Mauve Momma Reveals Her True Color

If you get to pick the color you're going to be, you gotta pick brown. White is ai'ite and black isn't bad either, but brown is the happening hue. Brown like iced tea and paper lunch bags and beach sand. Brown like buttermilk pancakes and fried potatoes. Like wheat bread and peanut butter and almonds and patio chairs. Brown like oatmeal and mud and smog. Oh it's good to be brown.

Brown the color of ambiguity. The International Color of Mystery. With brown your identity is fluid and hidden. Other brown people come and do not realize they are looking into the mirror of brownness. "Are you Persian?" says the eager young man with a leather jacket in the college library. "You are Indian, and Punjabi, I know," says Mrs. Aggarwal, your co-worker. "I think you are Iranian girl," says the smiling middle-aged man at the mechanic. "You could be from Morocco," says the shy female student. Yes, you could. You are the Brown Hornet. You are an enigma.

Brown knows no barriers, no borders. Foolish people tried to draw lines and set up fences and guards to keep out too much more brown. Brown is still coming. Brown was here before this country gave birth to itself, and brown is arriving on the Greyhound tomorrow. Brown is not afraid of police dogs. Brown sees the hole in the chain-link fence.

Brown refuses to be bounded or boxed. Brown needs more than one language to express itself. Brown is too big for one group label. Brown will be Latino this week, Chicano next week, and Hispanic never. Brown listens to rap and oldies and banda and metal and it is going out of the house dressed like that.

Brown is laughing at you when you try to ask "Where are you from?" Brown answers, "Los Angeles" and watches you squirm and come back with an even worse question. "Where are your parents from?" A dark brown eyebrow cocks and answers, "They're from L.A. and El Paso." Brown knows what you are asking, and brown is not giving it to you that easy. You want brown to own up to being Mexican, but brown is also more American than tan apple pie crust and cinnamon, and will not let you assume it is an immigrant. Brown's ancestors ate the hearts of people who asked dumb questions for breakfast.

You are worried about brown when you cannot identify it. You want to know if brown snuck here through a river or on a tire to take your job. You wonder if brown is here to outsource your company to Bangalore. Perhaps you want to know if brown enjoys jihads and strapping explosives on children. Brown is not indulging your crap. Brown votes and pays taxes and obeys the traffic laws, and brown is more patriotic than a browning turkey and a brown leather football, and don't you forget it.

Brown is a crazy motherfucker, ese. Brown is drunk on cheap brown ale and high as a kite singing "Brown-Eyed Girl" at 2 in the morning. Go ahead and call the cops, because Brown's cousin Manuel is a policeman and he'll come and just laugh and sing along to a verse of "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue."

You see brown everywhere. Brown is hip. Brown is on the subway and in the market and boarding the school bus. Brown is the biggest minority in the country and several of the small ones too. Brown is on your TV and in your cereal bowl. Brown is James Brown and Foxy Brown and Downtown Julie Brown and Charlie Brown. Brown is the hot new color for autumn. Airbrushed photos of taupe sweaters and chocolate leggings among falling burnt leaves are putting brown on the map. Brown is a status symbol.

You might think brown likes the Cleveland Browns, but fuck that. Brown likes the Raiders, ese. Yeah. Brown is tough. Brown is bad bad Leroy Brown. Brown's cousins will slash your tires and pee in your gas tank.

Brown is powerful. Brown grows and grows and will not be ignored. Brown empties the high schools and marches down the street when brown is angry. Brown colors everything. You have pale skin and yellow hair, but when brown has your baby it has brown eyes and skin like oatmeal with brown sugar. Brown withstands the worst. Brown tans but never burns.


But something is wrong with brown now. There are two toast-colored knees in the bathtub rising above a pile of snowy bubbles as brown ponders its place. You are looking in your favorite places for brown and it is hard to find. You are looking in the senior English seminars and at the debate tournaments and in the law schools and at the pictures of the United States senators and you have to squint to see the brown. Did they not hear that brown is the new thing? Where is all the brown?

Brown does not know and brown is a little sad. But brown is a proud and strong color and brown will march on. Brown will have a party and put out chicken nuggets and barbeque sauce, and peanut butter cookies and chocolate pudding and root beer. Brown will turn up the music and invite you to dance. Come on!

...Do you remember when....we used to sing?