[CW: Anti-Mixed Rhetoric, Mental Health Struggles] Biracial Pain
Apparently, I'm not Black.
That hurts.
I'm not being literal, of course. I know I am Black. I am treated as Black by the world. I could tell people that I am 100% African, and they would believe me.
But there is a portion of the Black community who holds that mixed-race people are not truly Black, and they often go unchallenged.
That is the source of the pain.
The Black community was the last thing I had.
Seriously.
I hardly associate with anything else about myself at this point.
I don't care that much about any queer communities anymore.
A sense of connection with communities around my views, such as veganism, Marxism, and atheism seemed to diminish more and more.
My interests? I love metal and writing music, but even that is a community I cannot care about.
But my Blackness? It was all I had, and now I do not even know if I have the community anymore.
I'm in tears.
I am stranded. I called 988, even, just to have someone to talk to, and what I get is some clueless white lady.
This hurts because, if I do not have Black people, I have no one.
I think I am alone.
supdawg813 [comrade/them] - 3day
I wish I saw this sooner but I wanted to let you know that you are not alone.
I spent a long time in denial of my blackness, convinced of the lie of a semi-post-racial world where I would be treated equally if I just acted the part; if my background, behavior, speech, hometown, and so on, was no different from that of a white person then there would be no reason for any of my peers to treat me differently. I thought that white privilege would excuse me from the systemic effects of racism, and in some ways it did. But when I was excluded and socially outcast from every peer group, I found any way to blame myself even when the double standard was staring me in the face. The only connection that I had to my blackness was my blood. I was mentally colonized.
Since I started organizing, and building a relationship with the culturally rich and complex black community that has existed just under my nose my entire life, I have never felt more welcomed and effortlessly accepted. I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to act the part, that the folks in this community would see my light skin, hear the way I spoke, sniff out any white supremacist attitudes that were passed to me through my upbringing and instantly reject me, but none of that happened. I had been told so many lies about the city itself that proved to be false. What I had hoped all my life that everyone would see past, that I wouldn't be called on as a token for a community I damn well knew had no right to speak for, became a connection to a world that has welcomed me with open arms and made me a humble student of its deeply revolutionary history.
Your people are out there, comrade. That portion of the black community that want to other you, that can't see beyond your differences to see the immense power in what you have in common, those aren't your people and you can't allow them to define your worth. There is so much inspirational history of struggle in this community; so many that "get it" and don't concern themselves with the exact percentage point of one's blackness. "Whiteness" as a concept in itself is a construct that upholds racial supremacy, we have no business applying it to our own people. No. If you struggle with us then you're Our People.
Angel in em_poc
[CW: Anti-Mixed Rhetoric, Mental Health Struggles] Biracial Pain
Apparently, I'm not Black.
That hurts.
I'm not being literal, of course. I know I am Black. I am treated as Black by the world. I could tell people that I am 100% African, and they would believe me.
But there is a portion of the Black community who holds that mixed-race people are not truly Black, and they often go unchallenged.
That is the source of the pain.
The Black community was the last thing I had.
Seriously.
I hardly associate with anything else about myself at this point.
I don't care that much about any queer communities anymore.
A sense of connection with communities around my views, such as veganism, Marxism, and atheism seemed to diminish more and more.
My interests? I love metal and writing music, but even that is a community I cannot care about.
But my Blackness? It was all I had, and now I do not even know if I have the community anymore.
I'm in tears.
I am stranded. I called 988, even, just to have someone to talk to, and what I get is some clueless white lady.
This hurts because, if I do not have Black people, I have no one.
I think I am alone.
I wish I saw this sooner but I wanted to let you know that you are not alone.
I spent a long time in denial of my blackness, convinced of the lie of a semi-post-racial world where I would be treated equally if I just acted the part; if my background, behavior, speech, hometown, and so on, was no different from that of a white person then there would be no reason for any of my peers to treat me differently. I thought that white privilege would excuse me from the systemic effects of racism, and in some ways it did. But when I was excluded and socially outcast from every peer group, I found any way to blame myself even when the double standard was staring me in the face. The only connection that I had to my blackness was my blood. I was mentally colonized.
Since I started organizing, and building a relationship with the culturally rich and complex black community that has existed just under my nose my entire life, I have never felt more welcomed and effortlessly accepted. I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to act the part, that the folks in this community would see my light skin, hear the way I spoke, sniff out any white supremacist attitudes that were passed to me through my upbringing and instantly reject me, but none of that happened. I had been told so many lies about the city itself that proved to be false. What I had hoped all my life that everyone would see past, that I wouldn't be called on as a token for a community I damn well knew had no right to speak for, became a connection to a world that has welcomed me with open arms and made me a humble student of its deeply revolutionary history.
Your people are out there, comrade. That portion of the black community that want to other you, that can't see beyond your differences to see the immense power in what you have in common, those aren't your people and you can't allow them to define your worth. There is so much inspirational history of struggle in this community; so many that "get it" and don't concern themselves with the exact percentage point of one's blackness. "Whiteness" as a concept in itself is a construct that upholds racial supremacy, we have no business applying it to our own people. No. If you struggle with us then you're Our People.