Hello, readers! It’s been awhile since I posted. My school work definitely keeps me busy so I do apologize. College life is not an easy one, but onto the topic of this post. The school I attend is not the most diverse. Noted that it is a private college in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania…I guess you can’t expect much, huh? Anyway, due to the lack of diversity my school encourages minorities to form clubs where they can gather around people who are similar to them and share their cultures with other ethnicities. This also looks good to minority prospective students who many not be used to attending a school where they are the minority. I don’t see anything wrong with. The clubs don’t separate themselves from the rest of campus and I am actually proud to say that race (or racism) is not a major issue at my school. We all mix together very and we’re definitely on our way to being a small melting pot. Our pot just has more white right now than any other color and that’s okay. However, as a freshman I was somewhat worried about attending this school. Not because I am ignorant of other races or cultures and not because being surrounded people who are different than me makes me nervous. I was worried because didn’t want to be “the black girl.”
So obviously I am African American, but I didn’t want my skin color to be the basis of my identity. The same as a homosexual wouldn’t want their sexuality to be the basis of their identity. But if you think about from the day we’re born we are programmed to think of ourselves at this or that. Society, our culture, our family, our friends they all affect how we identify ourselves. Here’s some news for ya (and you can guess it from the title). We've all been lied to.
As a child I was taught about the injustices my people had to suffer through and it was explained to me why I should be proud to be black. My grandmother wasn't hesitant in explaining to me how black people and white people were different and why it was better to date within your own race. Now my grandmother isn't a racist. She doesn't hate white people or anything like that but she was born in a time where such concepts as separating races and one superior race were openly discussed and even supported. So you guess that this has had some effect on her. There are many things she witnessed that I will never have to thank goodness. Sadly, my grandmother didn't realize (or maybe she did) that through her I learned to identify myself as only black. That was my identity. Nothing else. I was just black, but that wasn't enough for me. It didn't speak to all of what I am. I guess you could add the word girl into there since I am a female. My grandmother did treat me different than my brother or male cousins because I was a girl. Her expectations for me were much higher as well. However, even just being a black girl was just the surface of who I really felt I was.
Doesn't it suck that from the day we’re born were labeled and placed into categories like some sort of human filing system? When a baby girl is born and wrapped in her pink blanket so many concepts and expectations come along with that blanket. The same goes for boys. That blue blanket is a heavy burden to carry. Despite society trying to file us I’m here to say that we can’t fit into anyone file. Besides being a black girl, I am also a writer, a friend, an athlete (not the best one),a dancer, an intellectual (a girl has to flatter herself every now and then), a listener, a talker, a sister, an aunt, a niece, an animal lover, an admirer of art, music and television ( you should see my show list): and that’s not even all I am and that’s not all anyone is. No one is just an artist, just a mother, just a teacher, just a woman, just a man, just this or just that. Everyone is more than a one word description. Everyone has a list of words that is all their own.
So to conclude this post I guess I’ll say this. Shrek was right. People are like onions, they have a lot of layers. Until next time!
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