ABSTRACT
G rowing up Black in Los Angeles, and the offspring of Woody Johnson, my father, meant wanting to be something more. My siblings and I created fairy tales. My younger brother would
tell people he had an entirely different family somewhere north and that he was mixed with something he didn’t know. Perhaps Mexican, Indian, Native American, Middle Eastern, Ethiopian. He could blend. His birth mother was Black. His father, race and origin unknown, got her pregnant and ran. We adopted him when he was two. My little brother, who could blend in with more than 100 different countries, was adopted by a Black family. He is Black now; but he tells people he is White. I correct him from time to time, as if that is my place. Either way, it makes him more. He is different, special. My older brother used to tell people he was from Compton. That made him gangsta. Tough. Cool. Hard. More. I was Light Skinned. Pretty. Smart. Articulate. Mixed? Exception. More. Labels attached to my body. Labels design to characterize something more.
