Washington City Paper: Contents for Feb. 9

Cover Story

As a black woman who happens to be an albino, Virginia Small lives between the races, between the labels, between black and white—between what people hate and what people fear.

"What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men—has no substantive deformity—and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so?"

—Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Virginia Small remembers the time when she was 11 years old and her mother took her to the laundromat. They hoped for a quick in and out with the family clothes, but when you're a dark-skinned, hard-pressed black woman toting along a whiter-than-white albino child, no errand is ever simple, no trip out of the house unharassed. Everyone along the way has an opinion about "where you got that child from" and "who the child really belongs to." Nothing is ever simple when you're a black woman with an albino child. Or when you're a black child who happens to be an albino.

On this day, a white woman doing her laundry came up to Virginia and her mother and congratulated her mother for "having had the courage to adopt a white child." Virginia and her mother both turned away to hide their embarrassed smiles. The white woman looked angry and baffled.... Continued

Issue of Feb. 9 - 15, 1996

News and Features

White on Black
Cover Story By Pamela Margoshes
Funding a Felon
Walter Johnston Was Convicted of Lying to HUD in the '80s. So Why Did His Business Just Win a Fat Government-Funded Housing Contract?
Cover Story By Betsy Dance
Collapsing New Buildings
Feature By Michael Schaffer
Our Man in Bosnia
The City By Eric Friedman
Can't Buy Me Love
Deconstructing the Washington Post's Valentine "Love Notes"
The City By Scott Barancik
Firing Line
The Mail By Robert Boston
Liberties Taken
The Mail By Andrew Williams
Live Here or Die
The Mail By Darlene R. Davis
Bill of Wrongs
The Mail By Christopher Herman
Bill of Fools
The Mail By Sam Smith
Fishin' for Recognition
The Mail By Richard Layman
The New Word Order
The Mail By Bill Morrison
Another One of Us
The Mail By S. Shrum