Sardonic Sistah Says

“I got my ltalian issue of Vogue!” my friend Danger wrote on her MySpace blog. “Go get yours today; hurry up, they’re going fast.”

I have to admit that I’ve been remiss in getting my own issue of Vogue Italia, even after encouraging others to go get their own. Truly, I underestimated the number of fashion forward sistahs living in the tri-state area (I thought that eight or nine was being too generous). But after work I walked down to Fountain Square News and was informed that they sold their last one this week –probably to Danger– and wouldn’t get in another shipment of the July issue until Monday, Tuesday at the latest.

Then I called up Joseph-Beth and was told they were sold out and wouldn’t be receiving any more. Then it was a Barnes and Noble in Kenwood where the guy told me they haven’t received their July issue of Vogue Italia yet and when it does come in next week they are only due to get 3 issues.

“It’s first come first served,” he said but not before telling me that I was the second call in a matter of minutes asking about the issue. “I had just hung up with a woman asking about the same issue and then you called.”

Not reassuring.

I can try to take my chances and try to get an issue next week at Fountain Square News, hoping that they have enough issues for all the black chicas and others who want to celebrate ignored black beauty or I can call around to bookstores and magazine stands on the west side of town and see if they have any issues available. With gas prices being this high I think I’ll just wait.

The stores on the west side probably have never heard of Vogue Italia, but then as you can tell I’ve been wrong before.

Decades ago I saw an issue of Jet that had twin boys from a German mother.  Because one twin looked black and the other looked white it was stipulated that babies were fraternal and the mother (who may or may not have been a prostitute) had the children with two different service men as the fathers, one black and one white.  Even back then I remember looking at the picture and wondering if they were right.  The babies looked the same to me, maybe the mother had strong genes, but there was a strong resemblance. 

But I wonder…

Now in Germany another mixed race couple have twin boys that are making people talk.  Florence Addo-Gerth is from Ghana and her husband Stephan Gerth is from Germany.  Born on July 11 baby Ryan has light skin and blue eyes and baby Leo has dark skin and dark eyes.  The rare color combination seems to perplex the doctors.  By way of explanation the doctors hypothesize that the genetic surprise might have occured because the mother may have one white ancestor or the father a black ancestor.

Well, maybe.  That definitely explains British couple Kylie Hodgson and Remi Horder who are both of mixed race and had twin girls where one came out looking white and the other looks black.

And it was the same for Kerry Richardson’s boys.  Richardson is biracial (Nigerian and English) and her husband is white.  The darker baby was light at first and became darker as he got older.

And yet another mother had twin baby girls in Australia with one girl looking black and another looking white.

I get the feeling that aside from the immediate family, a lot of white people find it not only fascinating but also discomfiting.  It’s really nothing to black people to go to a family reunion and see someone that looks white and know they are your blood relative.  And going back into origins, white comes from black.  But for others to see these combinations come about it’s just a reminder that there are some who are out there who could possibly pass.

And maybe they are.  But then, to me, they really aren’t passing because it’s just who they are.

As time goes on I think we may see more of there may be more of a rise in these type of twins.  What was at one time a rarity –interracial couples and multiple births– are becoming more common place.  I don’t really think you need mixed heritage to get one of these combos, either.  Geneticists, who haven’t figured out what makes one “black” and what makes one “white”, have rendered race a social construct anyway.  So wouldn’t it stand to reason that a monoracial black family could have children of varying hues of brown that a black/white family could have children whose coloring went further on the human color spectrum?

Makes sense to me.  But where is a black geneticist when I need one?