This post is different from everything else on my blog but I needed a safe place for my words and thoughts, so here we go.
Ever since I can remember my friends and I, both white and black, have joked about me being "white." I talk "white," I went to "white" schools, listen to "white" music, dress "white" and like other things that white people like. I'm guilty of joking about it but it's funny because it's quite obvious that I'm black and in no way ashamed of it.
But last night I got a painful reminder of my blackness, one I could have lived without. Someone starting angrily using the "N-word" and they used it several times even as people encouraged him to stop. As the only black person there I sat in awe, thinking that this wasn't really happening. But it was and I quickly exited the premises to make my way home. As I walked out the room, in my Jenna Lyons' costume, decked out in J.Crew (just about as white as you can get fashion-wise), tears swelled in my eyes. I don't live in some bubble where I think we live in a post-racial society but it was all so overwhelming for me. Before I could get into my car, the anger, hate, fear, and hurt made it's way out in an uncontrollable flood.
I'm white, I act white, I talk white, all until someone chooses to use a word that degrades my very existence, the very existence of so many people that I love. I am still battling with these emotions, trying to make sense of it all.
There is no explanation, there is no excuse. I have never forgotten that I'm black and I have never needed a reminder, but last night was the most painful of reminders and my heart still hurts.
A day later and I'm wondering should I have stood up for myself, what does it look like to stand up for yourself in that kind of horrible situation?
No comments:
Post a Comment