as my first post on this new blog, I thought I'd share with you all a short writing I wrote one night after finalizing all my college applications and I was still high off of excessive amounts of caffeine consumption. I'd like to note that after re-reading this, I still can see the remnants of internalized racism and bigotry in my writing and am so thankful for all the information many other progressive writers have shared that I've come to where I am now. Though it was only a little less than three years ago, I've learned so much about the Afro-latinx diaspora, the history of African ancestry in Latin America, the influence and identity of Afro-latinx people to understand myself and those that are like me. I've learned that my sentiments from before were just anti-blackness and white supremacy at work not only in America but in my Hispanic community. So here is my piece, poorly written, I wrote at 17.
"Negrita. That is my nickname in my family and its not meant to be racist, its a term of endearment. I am a Haitian, German, and Peruvian girl growing up in “post-racial” America (I put quotes around post-racial america, because lets be honest thats a joke) I will admit, I have very little knowledge or experience with my Haitian roots or my German roots. I’ve been to Peru twice, live and breathe the culture, and I have citizenship in both Peru and the US. But with my extremely kinky roots and my toffee colored skin, I’ve submerged myself into my own identity of what I am. I think. When you’re black and Hispanic, but oh Lord how strong those black genes are, it’s hard to really identify yourself with anything. You look one way, groom yourself as if you are this way, people treat you like you are this way, but you’re actually something else. Thats my experience as a black Hispanic. People mostly assume I am black and those who are curious will get the pleasure of knowing that I am, racially (pretty sure this isn’t politically correct), more than what meets the eye. Others were thrown into a frenzy when they heard me speak Spanish, with wrong tenses and unconjugated verbs everywhere. Yet for some reason, when strangers ask me what I am, I say Peruvian without hesitation. It is only those that squint and express a visage of confusion and ask “Fully?” that find out more. They can comprehend the Haitian and even the Peruvian, even though most of them didn’t know that was a country despite its superfluous history, but if I mention the German, oh now thats the real brain teaser. “German? But your skin? And your eyes? And your hair? Are you sure?” Even my close-friends think I’m half Peruvian and half Haitian. After 17 years and so many tears as a kid crying about my high maintenance hair, mind you I am uber hair-sensitive, I’ve come to realize I’ve been holding internalized racism. You know the kind of thing white people describe when being called out on a racist remark they also said to a black friend who wasn’t upset by it? Yeah, I was that friend. Straighteners and blow dryers were my only friend’s and if my hair wasn’t straight by morning, I wasn’t going to school. I would stay up til 6 a.m. straightening the mop on my head because I was not comfortable with my natural hair. I always believed that European features were the standards of beauty and I would never amount to such beauty, but I could still try. Sad to say, if my hair is natural, I will tie it in a tight bun to this very day. If there was one thing I could wholly relate to any other black girl with, it was hair. But I had to learn about my hair on my own, at least they had a mother. My mom has long, straight hair that she pays little regard to. When I was 3 and she didn’t know what to do with my hair, she did a chemical relaxer on me. My hair became a big part of my self-esteem before I could even lose a tooth. I’m very fortunate to say that I haven’t experienced the extreme levels of racism as many other blacks have. A few slurs and bigoted comments, having no daddy jokes, and others angered me but never left me with that lingering pain. What causes me pain is the violation of human rights, anywhere. Whether with the Islamophobia in America, the indescribable conditions in North Korea, 43 students disappearing in Mexico, or unarmed black teenagers being killed and then criminalized, I am livid. Oppression to one is oppression to all and I live by that. But on Thanksgiving, I learned from my white friends that because I am not fully black, I have no real reason to be angry, it “wasn’t my problem”. Ignoring the fact that it doesn’t need to be your problem to speak up when innocent lives are being ended, I slightly felt like a joke was being played on me. I can look black, be treated like I’m black, actually be part black, but not be angry towards black issues? It was pretty fucked. I wasn’t black enough to be mad about the oppression of blacks, not hispanic enough to be treated hispanic. People often told me that I didn’t act like a black girl. People were surprised to find that my hair was real (even though there was a year I wore extensions but I was too lazy and broke to keep up). And then came the oversexualization of Hispanic women and their depiction of being “crazy, sexy women that can cook”. I mean what the actual hell I was none of these but I was still Black and I was still Hispanic. (I was German too but “white culture” and supremacy is so prevalent in America I didn’t need a years of searching to understand it) Now it’s my last Christmas as a high school student. It’s 3:42 a.m. and I’m writing about a conflicted racial identity while my parents are soundly asleep. I’ve come so far from those non-stop hours of straightening and I yearn for the day that I can walk out without the ponytail and feel beautiful. But while I’m here trying to deal with self-image issues, I’d like for us all to remember the 15 black lives who were taken by cops this year alone. Men who will never help their children again with emotional problems, men who won’t see their daughter’s grow up in a world that tells them their natural features are ugly. All lives matter, but it seems America still can’t see that Black lives matter too. This cannot stop until racism stops. "
"Negrita. That is my nickname in my family and its not meant to be racist, its a term of endearment. I am a Haitian, German, and Peruvian girl growing up in “post-racial” America (I put quotes around post-racial america, because lets be honest thats a joke) I will admit, I have very little knowledge or experience with my Haitian roots or my German roots. I’ve been to Peru twice, live and breathe the culture, and I have citizenship in both Peru and the US. But with my extremely kinky roots and my toffee colored skin, I’ve submerged myself into my own identity of what I am. I think. When you’re black and Hispanic, but oh Lord how strong those black genes are, it’s hard to really identify yourself with anything. You look one way, groom yourself as if you are this way, people treat you like you are this way, but you’re actually something else. Thats my experience as a black Hispanic. People mostly assume I am black and those who are curious will get the pleasure of knowing that I am, racially (pretty sure this isn’t politically correct), more than what meets the eye. Others were thrown into a frenzy when they heard me speak Spanish, with wrong tenses and unconjugated verbs everywhere. Yet for some reason, when strangers ask me what I am, I say Peruvian without hesitation. It is only those that squint and express a visage of confusion and ask “Fully?” that find out more. They can comprehend the Haitian and even the Peruvian, even though most of them didn’t know that was a country despite its superfluous history, but if I mention the German, oh now thats the real brain teaser. “German? But your skin? And your eyes? And your hair? Are you sure?” Even my close-friends think I’m half Peruvian and half Haitian. After 17 years and so many tears as a kid crying about my high maintenance hair, mind you I am uber hair-sensitive, I’ve come to realize I’ve been holding internalized racism. You know the kind of thing white people describe when being called out on a racist remark they also said to a black friend who wasn’t upset by it? Yeah, I was that friend. Straighteners and blow dryers were my only friend’s and if my hair wasn’t straight by morning, I wasn’t going to school. I would stay up til 6 a.m. straightening the mop on my head because I was not comfortable with my natural hair. I always believed that European features were the standards of beauty and I would never amount to such beauty, but I could still try. Sad to say, if my hair is natural, I will tie it in a tight bun to this very day. If there was one thing I could wholly relate to any other black girl with, it was hair. But I had to learn about my hair on my own, at least they had a mother. My mom has long, straight hair that she pays little regard to. When I was 3 and she didn’t know what to do with my hair, she did a chemical relaxer on me. My hair became a big part of my self-esteem before I could even lose a tooth. I’m very fortunate to say that I haven’t experienced the extreme levels of racism as many other blacks have. A few slurs and bigoted comments, having no daddy jokes, and others angered me but never left me with that lingering pain. What causes me pain is the violation of human rights, anywhere. Whether with the Islamophobia in America, the indescribable conditions in North Korea, 43 students disappearing in Mexico, or unarmed black teenagers being killed and then criminalized, I am livid. Oppression to one is oppression to all and I live by that. But on Thanksgiving, I learned from my white friends that because I am not fully black, I have no real reason to be angry, it “wasn’t my problem”. Ignoring the fact that it doesn’t need to be your problem to speak up when innocent lives are being ended, I slightly felt like a joke was being played on me. I can look black, be treated like I’m black, actually be part black, but not be angry towards black issues? It was pretty fucked. I wasn’t black enough to be mad about the oppression of blacks, not hispanic enough to be treated hispanic. People often told me that I didn’t act like a black girl. People were surprised to find that my hair was real (even though there was a year I wore extensions but I was too lazy and broke to keep up). And then came the oversexualization of Hispanic women and their depiction of being “crazy, sexy women that can cook”. I mean what the actual hell I was none of these but I was still Black and I was still Hispanic. (I was German too but “white culture” and supremacy is so prevalent in America I didn’t need a years of searching to understand it) Now it’s my last Christmas as a high school student. It’s 3:42 a.m. and I’m writing about a conflicted racial identity while my parents are soundly asleep. I’ve come so far from those non-stop hours of straightening and I yearn for the day that I can walk out without the ponytail and feel beautiful. But while I’m here trying to deal with self-image issues, I’d like for us all to remember the 15 black lives who were taken by cops this year alone. Men who will never help their children again with emotional problems, men who won’t see their daughter’s grow up in a world that tells them their natural features are ugly. All lives matter, but it seems America still can’t see that Black lives matter too. This cannot stop until racism stops. "
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If you wanna argue about communism, im not interested.