The Realization

Last year and this year are almost incomparable because of my change in location and my change in mentality.

Maybe I was just blind and things weren’t as great as they appeared.

Maybe I’m romanticizing the past because I’m so unhappy with my present.

Last year I was welcomed by everyone. I had open arms and a ray of sunlight from black people, white people, and every shade in between.

 

This year- this change- has opened my eyes in a brutally honest way.

Today, I see the way the people around me view me better than I did yesterday.

This year I am surrounded by black and white people. There are no in-betweens.

 

White people view me as ethnic. Exotic. Funky. Black. Temporary. Different. A foreign sight to see like snow in the summer. They stare at my “crazy” hair and they can’t move their eyes as if it’s a traffic accident. I am the experience that’s good to try out one time and never do again. The wasabi.

 

Black people view me as white. Out of place. An outcast. Ketchup on a salad. Confused. They tell me I should put in a weave. It’s preferable if I don’t stay around them, but they wouldn’t tell me that. I am the skipped over. The Rob Kardashian. I have no flavor. The seltzer water.

 

White people don’t like me simply because of my color. Some even go far enough to cross the street when I’m walking on the sidewalk. Some tell me they don’t sit with people like me at lunch.

 

Black people don’t like me because I talk “white”. I read too often- so I must be boring. But at least they’ll sit with me at lunch.

 

Moving to the south has given me a chance to see that there still is racism in America. It’s one thing to hear about it on the news. It’s another to live in it.