It’s just color.

I hate it when people say I’m the whitest black person they know or something to that effect.  News Flash!  This is NOT a complement.  It’s like telling me that somehow because I speak a certain way, dress a certain way, listen to a certain type of music, that I am less than black.  Some people assume that because my husband is white that somehow diminishes my… blackness or something.  I married for love.  Not color.  I don’t appreciate you trying to put me into your neat little box.  To quote a very wise man, “I yam, what I yam.”


      Look.  I.  Am. Black.  However I speak, however I dress, however I pick my nose, is the way a black person does it because, guess what?

     I don’t define myself by my race.  I don’t celebrate or morn my color.  Okay, sometimes I’m looking in the mirror and I just can’t help but admire my beautiful  unblemished skin, my full lips, ample hips and such.  I’m vain.  Sue me.  I imagine, given the same personality, I’d stand in front of the mirror and primp whatever color I’d turned out to be.  I don’t feel that because I am black, that I am in any way inferior or superior to anyone else.  I didn’t ask to be black.   It was simply a happy turn of fate.

     Don’t get me wrong.  When Barack Obama won the Presidency, I was so joyful.  So prideful.  For me, just the thought that now I can tell my son, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up,  and mean it.  That thought blew my mind away.  It brought me to tears.  I imagine that was the feeling for many Americans that day.  I grew up hearing that old adage, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up.  And, for me,  like many people of color, the part that we all thought, but rarely said was, except the President of the United States of America.  I have a deep connection to my heritage and culture.  I do celebrate that.  I hope that everyone does.

    I think that some get confused or cling to a typecast of a group of people they have formed based on their limited experience or what they’ve seen on TV.  Remember, one or thirty is not indicative of an entire race.  There are many black people who speak proper English, don’t sag their clothing, and are intelligent, well-rounded individuals.  There are many black people who don’t speak proper English, DO sag their clothes, and are intelligent, well-rounded individuals.  There are many persons of other races who are likewise.

     I know that it’s human nature to take something or someone different and to relate them to ourselves to somehow elevate them to our mental stature.  But race should not be one of those things.  It’s just color.  It’s just the cover on the book.  Crack it open, don’t skim, don’t skip to the end, really read.  You could be surprised at what you learn.

Sincerely,
Faith D.

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