When beauty never equates to “brown-ness” and power equates to palness

How do you feel like there’s a place for you in this world?

 

So if people live in boxes, what box do you check? 

Two separate worlds, no- wait three, each different from the next. 

 

And it’s not something that most people would comment on, because no one wants to call it to your attention. But you can tell by the way that the girls from your school look at you from the corners of their eyes when slavery is mentioned at the lunch table. Giggles leaving their voice as they turn to your direction. 

By the way that your history teacher will tell you that “it’s okay to leave the room if this triggers you,” during the topic of immigrants and hate crimes.

By the way that parents will grab their small, pale faced children and pull them away from you. 

By the way that your white friends look at you after making a joke about Mexicans, Guatemalans and Panamanians being the same. 

By the way that you notice people hesitate before saying something that they know is inherently racist, the recognition of hatred in their eyes. 

 

And they don’t get it, because why would they? Why should they? They don’t have the fear of wondering whether they will be shunned or rejected, or pushed aside due to the amount of melanin they were assigned with at birth. 

 

It’s different. I’m different. Just different. 

Not bad.

 

But I can’t help from feeling like I was dealt the wrong cards in a lottery. I didn’t lose, no, that would be cruel to even imply, but after me I have to watch so many others win the million I just fell short of.

 

And the older I get, the more I realize these things. Things that I may have skipped over as a child, but now I recognize these stares to be full of hate, not wonder. 

People watching me as though I’m in a zoo, what’s the next thing that this black will do?

 

Big nose. Large feet. Dark hair. Thick lips. Tainted skin. 

 

And so I silence myself, silence my voice, my power, my pride, in a way that my ancestors would be disgustingly disappointed in. I silence myself in fear of being called ghetto, being told that I’m “too much,” being something that people shy away from; becoming that black girl stereotype. Being too authentically me because that would change the way things are supposed to be. 

 

But can you ever really blame the girls with kind hearts and open minds who were raised and spoon fed on “comedic side character black girl” and “fat best friend with rhythm” brainwashing? Raised to accept things that they knew deep down in their souls were wrong, sweeping things under the large rug of racism. 

 

And there, I said that word starting with that R, heavy and harsh on my tongue because “it can’t be considered racist if they don’t mean it with that intention”

But these girls that now refer to things as ghetto were once the girls who laid down next to black girls, and held them tight because they could both cry about boys and pleasing their parents. 

 

I watch as the styles they once deemed “hood” become the new fad and trend. And I watch as you steal from the things that we created, things created from roots in oppression and hate. 

 

So I’m stuck with balancing two universes from opposing sides, like planets on my shoulders. 

What I’m supposed to be and what I’m not. 

The difference between Jupiter and Earth, contracting atmospheres and spinning pulls that make my mind spiral in circles, dizzy and pounding. 

 

My mother tells me to smooth down my hair so no one can see how nappy my curls naturally are, but I should not be afraid to wear my afro with pride. She tells me to change before I leave the house so I do not look as though my family cannot afford to clothe me.

 

I’m supposed to break through the boxes, create new molds, but it gets so lonely looking in through the cracks, from the outside of each perfect white square.