Who knew that as a young girl I would face such a struggle of racial identity? Who was I supposed to be in my two different environments? Was I to exemplify the stereotypes that exist in the black community to fit in with my counterparts, try to mask my blackness by “acting white”, or simply be me? But I was just a confused little brown girl trying to fit into my social environments.
Summer camp. S’mores, turtle time, camptivities, and a whole lot of little white girls as my cabin mates. Every year I would get asked the same racially insensitive questions about my hair and my skin. "Why don’t you wash your hair every day?" "Why does it look like that when wet?" "How do you tan so easily?" These are just to name a few. Every summer I was forced to wear a cornrowed ponytail to preserve my natural hair in hopes of growth and I hated getting them every time. They were tight and itchy and I was made fun of because of them. Because of my appearance, I was immediately stereotyped. I was often called “ghetto” and “ratchet” without even having a chance to speak first. Now this happening to me as a little brown girl, I only wanted to fit in and did not know another way to do that but to ignore the comments and act as “white” as possible. I would overcompensate by speaking extra "proper", asking the girls about the latest Katy Perry songs, and essentially rejecting who I was to fit in. This was the first time I suffered such internal conflict of who I should be. However, I quickly realized that no matter how “white” I tried to be, I was still the ghetto black girl with the cornrows in their minds.
Day camp. The next camp I attended throughout my summers was in my neighborhood. A black summer camp. It seemed as if I was going to fit right in. Wrong. Once I arrived, I was immediately seen as different or weird. I did not listen to the music they liked and did not really fit into what was considered a black tween. I did not understand the slang language used and I would be made fun of many times. I was even called “acting white” or an “oreo” for listening to songs other than Hip Hop/R&B and speaking too "proper". I wanted to fit in with the cool kids and I decided to change myself. I began to grow tired of being picked on and tried to create an image of what I thought my peers wanted me to be. I began speaking in Ebonics occasionally and listening music that was popular in black culture of the time. Sometimes I would stay up late to learn lyrics of those songs just so I could come to camp the next day sounding cooler. I was losing who I was to fit in with everyone.
So essentially, I was too black for the white kids and too “white” for the black kids. Talk about a world of confusion. I had to deny my blackness at summer camp and overcompensate to prove that I was black at the day camp. These racially stimulated environments experienced led to a lost little brown girl but opened doors for her to finally search for and understand her true self.
