Attempting to Transcend Whiteness

Damariyoh, mareeh-oh, neh-oh...
The African beat slinks through the hallway to the circular table where I am reading The Alchemy of Race and Rights, the academic diary of Patricia J. Williams, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Oh, damariyoh maree-oh neh.
Ohemaah, whose name means Queen in Ashanti, sends a good morning my way with her eyes smiling behind her rose-colored glasses. I hear her brush attack her coarse hair as she sings along with the music.
It hits me. My roommate is black. Did I never notice before? Am I noticing now because of this overly-analytical, bitter, but painfully true law diary of a woman trying to shake white society by the shoulders? Am I a racist for noticing all of this?
Moments in my life when skin color have wound their way into my mind and conversation come racing back to my consciousness. A lunch with Luz Jimenez, who complimented my awareness of the issue. "I like you because you know that being white has made it easier for you." I remember an instance in a discoteca in Spain when a Moorish-Spaniard and his black Moroccan friend asked me about my ethnicity, and I told them I was Irish, Swedish, German and French. "Ah, completamente gringa," they joke.
I remember the Nigerian dance party where I was the only white girl in the room and it didn't matter at all. In fact, it was more fun.
I remember yesterday, when Ohemaah came with me to Ventura, CA's Scottish Seaside Highland Games, a haven and competition for all things Celtic. I felt like royalty, walking around with wavy strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes and freckles. Everyone who came across us asked me, "Are you sure you're not Scottish?" But what struck me more was how much they loved both Ohemaah and I. A band called Bad Haggis played on the Celtic Rock Stage. During a transition between songs, the guitar player began singing in Ewe, Ohemaah's language, and she freaked. She told me that she introduced herself afterwards as Ghanaian and the entire band swarmed her, fascinated by her African-ness. One lady even cooed, "this might sound weird, but I love your color." Ohemaah was even adopted as an honorary member into the Armstrong clan.
Race hit me. And particularly how mine influences the way I think and see everyone else.
Yeah, I'm totally white. I feel guilty about it, the way it opens the world to me and not to others, and the way whiteness has subjected and impoverished and terrified everyone else for so long.
And then Ohemaah enters my room, in her church clothes. Golden high heels, a black blazer, a taut turtleneck. Her shoulders are pulsing to the beat of Damariyo. I no longer see color. I feel the culture she exudes and begin to hum along with her. I am no longer white; I am the Queen's friend.