In the ongoing effort to encourage and support Oreo efforts everywhere, The Oreo Experience will occasionally point out the good work of the assimilating. 

Today’s tip of the hat goes to Darryl Bell. 

You may remember Darryl from 80s and 90s hit A Different World. 

Darryl is now a cast member on Fox Reality Channels Househusbands of Hollywood. 

In a recent episode, Darryl said, at a table of the privileged class, “I never claimed to have any basketball ability.” 

Congratulations, Darryl. A line like this, coupled with his exclusive lifestyle helps make up for his stint on a black sitcom, the vestiges of a light ethnic accent, being coupled to a lovely lady of color, Tempest Bledsoe and the fact that he is named Darryl.

Keep up the good work, kid. We’ll be rooting for you.

So Rush Limbaugh took a few seconds to call Barack Obama an Oreo. (wait for it, the rant about food and health does lead to the name calling).

There is very little that he could have said here that would be more inappropriate.

As discussed in the FAQ and a previous entry, Barack Obama is not an Oreo. President Obama has the good fortune to be mixed race…and half white.

I get a fair number of people asking why mixed race people are not considered Oreos. While they may be called Oreos by society, especially if their melanin levels favor the darker parent, mixed race kids have a distinct advantage. They are 23 chromosomes closer to the goal. 

While true, and single-raced Oreos have to fight and mentally struggle to summon up the whiteness, mixed race people already have the whiteness in them. And while we welcome their associative membership in the clan, they may not get full Oreo voting privileges. Though the matter is still up for discussion.

In the meantime, they will have to be content being that much closer to that which we all want to be. 

We should all be so lucky.

Let’s hear it for the small victories that let you know you’re on the right path! It’s these kinds of moments that keep my smiling and marching toward my goals.

I was prepping some material for a client and we needed a voice over recording. To streamline the process, I jumped in the recording booth and recorded a track for them. They loved the read, they laughed in all the right places and said they were perfectly happy with the way it sounded.

And then they backtracked. In the best possible way.

“Wait,” the client said. “The characters on the screen will be white. Is this okay?”

“Yes, it’s fine. I said. As long as the voice sounds how you want it to, you can cast whoever you want.” But she was worried that because I was recording one of the character’s internal monologues that the voice and the body should match.

I asked if they liked the way it sounded.  She said it sounded perfect. That my voice totally matched the images. 

“But, you’re…black…right?”

Success!

She was looking right at me. And I’m not sure if it was the pleated suit skirt, the efficiency with which I handled their session or the voice matching I had just done. But she wasn’t exactly sure what I was.

And had I been thinking quickly enough, I would have lied and said that I wasn’t black. But the true win only comes when they don’t have to ask, they just assume you’ve got one hell of a tan.

She played the recording for a few more execs, and everyone loved the read.

Then she would bring the execs in to meet me, confusion would set in and they would leave the room to deliberate.

They ultimately decided to go with a different reader. But said they had a new campaign they wanted to use me for. They showed me the schematics for it. The main character was incredibly afro-centric: short afro, daishiki, poor credit score and all. 

“We’re going to go with someone else, but you’d be perfect for this!” The client said. And my heart sank just a little.

One step forward…you know the rest.

But she can’t deny my those few precious moments; and to those moments I will always cling.

I owe my fellow Oreos a big apology. Not only did I shirk my patriotic duty to serve on a duty, but I used my race card to get out of it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to serve. My blood runs red, white and blue and few things are more patriotic than taking a part in America’s judicial process. But work would not wait for the six-day trial.

During the voir dire, I was asked if I could be objective in the case. I looked at the defendant of color and knew what I had to say. 

As much as I wanted to praise our fellows in law enforcement for their tireless efforts to protect and serve, I felt myself regurgitating stories that, while true, are not ones that an Oreo should dwell on. 

It was years ago and I was going on a ride-along with local law enforcement. We pulled over several cars that evening. With most of the cars, the officer ran the tags and when the vehicle checked out, the driver was sent on his or her way. 

With one, however, the officer took the driver out of the car, put him in handcuffs on the corner and then ran the tags. When the vehicle checked out, the office undid the cuffs and then sent the driver on his way.

That one driver happened to be a driver of color.

I also told the story of the time I was put in the back of a police car.

I was walking down the street with a friend in a small town we were visiting. It was late evening and I was wearing an off-label jacket. The officers drove up behind us with their lights off and stopped just inches before our heels. The jumped out of the car, separated the two of us and I was pushed back toward the car and plopped into the backseat ahead of my friend.

As it was the dead of winter, my hair was under a cap, so there was no way for them to see the relaxed locks that showed that I was not a threat; and my scarf hid Tiffany’s chain from view. The officers were nice enough to present their badges and identification to me–they were in plain sight on their clothes. I could have, should have done the same. 

While I am positive there were potentially dozens of unseen variables that led to the officers making the decisions that they did, I did not go into that in front of the attorneys. I simply stated those facts, allowed the attorneys to realize these experiences might make me unobjective, then collected my belongings when they dismissed me from my duty.

I left the courthouse with mixed feelings. On one hand, I neglected my civic duty. On the other hand, I was on my way back to work; and few things are more patriotic than perpetuating our beloved capitalism…so It wasn’t like I wasn’t serving at all.

And the stories served as a good reminder, especially since fall is coming up. The next time I need to layer when I’m outside, I will make sure to do it with the right brands.

There are few things more delightful than a game night in a gated community, so when I got the invitation, I had to put down my Sunday Times crossword puzzle and go at once. I knew it was going to take me an extra minute at the gate, so I told my fellow players to go ahead and start without me. I was especially excited about playing Apples to Apples, so they struck up around of Scattergories while I was on my way.

After playing a round of “convince the guard,” I drove up to my friend’s brick circle driveway and stepped inside. It was the final moment in the Scattegories game and tensions were high.

A quick recap on the rules of Scattegories: Players have a list of categories next to a column of blanks. Someone rolls a 26-sided die to choose a letter. The players must then use that letter to fill out each of the categories. So, if the categories (of which there are 12, not the three in this example) were “a dessert,” “an animal” and “a pet name,” and the letter was “C.” Someone might answer “cake,” “coatimundi” and “cuddle buns,” respectively. If you choose a word that no one else chooses, you get a point. And like any game, the person with the most points wins.

I walked in and two alpha males were locked in intense competition. They were tied, the last two to speak their words and whoever got this last point would win, or the game would go into overtime.

The final category was “things you’re afraid of” and the letter was “n.”

The penultimate player said: “Ninjas.” 

The crowd of 10 runner ups cheered. 

The final player looked at his board. Looked at me. Then offered this. “I got nothing.”

“You should have just written ‘nothing’,” one of the players said.

Game night went on. Apples to Apples went off like gangbusters. And my saddle shoe pumps were a hit.

I noticed that the trumped Scattergories player was quite a smart game player. In every game that we played, he came out the winner, so I was surprised that he folded so easily on the first game.

On my way out, I checked his Scattergories pad which was still out and under his chair. He did have a word for “things you’re afraid of.” And it did start with an “n.” 

It goes without saying that I was upset. Here was my chance to prove I was one of the crowd and I failed. I had a chance to walk into a room, make everyone comfortable with who I was and that did not occur. Something about the smart Peter Pan collar on my blouse, my hostess gift of saffron sea salts and my discussion of the Fall Fitzgerald Festival was still wanting for perfection.

The poor player. Had I played my game right, he would have felt total confidence playing his. I’mpolishing off my pearls for the next game night and bringing my copy of Ghetto-opoly. That should make things easier for everyone.

What happens when the culture you try so hard to blend in to throws you a curveball with something like this. One one had, they have a high-end wedding and nary a face of color in the audience…perfect! But then…a dance number? To Chris Brown? Nevermind the fact that a couple actively chose as their wedding song something written by a woman-beater. But the ceremony was well on its way to being as white as her dress. Now it will forever be soundtracked by light soul runs and autotuning. 

I’m so returning my gift.