rac·ism
Dictionary result for racism
/ˈrāˌsizəm/
noun
- prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
Microaggression a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group.
"What's this little nigger doin' in this store?" Jarring isn't it? I was only ten years old when an adult man said that to me. That moment redefined my life forever.
I was visiting family in Missouri with my mother and brother, in the summer of 1994. My cousin Rebecca had just braided my hair into box braids. I remember feeling pretty, which wasn't something I felt often. My cousins and I had gone to the store, and I couldn't have been away from them for more than a minute of two, when it happened. I was alone in an aisle, looking at the different products on the shelves, when I noticed a man staring at me. Then he walked up to me, and said it. As if that was completely normal for a middle aged white man to say that to a little girl.
I turned around, and walked away. I remember being in shock. I knew the word, and understood the meaning. My parents had done their best to prepare my brother and I- people were not going to like us for reasons beyond our control. One of the reasons was the color of our skin. Still- no one can truly prepare, until those moments happen.
It was that moment my "otherness" was established for me. I finally understood what my parents had tried to explain. I would never know what it felt like to be white. No one would mistake me for a white girl with a tan. Half black, half white- sure. That being said, I wouldn't be treated that way.
I had a myriad of reactions to this epiphany, both large and small. I wouldn't have my hair in box braids for years, associating them with that moment. I would flit from one social group to another, going through different styles and personas to try to find the best fit... well, the fit that didn't have to do with my skin color.
It didn't matter what I did. I wasn't the author of this part of that narrative. Social understandings, traditions, and stigmas had written part of the story for me. One of the aspects that upset me the most, was how people reacted to my parents. I wasn't light enough for my mother, or dark enough for my father. My mum would take my brother and I out on errands, and people would ask her things like how we got so tan, and were we adopted? There's is nothing wrong with adoption of course, but the assumption. I'm thirty-four years old, and people still stare, or make remarks. Their ignorance is tiring, and used to grind me down.
They had no idea how much it upset me. I built up an emotional suit of armor. They didn't know how upset I became when I went to look in the mirror, searching for things to connect me to either of my parents. I clung to traits like my freckles, because my mother had freckles.
Assumptions. Microaggressions. People judged me before they knew me. The things they would say were astounding, " You speak so well for being black", "Nicole isn't a black name." or if they weren't entirely sure of my background, "What are you?" People have followed me around in stores, crossed the street away from me, even wiped their hands after shaking mine. Before you say I must have misunderstood and overreacted... stop. These things weren't happening to you. Anyone who has experienced things like these need no further explanation. They understand the feeling.
Finally, I leaned into it. I couldn't change other people's perception of me. I could change how I saw myself. I developed different coping mechanisms, that in turn became parts of my personality. I made the black jokes first, owning my difference, and not allowing them to define it for me. My hair, my clothing, piercings and tattoos became ways to speak without words. I followed my mothers lead, and became politically and socially active- volunteering and advocating for the minorities I was part of. Because being a person of color, a woman, and a member of the LGBTQ community was as big a part of me as anything else.
In doing this, I alienated some. "But you don't acknowledge your whiteness." Funnily enough, it was only white people who felt the need to bring this up. As if I was giving up entry into an exclusive club- one they didn't realize I would never be in. I had accepted I would never feel white- someone who enjoyed, and most likely didn't even understand the privileges that went along with my whiteness.
For me, it was acknowledging how the world saw me, and realizing it was okay. They saw the black girl, not the white girl. It didn't matter how often I shouted out my amazing mother, or brilliant father. It just didn't matter. What mattered was how I chose to live within, and outside of how people saw me. I understood the power of being comfortable in the skin I was born in.
I'm no longer the frightened little girl from the grocery store, just as much as I will never be the token white girl either.
