Ironies of ironies...

When I was in seventh grade, I used to hang out with a bunch of nerds.

I was a nerd.

Back then we weren't called nerds, this was before the Fonz and Happy Days, we were just the uncool kids.

During recess my nerd friends and I would hang out at the library doing our homework instead of hanging out doing whatever it was the cool kids did.

I remember one friend saying something derogatory about Jewish people.  My sister had married a Jewish guy and my four nieces were Jewish so I felt compelled to say something.

I forget what I said but since he look different I raised the question of his own ethnicity.

He proudly said "I am a Hebrew".

I, knowing next to nothing about Judiasm, knew enough that a Hebrew was a Jew and told him so.

He balked but in nerd-style fashion referred to the Webster dictionary.

I watched his face fall as he read the definition of Hebrew and he was very silent after that.

I don't remember this nerd's name but that is who I was thinking of the day of my brother's funeral.

My brother was always different from the rest of us.

I guess I never questioned it because we were all so different but even with all our diversity he was an outlier.

Unlike my younger brothers, he didn't have freckles or green eyes or wavy hair or tan lines.

Unlike my sister, he was not white.

Unlike me, his hair was nappy, his skin very dark.

I remember sitting at the funeral home, my brother's ashes in an urn sitting on what appeared to be an altar and my brothers' wife and son and granddaughters eulogizing him.

But what I remember most was my brother's wife asking later that afternoon when we were alone if he was a Negro.

I remember saying "I don't know" and leaving it at that.

In that instance I remembered all the unkind things I had said to him over the years about black people and being glad that I had kept my unkind thoughts to a minimum.

But most of all I remember thinking about that nerd guy in seventh grade reading the Webster dictionary and realizing for the first time that his own unkind words could be used against him.

And I was silent for a very long time.

How could I have not known?

My brother was a half brother.  And the whiteness of my half sister blinded me to the darkness of my brother.

After all how could he be black if they were full siblings and she was so white.

But then she does have what she calls crazy hair.

I had seen pictures of their father.

There was no denying that they were his.

It was also undeniable that their father was white.

And my mother was white so where does that leave us?

This is were it gets really complicated.

You see I am Puerto Rican and there are a lot of white Puerto Ricans that if you look one or two generations back you realize are not so white.

They look white but aren't.

What I am trying to say is that my brother's father was white but my brother's mother, my mother,  was not so white.

I know this because I met my mother's father, my grandfather, and he was not so white.

I guess after a generation or two, it is easy to forget the grandmother or grandfather that was not so white.

It's what happens when you focus on the white side while ignoring the black.

And after a couple of generations that can be done without anyone being the wiser.

My sister has two grandsons, my grandnephews, with red hair and blue eyes.

My grandnephews are Mormon and Republican and listen to Beck and think Beck is a God (egads!).

They hate, hate Obama.

They have no idea.

Ironic, isn't it?

My brother always seemed so guarded. Was this why?

Maybe some day I will ask their grandmother; my sister with the crazy hair.