Black People vs. Black People

Reading the news and blogs, I’ve come across an interesting debate.  A debate that’s been going on for years.  It’s the debate of black people vs. black people.  It comes in many forms, be it light vs. dark skin, good hair vs. bad hair, natural vs. weave, ghetto vs. non ghetto, and the list will go on and on and on.  The one common denominator is that it’s black people vs. black people.  It’s known that black people are the most racist race around, and in fact it’s sometimes perceived as a joke.  And frankly that hurts and makes me angry the most.  The fact that black people are so racist against each other and the fact they think it’s funny.  Now not all black people do, there’s actually a lot of us out there that don’t think it’s funny and think it’s dumb, but unfortunately our voices aren’t heard.

Being a black female raised in a predominately white area and who went to a predominately black college, I got to experience racism from both ends, and I will say it was more heartbreaking to experience racism from my own race.  To be called white girl, because I sound white, by my own race hurt me so much and shaped the way I feel about people in general.  I mean to be called a white girl because I don’t sound the way a black women from New York sounds, or to be made fun of because frankly paying my tuition was a lot more important to me than making sure my weave was done every week, was mind boggling.  I mean growing up where I grew up, I got called a nigger, I had my house vandalized by racist white folks, and I felt once I got to college and around my own race, I would be better excepted, but instead I was an outcast because I didn’t have a baby, because I liked to read, because I speak proper English, because I don’t want to walk around upset all the time, because I can see both points of view, was just wrong.

But you know what, as I got older I realized, it was not only jealousy, but it was also fear, that made my own race turn against me.  Jealousy because I didn’t grow up hearing gun shots, because my family made sure I got an education, and fear because I wasn’t like them, but I still loved them and accepted them.  I grew to love myself, and realize, hey I like my white name and I love the fact I speak proper English.  There’s nothing wrong with that, and when I have my children, even though they won’t grow up where I did, they will speak proper English, and they will continue to enhance all of the beautiful qualities of being black.