I won't say that my whole life I have been asked certain questions about my skin color, but I can say I got a rude awakening when high school came around. I met a guy who you could say had no filter at all and made sure I remembered who I was "supposed" to be and who I was not.
Yes, I am African American 100 percent, unless someone forgot to tell me that I have half something or mixed with something. I was approached by someone one day who asked me:
Why do you only hang out with white people? Why don't you have any black friends?
Excuse me? Are you really asking me this in front of those friends? I mean, that's what I wanted to say, but being who I am and how I usually handle situations, I asked them:
Why does it matter that I do not have a lot of black friends? Are you sure I don't have any, because I don't see you hanging around me that often, so it's hard for you to tell?
After thinking about it though, my favorite question that people would ask me is:
Why do you talk so white?
OK, can anyone explain to me what that means? Oh, you mean speaking the way people should speak? You mean how I don't smack my lips every time I talk? Or speak with some type of angry tone in my voice? To this day almost 20 years later, I don't understand why I can still be asked this question, but whatever makes the world go round.
Remember that guy I was talking about? Yeah, I finally met him after my best friend started dating him our freshman year of high school. Yes, he was always around school and I could have talked to him before, but I never saw the need to and soon I realized I wish I never did. He made me the center of his racist jokes and would ask me if certain things were true that black people did or ate. I tolerated it, laughed it off, and sometimes asked him not to refer to me in his joke. It worked for awhile until we played a game at my friend's birthday party.
We were playing I Spy on the top of my roof, and you could see literally everything from her roof! It came to his turn and he said, "I Spy with my little eye something colored." As soon as he said those words I was nervous about what the answer could be, but shrugged it off because on this day I was wearing the tie-dye I made last year at this same friends party. Everyone said my shirt, and he said no. Someone said a car that was parked down the street, and he said no. We listed everything we could think of and he said no. Someone than said, "What is the answer? We have named everything!"
He turned to me and said that I was the answer.
I got tired of it! I am an Olivia Pope or Annalise Keating! Or even my mother, who was looked down upon because she was a female in charge of a unit, but was assumed she did not know what she was doing.
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I don't drink Kool-Aid, I don't eat fried chicken all the time, Watermelon is OK, and stop asking me about how I talk! I am a human being who has a 3.42 GPA, a senior ambssador at my school, working my own business, working two internships, and strutting like it is nothing.
So the next time you look at someone and you want to ask that Asian girl for help because you assume she is smart--don't do it.
The next time you want to ask that blonde a dumb blonde joke just to prove they are dumb-please don't!
Next time you want to assume someone who is mixed won't fit into society because she has to choose a side--don't, because that could be your boss in the future!
I am a proud individual who wants you to know-skin color means nothing, because those standards are broken.
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