The Skin I’m In
Why being black in today’s world terrifies me.
Fear is one of the most profound emotions an individual can experience. It has the power to ruin lives, livelihoods, or an individual’s ability to thrive. It causes people to lash out, act out, or make irrational choices in the name of self-defense and protection. When I was really young, before fear had any say so in my day-to-day excursions, my life was chalk-full of the wonder that stems from the magic of childhood.
Sights, smells, sounds — I found them all captivating and entrancing. The wonder of my youth was never lost on me. Any and all stimuli were perceived as good stimuli. From the smell of breakfast being made by my lovely mother, to the sounds of car horns honking late at night in my home city of Philadelphia, to the taste of my very first cheesesteak from Geno’s, a Philadelphian staple, my younger days were full of innumerable memories I plan to cherish for the rest of my life, memories primarily driven by positive emotions like wonder, excitement, and happiness. Still, sooner or later, fear finds a way to weasel into our lives, almost always in detrimental fashion.
The very first time I was afraid was when I heard a racial slur, the n word, for the first time.
I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it was derogatory in nature; I could sense it from the person I heard spew that hateful phrase from their lips. It wasn’t directed at me, but a colleague of mine, a fellow ethnic minority; let’s call him Jason. Our middle school gym class group was outdoors on a humid day in the suburbs of Philadelphia, a city called Pottstown, playing touch football (because in gym class as a kid, tackle isn’t an option).
My minority counterpart did something to upset another friend of mine, a Caucasian male who was known to be somewhat volatile by others. We’ll call him Brett. As penance for Jason’s misdeed, Brett belted that incendiary word out at the top of his lungs. I remember feeling as if time stood still. I looked around me and saw that my fellow classmates had also stopped playing football as well. I turned my attention back to Jason; he looked angry, then shocked, then stunned, right before he started laughing hysterically. Nothing more happened, but I felt as if a piece of me died that afternoon. Focusing in school for the rest of the day was a challenge.
When I asked my mother what that word meant, she told me it was used to put African-Americans down since the days of slavery in this country, a period lasting over 400 years. It’s used by those who still hold hate in their hearts, the type of people who can look at another’s complexion and write them off as a result of it. She told me this country was set up in a way that unfortunately disenfranchises those that are not part of the majority, mainly minorities. Many minority leaders were assassinated in their quest for racial equality.
Men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were shot because they posed a threat to the fabric that wove this country together, a fabric poised to advance Caucasian interests while negating those of everyone else. In short, I learned that life would be much more difficult for me, those that looked like me, and other ethnic minorities when compared to the majority.
While I wasn’t accustomed to heartbreak, I can wholeheartedly say that was the first time I felt as if my heart had obliterated into millions of fragmented pieces, almost as if it imploded. As a youth, some of my closest and dearest friends were Caucasian. We’d spent countless hours trying to figure out if black people were made out of chocolate and white people were made out of vanilla, licking our skin under the premise that those two flavors accounted for the distinction in our complexions.
That was the furthest extent of my race-based worries. Now, at a relatively young age, I found myself fearful for the first time. “Will my complexion get in the way of my ability to thrive in the land of the free?” was a thought that now had taken root in my psyche. Over the next decade, my fears would only grow.
Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old shot by an adult man for wearing his hoodie. Eric Garner, killed by NYPD officers after articulating several times that he couldn’t breathe. Michael Brown, an eighteen-year-old African-American fatally shot in Ferguson, MO. Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old boy shot in Cleveland for carrying an airsoft gun. Ahmaud Arbery, a twenty-five-year-old African-American killed while peacefully jogging in South Georgia. And George Floyd, a Minnesota native who was killed after an officer of the law knelt on his neck for 8 minutes, 46 seconds.
All of these individuals, like myself, are African-Americans. Like Ahmaud Arbery, I myself am a twenty-something-year-old black male with ties to the South. Reading his story, I couldn’t help but feel as if his passing could have been me. I empathized with his family, having been in countless situations myself where my skin color seemed to be the justification for various forms of maltreatment.
These deaths, and the countless others that have occurred before them, are why I remain fearful in America. Factor in my own experiences with those inclined to embrace prejudice, discrimination, and racism to varying degrees, and you have a recipe for deep-seeded fearfulness. It’s no wonder African-American men grapple with mental health woes more than any other group in the United States. The burden our blackness brings on is a difficult one to bear.
Being black in America seems to come with a set of issues that are exclusive to the black population. When I try to unpack my own experiences with prejudice and racism, I realize that the problems those around me have had with me were seldom about the content of my character. They were fueled by my color, a color that some individuals choose to see as a threat to their ability to thrive and survive. In spite of this, black people are people too.
Media sensationalism has made it possible for the country, and at times the world, to look at us through a negative narrow gaze, one that is the direct result of preconceived notions, stereotypes, and fearmongering — all centered on dehumanizing individuals like me because of our looks. From my vantage point, it’s the reason minority men like me are perceived as dangerous, even though we have the same goals, dreams, desires, and ambitions as everyone else. The darker the complexion, the more likely one is to experience hostility, exclusion, and hatred on a variety of fronts.
It baffles me how the color black can be readily and holistically received in every way but the one that matters most — people. I know of individuals who embrace black in all forms, yet discriminate against people who identify with that color on a racial basis. It leaves me at a loss for words.
I’m longing for the day when my complexion no longer feels like a burden, like when I was young and believed the biggest differences between African-Americans and Caucasians (or any one ethnic group for that matter) was how their skin tasted. I long to be able to be defined by more than my complexion. Judge those around you by the content of their character, not their skin color. Doing so will show you that there’s more the human species shares in common than divides us. Maybe then the skin I’m in will no longer feel like an inherent crime in itself.
This story was originally published on GoodMenProject.com.
