Photo courtesy of Jon Pitts-Wiley

My fiancée Dancing Feather, aka The Feath, is apparently not Black.

Sometimes, while icing her dodgy knee or getting her toes done, I look at her extremities, her odds and ends, and puzzle over how different we look. I'll notice our difference.

We do not look the same.

The above confuses me to no end. When you feel so similar to a person, when you spend so much time clowning around on the same wavelength, tangible difference can be weirdly captivating. Familiarity can breed positively blended realities, but it can also breed templating; scenarios in which you begin to think on a certain level "You're just like me. We are the same."

(Author's Note: I can't—and wouldn't—say this holds water for every culture in relation to every other culture. In my experience, it applies fairly well to cultures that share a lot of similarities from the profound to the mundane.)

The Feath and I are the same, but we are different.

The Feath is Native American. I teasingly inform her that many Native Americans in our neck of the woods owe the continuation of their tribes to Black men; I inform her that they look Black and tell her that they are Black because...they just kinda seem like it (I never said this was the most scientific reasoning in the world and heaven forbid we open up the "what's Black?" can of worms).*

She denies the historical evidence not, but still insists on being called Native American because, despite my most persuasive protestations, that's how she identifies.

While this musing is generally light in nature, something about it is rather weighty. As a person who, on paper and principle is a strong supporter of “You love who you love,” I also acknowledge that culture and heritage are not things to lightly toss aside as though they do not help inform who we are and as a result I’m beginning to confront the reality of loving who you love while loving from whence you came.

For me, the former has clearly trumped the latter, but this trumping wasn't without query and thoughtful brow-furrowing.

If you're waiting for a John Mayer Black separatist moment, that isn't going to happen. Indeed, the real questions swirl (pun!) as The Feath and I prepare to bring our first kid into the world. Suddenly, pairing off and starting a family isn't a hypothetical; suddenly, questions of history and legacy—questions of the future—are literally kicking around inside.

Our difference affects me more because I am, strangely enough, older than I once was and my choice in partner has created a new reality. The stakes of companionship no longer hinge on The Game weekend or Spring Break plans. Suddenly, for the first time, the reality of my choice has been thrown into stark relief; not because of The Feath’s personhood—her character is maddeningly beyond reproach—but because our differing identities will be introduced to the world in a few short months.

The Feath looks the part; she looks Black in a way my mind understands, falling in line with what my folks call my “type”—athletic light-skinned girls (and while you can chalk that up to a certain degree of acculturation, don't look too deeply into the trend. That's a tale for another day).

But my fiancée is different. She culturally attributes her lightskinnededness to being a Not-Black person; to being a member of a tribe, people who go to harvest festivals and wear ceremonial buckskin and own more than a few carved things and really are on tribal rolls. Her people are a tribe. Of Not-Black people.

In that part of me that is small and not progressive, the fact that I cannot place The Feath in a category that I “understand” drives me up a wall. She’s not “White”; she’s not “Latino and or Hispanic”; she’s not “Asian”; she’s…"Almost-Black"?

The Feath has many “Black” markers—some in the clichéd ways; others in the "a lot of Black folks I know do that in a particular fashion" way. Yet when she talks about Black people, the tone is "you all" rather than "we."

I tell her she sings like a Black person. She shrugs.

I tell her she directs the gospel choir at my dad’s theatre. She says, “So?”

I ask her what Native American things consist of. She’s not really sure. She asks me what some Black things are, what are some intrinsic markers of Blackness. I can’t answer quickly.

It’s not because I didn’t think I could call up examples, but because so much of Blackness is nothing less than an indescribable feeling for whom cultural signifiers are limiting and inaccurate; so much of Blackness is between the notes for those with the ears to hear.

On the other side of things, a lot of Blackness is, fairly and unfairly, chalked up to "looking" Black.

As The Franchise grows, I can't help but wonder: Who are we? Who will we raise this kid to be?

I suppose I could go the "I'll do the Black stuff, you do the Indian stuff" route, but that doesn't work for me. This is a partnership and with something like identity, I'd like to be on the same page and I'd like to have a confident understand of the paragraphs I'm not writing. I can't help but feel strangely behind because I feel as though The Feath can identify with me while, like an idiot, I'm busy not quite getting why she's not Black.

Scrambling, I tell The Feath she is Black. She says she is not.

I don’t know what Native Americans from our neck of the woods do differently. That is my struggle. I understand it in practice but, upon observation, I just don’t see the difference. But The Feath insists it is there, insists that there are things between the notes for those with the ears to hear.

I still don't get it, but I work at it every day.

We are different, but we are the same. Perhaps that's all there is to get.

* Fear not; this isn't the "Black Dude Says..." blog, but it is an important element of who I am and, as my friend dream hampton quipped, "I'm pre-postracial" and that fact will be relevant from time to time.

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