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He missed out on 42 cards and 42 ties.  He missed the day I took my first step, said my first word, hit my first ball, dated my first girl, married my first(and only) wife, had my first two(and only two) kids, and I'm not sure he even knew the opportunities he was missing. My biological father had an affair with my biological mother, a coworker.  My mother had me, gave me up for adoption, and never said anything else about me or their affair.  I am not sure he knew anything about me, although working with a woman you had "relations" with and seeing her stomach swell would cause some concern, you would think. … [more]

It was a beautiful fall day in middle Michigan; a day I would usually breathe in deeply as I enjoyed the changing colors of seasons.  But that day my heart was alone.  It had been seven days since I moved to college from my zone of comfort in Detroit. As I exited my dorm, I so longed for someone who spoke the same language as me.  Everyday in Detroit, I was in close contact with my black friends.  Whenever I went to the store, I saw black people and even though I would go home to a white household and white neighborhood I only played the minority part-time. Once I moved on campus, I was a… [more]

When I was 21 years old, I called my mom and dad from college with some reservation, nervousness, and hesitation. Finally, I announced I would be searching for my birthmother. There was a pause on the other end of the phone and then my parents erupted with information, information that they had known for 21 years, information they were waiting for me to come and get. Over those 21 years, I thought a lot about my birth mother and wondered about her, but I never shared that with my mom and dad. Recently, I realized we were both waiting for the other to say something. My parents assumed since I didn’t bring it up that I wasn’t thinking about it. I assumed since they didn’t… [more]

Recently I sat down and tried to compute the amount of exposure I had to children of color while growing up.  Below is the math behind the exposure. AGE EXPOSURE

0-3          None

3-8          Approximately 6 hours/day for 5 years (10,950 hours)

8-18        Approximately  4-5 hrs/day for 10 years (16,425 hours)

Over first 18 years of my life - 27,375 hours or 1140.625 days, or  3.125 years of constant 24/7 exposure.

Once I saw the numbers I was in shock.  This was the formula that allowed me access to a culture I would know nothing about without this exposure.  Looking up at this number is like sitting at the base of a mountain looking straight up trying to see the top. … [more]

Trips to the grocery store were always an event in the Hofmann household.  Usually, Dad would be working so Mom would load up us four kids all under the age of eight  in to the dark blue station wagon and we would trek to the local A and P grocery store. The one order we would get before we walked through those magic glass doors that opened by themselves was simple; “Make sure you stay with me,” Mom would say.  Then the adventure began.  Mom would whisk up and down the isles checking off items one by one on a list written on the back of an envelope or on a scrape piece of… [more]

Before Mom left to go to the store she gave me permission to go out and play.  She instructed me to stay in front of the house and then added,... "and  stay off that skateboard it's very dangerous."  I humbly promised I would just to usher her out of the house quicker.  Mom telling me to not do something, at the age of ten, was like presenting Eve with a ripe shiny piece of forbidden fruit. Five minutes after Mom left, as I was deciding what to do with my freedom, the devil showed up at our front door.  It was the neighborhood legion of boys wanting to… [more]

I am Caucasian. My first  mom was white and my first dad is black.  Physiologically, I am just as much white as I am black so from now on I will introduce myself as a Caucasian. Soon after, the men in little white Good Humor man jackets will cart me away. I often get asked, if I am biracial why didn’t I choose to identify with my white side versus my black side.  My quick answer is I didn’t know I had a choice. When I was 8 years old my family and I moved from our black neighborhood to a white neighbor where I was the only black child on our block.  In the initial meeting with the… [more]

I retired from playing video games with my boys.

The frustration involved outweighed the fun I was supposed to be having.  There were two large reasons why I hung up my controller.  The first reason was that I was no longer able to beat them.  The pain I feel in the middle of my chest to the left of my sternum as I admit that makes me flinch.   I need a moment…..Okay I’m good.

I was and still am a minority in my own family. I was the product of an affair between my white  mother and black father and for obvious reasons, I was given up for adoption immediately after I was born.  My biological mother transported me from the hospital to my foster home and that was the last time we saw each other over 43 years ago. Three months later after my biological mother and I parted, I was adopted by a white minister, his wife, and their three biological children.  It was the fall of 1967 in Detroit, just three explosive months after the riots that changed the city forever. Growing up in Detroit at such a time was a mixture of childhood bliss and… [more]