I have recently been embroiled in a not-to-pleasant conversation about race. It has caused me to recognize at what point race became an issue in my life.
My family is of all different colors and race has never been an issue for me. I think my earliest recollection of recognizing my race was when I had to check the little boxes for college applications. I delighted in checking as many as possible. When I visited MIT, I was placed next door to Chocolate City, an independent living group. I had a blast and seriously considered living there. I moved into Senior House instead and never regretted it even though I did feel somewhat ostracized from the black community.
During my freshman year, things were difficult for me academically, and I began to think that the only reason I was accepted at MIT was my race. Although I blamed my inabilities solely on myself, I recognized the commodity of ethnicity. By getting into MIT, I became a ‘credit to my race.’
Even amidst this segregation, racism was never a talking point.
The day that I recognized, experienced, and emotionally suffered from racism took place years later, riding the train home from NYC. I sat on the commuter rail next to two white men; one was drinking a plastic wide mouth bottle of Budweiser and the other was working on two gin and tonics. The two men are discussing their sons…
BUD: My boy blah, blah, blah.
GIN: Yeah, my boy blah, blah, blah.
BUD: I was talking to Jim the other day and he was telling me about his son, how his son does blah, blah, blah, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘at least my son isn’t doing drugs and fucking niggers.’
I was shocked; I was appalled. I felt a soreness in my gut that wasn’t there before. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to do; all I could do was sit there, helpless. I was a fully conscious, intelligent, grown human being and that was the first time that I felt slapped in the face by racism.
Since then, it’s as if I travel in a completely different world. My reality has changed. Even though I saw racism (I daresay I am a product of it), it wasn’t until this moment that I understood.
I began to think about other moments in my life; they came back like a flood of unexplainable pain. My first boyfriend didn’t want to take me to thanksgiving dinner because he thought his family might make inappropriate comments. My next boyfriend didn’t introduce me to his extended family, and vocalized that it might be a problem that I wasn’t white. Alternatively, my grandfather owned a chicken farm in Guyana and the locals used to hollar at me on the street, asking for a piece of white meat.
I took the black pill and the world has never been the same.