We all know what that means right? Well here's what tumblr and experience has taught me what internalized racism is. My meaning may not be right but this is how I feel it is.
Internalized racism is basically self hate. You loathe your race, you may not know it but you do. You look down upon your own race and identify with another.
I was a racist, internally.
Growing up I felt I needed to be as close to white as possible. I felt I needed to be skinny, which is not a characteristic of just the Caucasian race but that is what I felt was closer to being Caucasian. I felt I needed bone straight hair, no matter the pain I was feeling that if I had smooth silky straight hair I would be accepted. I could be seen as prettier if my hair was straight. I felt I needed to be light skin, now let me explain to you why. My mother is, what us country folks call, high yellow (yella). She is literally yellow, her skin pigment is just as bright as can be. I used to joke that she would be visible in the dark because her skin was so bright and vibrant. Now out of my family she's one of the few with lighter complexion and she is very pretty, not that my darker family members were not. Growing up, my mom got hit on a lot. Men would come out the wood works just trying to flirt with her. What I had thought was, she's lighter she's automatically prettier. I can't lie when I was younger I was lighter too, my real color had not shown up yet. Anyways when I was elementary school, once I began to official live with my mother who was in the military, I went to predominantly white schools. I had lived in Clarksville, TN. I had all kinds of friends, my best friend/ next door neighbor was Vietnamese. But when I was in the 4th grade I started noticing differences, out of the friends I mostly hung out with I was the only black one. In 4th grade my best friend was white, out of the 30 something kids in our class there were maybe 6 black kids. I was one of the 6. Well I had noticed that the black kids didn't hang out with the white kids at recess like I did. At the time I wasn't shy like I am now, so I befriended the black kids. Well while we were all on the computers, they wouldn't allow the white kids to get on simply because they were white, one of my friends said
" I can't stand white people."
Well that was new to me, I had never heard a black person or any other person of color say that. I didn't ask why, I just listened as my friends began to rant how white people felt they were better and how white people were stupid. I am not bragging but I will say I was one of the smartest kids in that class. I felt that the black kids were more stupid because they didn't try but it wasn't my place to speak on the subject.
Well as my friendship with the crew increased let's just say I began to believe them. I thought white kids were ugly, stinky, stupid etc. Yet my best friend was still white, I had forced the crew to accept that she was my friend.
One big occasion between us two races was when me and my friend (black) were arguing with my best friend and her friend (both white). We were arguing if Santa Claus was real and if he was black or white, remember I was in 4th grade. Lets just say after that me and my best friend weren't as close.
Skipping a year later I moved to Columbia, SC. I had gotten bullied, in 5th I was the new kid. My description? Short. Light skin. Long hair. I'm not those type of girls who say they had long hair when they were kids, I really had it. (if I find a photo book I shall show you.) I guess my looks set me up to be bullied. The girls that bullied me were : Dark skin. Tall. Short hair. Let's just say they hated me for being me. That's when it hit me, I hate black people. I hated black people because no one wanted to be my friend, well no black person. I would cry because all that I had been told in 4th grade was a lie, I had been told that black folks look out for black folks. That we all loved each other and that we treated one another like family, remember kids told me this. Everything I knew was crumpling.
To sum everything up I got the bullies expelled then everyone wanted to be my friend, I still hated black people. I hated them for abandoning me in my time of need.
As the years go by I went through a phase; a phase with horrible music, horrible hair choices and horrible music. I said it twice I know.
My emo phase. I loved white boys, "white" music as in screamo and rock. I identified with white people because it wasn't common for blacks to dress and act the way I did. I just couldn't identify with black people at the time.
Then I moved and I started to learn more about myself, I didn't like it. I didn't like how I treated my own people, I didn't like the way they treated me back. I started to learn to love myself because I never truly did. When I got bullied, everything I knew before went out the window. I became more shy, I became anorexic at 10 (sounds stupid but I never ate. I mean not even at school lunch), I just hated myself all together because I wasn't white. When I had moved back to my home town and experienced racism against the people I wanted to so badly to be, I became confused. The confusion brought me to the light and made me love myself.
Then once I became natural I truly began to love myself. I realized that burned scalp and no edges isn't as cute as my curls are. I think the permed hair was the last of the hate I had in myself. I thank my mama for opening my eyes to a better work in my eyes.
I no longer have hate for my people. I love my beautiful race. I love the versatility of my race. I love that black don't crack baby. I no longer identify as a white girl stuck in a black girls body. I identify as beautiful brown princess.
Thanks for reading my first chapter, please continue.
