On the heels of Black history month I find myself frustrated with so many posts on social media. So I forced myself to figure out why and what I want to say.
I keep seeing people post things like:
“We really should not be focusing ones skin color, but the content of their character.”
Or
“I don’t see people’s color.”
Or
“It’s sad that black peoples need white people to validate their history!”
Or
“I don’t know why black people feel so oppressed in today’s culture.”
When I hear these phrases posted or come out of someone’s mouth it makes my skin crawl. It is almost like taking away from who or how people identify themselves and find value.
Truth be told you don’t meet the content someone’s character first. You see someone. You see their smile, their eyes, their hair, and the color of their skin.
Like it or not you see it. The important part is how you react to it. As a woman of color (my skin is not black) I am from African dissent and born in America. I am extremely comfortable being who I am and knowing where I came from. I like everyone else didn’t get to pick the skin I was born into.
However there is a stigma about who I am if I like it or not I have to adjust based on past experience. I am a minority that comes from a history of being oppressed and being treated as property. That doesn’t disappear overnight from someone’s bloodline. It’s a mentality that has been engrained into a people and a culture that ‘Black’ people don’t matter.
If I am wrong please tell me. My last job I worked with a woman who was so uneducated about ‘the black community’ but wanted to work in it.
She would say things that were offensive and not even understand why it offends. She literally told me she doesn’t see color and in another breath told me my son was a monkey.
Hmmm!!! Would you call your white son a monkey I wondered to myself. She often defended her choice of wording because she had a child that was gay. She felt that gave her a card to use that she understood and can identify with being discriminated against. It was amazing to me that she chose sexuality to be compare to assault on race.
Granted they are both horrible things to have but people aren’t out just killing gay people or calling them property.
Anyway before the next black history month. Everyday for me is black history I make history as my family steps forward and breaks down the stereotypes that use to hinder us.
Krys Grant-Ray 