11022011
I grew up in the Black community, went to a predominantly black elementary school, a culturally diverse high school and college, even dated outside my race a couple of times. I know how to mix and co-mingle with the best and worst of them.
So why, then, am I having such a hard time here? My guards are up twentyfourseven. Skin set to super strength. I am constantly on high alert, anticipating the ever present nuances of over opinionated chatter. Listening extra close for coded racial slurs.
I can’t loosen up. Can’t get comfortable. Can’t be free in a world that muffles me, not because of who I am, but because of what I look like.
And I am not trying to fit in or become one of the “chosen few”, I’m just looking for a sense of normalcy in an otherwise chaotic environment.
I’m tired of being the only hint of color in a sea of pale faces; the only brown skinned lady in a racially charged atmosphere where masculinity and ignorance prevail. Where Black vs. White is at the very forefront of every side conversation, and racial innuendo consumes the air. Where the color of my skin, not the content of my character, is silently prevalent in my daily interaction with these people.
It saddens me.
The resounding fact that I AM BLACK will never change and that’s what I love. But the ignorance. The ignorance and prejudice, the stifled mindset, the superiority complex, the erroneous sense of entitlement, the continuity of blatant disrespect of my people in my presence is what boils my blood.
It bugs the hell out of me how we are placed in the same category as monkeys, not men. As animals, not humans. They place us in the throes of satan himself without even attempting to take the time to understand our wonderment.
This is the most uncultured, unrelatable, close minded group of people I have ever encountered, and that’s putting it mildly.
Their opinions of us are multitudinous. We are loud, ignorant, uneducated, drug dealers, gang bangers, baby daddies, baby toting, hairweave wearing, gum smacking baby mommas with no sense of direction.
In their eyes we are everything wrong in this world. We are the reason for the failed economy, global warming, rush hour traffic, migraines, and constipation. Unworthy of walking the land where they reside.
I grew up in the Black community, went to a predominantly black elementary school, a culturally diverse high school and college, even dated outside my race a couple of times. I know how to mix and co-mingle with the best and worst of them.
So why, then, am I having such a hard time here? My guards are up twentyfourseven. Skin set to super strength. I am constantly on high alert, anticipating the ever present nuances of over opinionated chatter. Listening extra close for coded racial slurs.
I can’t loosen up. Can’t get comfortable. Can’t be free in a world that muffles me, not because of who I am, but because of what I look like.
And I am not trying to fit in or become one of the “chosen few”, I’m just looking for a sense of normalcy in an otherwise chaotic environment.
I’m tired of being the only hint of color in a sea of pale faces; the only brown skinned lady in a racially charged atmosphere where masculinity and ignorance prevail. Where Black vs. White is at the very forefront of every side conversation, and racial innuendo consumes the air. Where the color of my skin, not the content of my character, is silently prevalent in my daily interaction with these people.
It saddens me.
The resounding fact that I AM BLACK will never change and that’s what I love. But the ignorance. The ignorance and prejudice, the stifled mindset, the superiority complex, the erroneous sense of entitlement, the continuity of blatant disrespect of my people in my presence is what boils my blood.
It bugs the hell out of me how we are placed in the same category as monkeys, not men. As animals, not humans. They place us in the throes of satan himself without even attempting to take the time to understand our wonderment.
This is the most uncultured, unrelatable, close minded group of people I have ever encountered, and that’s putting it mildly.
Their opinions of us are multitudinous. We are loud, ignorant, uneducated, drug dealers, gang bangers, baby daddies, baby toting, hairweave wearing, gum smacking baby mommas with no sense of direction.
In their eyes we are everything wrong in this world. We are the reason for the failed economy, global warming, rush hour traffic, migraines, and constipation. Unworthy of walking the land where they reside.
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