When I was 10, someone told me I was an Uh-Oh Oreo...black on the inside, white on the outside.
I didn't think much of it at the time, but now, almost 11 years later, it hurts me. It hurts me to know that the color of my skin as opposed to the color of my biological mother's is a joke to some people. It hurts to know that if my race ever comes up in conversation with a group of white people, it will be denied.
My "best friend" in high school once told me, "Sarah, come on. You're not black. Look at your skin." And it hurt. My blackness is NOT the size of my ass, nor is it found in the freckles that cover my body ("Are those freckles just the black coming out?"). I do get my curls from my mom, but my hair does not define me. The shape of my nose does not define me.
My blackness is my mother, fighting for civil rights for nurses in New York in the 70s. My blackness is my paternal great grandmother helping her brothers tear up the general stores in the south that said they weren't good enough to put one foot through their doors. My blackness is a part of me, and it always will be. So, to the person who told me I was some kind of novelty Oreo, and to the people who demand to see a picture of my mother when time they find out she's black, and to the people that insist I'm adopted, to the people who think the fairness of my skin means it's all right to tell me that AIDS came from a guy in Africa f*cking a monkey when we were in 11th grade....your ignorance does not define me.
I define me.
I didn't think much of it at the time, but now, almost 11 years later, it hurts me. It hurts me to know that the color of my skin as opposed to the color of my biological mother's is a joke to some people. It hurts to know that if my race ever comes up in conversation with a group of white people, it will be denied.
My "best friend" in high school once told me, "Sarah, come on. You're not black. Look at your skin." And it hurt. My blackness is NOT the size of my ass, nor is it found in the freckles that cover my body ("Are those freckles just the black coming out?"). I do get my curls from my mom, but my hair does not define me. The shape of my nose does not define me.
My blackness is my mother, fighting for civil rights for nurses in New York in the 70s. My blackness is my paternal great grandmother helping her brothers tear up the general stores in the south that said they weren't good enough to put one foot through their doors. My blackness is a part of me, and it always will be. So, to the person who told me I was some kind of novelty Oreo, and to the people who demand to see a picture of my mother when time they find out she's black, and to the people that insist I'm adopted, to the people who think the fairness of my skin means it's all right to tell me that AIDS came from a guy in Africa f*cking a monkey when we were in 11th grade....your ignorance does not define me.
I define me.