Black IS Beautiful
But it comes with a price.
I was born in affluent Livingston, NJ but my hometown is inner city East Orange, NJ. My parents made it a point to have all three of their children receive a superior education, so I had the privilege of attending school in Plainsboro, NJ (right outside of Princeton). Despite residing in Plainsboro, I spent each weekend shuffling between Newark and East Orange all of my life until I ultimately moved back to EO at age 15, halfway through high school. Although illegally attending school for some time, my parents continually fought to make sure my second oldest brother and I received our high school diplomas from the prestigious West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District (my oldest brother was out of the equation by this point, since he is 12 years my senior). The ironic thing about the whole ordeal is, my parents were so worried about the restraints that living in the ghetto would bring (and rightfully so). But as I grew older I became aware of society as a whole, and I realized that the suburbs placed more impalpable boundaries around me than the hood ever could. Let’s start with the fact that my looks were a liability.
The funny thing about me, is that my outward appearance brought forth a lot of mixed feedback from Whites, Blacks and everything in between. When I was younger, I had strawberry blonde hair and these bright, big pink lips it took years to grow into. I was so pale my family members would tell me that when I was born you could see straight to my veins. Interacting with people outside of my race in my township and beyond informed me that my hair was “too long,” for a Black girl, so I was constantly asked if it was real. My hair was “too light” for a Black girl, so I was often asked if it was dyed. My skin was “too fare” to be 100% African-American, so I was often asked if I was part-White. Truth be told, I am a quarter Japanese, even though I don’t look it in the slightest. And truth be told, nobody gave a damn.
You see in WW-P, anyone with coarse hair and brown skin was looked at funny, as if they didn't belong. Sometimes this was a subtle message sent while other times it was like the elephant in the room. Majority of the AA kids shared a similar story to my brother and I, their parents (or in many cases - parent), wanted their children to have a prosperous future, so they relocated to a place where they could start to make that happen. So these kids with their rich chocolate skin and frizzy hair and foreign slang stuck to themselves. They listened to their music and talked their talk and grinned and beared it until they got that stupid diploma from that stupid school in that stupid town that never wanted them anyway. Then there was me, the girl who was too well-versed to be considered Black (because apparently proper grammar is for everyone else), yet had just enough slang within her vocabulary to prove that she wasn't White. She carried herself too well to be from EO (because your physical origin determines if you’re raised right in case you were wondering), but had one too many “ratchet” moments that clearly showed her true colors. I was also the same girl who didn't have straight enough hair, too small of lips, narrower hips and a flatter ass to be considered White either. It did not matter that I was paler than the Caucasian girl sitting beside me. If it weren't for my hair you wouldn't have been able to weed me out on the soccer field or in a class picture. It did not matter that I was a fraction of the exact same Asians who aided in WW-P’s scholarly statistics to shoot through the roof. What did matter though, was the fact that what features I did have accompanied by my brown-skinned brother whose blood I shared, depicted that I was 75% Burden (sorry, I meant to 75% Black), which made me 100% unwanted — except for when my race came in handy for others, of course.
When I was a freshman, my brother was a senior at our high school. He was the football star, and I a soccer star. Word started to get out that we had been commuting from EO to Plainsboro to continue our schooling (as mentioned previously). A friend of Darren’s named Adrian who had played basketball for our school, had been doing the same thing. When word got out that Adrian (also Black), was illegally attending school, he was immediately dismissed and his mother was forced to pay his tuition for whatever amount of time he was enrolled. The difference between our situation and Adrian’s, is the simple fact that we were necessary. Adrian spent the vast amount of his basketball career riding the bench. I was automatically a 4-year starter as a freshman and Darren’s D1 football scholarships were piling up by the day. WW-P didn't care that Darren and I were popular and well respected because of our character aside from our athletic attributes. No, nobody cares about one’s character if they are Black. WW-P cared about what we could bring to the table. They needed me to keep drilling that ball into the back of the net and they needed Darren to continually dance his way to the end-zone, like good little black kids do. So no, when word started circulating about attending school while living outside of township lines, not one person approached us to find out if it was true. In fact, the only reason why the Board of Ed. knew was because my father came clean to my principal Mr. Z my sophomore year and he approached them on our behalf. The Board of Ed. approved my case without question. The illegal student could remain.
WW-P made it a point to stay on top of all of the GPA’s of the AA athletes, assuming we were too incompetent to maintain our grades ourselves. If someone transferred into our school from an inner city school they did not hesitate to register he/she in insultingly low-leveled classes. They encouraged us to visit HBCU’s when junior year came around, instead of enabling us to apply to the Ivy’s, the MIT’s, the Notre Dame’s, the Stanfords. All of my time spent in that township set me up for a sound future indeed, but it came with a price. Me looking the way I did, talking the way I did, it came with a price. Instead of being accepted for hard-working students just like the Whites and the Asians and the Indians, we were excluded, detested and rejected. The only time we were praised was when we were essentially promoted to “the token Black friend.”
I remember when I first started playing soccer at age six. I was benched several games in WWP’s recreational league because I scored too much. Apparently a forward is supposed to score a certain amount before their job is done too well and they’re penalized for it. The same talent that was twisted into something negative then, was the same talent that kept me at High School North when I was breaking the law. The same facial features that I was made fun of for when I was a kid were the same features that caused White men of all ages to fawn after me when I got older. But don’t worry, I was never approached by them (that was far too scary of a task), I was simply whistled at, smirked at and undressed with their eyes. I also distinctly remember the age of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah’s. I was invited to a million of them. And of course, I was always the only Black girl in attendance. This one particular Bat Mitzvah, as my friend was reading her torah, this rude little white boy kept poking his head into my field of vision, continually making the duck face, as if insinuating that’s the way my lips looked. I was so upset. It was a cruel gesture and it made me feel out of place and ugly. When truth be told, that same Bat Mitzvah I received a plethora of comments on how beautiful I looked by White people young and old. Hell, I may have even been the best-dressed and best-looking girl there.
Black beauty is showcased in a variety of ways, but for some reason isn't recognized as such. It is apparent in the different shades of our skin, to our style of dress and the way we wear our hair, to our intellect, to our history, to our ability to use our education, our stories and our talents to change the world. But when we show how exquisite we are, how bold we are, how deserving we are of living a fulfilling life, we are looked upon as poison, as ugly creatures who aren't worthy of breathing the same air as those around us. Shit, I’ll settle for simply being different, exotic, or peculiar at the least. But that just isn't the reality for us, we will always be viewed as far worse.
This ever present wedge, this ignorance, this continual delusion about who Black people are (and who we aren't), transpires in essentially every facet of our lives. It is the same misconception that wards White men away from Black females because we all have attitudes. It is the same notion that kept me from rocking my Afro at job interviews because I didn't know if that particular hairstyle would jeopardize my chance of making money. It is the same impression that makes White people clutch their belongings a little tighter whenever an AA male that looks like he’s up to no good passes by. It is the same subconscious fear that forces White people to avoid eye contact with us and stutter when they speak when a controversial topic arises that they simply don’t know how to address. It’s almost as if we emit some sort of fume that keeps White people at a distance; prohibiting their eyes from seeing all we have to offer, causing their minds to conjure up these inaccurate facts about who we are.
Black IS beautiful. Black is bold. Black is intelligent. Black is triumphant. Black is resilient. Black is strong. Black is determined. Black is sexy. But Black is also underestimated. Black is prejudged. Black is degraded. Black is associated with so much negativity, that our beauty in this world essentially holds no significance at all, due to the racism and prejudice that was established long before those before me and those after me even realized we were reduced to rubble.
The thing that amazes me most about people who can easily formulate so much hatred for my race is that in doing so they negate the fact that we are human beings.
I love who I am. I love my heritage, my culture. I love what Black icons have accomplished and I love what so many of us are looking to achieve in the future, famous or not. We wake up and put our pants on just like everybody else in the world, but unfortunately other people in the world can exist each day free of ridicule, degradation or contempt. We can’t. Because when each of us were born, we inadvertently signed up for a life filled with oppression that we didn't ask for nor deserve.
The significance behind the word Black holds a meaning that is so profound it is almost unfathomable. It is everything. It is our harrowed past, our (in many cases) anguished present and it is our inconceivable future. Despite every struggle we go through, every path we tread and every trail we leave there is a beauty that transcends and transmits something so extraordinary it may almost seem (even if for a fleeting moment), that we are allowed to live without boundaries and 21st century shackles.
They say the best things in life are free, and when I was that naive little girl who found solace in kicking a soccer ball before being benched, I believed that. But when I got older and saw how this world bred some of the cruelest and coldest people I’d never imagine being exposed to, I began to think differently. Just because we live to see another day doesn't mean others welcome us to it.