One of those IMPORTANT "Race in America" Blogs

I felt inspired to write, this morning. Something was nagging at me at 4:45 am and I haven't gotten much sleep since. Last night, I got to hear the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, speak at the DNC in Charlotte, NC. No, I wasn't there, we listened on the app. I also followed responses from those on Twitter and it made me so emotional.

It fills me with so much joy that our First Lady is seen as such a classy woman. From either side of the political radar, she seems to be respected. What fills my heart more is that she LOOKS LIKE ME and she gets that response.

It's possible that you're rolling your eyes if you're not a minority woman right now. It's possible that you're saying to yourself, "why does she have to go there with race? Thought this wasn't about race?" That's okay. If you don't want to read what I'm about to say, that's cool, move on. This isn't going to be about blaming "the man" or whatever stereotype you have in mind; so open your mind and keep reading.

For a darker-skinned black woman like myself, hearing the positivity about that woman was REFRESHING. I read from Yvette Nicole Brown's twitter (She's on "Community") a retweet that said, "Michelle Obama is out here trying to make up for VH1's entire reality show lineup." While it was written in jest, it would seem to be completely true. Those shows do absolutely nothing for debunking stereotypes about minority women.

It's tough to be in our skin sometimes.We already have to deal with looks from our hair or why our skin is so dark...or our lips...our butts, etc. We have to deal with the stereotype that we're LOUD, sensitive, volatile, RUDE, etc... we don't need several different shows to make us look worse.

Back to the First Lady:

I woke up early this morning and couldn't go back to sleep because I was thinking of what little girls like me got to see last night. Tears dropped when I started thinking about what I got to see-not much.

I think of all the magazines on the stands as a pre-teen and how most of them were filled with blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls. THIS was beauty. There were times when it was a brunette white girl. There were times when a Halle Berry appeared on a magazine. I don't think I remember seeing a Latina on the cover of a mainstream magazine until J-Lo in the late '90s.

It's the same identity issues girls of every generation have. The idea that society is telling us what's beautiful and no one that even SLIGHTLY resembles me is ever featured. It may seem like a dumb "place to be in," but unless you were a teenage girl, you wouldn't understand.

To see the First Lady, a tall, curvy dark skinned woman with thick, nappy (yet straightened) hair like mine-wow! To see that she is received so well-WOW.

I went back a little further in time when I was a little black girl in the magnet program. There were very few minorities in this program and the TOKEN role isn't as great as it would seem. You feel kind of STUCK. You're not "white enough" for the white kids and you're not even close to being "black enough" for the black kids. I can remember being ridiculed by other black kids NOT in the program, even cousins for being in the MAGNET program. Because I spoke the way I spoke, I was "trying to be white." That made me feel like shit when I was a kid. I would rather had been ridiculed for being chubby than THAT. I was a SMART kid, I couldn't help it. It took my mom, grandmother, and grandfather to individually teach me that what they would say was ridiculous. "Why does being smart mean you're being white? Doesn't make sense, right? Don't dumb yourself down for anyone."  They were awesome.

I can remember being involved in politics from 3rd grade on, visiting local members of Congress, visiting DC, etc...I can remember these older men who looked at me with such pity. This look as if I was a charity case, forced in this group of white kids. I remember being offended before I REALLY knew what offended meant.

To see that the First Lady was the definition of class and beauty while speaking with such intelligence...Right On! To see that she was being received by all groups in this country as such-Heck Yes!

I know that people don't like to talk about race relations. If you mention racism, it's seen as "playing the race card." It's seen as a bad thing that there are Black, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, Pacific Island Heritage Months. It's seen as racist for programs like "Black In America" and "Latino in America" to exist. A friend, awhile ago, asked, "what if there was a program called 'White In America?'" I replied, "that's everything else on TV." Those programs are around to open everyone's eyes to a world outside of their own. There's nothing wrong with that. Unless you've been a minority in anyway (race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc), it's tough to get that.

It's sad to say that years before that, in a public setting here in NW VA, I was treated like absolute SHIT because of my race in front of others by a member of a local fair association. That evening people said to let it go, "he's old, it's okay." The next day, when I told my boss what went down, he immediately had my back. However, another member of management BLAMED me for the confrontation. "Well, maybe she shouldn't have said anything back. Don't let her out there again." That former co-worker has been a member of the kiss my ass club; for life. When a couple of other co-workers took her tone, I was floored. I was hurt. It hurt more that people still roll that way here. 

I think back to just 4 years ago when I sat on the couch of a now EX boyfriend and listened to his friend tell me that we COULD NEVER work. I felt I knew what he meant, but I wanted him to SAY IT. It wasn't my age; I was 24, he was 32. It wasn't my religion as his friend was married to a Christian. Rather, it was my race...the fact that I was BLACK would be the downfall of our relationship. Nevermind the fact that this boyfriend thought the world of me and realized my awesomeness; NO, a detail I could NEVER CHANGE would end us. It sucked that he said it and that people still thought it, but it hurt worse when the boyfriend didn't correct his friend. The answer was, "well our families are from different times..." Talk about the wind being knocked out of you. It was more than heartbreak, it was soul-crushing. For someone like me who has worked her butt off for EVERYTHING; to be this awesome woman...it was mind blowing to know that someone who SAID he LOVED me didn't like that I was BLACK.

Wow. I still get choked up over that.

I don't think people REALLY get what last night meant to a girl like me. You don't have to.


To see a place where so many DIFFERENT, but alike people gathered and spoke and showed the rest of the country what America looks like. We are like Neapolitan ice cream. So many different colors, flavors, ideas, and THAT'S OKAY! Put us all together and we are like a DANCE PARTY in the world's mouth.


In the end, I KNOW that we need to treat people on an individual basis. If anyone knows that, it's Randi. We HAVE to recognize that there are STILL -ISMS in this country and it's a major problem. There is still some major hatred going on and until that stops, we have to work to end it. The only way to end it is to bring up the subject.

Think about what it's like to feel like an outsider based on something that's OUT OF YOUR CONTROL. You can always change your hair, lose weight, your nails, your eye color, even stick stuff in your shoes if you're too short. But, what if you couldn't change what people DESPISED?

Just saying.