Time's Up.

I should have seen it coming when Zak was born. He's a beautiful boy, born with a full head of curls and a French vanilla ice cream complexion. He's gotten himself a caramel coating since then, but the head full of curls remains. I love my Milk Monster from head to toe, but I'm sure he'd like bath time more if he were one of those bald babies, and other than keeping it clean and rash-free, I don't think much about his skin at all. But my approach is not universal.

It started well before he was born. I expected some speculation over what Zak would look like, and that's perfectly fine-pregnancy seems to be all about speculation and anticipation. I'm surprised a betting pool didn't spring up over what sex Zak would be. But obsessing over how dark Zak would be, or how curly his hair would be, reminds me of a time when Zak's complexion was a passport to a world that would be closed to his dark-chocolate mother.

Yet I'm getting this from, among others, woman who lived during that time, and suffered for it. For she was no high-yellow snob: she's a dark-chocolate farm girl, who's worked hard for every penny she's ever earned. She faced ridicule and criticism for her rich brown skin and short curls, and she helps pass those antiquated ideals on to a boy born into the generation with the best chance yet for living in a world where the color of his skin matters no more than the color of his clothes.

I've tried to dismiss these attempts to rank him, by pointing out what really matters: that he's healthy and happy, and what's on his head matters much less than what's in it. Still, the grading by shade and degree of curl persists. One day, soon, I'm going to call time.

Black folk cannot effectively resist attempts to rank us by shade or hair texture if we insist on doing so ourselves; to a certain extent, how we treat ourselves is the way we will be treated by others. It's long past time to quit ranking one another by the tightness of our curls or the brightness of our skin. Those who are lighter, with more loosely curled or waved hair are not necessarily superior or supercilious; hair texture and color are accidents of birth, not products of a certain character, and they do not produce any personality traits. Those who are darker, with tightly curled or waved hair are not less intelligent, less civilized, and have no less inherent self-worth than any other sort of people. The finest minds lay behind faces of every hue and are topped by hair of every texture. The worst of humanity has laid claim to no color in particular. We have a black president, people. That shows that at slightly more than half the country was able to look past a candidate's skin color to what he has to offer as a politician and agent for change. It's time we got with the program.