Growing up, I always knew I was darker than other children; however, I never thought this made me different. I was raised in a mixed household, by my white mom and black dad. This made me almost impervious to race. I knew my dad was darker, but I never truly knew what that meant and I didn’t think much of it.
To me, my skin color never meant anything more. I grew up in a very diverse place, going to school in Texas, surprisingly meant that there was always diversity within the classroom. Usually, no two kids were the same color. I always thought that I just fell on the spectrum, you know? I was different but it wasn't due to any one reason.
It wasn’t until I experienced racism that I realized what race was.
A white kid on the playground called me a racial slur, but I didn’t know what it meant. When I asked, I almost felt like seven-year-old me was receiving the “sex talk,” but, instead of being told what went where, I was told I was black.
Before this experience, I never really acknowledged the differences in the color of peoples’ skin. My friend Tater was darker than my friend Valerie, and that was all there was to it, but to the other children on the playground, the colors of our skin were so much more.
It seemed like race was something that divided us; just another tool to bully someone with. They didn’t look at race as a skin pigment, but rather an excuse to tear down other people and treat them like they were inferior.
For those who have never experienced something like this, it’s like wearing your shirt inside out. You know you’re wearing the shirt, and it might seem like it looks different than normal; however, it is not until someone points out your tag that you realize your shirt is on inside out.
I knew I looked different than my mom, but it wasn’t until I experienced racism that I realized what that meant. Someone had to tell me that my shirt was on inside out, but no one could help me turn it back to normal.
After learning I was black, something that I should’ve always known, I felt extremely uncomfortable. It felt like everyone had known my shirt was inside out for years, but I was just finding out. This realization made me question everything about my identity. It felt like I didn’t know who I was.
Despite feeling confused and hurt, it dawned on me that my ignorance of race was just me looking beyond the colors of skin. My multicultural home helped me realize that my family is unique because of our experiences, not our skin colors. I could tell a person that my parents were different, but that difference would’ve been built upon their actions and emotions.
While writing this, I decided to ask my other friends if they ever "realized they were black". Most of them had similar experiences, they knew they were darker but that was it. My close friend once asked her classmate for a "skin-colored crayon", and her classmate proceeded to give her a brown crayon. To my friend, she was no different than anyone else. This other child, however, saw her differently.
It was easy for the child at school to see my race and make fun of it. They had experiences completely different from my own. Being a white child with two white parents probably helped them notice the difference in our skins. Being accustomed to white people probably influenced what they saw when they looked at me. Instead of just seeing different shades of a person, they saw different races. This child’s racism helped me realize who I am and what that means.
Being black doesn’t define me and at times I wish the world was as ignorant as I used to be.
