I'm so white.

Click on the pic for a clearer glimpse of Grad '82 Airband Greatness...

I was raised in the suburbs of Western Canada until such time as I fledged. I was in Regina for Kindergarten. We coloured mimeographed pictures of the Virgin Mary. Elementary school was in Calgary, and then Middle and High School were in Tsawwassen. (I prefer the easier-to-spell "T-Town".) These places were pretty damn waspy and my childhood occurred during the "pre-politically correct" era. I enjoyed listening to the Carpenters and John Denver on the family hi-fi stereo unit.

We would visit my war-vet, ex-pat British grandparents and would be given 25 cents each and sent down the street to the Chink Store. We actually thought that was the last name of the elderly Asian couple who ran the place. Imagine their surprise when my kid brother entered the store to say, "Hello Mister Chink!" with his sunshiny 5-year-old smile. I guess they'd heard worse because they ignored our innocent racism and sold us candy. Maybe they were even thinking, "Oh, these must be the grandchildren of Old Gwailoh Everett."

Interestingly, my brothers and I, first in Elementary and later in High School, became friends with the only Black boys in each of our schools at the time. Each of these kids were the adoptive son of white couples (I recollect no actual Black families.) They were nice, and we had a lot of fun with them. The first boy was named Chris. And we would happily play Lego with him and fry ants with his dad's magnifying glass. I remember when there was a childhood dispute once and someone called him a "nigger". Fascinatingly, he didn't get angry, or contrite. He explained that he was actually a "mulatto", as if that were a relevant fact in the face of our ugly juvenile bigotry.

When we moved to the West Coast our Black friend's name was Andy. In high school we entered the Airband Contest with a group called the Crippled Reincarnated Experience. We all portrayed dead rock stars. I was John Lennon because I'm so deep... and a Beatles fan. Others were John Bonham and Jim Morrison. Obviously my Black friend ended up being Jimi Hendrix, who he more than peripherally resembled. We tore it up pretty good, but there was no hope of victory for us. The prettiest girls in school put on miniskirts and haltertops to recreate the Go-Gos. I mean... they were so sexy I think we even voted for them. I have no idea what happened to Andy, but I suspect he's done well for himself.

Back in the '70's and 80's there was a clear tone of racism in my young environment. It wasn't an angry, clan-style thing, but it was pervasive. My Grandparents might have felt very comfortable with Asian racial slurs, but words like "Paki" and "Punjab" were also used at the dinner table in my house when I was a kid. The suburbs I grew up in had very few non-white kids. They really stuck out in the pale crowd. I didn't like them more or less because they were Chinese, or East Indian, or Black, but I don't think they were on a level playing field either. Some of the cliches were true in T-town, where the Chinese girl was the daughter of the couple that ran the laundromat. This: in a town that was made up largely of cops, pilots, entrepreneurs and upper-management types. They were mostly white men with families, pulling down decent coin, and living in a suburb that is largely an isolated Caucasian enclave. I don't fault my folks for choosing to raise us there. It was comfortable for them and a nice place to be a kid. But hell yeah, I grew up pretty damn white.

Tsawwassen is less than an hour from Vancouver, and that is a horse of a completely different colour. As I got older, I spent more time in the city. My first days in college I took the bus in to take English 101 with a group that was about half East Indian. This shocked little, white me. It wasn't that I didn't like it. On the contrary, it really felt nice, and I was learning more about the real world. Also... some of those brown girls were really, very pretty.

At 20 I was a full-blown angsty acting student when I flew the nest from my folks' place and moved to East Vancouver. Although the area is now trendy (read affluent, gentrified and predominantly white), in 1985 my Main Street neighbourhood was full of First Nations and East Indian folks. It was economically depressed, but colourful, and exciting and not at all like where I was from. Jesus. In retrospect they must have seen me coming. I haven't really looked back since. After that I moved in with another guy who I went to acting school with. He was the son of a woman from Washington DC who once sang with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. She was absolutely not white. My friend's energy and awareness and rebelliousness blew me away, and I learned a thing or two from his mom as well. T-town just looked smaller and smaller.

Fast forward over twenty years, half a life, some travel, and now a family of my own. When the time came we could have bought a house in Tsawwassen and returned to the enclave. Many do, and I think that's fine for them. We just wanted to stay here. I live in a community where you look on the street and see real drug crime and damaged lives. Once in a while some of the Vietnamese gang members have been known to kill one another in restaurants two blocks away while I sleep at night. But...

When my son goes to his Elementary school, or his karate class, he shares his world with kids from many different races, religions and economic backgrounds. In spite of some of the ugliness, which is luridly played up in the media and in non-residents' imaginations, this is a safe, kind and nurturing place to live.

We've been honoured with an invitation to our nieghbour's daughter's wedding next week. I had to get briefed by the girls next door to learn what to expect because it'll be our first Indian Wedding. Sounds like a wonderful spiritual, food-laden and joyful event. These are folks who my son has known all his life because he was born here. The bride was just a kid when we moved into the house next to hers, and now she's moving onto the next phase of her life. We'll be among friends, so it'll be great, in spite of the fact that I'm so white.