...all we wanna do is be free

I can pinpoint the exact moment I knew that being Black was… different. I was in second grade. My dad had just picked me up, and after a really bizarre day at my predominately white private school… I sat in the back seat and told him, “I wish I was white.”  I didn’t realize those words would have him break down in tears. 

I had no idea what I was really saying, but in my young, impressionable mind… being white meant having disposable income. It meant having a nice house. Nice cars (plural). A prestigious job. Having everything you needed without having to exert much energy to get it. Funny enough, I didn’t know ANYTHING about redlining, the school-to-prison pipeline, or anything else regarding systemic racism. All I knew in that very moment is how I felt about what my “friend” at school said that day.

We were having a normal 2nd grader conversation, and I used the word “ain’t.” She cut me off so fast, as if she’d been waiting for the opportunity to present itself again. “Ain’t AIN’T a word!” But somehow she managed to faultlessly use it in a sentence, under the perfect context. Hmmm. So after a little back and forth, me being that smartass I’ve always been… I took her straight to the dictionary and we found it together. She was aggitated. She started to make fun of the way I spoke, in general. And proceeded to tell me that her mom told her, that she makes more money than my dad. I lost it! I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, but I knew her dad was a pilot, and her mom was a doctor. I knew that factually, she was right. But I couldn’t understand why my dad’s teacher salary was a up for discussion at their dinner table.

So I went home, and wished I was white. Having been to their home (and my other classmates’ homes) to stay for several weekends, I saw what their lives looked like. Homes you could literally get lost in… while I went home to my fourplex where I shared a bedroom my entire life. To me, that was the difference between Black and White.

From that day, I learned to talk like them. I wanted to fit in and have friends. I didn’t want to be made fun of. I wanted to be as close to that lifestyle as I possibly could. Little did I know that this self-hate was barely the tip of the iceberg, and that it’s been pushed to our brains for over 400 years. It’s crazy that TODAY laws are being passed to stop natural hair discrimination. Apparently the way our hair naturally grows from our scalps, isn’t suitable for the work place. Ouch. Everyone close to me, that looks like me has had to turn down their Blackness in White settings.  We’ve been taught that it’s too much and it makes White people uncomfortable. We’ve been code-switching ever since we learned it’s the only way to afford even the TINIEST bit of a better opportunity in life.  It’s laughable when people say, “I have Black friends…” to combat the idea that they may be racist. Nine times out of ten, that Black friend is me. That Black friend is one of my friends. That Black friend is THE WHITE-WASHED VERSION of a Black friend that you THOUGHT you had. It’s the version of ourselves that YOU find presentable and worthy of your “friendship.” So we don’t count. If I took any of the White people I knew, back to the streets that I grew up in… they’d be VERY uncomfortable. Two completely different worlds. 

I’m grateful that I got to experience both worlds. I’ve literally been around the world. When you never leave the comfort of your own bubble, and never interact with people that come from different backgrounds, that have different experiences than you… there’s zero room for growth, and no way to obtain knowledge or understanding. You’ll forever be close-minded, and blissfully ignorant.  

A wise man once said, “Get you somebody that can do both!” Well…. Quite frankly, we’re all fucking exhausted from doing both. We want to be ourselves, without the fear of continuing to be held back (or killed) in a world full of people that hate us, but love to imitate us.