"You talk like a white girl."

My last post described my plans for the month of February and possibly an extension beyond this month in honor of Black History. One website is asking one question a day about "blackness." The responses I've read thus far have been quite interesting, but I wanted to feature some responses on my own blog.

Sure, I know other people who are shades of brown like myself. But I don't know their life experiences. Just like no one really knows mine...I couldn't tell it if I tried, but I could offer a piece of it.

I reached out to some of my good friends, as well as family members to help me out by sharing their stories by answering a question of their choice, posted for the month of February. We each have a unique experience and no one can understand and tell it better than the person who's been through it. I will feature the entries I receive one a week or two a week, depending on how many entries I have.

With a goal of opening minds and taking a chance at understanding the life of someone different from your own, I offer these entries...starting with my own (below). If you have a submission, please comment/contact me and I will be happy to feature you.

-Stacia

Q: When did you first realize you were Black?

A: I can’t say I particularly remember a defining moment where I looked at myself and said “I’m black.” As a child, the term “black” can be damaging because it’s looked at as a literal term, and it can be confusing…most “Black” or “African-American” people (whatever term you choose) look down at their hands and don’t see a shade resembling black. I would say that a child views the term “Black” that same way. For this reason, my family often refrains from using the terms “black” and “white”, especially around my nephew, a 4-year-old child. So, looking at my skin tone, I always thought I was brown. My time as a small child, up to about 3rd or 4th grade, was spent on military bases where I played and interacted with kids of all shades, and saw combinations of parents from different backgrounds all the time. This was my reality as a military brat. I viewed everyone as just another color out of a box of crayons. I couldn’t see a difference when it came to inequality, discrimination, etc. I didn’t experience any of that as a child.

But when I moved to Tennessee (where my father retired), I remember a little Black girl saying to me in 4th grade “you talk like a white girl.” I couldn’t really fathom what this meant but I cried and cried. I just knew it hurt my feelings. At that point, I struggled for a while to find my “identity.” My eyes were opened to how some people talked differently from others but there were people of all shades who were just like me…I don’t really remember a specific point where I could blatantly see the difference in treatment but it was probably sometime in high school. I’d be around groups of people that were white and while they’d talk, they would often reference a Black person with some offensive description that made me feel some kind of way…a feeling of discomfort. Quite a few things happened, actually. I can recall some examples so clearly it’s as if they happened yesterday. When one of my white friends would hang out with me and other Black people, she’d be accused to acting like a “wigger.” Whatever that meant…it was pure ignorance. Like déjà vu, I was told (by a white person this time) that I was the “Whitest black person they knew.” Once again, I was insulted and my feelings were hurt. I even heard a girl in my class once reference Black people as “colored.” SMH. One of my Korean friends told me the negative things she would hear about African-Americans in Korea before coming to the United States…how we were “bad.” However, she told me that she realized that she had more in common with us than most of her white counterparts. She spoke as if she understood Black Americans better through some sort of “minority connection” that caused her to experience the same types of discrimination and uneasiness that Black people in America faced. These particular things stuck in my mind, obviously. To this day, I haven’t forgotten them and several other instances where I’ve felt…well, Black, I guess.

I could never and will never understand why certain people, white or black, equate my intelligence, the way I speak, or the way I carry myself as being “white-like.” I’ve always just done me…and, until Tennessee, that was good enough. My life experiences have forced me to open my eyes and see that ignorance doesn’t discriminate. It crosses color barriers. It's a taught behavior to see that people are different and my parents never taught me to see that. They raised me to believe that we are all the same. But it was the kids whose parents did teach them to see differences that opened my eyes to realizing, I was different.