If W.E.B. Du Bois could call himself black, then I could be white. Fuck it. |
The only tribe I’d ever identified with was the punk rock scene. The few kids up north I had punk rock in common with also happened to be white, and soon I was the half-white kid who hung out with the whites. I’d been mistaken for Italian in New York and New Jersey before, and I’d always corrected whoever said it. I had read about Creoles, who must have looked like me, and I thought about how nice it must have been to live somewhere where everyone around you wouldn’t question what you are, because you’re all the same thing. Here, in prison, I was accepted as white, and as time went on, I seemed unable or unwilling to correct anyone on it, thinking it would complicate things. I was tired of the ambiguities my appearance presented and decided I wouldn’t tell anyone anymore about “my dark side.” If W.E.B. Du Bois could call himself black, then I could be white. Fuck it.
Leo Oladimu [Leo Felton], as told to Shawna Kenney, “I Was a Black Nazi Skinhead,” Narratively, November 12, 2018. https://narratively.com/i-was-a-black-nazi-skinhead/.
Tags: Leo Felton, Leo Oladimu, Leo V. Felton, Leo Vincelette Felton, Narratively, Shawna Kenney