Learning to Love My Blackness.

My parents never really taught me much about what it meant to be Black in the world, specifically what it meant to be Black in America; I grew up in a predominately white church, had (mostly) white friends, was continuously surrounded by white kids in school and overall just never really recognized my own Blackness as a kid.

I’d always prided myself on being Ethiopian when I was growing up; I loved my skin and my culture and thought that being Habesha was the coolest thing on the planet, not to mention my family never taught me anything different.

I was always told to be proud of how we were from the one country in Africa that hadn’t been colonized, and while I was proud to be from such a beautiful and rich country, I hadn’t realized the slight elitist attitude my family and friends would wear when speaking about our African American brothers and sisters in this country I was growing up in, which resulted in the growing belief that I was not Black, I was Ethiopian.

And I was happy in my little bubble of blissful ignorance, or at least I was until I’d gotten my first taste of racism upon entering middle school.

I’d begun to hear phrases like “Oreo” spat at me, I was told that God had put my soul in the wrong body, that I was a white soul living in a Black body. People would swarm around me and touch my hair without my permission, and would pet my curls as though I was an animal - still, I never second-guessed any of it.

My own family members would call me “whitewashed”. I’ve always hated that term, whitewashed, the sound would sting my ears like a high-pitched scream, and it seemed if any person of color did anything of significance, they’d be coined with that insult.

And this term had many other relatives to go along with it; Oreo, banana, coconut, hell-any kind of food that’s colored on the outside but white on the inside.

I guess I was hardwired to see the best in people because I couldn’t have possibly imagined that these people; my foundation, those I’d grown up with, those I could go to in my lowest points, meant any honest harm. I wasn’t realizing that with each time I would ignore these insults, I was subconsciously digging myself into a deeper pit of self-hatred.

You see, I was conditioned to think that racism was a thing of the past, I hadn’t realized that I was encountering it almost every day. I thought that when people said that they “don’t see color” they meant that they weren’t racist, an embarrassing thing to believe in hindsight.

“Unarmed Black Man Shot and Killed by Police”

Those headlines were what pulled me out of my blissful ignorance and forced me to become aware of the realities that came with being Black in this country, my social media was flooded with headline after headline, people like me were dropping like flies and it seemed nobody was batting an eye to do anything about it.

I’d hear things like “that’s so sad” and “how unfortunate” within my church, people would brush off the issue, or defend their bigoted thoughts with phrases like “they should have just complied” or “you’re not Black, you’re African.”

It was as though all of this was simply a casual conversation to them, and then it hit me; why nobody was looking to these issues with the same urgency I had, why nobody was actually discussing police brutality, why nobody seemed concerned - everyone I was speaking to was white, and I wasn’t Black in their eyes.

I’d later go on to scan each room I would enter, and it dawned on me that in most cases, I was the only person of color in the room.

This soon led me down a deep rabbit hole of isolation, I had no one to confide in and I was ashamed of it; I’d begun to believe that I really was whitewashed, that I wasn’t “Black enough” to hang out, or even reach out, to my Black friends. I had lost my sense of belonging and ended up losing my identity in the process.

I was a young girl who wanted nothing but to be accepted by those around her, I didn’t know back then that by simply being myself, I would’ve attracted those who would love me for me.

I remained in that void of self-hatred up until February 23, 2020, the day Ahmaud Arbery was killed. To know that the country you’ve grown up in hates you is one thing, to actually see your people killed for the color of their skin is an entirely different thing.

I couldn’t handle the emotions that had begun to boil up - I was speechless, I was terrified, and above all, I was so fucking angry.

Remarks like “all lives matter” and “if there’s a race war, would you kill me?” had begun to arise, it was as though everyone had begun formulating their own perspectives and jokes in regards to the Black community, and it was sending me into a rage.

It was in those moments of blinding fear and anger that I’d recognized that this country doesn’t give two shits about where I was born; I was Black and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

As Black Lives Matter protests began to take to the streets that following summer, I started to find pride in my Blackness, and even though the world was unleashing all of its hatred towards people like me, I couldn’t have been more fucking proud to be Black.

It’s been a heartbreaking process to find my identity, and I’m still finding who I am to this day. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s the importance of forgiveness, specifically forgiving myself for learning such things so late.

I hated myself for not being “Black enough” because I’d had this preconceived notion of what being Black meant, and even though it took a minute, I’d eventually realize that there are no qualifications in regards to what makes a person Black and that I am beautiful as I am.