Diana Patton was keenly aware as a child that she did not fit neatly into the race boxes for being white or black. She was reminded of this daily as she was followed home from school by girls taunting that she state her race.
“Are you white or are you black,” the girls would demand.
Patton, whose mother was black and father was white, would later realize that her racial identity couldn’t be defined by some Census Bureau box.
Patton was the keynote speaker at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. program on Friday hosted by the Bowling Green Human Relations Commission at the Wood County District Public Library.
The speaker, who was vice president and general counsel for the Toledo Fair Housing Center, is working to finish her book called, “Inspiration in My Shoes.” She earned her law degree at the University of Toledo, where she also ran track.
Patton’s mother, the grandchild of a sharecropper, married a white man in 1958. Her father was disowned by his family for his decision, she said. Her “momma” was pregnant with her sixth child, Patton, in 1968 when King was assassinated.
“It was as if a bomb went off,” Patton said her mother must have been thinking as she brought another biracial child into the violent “haze over America.”
Patton spent part of her younger years hiding her blended identity. In college, she “decided to be black” and denied her father’s heritage. But it was in college that she followed the path of her “momma,” falling in love and later marrying a white man.
“Marinate on that for a moment,” she said.
Patton urged her audience to hold onto their history but “get to working” on creating their own legacy. She shares the same lesson with her children that her momma taught her. “I’m telling them, we gonna work to transcend race.”
The lessons of King are important to cling to in the wake of so many black men being gunned down in America, she said. His words encourage us to do better, be better.
“We like to preach the words of Martin Luther King,” she said. “But we don’t want to live them.”
Patton told her audience that no matter what career paths they choose, they can be dedicated fighters for the noble cause of civil rights.
“It will enrich your spirit as nothing else can,” she said. “Make a career of humanity.”
“Get busy serving others,” Patton said.
And about that color box. Don’t let it define your life.
“Do you like the skin you are in?” That’s what is important.
Live your life so that when it’s over, others will spring into action to continue your noble fight.
“We have an opportunity to live a life that will outlive us,” she said. “You need to understand what you are and what you bring to this world.”
Also at last week’s gathering, Rev. Gary Saunders, community co-chair of the Not In Our Town movement, explained the group’s goal of embracing diversity and fighting prejudice. Saunders said silence in the face of intolerant acts is unacceptable.
For that reason, a couple meetings on “Islamaphobia” are being planned in Bowling Green. More details will be forthcoming.
