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The Brown Girl World |
About Sherrelle
Sherrelle is an aspiring writer, wife and stay-at-home mother (an oxymoron, as she is never at home) to two brilliant and beautiful kids. She lives in the South, by way of the Northeast, by way of the West, by way of the Midwest. But she plans to move to the beach and become a surfer someday. She will take her husband with her; he's cool even though he is irrationally afraid of birds.
Sherrelle, a self-described pseudo-hippy, believes that it is possible to be both crunchy and fabulous at the same time. She thinks that organic food is better for you, nursed her children well beyond their second year of life and birthed one of them at home. She has dreadlocks, she wears clogs and peace signs are her favorite icon. But the fabulous part of her is a Juicy Couture loving, Free People and Betsy Johnson wearing, Sephora junkie. She firmly believes that a little bling can always make things more fun.
Sherrelle has an uncanny ability to remember lyrics to a frightening number of songs. She hasn't figured out how to parlay this skill into a beach house, but she's sure that it's marketable somehow. She loves cartoons, but not politics and certainly not political cartoons. She is very opinionated and not afraid to say so!
Besides devoting time to her website, Funkidivagirl.com, where she gets to complete her life's mission of saving the world from mediocrity, she digs traveling, reading, challenging herself to try new things and really good iced tea. Her favorite thing to do is laugh and tries to make that happen every day.
Green-Eyed Brown Girl
Shout my name to the angels
Sing my song to the skies
Anoint my ears with wisdom
Let beauty fill my eyes
-- (poem from Brown Angels, by Walter Dean Myers)
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I have a beautiful little brown girl with dark brown hair, a little pink bow of a mouth and the cutest button nose. She is smart, funny, a great artist and dancer and talks a blue-streak. But the first thing people notice about her is her green eyes.
On African American people, blue, green, gray or amber-colored eyes can be quite a conversation-starter, much to my daughter's embarrassment. Complete strangers are not really shy about inquiring into the genetic nature of her eye color, as she clearly didn't inherent them from my husband and I.
When she was born, my daughter's eyes shocked us as well. A pink, fat healthy baby born in our living room on a beautiful fall day, her chubby cheeks were the first thing we noticed. After making her spectacular entry into the world, she was tired and slept for two days. It wasn't until she finally opened her eyes that we saw to our amazement that they were blue (turning green many months later).
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The short answer to this genetic puzzle is that my daughter inherited her eye color from her grandmother; my husband's white Italian/German Jew mother has green eyes as well. This genetic trait skipped both of her sons and grandson, but was apparently waiting for a girl-child to reappear in the family gene pool. My mother's family also has a blue-eyed gene somewhere down the line in a jumble of African, European and Native American heritage, so my daughter mixed up that gumbo pot of genes and voila! -- Here she is, not really looking like any of one of us, but all of us combined. As they say, "she looks like herself."
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When I first wrote about my daughter's eyes on my blog, I received a wonderful comment with a YouTube video attached showing all kinds of brown people from around the world with blue or green eyes (see below). As this video shows, there isn't any explanation needed to why brown people can have other-than-brown eyes. It's just so.
Most African Americans have such a crazy mixed up gene pool, that we really should not be surprised by the look of any baby that comes out of our womb. My son, my first born, was equally a surprise to us with his deep dimples, very dark eyes and almost jet-black wavy thick hair; a stunningly beautiful baby. As he grew, he looked more and more like me, but even now his Native American heritage is more prominent in his face than in mine. And he is still beautiful.
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But isn't this the way with all of our children? Don't we look at them and ask ourselves, "Who are you? Where did you come from?" It is amazing to think that these people with their own thoughts, gifts, talents and unique beauty are somehow connected to us.
As for my daughter, sometimes when I look at her even now seven years later, I am started still. When she has on certain clothing or the sunlight catches her eyes in a certain way I am compelled to speak aloud about her beauty. It has less to do with the greenness of her eyes, but the light that shines through them. Her spirit is pure and delightful and so attractive to be around, like bubbles of laughter floating in the air. My beautiful green-eyed brown girl.
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Although this video indicates that it is 9 minutes long,
it is in fact only about 5 minutes long. Enjoy!