Let me just first start off with this little explanation. First, and foremost, I make every effort to consciously remain objective in regards to race. However, my feelings behind it are often subjective. I have been a victim of bigotry and as a result, my mind takes it's opinions based off experience. This is just natural.***
I am made increasingly aware of my own whiteness.
It has always been so. Growing up I was not allowed to forget that I am one of the palest among my siblings. I am still not.
When I was in elementary school, I had a kindergarten teacher who automatically assumed I was white. Her name is lost to memory, though I would not use it if I remembered, but I do remember this. I remember her treating me just like the child I was at the time, a sweet little girl. She was kind to a fault and there were never any major issues. Except the one time a big red haired boy pulled my hair and I cried. I had no idea, or rather I wasn't aware that every time my mother came to pick me up, afore mentioned teacher called her the babysitter. I did not know that because of my whiteness, my teacher assumed that she couldn't possibly be my mother. It all came out later when my mother revealed to her the truth, and I was late for a Christmas pageant. Said teacher no longer treated me like a sweet little girl, and took great delight in making me uncomfortable when she switched my position in the pageant. I remember not understanding why things had to be different, but I do remember the reason why I had to switch classes and make friends all over again, with a black teacher was that my skin didn't match with what the world wanted to see.
Later, when I entered middle school, I went to a school filled with mostly black and hispanic people. One would think that there at least I would be able to avoid discrimination. This was not so. Quiet, and afraid to draw attention to myself, I kept my head down and made few friends. I made straight As got perfect attendance, and I was perfectly miserable. Issues escalated when my mother came to pick me up one sunny day at lunch time, and a girl came up behind me, smearing hair gel over my face.
My mother was angry, and the principal said there was nothing she could do. So I was made to leave school. To me? It was because I was too white to be black.
It's funny, when I was riding the school bus to get to the same school, one lonely white girl came up to me and said "my parents don't agree with what your parents did".
What did they do that was so wrong? Well, make me of course! A creature that is neither black nor truly white. A person that refuses to choose sides, because after all, the choices were made for me. I belong on the outside. That is where I was placed.
I turned to the things that brought me comfort, making efforts to befriend people but not being able to really and truly, because I was poor and could not dress to fit in, because I had no idea how to fix my hair, because I didn't give a bloody dam about my hair or clothes and I thought that friendship was supposed to have more to do about personality than what I wore. Frequently asked questions were 'are you mixed? what are you mixed with? I didn't know you were black!" Blah blah blah...
I went to an all white school, where to me whiteness turned into a materialistic set of views that required thin bodies and straight hair, none of which I possessed after my middle years. Whiteness then became a standard of beauty to which all others were measured by.
I did not measure up.
I flipped through pages of teen magazines, there were seldom any black girls, and of those black girls none looked like me. The white girls, while as pale as myself, did not match my curvature, or hair type. In summation the standard of beauty was far from my reach, and like any teenager I despaired.
Today to me whiteness does not simply mean the color of one's skin. It means a set popular beauty standard. Like in between isn't pretty enough, like brown and gold tones are not quite right. It means that my kindergarten teacher was right. How dare I be so light when I am not white? When a person says "I prefer white people". I say "whatever makes you happy". Yet, I am made to understand that there is a certain cultural bias still lodged well within society. America, in it's race obsessed environment, has created a series of mental issues that have a ripple effect across all cultures represented in this country. A round nose is not sexy, light eyes are more attractive, pale skin is better. Yet, why is it, as light as I am, I have had issues with feeling my own self worth?
Simply put, I still do not fit the standard.
I hope there is a resurgence of self worth found in people of color. I hope that brown and black can be considered beautiful in popular culture. Such mentalities do not help myself one lick, but I understand the need, the desire to be represented.
I am hoping that one day hearing people say "I prefer white people" or "I prefer black people" does not cause that familiar inflection of pain somewhere in the center of my chest.
Popular culture be damned.
This stew pot has created... something else. Folks, there is no longer just white and black and brown. There is 'other'.
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