a white guy that found out he was black - article
Grafwritah
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--------------------A Big White Lie --------------------For 26 years, Dave Myers was told he was white. Learning the truth, that his father was black, sent him on a quest for his identity and leaves him estranged from his family.Jeff KunerthSentinel Staff WriterSeptember 18, 2005Every family has its secrets. There are things parents never tell children. There are lies that become family legend. There are stories that were never meant to be told.Judith Hartmann's secret, when she married Bill Myers in 1959, was that she was pregnant by a black man.When the baby born to two white parents came out black, the secret became a lie.Throughout his childhood, David Myers was told that his skin color was a disease called melanism. He was lucky, his mother said, because the skin discoloration was all over his body, instead of just splotches of brown like most people had.So despite his dark skin, Myers grew up in white, middle-class neighborhoods in Ohio and New York believing he was white."For many years I thought I was white. I thought like a white kid. There was a feeling in me that I didn't want to be associated with blacks. I wanted the story to be true," says Myers, a 45-year-old Orlando tennis teacher.The secret shrouded in a lie lasted 26 years. Keeping it hidden all those years would turn Judy Myers into a hard, angry, unhappy woman, her family says. It made Dave Myers a defiant, rebellious, hostile child who would grow estranged from his parents, sisters and brother.Learning the truth would send Myers on a search for identity. And it would convince him that his story is the story of America -- a white America that has been lied to, a black America oppressed and discriminated against, and a society unable or unwilling to discuss race.When Judy Hartmann told Bill Myers that she was pregnant, he believed it was his.And when the baby was born on Feb. 28, 1960 -- five months after their marriage -- he thought his son's skin color was jaundice. And then he thought there might have been a mix-up at the hospital.And when his wife told him the doctors said it was a skin disease that had turned their boy's skin dark, he thought she was telling the truth. No questions asked.Because that is the kind of man Bill Myers is. He is soft and gentle and pliable, his children say. He accepts life as it comes, assumes the responsibilities of a man, a husband, a father.As far as he was concerned, Dave Myers was as much his child as the three daughters and son who followed.If Judy said it was a skin disease, that was the end of the discussion."He never said a word," says Judy Myers, 67, who now lives with Bill in the Villages.That attitude -- ignoring the obvious, believing the improbable -- filtered down to David and the other children. And in a family where everyone pretended that David was a darker shade of white, race was a taboo subject."There was no discussion. It never came up," says Bill Myers, 66, a retired welding engineer. "We hardly ever saw a black person."The only blacks the Myerses saw in Stow, Ohio -- a white, middle-class town outside of Cleveland -- were in the papers or on the nightly news."That was the time of the ghettos," Bill says. "You read about the black ghetto on the east side of Cleveland, and the crime and the poor housing conditions."When a young Dave Myers asked his mother why police in Alabama were spraying black civil-rights protesters with fire hoses, she told him it was because they were hot.Everything Myers saw growing up in Ohio and then the small town of Olean in western New York, convinced him it was better to be a white boy with a skin disease than a black kid."Why would I want to be black?" Myers says. "I saw how blacks were portrayed in the media."As much as family members acted as though Dave was just like the other kids, they knew he wasn't. And the difference started showing up in his behavior.As Dave Myers entered adolescence, the trouble started. He became defiant, hostile and sometimes threatening.At one point, Myers was sent to live with a foster family. Another time, he was kicked out of the house and lived in his car."I was the black sheep of the family -- literally and figuratively," he says. "I was always in the doghouse or always getting out of the doghouse."If Dave was treated differently, it was because of his behavior, not his skin color, his mother says. "He was just uncontrollable. None of my other children acted this way," Judy says.During those years, Judy Myers was an unhappy woman."She was a hard mother growing up," says Kathy Myers, 44. "Mom had a lot of anger inside her. She was tough, keeping all that inside."The anger didn't end until, 26 years after David's birth, Judith Myers visited a psychiatrist who advised her to let go of the lie and tell her family the truth.What she told her husband and children was that she had been raped by a black man."I was not angry," Bill says. "I was glad that this load was released from her, and it answered a number of questions at the back of your mind that never seemed to be fully resolved."With a new story, Judith Myers became a new person."I was much happier. I had a load off my back," Judy says. "I protected it well for many years."David Myers was living in San Francisco at the time. He came home one night to find a message from his mother on his answering machine. On the message, she gave him the name of the black man who was his father -- Fermon Beckette Sr.Tales still differThe way Fermon Beckette remembers it, there was no rape. He was working as an aide at a psychiatric ward in the same hospital where Judith Hartmann was a student studying nursing. She was 20. He was 10 years older.They went out a few times. The sex was consensual. No rape."That's an old fashioned, Southern lie," says Beckette, now a 77-year-old retired steelmill worker. "Knowing the situation, I can see how she would deny it. After all, she had to hide it to save her marriage."Judy Myers insists the rape story is true: "Any black who rapes a woman will say she asked for it."But if shedding the skin-disease story liberated Judith Myers, it plunged David Myers into an identity crisis."When my mother told me the truth, I went through a period of being homeless -- three years," he says.He was a black man who knew nothing about being black. His family wasn't black. None of his neighbors had been black. None of his classmates had been black. Few of his friends were black.Myers embarked on a self-education about all the things he never learned about black history, black culture, and race relations.He has 10 spiral notebooks filled with notes he has taken from the books he has read such as The Destruction of Black Culture, Theories of Race and Racism, The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race, Growing Up in a Divided Society, and Lies My Teacher Told Me.And then he set out to meet his black family members. He found a half-brother in Cleveland who led him to his black father. They talked on the phone, exchanged photographs.On June 22, Dave Myers met Fermon Beckette Sr. for the first time."He struck me as trying to be a journalist, like he was researching a story, a project," Beckette says. "He sounded like he was in search of his identity."Beckette feels some sympathy for the son he fathered, but never knew. "If you don't know what color you are in this country," he says, "you are headed for a lot of problems."'Poor me' discussionsAt different times in his life, Dave Myers has checked the box for whit
e, the box for black, the box for other.Friends told him he was the whitest black guy they knew: He dressed white, he talked white. So for a time, Dave Myers tried to trade his Midwestern Ohio accent for a Southern black dialect, only to realize how dishonest it sounded coming from his mouth."It was a complete phoniness to me," he says.After years of trying on different identities, Myers now believes he knows who he is and what he needs to do. He is the product of a black man and a white woman who must tell his story -- and his family's secrets -- so that blacks and whites can better understand each other."I hope that people can learn from my experience," he says.So Myers has started his own Web site -- discuss race.com -- that features "The Dave Myers Story" and a list of books he has read.But in his attempts to enlighten the greater society about the lies, secrets and deceptions of race in America, Myers often comes across as lecturing or chiding those he is trying to persuade, says Pete Lorins, a Haitian-born acquaintance who helped Myers with his Web site."I believe you cannot reach a good dialogue on race by telling people what they did wrong," Lorins says.And it is that approach that has led to Dave being disowned by his family.His parents and sister complain that they cannot have a normal relationship with Myers. Every family gathering, every conversation, leads to a past they have no interest in reliving. He wants them to face the truth; they want to eat chicken supper without guilt."He always has to get into racial discussions or the 'poor me' discussions," says Bill Myers. "He can't accept the way things are and go forward with his life. He has to keep stirring up the dirty water."Dave's contention that racism is responsible for the problems in his life, his mother says, has made her more prejudiced against blacks."He has with his actions totally soured me on the black race," she says.Dave and his mother haven't spoken for two years -- not since he appeared on a cable TV program and told everybody the skin-disease story.And now, as the story spreads to the Internet and the pages of the Orlando Sentinel, Judy Myers says she is ready to take his picture off the hallway wall and throw it in the trash."He's not my child," she says. "He's not a part of our lives anymore."Almost alone at libraryDave Myers stands alone in the community room of the Southwest Public Library in the Dr. Phillips area with his three tables of books on race.Dressed in a white shirt, tie, striped suspenders and dark slacks, Myers leans against a table, waiting for the crowd to arrive.For weeks, he posted fliers on "The Race Myth . . . debunked." The fliers identify him as "Dave Myers -- Subject Matter Expert" and direct people to his Web site.But nearly two hours after the doors open at 10 a.m., nobody has arrived. Even the person he hired to set up audiovisual equipment hasn't shown up.The lull gives Myers time to think about what he might say, what myths he might debunk, if anybody attends. There is so much that white America needs to know. So much that Southern blacks need to hear. But where to start, what to say, he hasn't quite decided."You have to play it by ear. It's like stand-up. It's contingent on what the crowd gives you," he says.As the clock approaches noon, a middle-aged white woman wanders in, followed by her elderly mother."What are you doing here?" the woman asks."Well, I'm discussing some of the books I've read," he says. "It's really about what is going on in the United States. We have a race issue.""I had a little black girlfriend when I was 6 and she was 6," the woman volunteers."Do you have any black friends now?" Myers asks."I don't have any friends at all," the woman says."I don't either," Myers says. "That doesn't matter much."He is midway through a history lesson on W.E.B. DuBois that has morphed into a discussion about the Nile River, when the woman interrupts him."My son married a black girl and they have two beautiful children," she says."Well," responds Myers, "I think mulatto children are the wave of the future."The woman's remark gives Myers the opening he needs to tell the two women his life story. When he gets to the part about being raised to believe that his skin color was the result of a disease, the ladies giggle."Have you ever met your father?" the mother asks."Yes, I did, just a couple of months ago," he says."And was he nice?""Oh, yes, he was very nice," Myers says."I'm glad you met your father," the daughter says.Then they thank him and walk out the door. The two women are his only audience the whole day.Myers believes the empty room proves how averse Americans are to talking about race -- its myths, its secrets, its lies: "The naked topic scares people away."Disappointed but undaunted, Myers still envisions the day when his story -- the story of his family secret, the story of race in America -- will reach a wider audience.In finding himself, Dave Myers fantasizes that some day he will find himself on Oprah.Jeff Kunerth can be reached at [email]jkunerth@orlandosentinel.com[/email] or 407-420-5392.See related story on F6.Copyright (c) 2005, Orlando Sentinel | Get home delivery - up to 50% off Visit OrlandoSentinel.com
e, the box for black, the box for other.Friends told him he was the whitest black guy they knew: He dressed white, he talked white. So for a time, Dave Myers tried to trade his Midwestern Ohio accent for a Southern black dialect, only to realize how dishonest it sounded coming from his mouth."It was a complete phoniness to me," he says.After years of trying on different identities, Myers now believes he knows who he is and what he needs to do. He is the product of a black man and a white woman who must tell his story -- and his family's secrets -- so that blacks and whites can better understand each other."I hope that people can learn from my experience," he says.So Myers has started his own Web site -- discuss race.com -- that features "The Dave Myers Story" and a list of books he has read.But in his attempts to enlighten the greater society about the lies, secrets and deceptions of race in America, Myers often comes across as lecturing or chiding those he is trying to persuade, says Pete Lorins, a Haitian-born acquaintance who helped Myers with his Web site."I believe you cannot reach a good dialogue on race by telling people what they did wrong," Lorins says.And it is that approach that has led to Dave being disowned by his family.His parents and sister complain that they cannot have a normal relationship with Myers. Every family gathering, every conversation, leads to a past they have no interest in reliving. He wants them to face the truth; they want to eat chicken supper without guilt."He always has to get into racial discussions or the 'poor me' discussions," says Bill Myers. "He can't accept the way things are and go forward with his life. He has to keep stirring up the dirty water."Dave's contention that racism is responsible for the problems in his life, his mother says, has made her more prejudiced against blacks."He has with his actions totally soured me on the black race," she says.Dave and his mother haven't spoken for two years -- not since he appeared on a cable TV program and told everybody the skin-disease story.And now, as the story spreads to the Internet and the pages of the Orlando Sentinel, Judy Myers says she is ready to take his picture off the hallway wall and throw it in the trash."He's not my child," she says. "He's not a part of our lives anymore."Almost alone at libraryDave Myers stands alone in the community room of the Southwest Public Library in the Dr. Phillips area with his three tables of books on race.Dressed in a white shirt, tie, striped suspenders and dark slacks, Myers leans against a table, waiting for the crowd to arrive.For weeks, he posted fliers on "The Race Myth . . . debunked." The fliers identify him as "Dave Myers -- Subject Matter Expert" and direct people to his Web site.But nearly two hours after the doors open at 10 a.m., nobody has arrived. Even the person he hired to set up audiovisual equipment hasn't shown up.The lull gives Myers time to think about what he might say, what myths he might debunk, if anybody attends. There is so much that white America needs to know. So much that Southern blacks need to hear. But where to start, what to say, he hasn't quite decided."You have to play it by ear. It's like stand-up. It's contingent on what the crowd gives you," he says.As the clock approaches noon, a middle-aged white woman wanders in, followed by her elderly mother."What are you doing here?" the woman asks."Well, I'm discussing some of the books I've read," he says. "It's really about what is going on in the United States. We have a race issue.""I had a little black girlfriend when I was 6 and she was 6," the woman volunteers."Do you have any black friends now?" Myers asks."I don't have any friends at all," the woman says."I don't either," Myers says. "That doesn't matter much."He is midway through a history lesson on W.E.B. DuBois that has morphed into a discussion about the Nile River, when the woman interrupts him."My son married a black girl and they have two beautiful children," she says."Well," responds Myers, "I think mulatto children are the wave of the future."The woman's remark gives Myers the opening he needs to tell the two women his life story. When he gets to the part about being raised to believe that his skin color was the result of a disease, the ladies giggle."Have you ever met your father?" the mother asks."Yes, I did, just a couple of months ago," he says."And was he nice?""Oh, yes, he was very nice," Myers says."I'm glad you met your father," the daughter says.Then they thank him and walk out the door. The two women are his only audience the whole day.Myers believes the empty room proves how averse Americans are to talking about race -- its myths, its secrets, its lies: "The naked topic scares people away."Disappointed but undaunted, Myers still envisions the day when his story -- the story of his family secret, the story of race in America -- will reach a wider audience.In finding himself, Dave Myers fantasizes that some day he will find himself on Oprah.Jeff Kunerth can be reached at [email]jkunerth@orlandosentinel.com[/email] or 407-420-5392.See related story on F6.Copyright (c) 2005, Orlando Sentinel | Get home delivery - up to 50% off Visit OrlandoSentinel.com
Comments
I guess in 1960 when mixed race relationships/children were more in the closet this would be believeable.
I've read a couple stories/books in which a family has passed for white, or a parent looked "whitejewishitalian enough", like in Caucasia or Life on the Color line, but never when there was a lone black looking kid in the midst of an all white family... and then they played it off like it was a disease?
Just bizarre.
Interesting he grew up up in Stow... that place has been turned into an expressway offramp bedroom community but I could see how in 1960 it was probably the way they describe.
i guess it just goes back to people believing the easiest truth. it sounds like a birth defect was probably more common than a biracial baby in this town.
this is an incredibly tragic story. i think i'll poke around on discussrace.com more tomorrow.
And this about sums up alot of the problems we all still currently face:
the anger didn't end until, 26 years after, she tells another fatt ass lie!
this story makes me want to request a white devil bitch gremlin.
This bitch deserves to get fucking socked in the mouth
Haaaaaaaaa.
I like how she keeps saying, "It makes me not want to trust the black race... it makes me think badly about the black race..."
I bet she wasn't saying that when she was swingin from his dingaling.
"You are NOT the father!!!"
"Ohh noooooooo!!!"
(fat white girl runs backstage crying, Maury in tow)
"It'll be ok. Just as long as you love your child. You can come back on for an 8th paternity test... we'll do as many as it takes!"
"BITCH THAT KID DONT LOOK NOTHIN LIKE ME!"
"whateva, he got yo nose!"
"THAT AINT MY NOSE BITCH"
(word for word)
"HE DON'T LOOK NOTHIN LIKE ME. LOOK! LOOK! Big ass ears! Kn owin I gotta some little ears. All light skinneded and [bleep]. And everybody know she a slut Maury. She done [bleep]ed the whole town."
Definitive paternity determination: the size of the ears/nose.
First seen on Maury!
This story is like the bizzaro Jerk because its really sad. Poor dude wants to talk about race and for that his bitch ass mom wont talk to him and hardly anyone will listen to what he has to say.
No thats the first thing I thought of too.
Well that's essentially the story, minus the loving family part.
and those dope glasses that make you cross-eyed.
My family have always been open about what I am and who they are, and to be honest it was never an issue. In Hawai'i it's more about wondering "what else" a person is. Slicing me down to a core is what other people wanted when I moved here, and the constant questioning made me wonder if they were insecure about shit. It is seriously fucked up. Also, having to move to a podunk town instead of Seattle probably had a lot to do with it, where you are either white, or black, or Mexican.
I have two cousins who for the most part did not know what they were. They knew that they were black, which comes from their father, but that was it. Their mom never felt a need to tell them. When my sister told them they were also Hawaiian and Chinese, they could not believe it. Then again, my auntie has often told her friends she's adopted, and has denied a number of times that my grandpa and Omama were not her parents. Yet my auntie looks like my mom. It's almost as if my auntie is Hawaiian out of convenience. In the end, one cousin acknowledges all that she is and does not want to be defined by one thing. The other cousin, on the other hand, proudly talks about "the freedom of talking ebonics with my dad".
I had a girlfriend, she was white and one day I asked her what she was. She did not know. She claimed "I never asked, I know I'm white but that's it". That was one of many things which made me want to turn the other way, otherwise there would be a little Johmbolaya entering the 3rd or 4th grade right about now. I wanted to know out of my own curiosity, my family could care less. Her parents were very cool and had no problem with me at all, which felt good. But I thought if you don't know one of the more basic things about yourself, what else don't you know?
You know amazingly for a lot of white people their background isn't well covered. At best you might get "Italian" or "Scotch-Irish". One, most people are not one thing, and two, what the fuck does Scotch-Irish mean? That doesn't mean a fucking thing. Many white people are so many things it doesn't even matter anymore. Shit, they're probably black too.
For instance, I even have a pretty good history some relatives put together but even I only know a piece of it.
Presbyterian Scots that migrated to Ireland in the 15 and 1600s. Most were landowning who instituted an indentured servitude to the Catholic natives. Many migrated in the 1700s and early 1800s to the southeastern US to make more money. The ones that were left were poorer and eventually concentrated in the north of Ireland, hence "the Troubles."
This contributes to our race problem, because kids who just think they're "white" just think that every brown skinned dude is Mexican or every middle eastern-looking dude is Arab or Indian and everyone with almond eyes is Chinese or Japanese... white folks are raised to be ignorant of others' cultural differences because they can't identify their own.
I actually see this same thing with a lot of Black folks who just identify "black", everything else is "white" "chinese" or "spanish". Parents teach their kids in white homogenous neighborhoods that "this is what it is to be American" and then they see a city like NYC as alien or unamerican, what with all the different cuisines and smells and hues and languages. Parents in Black or Hispanic neighborhoods teach their kids about themselves but rarely about cultural differences in others. Puerto Ricans on the block of one of my ladyfriends, they hiss and yell "heeey, china". She's Filipina. I have a good friend who is Persian. Of course he is called an Arab all the time.... but most offensive is a Black girl who calls him her "white spanish nigga". FUCK
...A question that has kept many a little dude up at night.
One time uptown a dude interrupted our meal by walking into the restaurant in order to ask me "Are you Caucasian?"
You said no, right?