I did not understand my blackness growing up. I did not know how to embrace it; how to celebrate it.
Besides family, I grew up with very few other black or mixed children. I never had a black teacher teach my class or from what I can remember, even work in the schools I attended. Of the forty or so classes I completed in college, only two professor were black, one was Maylasian, and the rest were white. I grew up in a whitewashed town where it felt easier to blend in than to be me. My blackness was more of a punchline to the students around me than something I felt I was even allowed to be proud of. Some comments were harmless, others were ignorant and hurtful. I unknowingly blended in as a defense. I straightened my hair every single day. I passed in order to look like everyone else. I didn’t know how to be me. I didn’t feel as if I could be me.
I felt out of place at family reunions, where I was the lightest person in the room. Visiting the family church in North Carolina, I felt that everyone was staring at me and that I didn’t belong. That was probably not true, but it’s how I felt during those times as a child. I wish I shared that with my family; they would have guided me to celebrate ME. All of me. All of us. Instead, I remained silent, even when a white boy called me a nigger. The next time that happened I was in college and I made sure that the university administration knew. A spark lit inside of me, a burning that we cannot stay silent about the things that matter. We cannot stay silent about ignorance and social injustice. Yes, humor gets us through life, but blackness cannot merely be the butt of a joke for other races.
When President Obama was elected in 2008, what it meant to be black or bi-racial in America was thrust into the spotlight. Attending his Presidential Inauguration in 2009, I looked up at that stage and began to feel the connection and pride of what it means to be black in this country. I felt the power of how far we’ve come― alongside the rawness of prejudices still evident in this country.
During my senior year of college, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spent an entire morning sitting with me and my African Popular Culture classmates. Candid, confident, poised, elegant, and stylish; she informed us of The Danger of A Single Story. If you believe or only choose to hear one story of a person or even a country, you risk being critically misinformed. There may be some truth in some stereotypes, but that one truth does not make everyone’s story a carbon copy.
At times, assumptions hold us back more than anything in this life. If we don’t make an effort to educate and inform ourselves, someone else will hand us some twisted information, causing us to assume that we know the facts. For those who don’t follow Adiche, she has exploded as a presence of feminism and cultural appreciation. Her novels line shelves and her speech, We Should All Be Feminists can be heard in Beyoncé’s Flawless. Adiche gets it. Feminism is about equality and we’re all guilty of believing a single story as fact. Let’s stop stunting our own growth as learners, students, and respectable human beings.
I can’t say this enough, CELEBRATE WHO YOU ARE. Any negativity toward that is coming from a place of ignorance and a lack of a grasp on the truth. Yes, the world would be a better place if we could forget differences in color, but we’re a long way from that when the celebration is still met with disdain and misunderstanding.
I’m an adult now. I love me; especially the BLACK half of me. I recognize the under-representation of black woman in this country. The targeting of black boys and black men. It’s terrifying that there are people that instantly have their mind made up about you because you’re dark and held to a double standard.
My fellow Americans, appropriating black culture cannot be okay if you are not are willing to fight with us. Willing to stand up for the bullshit that happens time and time again in this country. If you want to celebrate blackness, then you better fight for it too. Do not make your black friends and classmates feel that they need to be less black to fit somewhere in this damn world― to get the same privileges and treatment as their white counterparts― to feel safe.
Thank you Beyoncé for celebrating black women as hard as you possibly can. For throwing it in people’s faces that we are here, we are powerful, and we are only going up from here. Thank you Kendrick Lamar for turning poetry into music to talk about things that are painful and real. Thank you Jesse Williams for your BET Humanitarian Award acceptance speech and for using your position in the world to push for change.
Yes, the past is in the past but freedom does not mean everyone is truly free. Free to feel safe. Free to advance in their careers. Free to have the resources and support to get a solid education. Free from the pre-judgement before even standing a chance.
To the law enforcement officers with their head and heart in the right place; thank you endlessly for your sacrifice. To the non-violent protesters on the front lines, showing America that the injustices are not okay; keep marching, keep talking, keep standing, do not ever quit. Do not turn to violence; you must be better than that.
To the men, women, and children dead because their blackness posed a “threat” far before their actions may have threatened the person that took their life― WE WILL NOT FORGET YOUR NAMES. We will not stop speaking your names. This is the United States of America?... a 15-year-old boy should not have to see his father brutally shot to death on every news channel; but he has seen it and so have millions because it is real. Painfully, brutally, disgustingly real.
Whether you’re white, black, brown, yellow, purple, green... don’t let this movement be a fleeting conversation.