Coming from Nigeria and living there all my life, frankly, the last thing on my mind in any given day is race or the colour of my skin. I don't have that many African American friends because according to them I'm not black, I'm Nigerian..um mm...well, excuse me while I check the colour of my skin. I don't get it.I'm just not one to care about race discussions:i rarely comment on blogposts that talk about race, I never discuss it with friends, I really don't care that Barrack Obama is president, i just really have better things to talk about.
my friend said I need to declare more often that I'm a proud, strong black girl.
um mm...no.I'm a strong girl, period.
this post isn't to pretend that racism doesn't exist, of course it exists. I just refuse to acknowledge it.I go to a predominantly white school with an alarming low percentage of black people so if I count every time someone who isn't the same colour of skin as me has been not so nice to me as racism..wow,ill be one bitter girl by now.
most of the times when something happens, my friends always lash on to something racial and i always think:what if he is just an ass hole?
I just don't get race, I don't even know how to discuss or talk about it, i spent 16 years of my life in a country where I didn't have to think about the colour of my skin, as a junior in America ive just chosen to ignore it.
so, what brought on this rant?
my white guy friend told me this evening that and i quote:'you are the whitest black girl i have ever met' and he said it in such a tone as if he actually thought he was complimenting me.
I was like huh?
my race doesn't define me.
I speak proper English cos I went to a very good private school back home and cos my mum is an english teacher I wasn't even allowed to speak broken English.
I'm smart cos I study and I'm good at maths cos my dad is a mechanical engineer and from a very young age he influenced my education a lot which is one of the reasons I'm studying chE in the first place.
I can't dance cos my dad can't dance either.I don't have rhythm.
so when my African-American friends rag on my for trying to be white and my white friends compliment me on 'being white' it just really rubs me the wrong way. this was just the way i was raised. most Nigerians I know are also like me!!!!
i can't stand stereotypical statements. I don't make them and i hate it when people make them around me. you cannot make statements like that cos you have not met everybody in the world.
stereotypes are only part of the story, it is not all of the story.
i have two really close African-American friends and one of their friends once told me that I'm not being true to my blackness cos I said that I'm not a big fan of rap and that I think lots of rappers don't say anything meaningful in their songs. mind you, I also mentioned the only 6 real rappers i can ever listen to, but no, they ignored that and latched on to the fact that I said that I'm not a big fan.
I don't have to like certain things, talk a certain way, or have only black friends to prove the fact that I'm black and proud.
I would think that my black skin speaks enough for me.
being black in America just freaking bugs me!!! I'm tired of people telling me who is being racist to me and who isn't, I am tired of people telling me how wearing my hair naturally is going to help me appreciate my blackness more, I am tired of people telling me how 'white' I am being when I speak.
I was born black.
my behaviour has nothing to do with the colour of my skin, my likes and dislikes have nothing to do with my skin.
sometimes I just feel like a shadow, like everyone sees my skin and not the person behind the colour.
'I am not my skin, I am not my hair, I am that soul that lives within'
- India Arie
i think she puts it excellently.
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