This Is Us
White Supremacy in Me
Light-skinned and part of the problem
When I was in my senior year of high school I argued against affirmative action. My AP history class had taken a field trip to Selma and we’d spent the day wandering around, drinking in the history of the small city. I was one of two Black students in a class of 30. Ashley and I were bound at the hip until we went our separate ways in college. I wonder how she felt at that moment. As she watched her light-skinned friend stand up on our school bus and give the worst possible answer to the impossible question our white teacher had just posed.
The question was impossible for several reasons. While we had discussed race in class it was always historical, and because Obama was president everyone was keen to claim that our country was post-racial. That particular sentiment had never felt true to me, but at the time I didn’t have the information — or support — to challenge it.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time swallowing my words when it came to race. My childhood was spent navigating mostly white suburbs, learning in mostly white “gifted” classes, and going home to my white-passing mother who espoused racial blindness and bristled if I referred to myself as Black. NO. I was mixed. I was both. So, in effect, I was neither.
