When Black is White

'Queen of the Night' Tulips

I went by the Orient Market today to pick up some supplies for chicken-coconut soup, and the Thai guy at the cash register snickered when he read the name on my driver's license.  "Black, huh? You look more white to me!"

My African friends find this amusing, too.  But, hey, it's my husband's family name . . . what am I supposed to do about it?!

DH heard a discussion about this on the radio the other day. Apparently the guy on the program was saying that Black was originally a French name, and started out, not as "Black," but "Blanc." Thus, some poor French guy with a name meaning "white" eventually moved to England and ended up with descendants running around being called "Black."

I've later learned that "black" and "blanc" are from the same original Germanic word, bleac (with an aesc, but I'm not techy enough to be able to use one in this format).  That word is also the origin of "bleach," "bleak," and "blank." So, what do all of those things have in common?  A lack of color.

Pretty cool to think, especially from a racial perspective. that the ideas of black and white are from a single origin, from what they have in common. White is the reflection of all visible wavelengths of light, and black is the absorption of them all. So, neither black nor white is a color.  Rather, they are united by the absence of it.