PORTLAND — Damali ayo, self-described "professional black person," could be your friend. It'll help if you genuinely lean left, although the other day, she was thinking about sending a card to conservative talk-show host Bill O'Reilly, whose show she recently appeared on.

"So I'm Your Only Black Friend ... " the card reads. She wasn't convinced it would be received warmly.

Ayo, a Portland-based visual artist and newly minted author, who lowercases her name, arrives in Seattle tomorrow for a reading at the Elliott Bay Book Co. Bring a camera. She'll be the woman standing underneath the "For Rent" sign.

It's her mother's doing.

One day a few years back, ayo was fed up, feeling people only valued her because of her race.

"I felt like I wasn't even being heard," she recalls.

She picked up the telephone and vented to Mom, who, in a nod to 1960s comedian Godfrey Cambridge, replied: Well, you can't be everyone's Rent-A-Negro.

And ayo, never shy about speaking her mind, ran with the idea.

"I thought, 'There's a cost involved in this,' " she says. And so she mused on the Internet, creating www.rent-a-negro.com.

"Supporting multiculturalism is an important part of building social clout. But how to start? What if you don't know any black people? Rent a negro. A perfect addition to any event!"

Some media attention followed, and ayo earned the attention of anti-racists and white supremacists alike.

Some people got what she was saying: People of color are tired of being the tokens; they're tired of being asked to speak on behalf of the fill-in-the-blank minority community and educating whites, but if they're going to do so, they might as well get paid.

Some people (white) thought ayo was serious, and they e-mailed her rental "applications." And some people (black) thought she was being serious and e-mailed her résumés.

Now ayo's written the "How to Rent a Negro" book, more biting satire with billing tips, contract language, sample invoices, even a "frequent rental" card. Reaction to the book is visceral. "Utilize the services of black people without the hassle of buying" reads a portion of the yellow newspaper ad-like cover. Immediately, ayo is pegged as either friend or foe.

For renters: "Prove your commitment to diversity." "Boost your reputation by showing off a black friend."

For rentals: "People will be touching your hair. Style it in a way that will delight curious fingers. And remember, don't overmoisturize that day!"

Laughing and thinking

"Hysterical," says Elliott Bay staffer Karen Maeda Allman, recalling her reaction to ayo's Web site, which debuted in 2003. "I've been the token Asian at ... the training, the school, the church group thing. It's like the story of my life."

An ayo appearance, if it's anything like an interview with her, will be unabashedly outspoken, yet charming. Think Margaret Cho, about whom ayo raves. (She also loves Dick Gregory and Lenny Bruce).

"I've always thought that if I had real balls, I'd be a comedian," says ayo, who has a soft, earthy look. Prairie-like skirt with sandals. Hindu meditation tattoo on her arm. Long dreadlocks. Lots of silver jewelry on her fingers, earlobes, nose and toe. She is 33.

Instead, ayo funnels social commentary through visual and performance art: stitching golliwogs, dolls based on black minstrel caricatures (pitch black, wide-eyed, big red lips); panhandling on street corners for reparations; tape recording her experiences at paint stores where she asked clerks to match her skin tone as a paint color. The paint colors of her arm, thigh, left breast, etc., then became a mosaic of her black skin, part of which now hangs on a wall in her apartment, expertly decorated à la vintage funk.

Ayo has called herself a "junk artist," recycling objects to explore gender and class issues as well as race. "I'm really trying to get people to think. And with satire, you want that humor but you want that sting. You want that 'Oh, I feel sick to my stomach' feeling," she says, recalling Jonathan Swift and his "A Modest Proposal." To tackle poverty, Swift asked, why not eat the children?

Her book, ayo says, isn't meant to make fun of whites so much as it is about showing how absurd interracial interactions can be.

"And what," she says, "would it be like if the terms were different?" What if race were a commodity? What if whites got charged for treating blacks like objects; for thinking about them only during Black History Month or when "multiculturalism" comes up? What if you swore you were a diehard liberal but then you realized, embarrassedly, that you had zero black friends?

Ayo's former boss used to take her to an Italian-American restaurant and later admitted doing so because he knew she'd be the only black person there.

"And I thought it was for the really good calamari," she says.

Someone once questioned how she, an Ivy League-educated light-skinned black woman, could complain about race.

Once she was leaving a party and three white people hollered, "See you later, Sledge."

And yes, strangers have grabbed her hair. "A cashier! I took it back from her and she grabbed it again."

Every black woman has a story about her hair being a curiosity in someone else's eyes. And therein lies an explanation for why ayo's book, while offensive to some, rings true for many others.

"It's never done maliciously, but I'd never think of doing that to someone else's hair," says Stephanie Ellis-Smith, executive director of the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas.

"And I think if we didn't have these issues, we wouldn't need this reminder," she adds about ayo's book.

Prepared for racism

Ayo is lounging on a Portland park bench overlooking a rose garden, twirling her hair, speaking her mind.

On homophobia in the black community: "I just want to throw water on them."

The debate about Latinos outnumbering blacks: " 'Who's the biggest minority?' That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"

The notion that Asians have it easier because they're associated with "positive" stereotypes: "What?! It doesn't make any sense!"

"My parents prepared me for racism," says ayo, who grew up in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Brown University. "I was prepared with, like, people are just really stupid." Dad works for the National Cathedral; Mom works for a nonprofit that sends black children to private schools. One of Mom's earliest lessons about race, ayo recalls, was showing her daughter different shades of color, some light, some dark. " 'And this is black,' she said. 'And this is black, too.' "

"I remember being about 4 years old, and I remember telling my best friend, 'You're white.' And she said, 'No, no, I'm really peach.' "

Bring up how some people talk about being "color-blind" and ayo fires back: "That's like saying people don't look at women's breasts!"

"The most recent thing that's flipped a switch in me was when I was in Canada," says ayo, a self-admitted rambler who seemingly has an opinion about everything. She promises she'll answer any question posed to her at her book readings.

"And people said they were taught as being in this big mosaic. And here [in the U.S.], we're 'a melting pot.' One big, blobby mess. But in Canada, they said, 'We pride ourselves in seeing race.' That still has me thinking."

Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com