Being and Not Being Black

You're not black.

"There are two extreme worlds in existence for me that I navigate daily – one created by ignorance and the other by hatred, a world where I’m not seen as black and a world where I’m constantly reminded that I am – and not in a good way."

I find myself between a rock and a hard place.

Rock: White people believing it's complimentary to erase my blackness by telling me that I'm not black.

Hard Place: Black people criticizing my actions and behavior as not black enough based on their own assumptions of how I should act.

My ancestors were slaves. I'm the daughter of a British Jamaican father and an African American mother. Both my parents are Cornell graduates with successful careers. Growing up, I went to predominantly white schools, often being the only black person in my class. Being the daughter of a father who had a very diverse looking family, I never had an issue looking different than everyone else until 4th grade. I had long thick curly hair as a child, and I begged my mom to let me perm it so that I could have straight hair like the rest of my class. After months of pleading, she gave in. I happily went to school with two long straightened full ponytails hanging below my shoulders. I waited in line to buy lunch until a boy in line pointed at me as he yelled, "Are you wearing a wig?" I didn't understand then why he asked me this, but I do now.

You see, while I've dealt with the stigma of not being black enough, I've also dealt with the opposite end of the spectrum: being black. Two Christmases ago I went to Houston to visit my parents. As my mom and I left The Galleria Mall, a woman and her daughter yelled "niggers" outside their truck window because we took too long to exit the parking spot that they so desperately needed.

 "I haven’t yet made up my mind which is worse for me – being seen as not black or being called nigger. It’s a strange limbo in which I live, and I have grown relatively comfortably uncomfortable."

A good friend of mine jokingly exclaimed, "my boyfriend doesn't consider you black." She then followed with, " but I told him trust me, you just haven't seen that side of Baylie yet."

While in that moment I wanted to go off on her for not only saying something so ignorant, but then being dumb enough to repeat it to me, I decided to educate her. I explained how her statement offended me.

Why do we so openly correlate black women to being ghetto and/or having an attitude? Why do we so openly correlate a black man with having aggression?

Have you ever heard a black person tell a white person they're not white? Have you ever heard a white person tell a white person they're not white?

You haven't.

I've dealt with these racially subconscious labels my entire life, and I'm tired of it.

"This is me."

I am a black woman who is educated, sassy, opinionated, confident, intelligent, and well dressed and I refuse to apologize for staying true to the person who's always had my back: me.

-B

Quotations found above are excerpts from a LinkedIn article my mom wrote a few months ago. Yet generations apart, we share similar thoughts and experiences.