Chapter Five: White or Black? Or 4,000 shades inbetween.

I am a black and white cat. No denying that. Of course, I am more black than white, as black fur covers 80% of my body. But my white parts are lovely. You should feel my tummy. The fur there is long and soft and my Mummy likes to bury her nose in my tummy and tell me how beautiful I am. My paws are white. My chest and chin are white. I have a few white hairs under my nose. As you see, I am a pretty good combination.

All my parts get along just fine. The black parts and the white parts. It’s like Bermuda. There are black people and there are white people. At least that is what they call themselves. Actually, I’ve seen them. No one is black like my black, and no one is white like my white. They are brown, some dark like my crunchy cat food, some light like my canned tuna. You could call them mahogany or weak tea if you like. The white ones are pink, pale ecru, light blush, hot pink (sunburns), toast brown (suntanned), and burnt brown. That’s the colour of scorched toast. There’s a lot of mixing between the white people and the black people and they are producing an amazing variety of coloured offspring. They are quite beautiful. Just like cats. One mummy cat can have orange kittens, tabby kittens, calico kittens, and of course black and white kittens, like me. Mummy humans don’t have that variety, especially orange and calico, but they sure try hard.

My black parts love my white parts and vice versa. They are in this thing together, meaning me. Humans have divided themselves. They point fingers. He does that because he’s white. She doesn’t do that because she’s black. Isn’t it absurd that a person who is the colour of weak tea hates white people so much when it is obvious they are more white than black? I think the labels are all wrong, don’t you? Instead of calling Bermudians whites or blacks, they should start calling each other lemon tea, pink oleanders, burnt toast, egg shell, teak, etc. That would have been a much better classification for the Census Form. “I am weak tea with a slight pink oleander blush.” Don’t you love it?

“I am speckled, like a Hind, with two thousand dark mahogany freckles on an attractive, translucent honey and lemon tea tan skin, a light patch on my bottom, and a pink scalp. How do you classify me?”

Hah! I even know Ronnie’s from St. David’s.