Short. Dark. Supposed statistic. Intellectual outlier.
Cory,
Ft. Worth, TX.
Being Sicilian explains who I am.
Annaleisle Gingher
Peachtree City, GA
Understanding my ethnicity has explained so much and helped me understand who I am. I may be classified in a box as “white” but I am a second generation Sicilian with dark skin and dark hair. I’ve always identified with other races. Only to understand we are all the same at the core. Race identification is unnecessary. We all have our stories and that is what truly identifies us and helps us emote and connect with each other.
You Italian then? No, I’m Hispanic.
Andrea Lopez,
Sacramento, CA.
When confronted with the question of whether or not I’ve experienced racism in my life, I always remember the first time I felt discriminated against. I was about twelve years old and I was meeting my best friend’s father for the first time. She moved to California from Georgia with her mother and siblings, her father followed later and in the end he did not stay. I always felt welcome by her family and never even thought about discrimination, so when I met her father I was taken aback by his question. “You Italian, then?”, I immediately understood what he was really asking. I answered “No, I’m Hispanic” but quickly felt the need to validate myself so I offered up the fact that I come from Native American ancestry as well. I suppose I felt the need to let him know that my roots were imbedded in US soil unlike his European ancestors that migrated here. It was a rude awakening for a child and it had lasting effects on me. I was now aware that other people were aware of my skin tone and ethnicity. Even being called “blackie” due to my darker summer tan by the overweight red-headed freckle-faced bully in school did not make me think about race. As an adult I see that the boy who bullied me had insecurity issues of his own, bless his heart. So, it took an adult from the Deep South to rain on my parade, he introduced racism to me and I finally understood what it meant to not be white. My friend’s father ended up moving back to Georgia after a domestic dispute became physical between him and her mother. I was glad he was gone because I never felt comfortable around him, I always knew he disapproved of me. From then on I was always aware of my surroundings and I knew that I would not always be accepted and that I would have to learn to be strong and not let other people’s prejudices interfere with my life. As an adult living in California I rarely experience racism, but I do think about it often, especially when I’m thinking of planning a trip to other states. I research the percentage of the Hispanic population to see if I would be accepted as a visitor and I often worry because my boyfriend is white and some people in different states may not be so welcoming of the two of us. It definitely adds a different perspective to life, I may be free to roam about the country, but will I be accepted?
I bet you darken in sun.
Olivia Devereux,
Silver Spring, MD
I’m white. Light skinned white. Black people think I’m passing. I was raised by a Black woman and come across that way even though I am really white. It makes me uncomfortable, like cultural appropriation.
I’m too light, yet too dark!
Lucia Osei Anim,
Manassas, VA
I am Lucia, I live at Manassas Virginia. I chose those six words because I come from Ghana, West Africa, and I am considered too dark in America but too light in Ghana. The main idea of choosing these six words is that in United States when white people see me, the first question ask is, “Where are you from?” I respond, “I am from Virginia” and the next thing that comes out of their mouths is “No, but where are from? To which respond I am Ghanaian. Despite living in America from my infancy and speaking English, I will always be considered Ghanaian rather than American. When I visited Ghana last year I felt like a foreigner, they called me ‘Obroni’ which means white lady, so I was left wondering who am I? Ghanaian or American, or both? I can never seem to be both.
Be the Light in Someone’s Darkness
Claudasheia Buck,
Jackson, MS
My spirit carries good energy. Anybody I’ve ever come across has acknowledged the fact that I’m such caring and genuine person. I’m a supportive friend and we all need somebody sometimes. I’m cheerful and really goofy , overall fun to be around. I was taught that you never know what the next person is going through, so it’s good to be kind to your peers. I give even if it’s my last and look for nothing in return. If nobody know nothing else about me, they know that I try to bring all my friends closer to God as well. We all need him especially in times like these, so I try to spread the word as a source of encouragement for the ones I care about.
Too Light, Too Dark…Who Cares
Wilhelmina Street,
Baltimore, MD.
Actually, more people of our very own race seem to struggle with the idea of an extremely light person marrying someone who is extremely dark. Even after 30 years of us being married I still catch racist remarks and side glances from those on our side of the tracks. In my father’s day it was called being “color-struck.” In the words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all get along?”
Racism runs light, medium, and dark
Tori Carter,
Sioux City, IA
My name is Tori, and I am a senior at North High School. I am dual-enrolled at Western Iowa Tech Community College. I was assigned to create a race card, and this project got me thinking. When you hear the word “racism”, you think of slavery, internment camps, or the Ku Klux Clan, all committed by Caucasians. Although, who considers the hatred modern-day Americans face because of their ancestors’ past? Racism has no color.
I’m An Individual NOT A Color!
Nadra Enzi,
New Orleans, LA.
Anyone with eyes can see that I’m a dark Black man. That and a couple dollars might buy you a cup of coffee at a trendy shop. Two terms of Obama-inflamed identity politics makes me reassert a lifelong commitment to individualism. I’m not a one-size-fits-all person. The fact I voted contrary to 96% of my ethnicity in the last two presidential elections is one of many proofs.
The lemmings of liberalism marching off the cliff aren’t made cuter because many share my hue. Old school groupthink falls short of meeting the mark in a 21st Century America.
My robotically marching in a “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!” protest means downloading a mass delusion overlooking who is really shooting American Blacks with abandon. Some salivate over George Zimmerman’s latest arrest but can’t muster outrage over today’s death toll by “George Brotherman” much closer to home! As Martin Luther King Day nears, it’s once again worth stating that I’m an individual, not a color. Were I merely a color given human form, I wouldn’t write for this site because its owner and fellow contributors would have been dismissed as the enemy color, instead of individuals sharing the same values.
Dismissing Americans as enemies because their skin is lighter would leave me all the poorer in terms of my individualism. Look at the ethical poverty of racial collectivism and it’s all too clear why I’m an individual, not a color. Doesn’t mean I don’t know I’m Black. It means I know I’m ‘me’ and individualism, like traditional values, is infinitely more than skin deep.
Original post: http://www.theboldpursuit.com/tbp-journal/2015/1/13/im-an-individual-not-a-color.html
Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black is a contributor to The Bold Pursuit, a security writer on touchy topics and an anti-crime activist. Cap Black Is Here! is his blog, http://www.capblackishere.wordpress.com
You can’t be mixed your dark
Myla Ledesma,
Westbloomfield, MI.
My mother is African American and my father is Puerto Rican. Me and all my siblings are biracial, we all look alike the only difference is their light skin and I’m brown skin. We all have medium length hair. Anytime I’m with them we get ask are we mixed and when its just me and my younger sister (were 11th months apart) we get asked if were twins. I never though there was difference between me and them till high school. I met a boy who was African American and Puerto Rican to. I told him I was too and he quickly replied “no your not” I said “yes I am” and he said ” no your not, your too brown”. This caught me off guard I was speechless. A girl in my class then said “yes she is her hairs long and her sisters light skin”. I didn’t know what to say, how did my hair determine my race? and my sisters being light had to do with my race? This was confusing to me till I realized that in today’s society your not mixed unless your skin is light this is not true mixed kids do not have to be light there are various shades and I also realized that people always expected me to speak Spanish as a determining fact about my race. But now i know those are just people who do not understand that race is more than just your skin color and what you speak. Yes I am mixed, no my skin color is not a factor in me being mixed.
He’s too dark for my friends
Lynn Li,
Hilo, HI.
I feel a little sheltered living in Hawaii. I’m 100% Chinese and my significant other, Angel, is Afro- Latino. No one looks twice at us on the islands. Mixed race couples and children are everywhere. Plus, we pass as locals because of our looks. But we met in San Francisco and my parents are in San Francisco. Although they have had friends of many races, their daughter is with someone who is black, which is different. Yes, he’s Venezuelan and Puerto Rican but his skin is dark. Some people don’t think we are a couple and others think it’s cool in the sense that I am a Chinese woman NOT dating a white man (which seems to bring out a whole other set of racial issues/ stereotypes). We have been together for almost 5 years, we want to get married and have children in the future. At first, my mother had excuses about why she doesn’t like him, “he’s too young for you. He doesn’t have his bachelor’s.” Now that he’s in university and on the Dean’s List, she finally fessed up and said, “He’s too dark for my friends to meet.” Angel and I laughed but it’s true. The little, old Chinese women at my mom’s church will pass out at the sight of me with a tall, dark man. I really wonder how my mom will deal with brown skinned grand children? No of us are getting younger. I think she will throw out all her apprehension once a baby is introduced into the family and just baby the baby like any dotting grandmother. Then I have a good memory: I remembered the last time I was in San Francisco in the BART station. A Chinese grandmother was holding the hand of her Afro-Chinese grandson and speaking to him in Chinese. It gave me hope for my mom.
My skin is my greatest teacher
Eric Miyeni
Johannesburg
I don’t like the phrase “body part” much. At its worst it has a tendency to remind me of murders and psychotic murderers. At its best it reminds me of the work of medical doctors. Don’t get me wrong. I love doctors. I’m just not cut out to do what they do. I am incredibly queasy about it. I would probably faint if you made me watch a surgeon cut up a patient. Saying “body part” makes me feel like I’m disassembling a fantastic and intricate machine-like whole that cannot function when separated like that.
But for lack of a better phrase I have to say, my skin is my favourite, here it comes; body part.
Okay, now that we are past using that terrible phrase, here’s why I love my skin; I love that my skin is both absorbent and liquid proof. I love that it knows exactly when to be which of these two. I love its intelligence. I love that when cut, it can sew itself back together. I love the feel of it. I love that it has a functional fashion sense. When it is hot outside, it wears a dark colour to ward off the sun’s stinging rays. And when it’s cold, and the sun is hiding for most of the time, or just not bright enough to provide what the skin thinks is enough vitamin D, it wears a much lighter colour to take in more of the sun’s rays. Whenever there’s danger it is often the first to warn me. And, if I’m to be subjected to any physical pain, it will offer itself first to take the punishment. My skin is my hero and it is my bravest companion. I love the protection it gives my body. How could it not? It is the biggest organ I have.
Testimony to its warrior nature you will recall, resides in how it has marshaled me through treacherous decades of hate. Over the centuries as you know, my skin has been used to subject me to unnecessary cruelty and prejudice. It has been used to justify the most bizarre theories about who I was, am and could be. But through it all, no matter how hard I tried sometimes, it stood strong in its identity and refused to change and be something it is not. My skin taught me over the ages, through all of this, that whatever calamities might befall me, I have to stand strong and believe completely in who I am because truth always triumphs. So no matter how often I stayed in the sun to be darker for a few days or smeared skin lightening lotions all over myself to be lighter skinned for some time, my skin always returned to its true colour, singularly focused on remaining true to its identity and thus making it futile and useless to see it as more important than just being a layer that protects. My skin has been my greatest teacher. And the single most important lesson it has taught me is to never put more importance than is necessary on any single thing. It taught me that like it, I am both majestic and simple and that this duality is only natural and that more than just being okay, this duality is the beauty that defines life on this beguiling planet.
That’s why I could wear it on my back and build the pyramids. That’s why I could wear it daily, under the most hostile glare of people who hate, and beat apartheid. That’s why today, I can wear it like the most beautiful outfit a human being can ever wear and walk with my head held high. This is because when all wars are fought, won and lost, we all get to learn that, primarily, my skin is but one colour that the human race uses to weave its tapestry upon the face of mother earth. Without it, and yours, and hers, and his, together, the world would surely be a lot duller, a lot less interesting and inescapably more boring to look at. My skin is to me, like yours is to you, my greatest asset.
For Me, Racism Started at Home
Sarah S.,
Washington, DC.
My Puerto Rican grandmother used to call me “muchacha fea,” while calling my dark-haired, dark-eyed, darker-skinned, curly-haired sisters, “muchacha linda.” That woman treated me like Cinderella. When we were kids, one of my sisters took my grandmother’s cues, and decided to torment me by saying that I was adopted (I wasn’t), because I didn’t look like them. I learned at a very young age, and in my own family’s home, that looking “white” was not always a “privilege.” As painful as those early experiences were, they taught me EMPATHY. What brought me here today was hearing about the woman in Lilburn GA, the principal of the TNT Academy, who said, “look who’s leaving–all the black people.” She “apologized” (snort!) by basically saying, “the devil made me do it.” I really wish I could slap that (woman) up one side and down the other.My empathy does not extend to stupid people.
My brown skin is beautiful okay?
Vanessa Guzman,
Corona, CA.
I am a Mexican women who has brown skin and all my life I was always self conscious about it because people would always point it out to me even those who were also Hispanic but they were lighter skinned. Even my family would. And I always took it as negative thing because sometimes that’s what it felt like they were conveying. And then growing up and becoming aware of that some people weren’t always so nice to hispanics, I always tried to be less Mexican as I could be. When they would ask me if I was Mexican I would say “Yes but I was born here so Im Mexican-American”. It wasn’t until I got to highschool that I started to embrace that I was dark and that it didn’t that mean I was any less beautiful. I began to realize that being Mexican was nothing to be ashamed as either, its who I am. EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL. But I began to make sure people I knew I was Mexican because I felt like it was important to do, to give my heritage and culture an opportunity to shine through me and began to be confident in myself. And to those who made comments about my skin color saying, “Oh you’re so dark” , “Yeah you can’t really see you’re eyeshadow because you’re so dark” , “You look like exactly like Dora!” … I made sure I would tell them, ” Yeah and? My brown skin is beautiful okay?”.
Not fully White, not fully Black
Anonymous,
Columbus, OH.
I am mixed race and have always felt in the middle in terms of race. “Legally” I am Black and more often than not experience the same benefits and determents as the Black side of my family. I have also had the misfortune of being mistreated by both races for being “light skinned” or “dark”, depending on who is speaking. It is odd that being brown can mean so much depending on your company. Aside from my brother, it is also a very lonely feeling to be mixed and identify with both.
White women kill for that color.
Kavita
Charleston, SC
As an Indian-American woman working in agriculture, I used to frequently get some variation of this comment when I sold at farmers’ markets. Really? Should I thank you for that comment?
So much darker… Is she adopted?
Rebekah Day
Vinita, OK
As the only brown complected person in my large family, I stand out against the pale white. I am constantly asked if I am adopted, or a “half-sister” in relation to my siblings. I am a woman of mixed heritage of various European and Native American blood, along with the rest of my family.
