Race Matters

[dyvinesweetness]

I remember when I was about 7 years old I was coloring in a coloring book. I wanted to color one of the pictures to look like me. Seeing as how I knew I was a Black little girl, I picked up a black crayon and began coloring. Instantly it felt weird, but I kept doing it. When it was done it looked SO odd to me. I couldn't reconcile why I was Black

Comments

Ebony...

[i_dreamed_i_was]

What do you think about posing this question to ap_racism? I think it would be great if you did... might really provoke some interesting discussion.

(And I STILL can't remember, LOL... So much for my memory. Now I got NO exceptional qualities, LOL...)

Re: Ebony...

[dyvinesweetness]

Sure! Will do.

Hey there!

[i_dreamed_i_was]

LOL... I'm sure that you've been waiting with bated breath!

But it did kinda bug me for a while, so I asked my mom why I couldn't remember not knowing about race/ism. Her take was that my aunt (whose kids were around my age) talked about it a lot, as she was concerned about their treatment as "obviously" POC. And I just absorbed it somehow... (My older cousin was just 8 months younger than me.)

Re: Hey there!

[dyvinesweetness]

aaawwww@the piccie!

And it's funny, but I pretty much assumed this was the case for you months ago. lol

Pschhhhh...

[i_dreamed_i_was]

I already knew you were smarter than me. Now you're just bragging. :P

[tripsandfall]

When I was little, the only other girl my age in the neiborhood was black. One day, she was playing over at my house. My mother came into the room to talk to us about something, and the word "black" was brought up. I had never heard that refference before, and argued with my mom and Deseree (sp?) about it for a good two hours. I stated firmly that she couldn't be black, her skin was too much a rich chocolate color.
It was still a few more years before I had any concept of race.