I sat alone, but I was content — eyes focused on the passing scenery as the school bus made its way to the next stop. I almost could not feel the soft jerk coming from the back of my head.
Almost.
“She doesn’t even feel it!”
That is what the little white girl said to her friend as she continued to pick at my curls. She doesn’t even feel it. In that moment my mind snatched from embarrassment, to sadness, and finally to anger. I considered shouting exactly what my mom told me earlier that morning — that my massive jungle of kinky coils is beautiful. But I allowed shock to consume my judgement. My eyes remained glued on the glass window, and my frustrations remained invisible behind my still face.
As Zora Hurston wrote, “I fe[lt] most colored when…thrown against a sharp white background.”
That was seven years ago. The memory illustrates one of the many times I have dealt with preadolescent, unprovoked, obnoxious, white ignorance as a young black girl. But unlike the previous one, most moments were subtle — often overlooked as “racist” by my non-black peers, but evident enough to leave me feeling uneasy. As Zora Hurston wrote, “I fe[lt] most colored when…thrown against a sharp white background.”
When my mom and I made the move from Detroit, Michigan to a small suburb in Northern Virginia, I was thrown against a sharp white background. When my use of African American Vernacular was deemed as ghetto and ratchet in comparison to the language used around me, I was thrown against a sharp white background. When the weather warmed and the other kids made fun of what the sun had done to deepen my skin tone, I was thrown; hurled; launched against a sharp white background. And yet I would say nothing. Just as on the bus that one afternoon, my frustrations would remain invisible.
A few years back, I began to break down the Western ideologies that I once blindly accepted by questioning their origins:
What could I say when the only form of racism I recognized was obvious and confined to history textbooks? In school we were told that racism is loud, apparent hatred. Something that occurred in the past. Slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, and trivializing slurs are the country’s history, but the civil rights movement overcame those hard times! Now that these factors are eradicated from our current society, racism no longer exists! This close minded approach to an extremely complex belief made it impossible as a child to label — and therefore understand how to deal with — what most black kids in a predominantly white neighborhood go through as “racism.”
But let me be clear. I am no longer the same oblivious child. A few years back, I began to break down the Western ideologies that I once blindly accepted by questioning their origins: Why are black women typically rated as ugly when our features are praised on other races? Why are people of color (POC) rarely seen as protagonists in films or TV shows? Why do people who claim to be “colorblind” have to ignore the evident oppression that is tied to my race to see me as a person? I sought out more questions and aimed to find answers by reading enlightening books, engaging in uncomfortable yet eye-opening discussions, and paying attention to our current social climate. While I still have much to learn on the complex nature of racism, I do know one thing.
To all of my non-black friends: watch your mouth. Whether you are a peer, a parent, or a person in a place of authority, you can no longer get away with the nonsense I once failed to stop. Please understand that you will be called out, checked, and straightened up all through the means of a logical explanation. So I ask that before you make a racist comment, please educate yourself on the matter you wish to comment on. For your own good.
P.S. Non-black refers to white people as well as POC. Anti-blackness is alive in all races.
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