Tommy Davidson Reflects On Being Raised By White Parents & Not Knowing He Was Black

Comedian Tommy Davidson recently revealed he was five years old when he discovered his adopted parents were White and he was Black.

Tommy shared his story on the “Love and Respect with Killer Mike” show.

I never thought of them as White because I didn’t know what White was.

From 18 months to five that was my family. 

So what I knew was love, and I knew friendship, and I knew honesty.

Like, my family talked about a lot of stuff.

We had discussions, you know, we were very very very tight.

So I didn’t know that, I didn’t know anything about Black and White until I turned, like, five.

We moved from Fort Collins, Colorado to Washington D.C., and we moved there during the riots of 68’ when King got shot.

So, it wasn’t until a couple of days later until things calmed down, maybe it had been a couple months later.

We went out to try to play with the kids, you know, and the Black kids, that I didn’t know were Black then, beat our a**es every day.

And they were calling my sister and my brother White cracker.

And they were calling me White cracker lover.

This is when the Black and White stuff came in.

So, I went to my mama, I got mad, you know, I’m like, ‘Why are they calling me a White cracker lover?… I like graham crackers.’

You know, yeah I mean I’m five, white crackers are kind of dry you gotta have water with them or something or you got to have some macaroni salad or something, you be done died off a white cracker.

You know, but you have a graham cracker it’ll go down, slide on down with some apple juice.

Yeah, so she said, ‘That’s what people your color call people our color when they don’t like them.

And I was like okay , ‘Well, what color are they?’

She said, ‘They’re Black,’ and I said, ’No, they’re brown.’ Because I learned my colors from the crayons.

She said, ‘I know, but that’s what we call it.’

Right, and I was like that’s stupid, right, your hating someone for a color they really aren’t. 

Watch the video clip below:

Tommy Davidson tells his life story in his memoir, “Living in Color: What’s Funny About Me.”

I hear it’s a good read.

Your thoughts?