Conflicting Sides : Experience of My Black Identity

 My Experience As A Black Person 

I am black and female  never went through propverty or racial profiling in public places, police brutality. Side note, I don't have a story of personal  interaction with police, not any type of first hand  experience with them  in general. 

Every black experience experience is different. My environmental factors were also different.   Issues such as that, I will not be the right person to address it or answer questions about  it. Willing to try to give an answer best as possible. 

To be honest, my experience being black  has more pros  than  cons. More positive than negative. 

I was never by myself someone family member, brother, sister, parent were always with me. 

In cases I know of, personally, I see a black men and young male black teens get interoggated compated to females.( that was just on TV and in the news or stories told from an adult)

The females that I know of to be targeted by police lived in different circumstances and enviroments compared to me.

I did not grow up in a predominantly black community. Only went to church there. In that side of town, police were constantly everywhere 24/7.  with church being at a risky and dangerous part of town, others kids from church and I still traveled and walked to the corner store together. Going by ourselves were just too dangerous. 

The only situation that I can recall, my family had a party for 4th of July. Our white neighbors accross from us had called the cops. The cop came and talked to my dad, he told my dad to carry on, he did not see anything wrong going on and turn the music. 

The cop did not yell or get over aggressive and my dad did handled the interaction pretty well. No type of scence or controversy ever happened.

No one was arrested or taunted. He just peacefully left, and we continue with what we were doing.

Not to be offensive no one redacted in  a way to get targeted or  fueled.

My siblings all took speech therapy, there was this one girl that used to be with us. Her dad found out that my siblings and I are black and she stopped going.

I asked my parents and told them "she was really nice, she  didn't  do anything, we all got along." My dad basically said racism is a taught behavior  and ignorance is lack of knowlege, education and learning will only win.

I hear way worser situations in mostly lower income black predominantly communities.  If were in a perdominatly black neighborhood and urban it would have been different .  My heart goes out, not everyone there is that way. It makes me real bummed out.

I went to a mixed diverse school, and grew up in a neighborhood in a mixed diverse neighborhood. In a safe neighborhood. Growing up race was the last thing I thought about, I learnt it in school and got educated by my parents on Black History . Me I was a kid just being a kid. 

The kids at my church came from low income and mostly single parent homes. Drugs and violence were prevalent in their neighborhood,and it was just all like Cops. That was the reality they live, everyday someone had gotten shot or killed.

Me, my siblings and I were kept in a different atomsphere we did not go through that.

I asked this one girl I went to church with "where is summer vacation ," she had never been anywhere outside her community.  That suprised me.

My interaction with cops are rare, never had that experience where I was put in the place, I had to be exposed to police or racially profiled.  Not even once.

My brothers on the on the other hand, had to be more careful and present themselves in a certain way. I can't really speak for them and their experience.

Kids from church will come to my parents house and say "wow, your family is rich, yall have a nice house. 

At home, I could go the store without being targeted. My brothers on the other hand, had to be more careful. Our parents made sure my brother went all out in along in terms of appearance, his tone and the way he respects adults. The teachers at my school were crazy about him ( that was  in elementary school). He pulled out their chairs and everything!! He was told to do so by our father.

I listened to Taylor Swift, Black Veil Brides and Paramore,Justin Bieber to the kids at church I was "acting white, talking white, not black enough,  token and  a Oreo." 

Church members will come up to me speaking  slang I don't  understand.

Me, I go search what the meanings are on Urban Dictionary. 😂

In terms of lifestyle and school I had better, living better. I feel like I can't really relate to the black experience,  cause my immediate family defied all the stereotypes and  projections. 

In no means, I call  myself a "privilege  black person. " I did have none-less experience the outside thinks black people have/had. Again,  I am a part of the black community just not from it. I did have to live in it.

My dad was a first generation  Bahamian American, he went through it, his whole family did. You think white people treat him that way. Of course,so did African Americans. If his family were white they're migrant/immigrant his Coming to America would have much greater.  More resources  etc. Being called "mixed nation " etc. He worked through  it and rose up.

My mom(African Anerican) grew up around black people in West Philly, moving to the  South was a culture shock.   She learned  how to adjust.

 

On my birth certificate  my mom marked down "Black." The nurse told her to put "African American" 

They are both the same, AA are  not the only black people there are Jamaicans, Trinidadian, Nigerian etc.

Because of my that intertwined, I always battled with "am I African Anerican, Am I  West Indian? "

On Sundays we ate oxtails , okra , mac and cheese especially candied yams or johnny cake . 

Our dad used to bring home every kind of fruit known to mankind 

Everytime we  went to Miami we ate conch, we also went to the Bahamas every so often. 

In movies and history, at school  I was told that all black Americans were only African Americans. At church most of the kids were AA, so  was I. 

There was a tug of war between  the  two. I was just the knot ib the middlw.

Everything  just got confusing, there was a tiny identity crisis. Around 16/17 I learned I am still black  and I am me. 

The cultures are just two different cultures, his side of the family I was more familar with and just knew and seen more. 

Moving to the Philadelphia was a culture  shock for me and my siblings. The school had TSA and , everyone had to get scanned. 

It got to the point, we went back South. Later we came back North and went to a smaller school. I graduated high school in Philly.

It was a wakeup call,  I am so used to having certain and things being a certain way. Not everyone experience is the same, one thing that we all black people have in common is the adversary that we had to faced.  Our blackness is either stereotyped question or just not pleasing enough.

Not all black people come from "the hood",  I didn't and neither did many others.If that is the case don't  be ignorant and judge your opnion based upon that.  ✌🏾

Just ending it off:I do not choose to label myself privilege, I am aware that I had certain and  most privileges that some of my fellow black counterparts did not. 

That is due and based upon different factors. I just never put in that position that media is portraying black people to be put in. My environmental  factors and experience  happened to be different. Certain things as a black person,  I cannot  relate to and I have to admit that.