Black.

In grade school in the 1940s black was just a color in a box of
Crayola Crayons. A sad color because people wore black to
funerals.

In high school, black became a fashionable color. Wearing
a black dress meant you were sophisticated.

By the time Givenchy designed Audrey Hepburn’s black
dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, my closet was almost all black.

When I think of black today, I don’t think of clothes. I think
about how little I knew or thought about being Black in
America.

When I was young we called dark-skinned people “colored.” 

In elementary school there was only one colored girl in my
class, Carolyn. She hardly ever spoke. Neither did I. I was tall
and gawky and nobody paid attention to me or Carolyn.
Carolyn and I never raised our hands to answer a question.
We hid in the bathroom when we had a spelling bee. If our
classmates were choosing teams, Carolyn and I were always
chosen last. And we were never invited to Arianne Ruskin’s
fancy Park Avenue birthday parties. I was glad Carolyn was
in my class.

But Carolyn and I never played together after school. We
weren’t that kind of friends. I lived on 66th street East of
3rd Avenue—Irish bars and railroad flat apartments.
Carolyn lived above 100th Street—white people didn’t go
there.

I don’t remember any colored girls attending my all-girls
college in Boston.

Then colored people were called Negroes.

I got married and moved to North Stamford, Connecticut.
All my neighbors looked like me.

I moved to Livingston, New Jersey, when I had children.
My neighbors there all looked like me. I was busy with my
kids and with unimportant stuff that seemed important to
me at the time.

At every job I’ve ever had, my coworkers looked like me.

Even in the movies all the big stars looked like me except
for Lena Horne. She was beautiful and had beautiful
clothes. She could sing, too.

Then Negroes were called African-Americans.

I remember being in the shoe department of Macy’s one
day. A saleswoman about my age was waiting on me. When
she went in the back to get me a 9 ½ narrow, a salesman
asked me who was waiting on me. I didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t know my saleswoman’s name. Should I say
“the African-American woman”?

I was born in New York but my ancestors came from Europe.
If someone called me a European-American, that would have
felt weird. I’ll always remember how uncomfortable I was
that afternoon because I didn’t know what name to call the
saleswoman.

Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other
name would smell as sweet.” He was wrong. Names can
make you feel bad or good.

I never liked my name. I was named Ilene when I was born.
But I came out with red hair so my family always called me
Ginger, and then Gingy. But in school I was Ilene, very shy
and scared. Even today when someone calls me Ilene, I still
remember those feelings. But when someone calls me
Gingy, I feel safe.

My older sister was born in the Flower Hospital in New York
and my mother named her Blossom. She got the nickname
Tootsie. Everybody, except her teachers, called her Tootsie.
When she got a boyfriend he didn’t like either name so he
renamed her Bonnie and that’s what everybody called her
the rest of her life. Except me. To me, my sister was always
Tootsie–not Bonnie.

When Black took the place of African-Americans and “Black
Lives Matter” became the phrase that woke up the world,
it woke me up, too. I hadn’t spent much time thinking about
people who didn’t look like me or touch my life.

Of course Black lives matter, Blue lives matter—all lives matter.

But I saw things happening to Black people on TV that would
never happen to me just because I happen to be white.

If everything in my life and your life stayed the same,
except we were Black and our families were Black, nothing
in our lives would be the same.

You’re just a button click away and I’d love to hear from you. 

About your world, 
your family, your joys and frustrations, growing up, growing older, even recipes– even though I stopped cooking–by request–years ago.

Goodbye until next time…

Hope your day turns out as well as I hope (but doubt) mine will,

Gingy (Ilene)

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