When I came to college I came alone; I was coming to a school where I had no friends, and I was two hours away from my family and friends back home. For once, I had the chance to be who I was, weirdness and all, and make new friends who understood me. But things didn't go as smoothly as I originally thought, I realized how hard it was to find people who accepted you as you were without a second thought. I met people who assumed because I was black that I had different interests than them, and even when they accepted me it was never a full acceptance.
For the first three years of my college life, I felt like I didn't really belong anywhere; I didn't fit into any specific group and it made me feel alone and isolated. I remember being in a class and someone I thought of as a very close friend made the comment about what they thought my music interests were and a comment on my appearance, because at the time I had dreads. And it really hit me that this person, who I knew so much about and cared about, knew absolutely nothing about me and assumed I had the same interest as all of the other black students on campus. It hit me that the group of people I wanted to be a part of, the ones I thought I was finally fitting in with, knew absolutely nothing about me — it was high school all over again.
It wasn't until the summer before my senior year in college, after having an argument with someone close to me, that I really started to examine who I was, and who I wanted to be. I'd begun gauging my ears and they made the comment about how I was doing these things — gauging my ears and dying my hair — in an attempt to be white and fit in. And honestly, I had never been more insulted in my entire life; I could feel every nerve in my body tense in rage. I had been different my entire life; liking alternative music, piercings, dying my hair, and everything else had been a part of my personality since I was old enough to make decisions for myself and here was this person basically telling me I hated my black skin because I enjoyed things that were deemed to be "white." And it was this incident that caused me to reevaluate my life, to really look at myself and decided, regardless of others opinions, who I was.
It was at that moment that I decided not to let other's opinions of who I should be affect who I was, no more limiting my style, the music I listened to, or who I was as a person just to please others. I decided if I wanted to gauge my ears, or dye my hair bright green that I should, regardless of the fact that it was viewed as an attempt to "be white." Because in my heart I knew that wasn't true, I knew that I did the things I did because they were what I wanted to do, not because I was trying to impress someone or be someone I wasn't.
To be honest, at first, it was a struggle that left me feeling like I wasn't embracing who I was supposed to be as a black woman; I honestly felt like I was a bad black person because I wasn't what they considered to be "proper representation" of a black woman. I had to realize that I would always be a black woman, regardless of what color my hair was, what music I listened to, or if I pierced every inch of my body, because none of these things were racially specific. The moment I decide to pierce my tongue, or dye my hair pink, these things become black things, because I am a black woman and I am doing them. I had to stop caring if people thought I wasn't black enough, or if I was too black, and learn that as long as I was happy with my choices then they were the right choices. And I can honestly say that was the best thing I could have ever done for myself.
