Chameleon

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

On my first day of kindergarten, in Little Rock, Arkansas, I discovered that I was different. All of my classmates had experienced their first day of school together in August, but I didn’t turn five until after Labor Day, so my first day of school, in September, came coupled with being the new girl in class.

Also, for the first time in my life, someone asked me a question that would follow me, in various forms, for the rest of my life:

“Are you Black or white?”

Up until then, my parents, who are both Black, had never talked to me about race. In retrospect, I’m amazed that I’d existed for five blissful years without being aware of my skin tone, which apparently was/is too light to be Black, but too dark to be white.

Throughout my life, I’ve retained this ability to temporarily forget about my skin tone—until something external returns my awareness to the implications of the socially constructed concept of race and the racial expectations that others project onto me.

For example, during my freshman year at a predominantly white university, a coed told me, “Teresa, you don’t talk like a Black person!”

I was stunned: Her body language and tone of voice were friendly and positive, but I experienced the offensiveness behind her insulting “compliment.” (Years later, I learned the term “microaggression” and, recalling this incident, I saw how neatly the term fit.)

The following year, as a sophomore, I discovered that I “sounded white” over the phone: My white roommate’s boyfriend mistook me for her when I answered our phone. We all laughed at the time—but in later years, as a working professional, I’ve not found much humor in someone assuming that I’m white.

In one chapter of my career, as a math/science teacher, I called home on a rambunctious eighth-grade algebra student. After hearing my description of her son’s behavior, his mother said, “I’m tired of you white teachers calling me!”

“Who are YOU calling ‘white’?” I asked indignantly.

Silence.

I described my physical appearance to her, including my dreadlocks.

“If you ever want to come to school for a conference,” I said, “you’ll have no problem picking me out of a crowd.”

I can’t remember the rest of the conversation, but I never again had any problem with her son in my class.

Fast forward nearly two decades, to a change of career: I was a licensed health-insurance agent. I began this exciting but short-lived telecommuting position in 2016, which, unfortunately for me, was a presidential election year.

Although politicians exert tremendous influence over the laws that govern health-insurance plans, no political party underwrites the specific plans that are offered—and all members of the public, regardless of their personal political affiliations, are offered access to the same health-insurance plans. But many people don’t understand this.

During the post-election transition between presidents, while working from home to enroll countless people who were seeking affordable health insurance, I found that my “white” voice granted me undesired access to the unfiltered thoughts of actual white people. They talked more candidly with me than white people normally do face to face, using racial slurs to describe Obama and making disparaging comments about “Obamacare.” Others confided that they looked forward to getting “Trumpcare” instead of “Obamacare,” not realizing that those were different nicknames for the same health plans.

Usually, I steered clear of politics. At the end of the day, no matter which nickname my clients called an Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plan, my job was to find them the insurance that would suit both their medical needs and their financial means.

For one client, who had preexisting conditions and a small budget, I found a comprehensive plan for about $13 per month. Towards the end of the enrollment process, when her application was almost complete, she suddenly grew tense.

“This isn’t that Obamacare crap, is it?” she demanded.

Shocked, I quickly recovered my sales-agent skills: “You have an ACA plan.”

Satisfied, she completed the application.

Talking with another client who had preexisting conditions and a modest budget, I said, “If you don’t want an ACA plan, your next best option would be to get a job that provides health insurance.”

“I doubt I could do that,” he said dismissively.

Since we’d established a good rapport, I joked about his winning the lottery to pay for future medical bills. We both laughed, but he lamented that he had no options other than to get that (racial slur) health insurance or go without.

I don’t remember how our conversation ended, but I didn’t enroll him in a plan. I only hoped that after he’d wrestled with the existential crisis of having to get that (racial slur) health insurance, his sense of self-preservation would kick in.

Currently, I work as a pharmacy specialty representative, where my primary duty is to help patients order their lifesaving medications in a timely fashion, so as to prevent any interruption in their regimen. During our conversations, my patients focus solely on getting their medications, showing a total and refreshing disregard for race or politics.

For now.