Yes, I am finally home for winter break! After a smooth flight back home, I couldn't wait to see my two little brothers. As I wait on my family to pick me up from the Hartsfield-Jackson airport, I wondered what was the new dance craze my brothers picked up here in Atlanta, or what the latest shoes my brothers begged my mom to buy them. My family drove up to the side and ordered my brothers to help me with my bags. I have not seen them since Thanksgiving and I must say that they have grown so much since then! I realized that this winter break is only the beginning of me missing out on my brothers growing up. Derek, also known as D.J., is a freshman in high school and is turning 15 in March. Elijah, aka Beanie, is only a fourth grader, but he will be in the double digits in January. It’s hard to believe that once I graduate from college, D.J. will be graduating from high school, and Elijah will be a teenager! For the next four years, I will only know what is going on with them through phone calls from home. As my brothers scrambled to lift my luggage into the car, I could not help but to reflect on how I loved being their big sister and the lessons I’ve learned from them…
Racial Identity 2004
D.J. was only three years old when we had the conversation about race. Long before Beanie was born, my parents used to take vacations and my grandparents used to babysit us. One day D.J. and I were sitting in the kitchen while my grandmother, Maw Maw, cooked dinner. I cannot remember how D.J. came to this thought, but out the blue he asked, “What is black?” to me. I was 7 years old at the time, what wise words can I give my brother who just learned his colors? All I could think of was the typical children’s book of colors, with labeled paint splatters on a canvas of the pages. “This is black,” I pointed at one color splat, “And this is blue, and this is…” “Am I white?” my brother asked. Dazed, I had no idea what my brother was asking. “No, you are tan.” I simply replied, but was confused myself because tan was noted in the coloring book.
“You are black, light-skinned.” Maw Maw said, overhearing our conversation.
Black? I thought. From only knowing the shade lighter than black was gray, I looked at my brother, and noticed that me and him were two shades of brown.
With his bushy black afro, and his pale skin, D.J. resembled my other grandmother, my mother’s mother, Grandma Carolyn. When he was born, my parents thought he would eventually “grow into his color.” “Look behind his ears, that’s his true color,” my dad had said.
This moment was my first recall of the term “black” and “light-skin.” This was long before I understood the racial context of the word black, but since then every time me and my brother D.J. took pictures, I used to always glare at the contrast of our complexions. Our facial features were almost identical, but our skin tones were night and day.
Yet, we were both “black.”
This article is the first of the series "Lessons From My Brothers." More of this series will be posted in the upcoming weeks.
