My little cousin is *in my opinion* a dark-browned tone,
miniature beauty with features that reflects my mother’s Nigerian lineage, and
is currently living in Dubai (with a brief stint
in Singapore).
Her mother (my aunt) recognising the fact that her daughters were likely to be
the darkest skinned children in her class reinforced the ideology in her
children that they were not black, as the colour black literally means the
absence of colour, they were dark brown and they should NEVER let anyone try to
demean them by calling them black and instead should reply.
When she said this to me after I described myself as black,
I was shocked!!! How could I be corrected a child, I could practically have
given birth to?! I informed her that I WAS Black and so was she. Excitedly she
ran and grabbed an item black in colour (I think it was a cushion) and held it against my skin and said,
‘This
is black, you are not black. You are brown skinned’.
This got me thinking, is
it my choice to call myself black as a racial label or heritage choice or
rather is it some other person's imposition that I call myself black to show
what background I come from.
Growing up dark skinned in England
is probably a lot easier than growing up dark skinned in America as the
levels of racism over there seems to be quite mind-boggling and over here I can
honestly say that I haven’t really experienced racism in anyway towards me.
Nevertheless I feel that ‘being black’ is regarded by most as an identity
rather than a colour, *anyone who has ever used the excuse of ‘BMT – Black Man
Time’ for being late knows what I mean by this* yet why are dark skinned people
the only people who readily accept an identity associated with a colour? And
even worse why do we try to impose that said identity on others, like I tried
to do with my cousin? If I went around labelling individuals of Oriental or
Asian Descent by the colour of their skin or eye shape, I would be looking at several,
never ending lawsuits
Moreover, I really can’t stand when people describe others
of a Caucasian nature as white, as that is simply not true. There are spectrums
of shades, tones and pale or dark colourings which should not be limited to one
colour . . . especially if it’s the same shade as a sheet of A4 paper. Labelling
someone as one colour is just too vague. It turns very unique people with
various beliefs and backgrounds into a dried up Paper-mache lump breeding
racial inequalities. In fact if we stopped referring to each other by colour
the large majority of racial tension would be obsolete
So when someone asks me what I am, I refuse to use 'Black'.
It’s just too narrow and excluding and doesn’t describe me at all as a person,
instead I will answer
‘I am not black, I am Dark- skinned’
So what do you think? How do you feel about labels on your ethnicity
or skin colour? What do you use and what do you avoid?
