Reminders of my Blackness

Noticing something like the fact that you’re the only Black person in the room isn’t entirely innate. At least not to me. 

It took me a while before I really started to raise an eyebrow. Perhaps these white guys that are supposedly my “uncles” on my dad’s side aren’t actually blood related to me after all. I stewed on that theory for a while. When you’re a kid, these things just aren’t so obvious, I guess. 

Of course I had started to make mental notes, reconstructing my world view out of little shards of information I picked up along the way. I take a look at myself, then at them. Well, first of all, my skin is definitely darker. Also… my nose is definitely wider than theirs. I look around some more. Why are these girls tanning? I have never thought to do that in my life. I listen. Everyone thinks Daisha and Keshawn are kind of “ghetto,” and they seem to say it with a nearly undetectable sneer. But I see it. Okay, got it. Don’t be “ghetto.” My mental notebook begins to thicken—a wedge that more easily splits open the space between me and them as I fill page after page. 

Outside of my own observations, my peers began pointing things out directly to me. “Don’t you want your hair to swing and bounce like mine? Why doesn’t your hair do that?” says my friend, swaying her thick, long, brunette ponytail side to side. She’s right. My hair doesn’t do that at all. My thin, short, relaxed hair may be straight, but it never flows like a white girl’s. I want my hair to flow like a white girl’s. I do want mine to swing and bounce like hers. Why doesn’t mine do that?

Of course that was an innocent comment from a fellow third grader, but that might have been the first time a comment really stuck with me. I still think about it once in a while. I can still remember exactly where we were standing outside as recess ended. Sometimes I still think about it as I wag my curly ponytail in the mirror and marvel at the movement. I’m glad I stopped relaxing my hair. 

Comments like these have never stopped. I’ve grown pretty desensitized to most of them, while others linger in the air around me long after they've been said. Rarely, if ever, are my interactions with racism aggressive or glaringly obvious. For that, I am lucky. However, it usually takes more insidious forms like backhanded compliments, microaggressions, and seemingly harmless jokes. I recognize most of these comments are born out of ignorance, but the sting is still there. It’s a sobering, heart–sinking sting. The kind you feel as a kid when you finally make it up the tree house ladder only to have a door that reads “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” slammed in your face, just when you thought they finally chose to ignore the fact that you’re a girl. It’s not that I wanted to be a boy, nor do I want to be white. I just don’t want my physical differences to be on the forefront of others’ minds. 

I got box braids once and when a friend saw them for the first time they remarked, “You look so hood rat now.” I can’t remember exactly how I replied, but I remember how I felt. The burning in my ears that I wasn’t quite sure if it was anger or embarrassment. The dense, knotted boulder of disappointment burrowing a pit into my stomach as I tried to figure out how to respond. I remember thinking it had to be a bit. Surely, this is a bit, right?

The feeling is something I am well acquainted with. I feel it creep back into my cheeks and lump inside my throat when someone jokes that I’m from Africa or I learn long after the fact that a guy I had gone out with told my friend he had “jungle fever” when he met me. 

I’m not sure why I’m ever surprised; it’s a constant monotonous cycle of sighing, saying “You too, huh?”and then shuffling along to wait for the next letdown. It’s hard not to feel on edge in a turbulent weather pattern so predictable. Is this guy only going out with me because he served his mission in Ghana? Do they only want to be my friend because they don’t have a Black person in their friend group? Is someone going to say something again if I say I like watermelon? Do I have to worry about someone using the n-word in Quiplash again despite me being the only Black person in the room? 

Unfortunately, feeling on edge is something I can rarely find respite from as the cycle seems to infiltrate pretty much every aspect of my life, creeping up in unexpected ways and places like a noxious gas. When you grow up in a predominantly white and Mormon-populated area and then move to an even more predominantly white and Mormon-populated area (i.e. Provo) it’s difficult to continually be reminded of how different you are, but even more so of how much the people around you don’t understand you or discount your experience. 

In Church, people as influential as Brad Wilcox are willing to publicly downplay the plight of Black members being barred from holding the priesthood up until as recently as 1978. Among my peers at school, it’s a similar experience. It is a Twilight Zone-like realm which welcomes tone deaf and “color blind” articles where white kids complain about diversity, equity, and inclusion and minimize the experiences of students of color with the very microaggressions I cite. It is a domain where most students can comfortably say they would keep the Book of Mormon instead of ending racism when given the choice—one of the few exceptions being because they “like sports.” It’s hard to feel understood let alone welcome in that environment. 

To be clear, I’m not blaming students for wanting to protect the Book of Mormon in some absurd hypothetical. Neither am I even blaming students for feeling boxed out or confused when they find themselves in complex conversations about diversity. Even as a Person of Color, I can understand how that can be a difficult thing to navigate and approach. What I am asking of people, however, is to be cognizant of the things they say and the impact they have on the very small population of BIPOC people around them. And further, how white people specifically might have a limited or skewed perspective on the minority experience. Especially since being in Utah, I’ve learned that for many people it boils down to a lack of exposure, not hate. Still, ignorance can maim just as much as malice, so I appreciate when people are willing to learn from their mistakes and I am always gracious when people ask earnest questions. Things begin to dip a bit too much into the realm of feeling uncomfortable when, for example, after seeing Black Panther on a date, the guy (white) sends you a paragraph, asking how you felt about the movie as a Black person amidst a barrage of white guilt. I don’t think this is necessary. What is important is that people are sincere and willing to listen and learn from those around them.

I am lucky to have many friends and family that do make me feel safe and loved. I have BIPOC friends and family I can relate to as we bemoan and laugh about our experiences together. I have white friends and family that continually seek to understand me and speak up. Even with this level of support, it’s still hard not to feel like my race is the first and only thing people see. Whether I wanted to or not, I’ve learned to notice things like being the only Black person in a classroom of one hundred students, but it now comes from a place of humor and pride. I love my racial and ethnic identity, and it is an important part of who I am. That being said, it is not the only thing I am.