The racism I have endured from my own color folk. Here’s my story.
Growing up, loving Hip Hop, making multi cultural friends, primarily black, I realized very quickly there was a stereotype and hate for someone like me. Subliminal hate rules over many parts of our country. Being pulled over for no reason, escorted out of clubs by the swat team, surrounded by cops cars with their guns drawn, discriminated against because of my association, hate words spewed at me, all my experience for being white and loving my black brothers and sisters.
I was never accepted by the majority of my white peers because they believed I was trying to be a part of something that wasn’t for me. Snickerlicker, ghetto, and wigger were just some of the words sent my way. Since the age of 14 when I fell in love with Hip Hop music and culture, I became the “other” type of white person. My love for Hip Hop would give me the most amazing friends and experiences I could have ever imagined, but it would also put me in the category that most of my black friends and family were born into.
My experience isn’t unique by any means. Just ask the ones like me. But my experience gave me a unique perspective inside of a world that most can’t possibly see. Many people that look like me have chosen to do the white thing, while I chose to do the right thing.
People are not a color to me. Everyone is a unique soul living on this planet and many have a collective experience. Unfortunately for our Black Americans, that experience has not been kind. In many instances, that experience has been the definition of criminal. The hate, oppression, judgement, and misrepresentation that Black Americans have faced is a disgrace to humanity. Or at least it should be.
One of my white friends once said to me when I was the only white person on the step team, aren’t you worried about what people will think of you? My answer, said 20 years ago, still holds true today. No, because anyone that sees my happiness and inclusivity as wrong, doesn’t need to be in my circle.
Standing for Black Americans is easy for me, it always has been. Though my experience was just instances of insight into the Black experience, I have been humbled, time and time again. To think that my friends and family are treated in this way on a daily basis is one thought that will never leave my mind. My only hope is that others are humbled by the unlimited amount of information that we have collected to understand that racism, hate and systematic oppression is real. Just ask , the “other” type of white person. My hope is that more of us can break the stereotype and stand up as white people for all people who are silenced or treated unjustly. If America is the greatest country in the world, it’s time we start acting like it.
Sereniti Sparkles 