmm," he said, "The Beatles."  

I giggled. He looked intrigued.

"How, if you don't mind me asking, is it that a young black girl is into the Beatles?"

I wasn't offended—I was amused.  I cocked my head to the side, raised an eyebrow and grinned. Mr.Guitar Teacher, I thought to myself, There're a lot of things about this black girl that would surprise you.

By most people’s standards, I was never your typical black girl. I detested soul food; I read voraciously, and I had a lot of white friends. My black friends would ask, “Why do you talk like that?”  

“Like what?”

“Proper. Like a white person.”

I didn’t let it bother me it too much. I liked my “proper” mannerisms and refused to subscribe to “ghetto fabulous” behavior: improper grammar, excessive neck rolling, exorbitant amounts of kool-aid smeared all over my fingers. My parents didn’t display such traits. They were babies of southern migrants, children of the Civil Rights Movement, teenagers of the black is beautiful ethos. They were products of working-class and middle-class families who aspired for their posterity to live the American Dream.

As a means of propelling my brother and me into that dream, my parents escorted us onto yellow school buses that nosed through the streets of our South Central neighborhood—once a sprawling middle-class enclave, now a victim of white flight, fear, and hopelessness—past the liquor stores and storefront churches on Western, past the wigs shops, fried fish stands, and YMCA on Vermont, down the 110 freeway, and into the Mayberry-like city of Lomita.

Every day as I stepped off the yellow school bus and onto the black concrete of Lomita Fundamental Magnet Elementary School, I found myself surrounded by a sea of ethnicities. Nevertheless, one thing was obvious: most of the black and Latino kids were arriving from far away on the bus. The white children were Lomita natives; the black and Latino children were immigrants, the kids from the other side of tracks who were coming to Lomita because it was better than where they were from.

I was too young to articulate my feeling socio-economically inferior. That seemed to be the only difference (besides the obvious differences in skin color and hair texture) that I noticed. I didn’t feel that my white friends were any smarter than me; they didn’t appear to be any more or less talented than me, nor did they seem, on average, happier than me. Yet I always felt the need to blend in, to feel like I belonged completely. I never felt like I belonged anywhere completely.

I remember the reverse bus ride coming home from school. The neatly trimmed streets of Lomita slowly declined into the graffitied curbsides of LA. It’s hard to pinpoint the line of demarcation—the point where my world shifted from white to black, from opportunity to disadvantage. Perhaps it was at the threshold of our house, for whenever I stepped inside, I felt bitter. There wasn’t anything horrible about it. It was small yet tidy, surrounded by noisy car horns and sirens yet full of laughter and music. There was, however, something unsettling about not being able to call Lomita home. Why did I have to traverse two worlds? Why couldn’t we afford to move to Lomita?

At home, we did the same things my classmates did. We read books and played Candy Land and watched Double Dare. We ate dinner—tossed green salads, dinner rolls, baked chicken, potatoes—around a table with the napkins and silverware set properly. We brushed our teeth, said our prayers and hugged each other before we went to bed. We had pet dogs and cats that we cleaned after and loved. Fruit trees blossomed in our backyard. And on warm days, we’d pick our lemons and make lemonade with ice, sit on our front porch and sip till sundown.

Although most black people expected me to know the lyrics to the latest hip-hop music, my parents were musicians who hated rap. Instead, we listened to the rhythms of Motown, the rich vibrato of Barbra Streisand, the uplifting melodies of Andrae Crouch, the sweet harmonies of the Beach Boys and the soulful musings of Stevie Wonder. Sometimes after dinner, the lush orchestrations of John Williams would fill our living room, followed by the R&B swell of Michael Jackson. We were an American family with American tastes, not simply a black family with black tastes. We were more than a stereotype.

But even in my neighborhood, I still felt that I didn’t completely belong. The kids on the block were quick to point out our differences.

“The Beatles? Why you listen to them? That’s white people music. You weird.”

I could never eat dinner at my neighbor’s house.

“What? You don’t like collard greens? What kind of black person are you? Definitely not the real kind.”

I couldn’t discuss movies with them.

“Why you always watchin them boring-ass white movies? If you haven’t seen Poetic Justice, you stupid.”

At home, I didn’t have the proper cultural awareness. At school, I didn’t have the proper social standing. I was in constant limbo between these two existences, wanting desperately to belong to one, not being able to escape the other.

As an adult, I’m still figuring it out. I have, however, learned the art of code switching, which helps me slip seamlessly between cultures. I developed this skill when I began teaching high school in Compton where the students frequently referred to me as “Oreo.” I was, according to them, “black on the outside and white on the inside.”

            “Ms. Haywood, you white.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You act white.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “You talk white. All proper.”

            “Well, I am a teacher.”

            I encountered students who were a bit more insidious.

            “Where’d you go to school? Sweet Valley High?”

            I found myself immersed in a culture that didn’t value my credentials as much as they valued my authenticity. Was I authentic, or was my “properness” a facade, an accouterment I displayed to elevate my ego? If I let my guard down just a little, if I began to embrace the culture, what might I discover about myself?

            “Ms. Haywood, can I have a pass to get something from my friend in Mr. Connor's room?”

            “Uh, uh. You trippin. I’m not givin you a pass to disrupt another teacher’s class.”

            The words flowed out of my mouth so smoothly that I almost smiled.

            “For real, Ms. Haywood?”

            “Yeah, for real.”

            Maybe I’m not supposed to belong to just one world. Having dual citizenship can open many opportunities for me. There’s a lot of value in cultural fluency. When I learned to code-switch, my students respected and trusted me. I discovered that I could be me in both worlds—I can feel comfortable and confident in both worlds. I don’t have to love collard greens or Poetic Justice. Black culture, any culture, is so vast and rich. Who can subsume every single aspect of it? I have adopted the expressions and mannerisms that feel true to me. I can exist in both worlds and be true to myself.

I’d like to be able to relive that moment with my guitar teacher. I’d look him boldly in the eye and say, “My name is Ebony Haywood, and I like the Beatles.”


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Ebony Haywood is a writer, teacher, and energy healer who helps people unblock their creative flow and generate solutions for their personal and professional lives. She lives in Southern California, where she enjoys cheese pizza, anything with avocado, and classic films.