by Edmund J. Janas, II

Among my father’s Jewish broker and his family, I was seen as Polish/white. Help came naturally, even with talk of taking my company public in the late ’90s. Later in life, when our money took flight—partly from my overextending to take care of everyone, even folks who wouldn’t help me if I were on fire—I was flat broke, starting over. My father’s conferred privilege was gone. Now, at the SBA, I heard how impossibly competitive BIPOC “grants” were. (Think: Hunger Games with no cooperation) I was told I needed perfect credit, healthy revenue streams, and to put my house up for collateral to get any help.

“Wait, I’m in a new, unproven industry, and yes, I have assets, but they aren’t fully developed.”

It fell on deaf ears. White boys are told their ideas are enough. I was Black now, and I had to be perfect to get help.

“So, you’re telling me the only way to get help is to not need it?”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“Well, I wish you told me that 4 months ago when I started this business plan. Since more than 80% of startups fail, telling me to put my home up for collateral feels more like a setup for homelessness than help.”

When I was 26, my Aunt Lorraine brought me to the mansion of Black philanthropist Peggy Cooper Kafritz. For the first time, I was seen differently. Peggy, with her biracial children, asked, “Do you need anything, like help with your education?” I politely declined. Her offer hung in the air. I thought, “My brothers and sisters have it worse. Save your help for them.” Aunt Lorraine stayed silent.

My mother died six days after my 16th birthday. If she had lived, I imagine I would have been seen as a Black boy needing guidance. But from as early as I can remember, I was treated like an adult who didn’t need help, especially when it came to navigating life as a Black man. My father, though ever-present, was wholly incapable of preparing me for this. I had to learn it on my own.

Shortly before I left D.C. in ’98, I found myself working with high-end but often low-class consultants, one of them a white Latino. One day, he proclaimed: “I hate my mother!” I sat there, stunned. For an hour, I couldn’t process it. I’ve known people with crack-addicted mothers who wouldn’t say such a thing. As a Black man and a Polish man, cherishing mothers was ingrained in me. What could a healthy, wealthy man’s mother have done to hurt him so?

One day, he walked out in a fine suit, inviting everyone to drinks—everyone but me.

“Why ask everyone but me?”

“Honestly, Edmund, you scare me,” he said.

I laughed. “Good!”

He was the first one fired. Before I moved to California, he begged me to take a consultancy gig so he could ride my coattails into a world-class organization.

“How much does it pay?” I asked.

“$150 an hour. They need a database designer—I’m sure they’ll pay anything!”

“No thanks.” Click.

At a civil rights protest in D.C., a famous leader posed for pictures with the Black men who made the journey. When it was my turn, even though he knew my aunt, he snapped: “I don’t have time for this, Lorraine!” He grudgingly took the picture. When I saw it later, I tore it in half. Pressure, like a diamond, from all sides.

Before anyone tells me, “You don’t look white,” let me say this: I’ve had doctors who didn’t know I was Black. I’ve owned a mirror my whole life; I know what I look like. Now, if those doctors were looking up my butt and family jewels and didn’t know… you don’t either…so, come on.

The truth is, sometimes I passed in rooms; other times, I was questioned. When I was broke, the assumptions were one thing. In prestigious spaces, dressed in suits, they shifted. Now that I’m older and I work from home, or barely…I don’t mix much with people, because people these days, stink. But, I will be returning to acting, and that industry is a madhouse worthy of a book—I’ll share that another time.

My first acting gig was as a stand-in for a Jewish kid in American Sunset. My first major union role? A Portuguese detective in Brotherhood. In Cambridge, living with a Chinese landlady, people thought I was part Chinese. Race is always in the eye of the beholder. I wasn’t trying to pass—I was just living.

At 16, I studied in Italy. For the first time, I wasn’t an oddity. No suspicion, no expectations—just being. I loved it. Just 16, and it felt like I was out of the American pressure cooker.

A sister once told me, “You’re not as white as you think.” I laughed.

“Bitch, I know who I am. I know who my father is, and yes, in this culture, he’s considered white.” Accident of birth. But I’m not white like that, and I’m not reaching for it.

I’ve had Black cops assume I was white because I had my beautiful sister in the car. I’ve heard, “Your mother was Black, you aren’t,” or, “To the U.S. government, you’re just Black.” I’d laugh and say, “To the U.S. government, I’m just a n***,” and watch them squirm.

Russians have shunned me because they thought I was Jewish. I asked why. My friend said, “They heard you say ‘Oi vey’!”

“Are they stupid? Who doesn’t love the way ‘Oi vey!’ feels on the lips and tongue?”

Latinos ignored me, greeting my friends instead. I’ve seen it all.

Now, no one tries me. But trust, I’ve been kicked out of parties. I’ve almost caught charges, standing up for my people. My mother was Black—so am I. Yes, I’m also Polish and Indigenous, but my culture is Black and Polish. I’m African American and genetically about 60% Polish/Scandinavian. Where does one end and the other begin? I’ve never believed in the lie of race. But culture? That’s real. Whiteness is a power system built on a myth, ever-changing and as nonsensical as the construct of race.

People have told me, “You’re just Black.” That’s silly, like denying my father—something I’d never do. My mother taught me: “When they ask what you are, you say, ‘I’m Black.'” She didn’t want me to deny my father. She wanted me to love being Black. That’s why she taught me that way.

In Florida (a decision I still regret), a white classmate convinced me to pay her husband $1,500 to fix my car. When we graduated, she got a good job as a designer. Me? I was stuck in a trailer park in the Davie swamps. They dumped my car at a garage and asked for $150 to get it back. The cops came.

“What color was he?” they asked.

“White.”

“Well, we can’t help you then.”

When I opened my office in Northampton, a letter was attached to my windshield, threatening to kill me, calling me a “Jewish fag.” If I were truly passing, I could turn off the topic of race and go about my life. But we, people of color, don’t get those breaks. It’s always on—and twice on Mondays.

Even in my investigative work, when I mentioned a Black victim or a white suspect, people would turn away. Sometimes it was our own people, too. But if I added, “And four white people followed,” suddenly, they leaned in.

Pressure comes from all sides, and so does pre-judging people on skin-deep appearances.

So, yes, when Kamala Harris says her administration will help Black men wanting to start businesses, I am intimately aware that we do. And my European half fully concurs, shall we take tea in the drawing room? Of course! I always argue with myself, I think I’m the only person who saw Get Out and literally had an argument with himself as he drove home, alone.