Read Mixed: My Life in Black and White for Free Online Page B

and, like most other kids my age, I lived in fear of people I didn’t know (Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Lord) and the things they would deny me if I misbehaved (presents, money, the pearly gates of heaven). I wasn’t even certain I believed in Santa anymore, but I had more fear of offending the jolly white stranger than I did my mother. I’d be damned if I was going to risk getting coal in my stocking.
    The next morning, I came downstairs and Santa was snoring on our sectional. It was the first time I gasped at the sight of another human being.
    “He got tired and stayed here for the night,” my father explained, nudging Santa awake.
    As Santa stood up, I noticed that he looked considerably skinnier than he did at Macy’s. He grabbed a Hefty bag full of presents from our coat closet and leaned in my face. “Have you been a good girl this year?” he asked. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath smelled hot and fruity, just like Mr. Ron’s, my dad’s alcoholic assistant.
    “Mom, it’s Mr. Ron!” I screamed, running behind her legs.
    “Ho, ho, ho, no, I’m not!” Mr. Ron said, reaching behind my mother to pick me up, blasting me again with his Mad Dog breath.
    “Angela, stop being silly! That’s the real Santa!” my mother insisted.
    “Seriously, Mom! That’s Mr. Ron!” I lowered my voice. “You know—the drunk!”
    My mother gasped as if she had never used the word to describe this man. My father widened his eyes in horror. “Go to your room, immediately!” he commanded. “Now J.R. will get all Santa’s gifts and you’ll get nothing,” he went on as my brother walked down the stairs. My father grabbed my brother and plopped him into Mr. Ron’s lap. Instead of going straight to my room, I lingered on the steps to watch the action.
    My brother took one look into Santa’s bloodshot eyes and started screaming and kicking. Santa tried to hold J.R. by the waist, but child fear must be stronger than adult muscle. My brother scratched at Mr. Ron’s face and eventually pulled his strap-on beard clean off.
    I couldn’t resist screaming my righteousness from the steps. “I told you! It’s Mr. Ron!”
    “Child, didn’t we tell you to go to your room?” my mother yelled. I scampered up the steps, mad as hell that I got in trouble for telling the truth.
    I held on to that anger for months after Drunk Santa. I set out on a mission to disprove other illusions my parents had forced upon me. I stepped on every crack in the sidewalk (“Look, Mom, I didn’t break your back!”); I threw a fit in Sears (“How come the security guard isn’t arresting me, Mom? You said he’d handcuff me if I acted up”). She acquiesced that she had lied (“He might not arrest you, but I will whip your smart little behind if you don’t stop!”).
    There was one illusion she seemed unwilling to give up. My mother insisted that, regardless of color, people were all the same.
    Even at eight years old I could see that evidence to the contrary was everywhere we turned, as plain as Mr. Ron dressed up as Santa. I had no hard data on the differences between black and white men, but I suspected the patterns echoed that of the women. Through visits to my all-white playmates’ homes, I learned that white women smoked Virginia Slims, got perms, and headed to the Jersey Shore covered in tanning oil as soon as the weather went above 70 degrees.
    Through trips to the all-black beauty salon with my mother, I learned that black women smoked Newports, got Jeri-Curls, and preferred to stay in someone’s air-conditioned house when the weather got hot. The only reason to go to Jersey was if a friend had organized a bus trip to Atlantic City.
    Those beauty salon visits also taught me not only that people were not equal in their daily habits but, actually, that people of different races should stay separated. Black people walking through white neighborhoods could lead to violence and food waste.
    “Miss Jessie was on her way to church