I was always told I was black. And I am black, but not quite black enough or not black black but still black to say the least. I was told that in my life, I would have certain privileges. Privileges that darker women would not be able to acquire and I should be grateful for that.
I should appreciate the automatic assumptions that I am foreign or at the very least mixed, or that I must think I’m better than everybody else because I should count myself lucky that I’m light-skinned. Because that means a company won’t mind hiring me to sit at the front desk.
Because that means a white guy might find me pretty—well, pretty enough for a not-quite-black-enough-girl. Pretty enough that he won’t mind introducing me to his parents who think I’m such a great girl—so educated, so eloquent, so even-tempered. Such a shame their family doesn’t “do that sort of thing,” though. But still I should be grateful I even get introduced to a white boy’s family. That I am eligible because I’m not black black, remember?
Darker girls don’t get that opportunity or they have to work harder than I do for it. But I am lucky—lucky to be born light. I should never ever complain about my lightness because the real black girls go through things every day that I will never be able to relate to. But I’m real black too. I have a single mom; I clap when you piss me off; and I don’t have “good hair” either!
Still, when I speak about race in class, everyone turns around with a face I know all too well. It’s the 50/50 face. It says, “Are you even fully black? Why are you talking?” mixed with “The light skinned girl is woke and she is interested in something besides her own self? Wow.”
You just love to remind me that I’m not black and I’m not white—I’m light. But if white is right and black don’t crack, where am I supposed to fall with my light? I just can’t win, can I? Because—and let’s face it—I’m only really black when it counts, right? When you need me to be.
Something about what I have or look like is somehow both special and yet disliked, hated. Hate has now become so imbedded in us, blacks hate other blacks for being black. You must be thinking, “Oh, poor little light girl. Everyone was sort of paying attention to you.” But the lightness of my skin didn’t insulate me from questioning the worthiness of my black.
We forget that as black women our struggles are much more alike than we admit. You forget that though your black will never be like her black, her beauty does not take away from your own. Your black is your black for a reason. You were coated in the most beautiful color so that you can be you.
And I know that I may still never be quite black enough for you. But if I’m only black when it counts then I’ll make my black count by standing by your side with a voice rich with my black pride as we fight against America’s #1 separator “Whose Black is Better Anyway?”
