For Mike, the revelation left him with a sense of confusion. “I had literally no idea of my own racial background,” he says. “I obviously had some questions. I occasionally met relatives. But a large part of the passing meant that we did not see relatives very often. So, I really grew up in a white community acting as white with these kinds of questions. … I spent a couple of years in Chicago sort of running after every Black person I could find saying, ‘Hey, me too, me too,’ and they would look at my perfectly white skin, blondish hair, and light brown eyes and say, ‘Yeah right, not in this lifetime.’”
Harvey Long and Ethelene Whitmire, “Running from Race,” On Wisconsin, March 1, 2021. https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/features/running-from-race/.
Tags: Cyrus “Mike” Michael Walker, Ethelene Whitmire, Harvey Long, Mike Walker, On Wisconsin