i woke up with a lot of insecurities this morning, and i figured it’s important to share for the sake of those who have ever experienced any of the feelings i have. Even for those who have not experienced such things perhaps this is an opportunity to understand. If so, i honor that. Even though it’s going to hurt for me to share this, (the idea of being vulnerable lately has me shrinking back from all types of things), i think it’s important for me to get that out there, and confront the lies with understanding and the truth.
Now, before i go on, i just want to state that i know that a lot of people will think “why do we have to talk about race and color and ethnicity, etc? Why can’t we all just get along?” But i tell you, that your lack of understanding and refusal to understand is one part of reason that these divisions still exist. Understanding and listening is one of the first steps towards compassion, love and acceptance.
Often times, i don’t think about my race, or my color. i don’t realize that i have a race or color. i’ve been fortunate enough to have a desire to be a revolutionary Kingdom person these days, an ideal that should transcend all races, colors, cultures, and even “religions”. However, lately, things have been popping in my life that have been reminding me that i am perceived to be some kind of race, and that the world is going to treat me a certain way because of that. The world is going to assume that i am a certain way, care about and like certain things because of the way i look, and a lot of times, those perceptions and assumptions are not true. A lot of times, they hurt.
I am supposed to be of African American and Hispanic descent. A lot of times, when people meet me, they ask me “what are you?”, and “what are your parents”? However, it comes to be more complicated than that. The majority of people in my father’s family of African American descendants are “light-skinned”, and some of them, like my father has green eyes. On the flipside, my mother is of Hispanic and Carribean descent. It’s confusing because my mother and grandmother are “Hispanic” of the Native American kind and who knows what else? Blood is so confusing to the point that often when folks ask me “What are you?” i tell them that i do not know what i am.
However, i don’t experience so much of these questions until i am in the “black” community. Colorisim is defined to be a type of prejudice based on a perceived social heiarchy that is based on the pigmentation of a person’s skin. i don’t experience so much colorism in my life now that i am in art school and i’m not sure exactly why this is the case. The most condescending and hurtful statements i have ever heard in my whole life have come from the “black” community, but even more so, from my father’s side of the family.
When i was in elementary school, i lived in Burlington, North Carolina with my mother who was single and out of a job for several months. It was the most carefree period of her life. We lived in a neighborhood that had a mixture of races, but was predominately white. Up until 7th grade, i went to predominately white schools, and the folks that i hung out with where of different colors and races. i basically hung out with whoever gave me the time of day, because i was a very “geeky” and uncool, child (i wore highwaters and my glasses were over-sized. i was also placed in all the advanced classes). A lot of the lack of self-esteem that i suffered came from not being like the other girls, who got to shop where they wanted, were invited to everything and appeared to have family and friends that were invested in them. Sometimes, i still suffer from the latter insecurity, the lack of investment i perceive that people have in me. The majority of my youth, i believed that people only cared about my brains and not my heart. The only person who really listened to me was a custodian who had given me a wooden rhinoceros (the poem is in my archives).
It wasn’t until i moved to eight grade that i was constantly bothered and bombarded with the issue of race and color. When my mother got married to my stepfather, we moved to where i live now, Durham, North Carolina. Eight grade was when i experienced the most colorism in school. The middle school and high school i attended has a large black community. i had folks assuming that i thought myself better than others because of the fact that i was of lighter skin, i spoke differently than most people, and was placed in advanced classes. But honestly, i felt that i was nothing, but brains, someone to be manipulated for personal gain and not much else. People only called me for help on their school work and asked me to be on their team in Math class, but they never stopped to say “how are you doing?” So, i already had poor self-esteem, and it wasn’t about my skin tone. i didn’t really think that the lightness of my skin would be something that i would “gain favor” with, especially as i always pondered why my skin was lighter than my mother’s. And i always thought my mother was BEAUTIFUL. And i still think my mother is one of the most beautiful women i have ever seen. My stepfather is as pale as a white man can get, and my mom is the opposite, yet my stepfather is always telling her how beautiful she is. i could never understand why lightness of skin was a way to “gain favor” until i entered the “black” community.
I had learned that a lot of the girls suffer from feeling inadequate and not beautiful. These are feelings that occur not only because of media and social conventions, but occur also because of the attitudes that family members and other women may have in the community. A lot of women pressure their daughters to assimilate to the society’s standard of female beauty or make remarks like “she’s cute for a black girl” or “she’d be perfect if her skin was a little lighter” instead of expressing that the girl is beautiful just as she is. When i was in high school, the things that my African American classmates seem to worry about the most was beauty and often times when folks identified each other, it dealt with the lightness or darkness of the skin. They made fun of the kids with deep dark skin. The more popular boys and girls in the school were of a lighter skin, tone. One of my friends was bullied and deemed arrogant because of something that was out of her control. She was miserable her entire time in high school, because no one really knew who she was. She was a source of manipulation for some and bullied by others. So much insecurity, just because of our societies standard for beauty and social acceptance. Us girls want so much to be considered beautiful and accepted, but we look at all the wrong places.
When i am with my father’s family, my heart seems to be the last thing they notice. One of the most scarring experiences i have ever dealt with was when one of my aunts had invited me over for the weekend, only to find out that at the end of the weekend, that i was not who she thought i was, branding me as an offense to their family. She made remarks about how short my hair was at the time, and she hated my dream of meeting the poor where they were because everyone in the family, as she says, prides themselves in having hair that comes down to their backs, and she had also made a remark that if i wanted to help the poor, that i should be a professional social worker. She even went as far as saying that the most i would ever be romanced would result in a date rape. It hurt me so much. My father and his sisters pride themselves in what is seen. The pride themselves in the fact that they aren’t like “other black people”, like someone would say. This is the main reason i do not claim my last name, because my last name seems to be so ingrain with this prideful, social and racial identity that is anti-revolution and anti-Kingdom. It is hard for me to be honest with my father’s family, because their hurt is so deep, and their pride is so high, that all of our conversations are either superficial or about how my sister and i can be “better” by worldly standards. My father constantly talks about this “disgracing” of the family that i seem to be doing, and he threatened me with it when i was in Alabama recently. When i asked what he meant by it, he wouldn’t answer me, but the next day preached about how important it is to maintain an education and be like the rest of the family.
It is this fear that has kept me away from doing all the things i wanted to do for the past two-three years. This fear of being “nothing” in the eyes of my blood family. But even my blood family doesn’t define my worth. Only the G-d can. He lives in all of us, we just have to peel away the things the world has put in our hearts in order to see Him, however. And i know it’s hard.
The example of my father’s family isn’t strictly colorism, but it is a form of division within the black community in the belief that they are better than other black people because of other features they may possess (like hair, and social hierarchy). My father also shows skepticism towards white people, which really hurts me, because my stepfather is white, and a lot of the folks who care for me happen to be white as well.
Colorism is a perceived form of social hierarchy based on skin-pigmentation, and it is awful to be accused of having a superiority complex just because of your skin tone. It hurts me to know that some folks associate me with hate and social hierarchy before getting to know me. And it hurts me to see how mean people of color are to other people of color. It hurts me to see people being mean to anyone in order to defend an identity that is fleeting and shallow.
This is why i despise mainstream media and this is why i do not watch television. This is why so many of the blogs here on tumblr make me sick. Because they do nothing to suggest that women of dark skin are equals when it comes to beauty. i hardly ever see black people in some of the churches i’ve been too, and neither do i see black people in music videos that aren’t about rap or hip hop or R and B. How much must one beg and plead for others to gain real interests in those who appear different than them, or those who have a different social class? Where did we lose the idea that those people might care about the same things people who are more like you care about? The other day i was talking to my brother, Brandt, and he made a remark about how he wished there were more people of color doing what he does. i told him, “If it helps, i’m somewhat black and somewhat hispanic”. Is it his fault that folks aren’t doing what he does? I don’t think so.
i think it’s this mentality that a lot of people have, caused by the media and perceptions that we take from it and allow to take over us to the point that we reflect it right back to the media. I will tell people stories about my friends or the folks i admire, and they’ll make remarks that those are things that only “crazy white people” do. As if, white people are the only people who are allowed to do crazy and revolutionary things. As if white people are the only ones who can step outside the box.
When i write this, i am not implying that all men and women in the “black” community are colorist. That would be untrue, because i have a lot of women who are of African American descent that have been kind to me and loved on me instead of unjustly assuming that i was a brat or a threat to their identity. Also, i am aware that colorism does exist outside the African-American community, but i have never been a victim of open prejudice in other communities. Neither am i implying that the insecurity is entirely their fault, as i believe all insecurities are caused by an oppressor.
I say that these barriers and insecurities are caused by an oppressor, because if we were not told or made to believe that we could only be this or that, we would not have these fears. G-d could never be the oppressor, because He loves all, and sees beauty and opportunity in all. The gods of the world, greed, pride, and those other things are the oppressors. They instill fear in you so that they can get their way, so they can be richer, or call themselves better than you. And that is a lie.
I myself have my fears and doubts from the oppressors. Often times, i have doubts of anyone being in a long-term committed relationship with me, whether it is friendship or marriage, i fear that i will not be enough in the realm of beauty. I often fear that a person would be embarrassed to be seen with me because of how i look, or happier with a version of me that better fits the standard of beauty that the powers of the world present instead of thinking that i am already beautiful. My family is one that has a long-line of divorce on top of that and one that also lacks meaningful friendships, so if it wasn’t for my faith in the G-d of the universe telling me that we all deserve the best and that we all deserve peace, i would simply settle for being thrown around and told that i am not enough.
That is why i am convinced that a self-sacrifical love is the only way the the individuals in our communities and in our society will be healed. Love that is beyond our own self-interest. Love the encourages and considers others more significant. Because even if the media were changed, there may still be hearts that are filled with bitterness, hearts that are condescending and willing to hurt others for the benefit of the self. To believe in the Kingdom is to believe that those who bully others and oppress others do not have the final say. That is why the Romans killed Jesus, because He threatened their power with His upside-down Kingdom. That is why they killed Martin Luther King, because he threatened the powers of the world, that believe that heirachy is better than equality. That is why the world kills the martyrs, because they threaten their power.
Love isn’t just personal, it is social and political. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t see so much nihilism in the political or social powers of the past and present. Please, for the sake of peace, for the sake of Love, for the sake of the Kingdom, extend worth to EVERYONE you meet, not just people who look like you, or people who look the way you want them to, or people who like what you like, or people who are as smart as you. Everyone is fighting the battle of loneliness and unworthiness because of the brokenness in the world. Followers of Christ are called to comfort, not oppress. Be a light, please choose Love to the best of your ability and with all your heart and mind and soul, whether you work in the media or you raise daughters that look different than you. Colorism and social hierarchy doesn’t have to exist.
These are things that have been in my heart the past week or so. If you would like to, please share with me your thoughts, ideas or stories.
