Am I Black? I was completing a survey for a project I was working on recently, and it asked that I select one:
Race:
American Indian or Alaskan Native
Asian
Black or African American
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
White
Ethnicity:
Hispanic or Latino
Not Hispanic or Latino
For some reason, I still don't know why to this day, but I hesitated. I didn't want to check anything. I, like most Black people I know, grew up knowing we were "Black," no question about it. As a people, we've been referred to as Colored, Afro-American, Negro, Black, African American (with or without a hyphen), Black-American, to name a few. It's interesting to see in this present day how many people throughout the world, Africans included, who also refer to themselves as Black.
I was sitting at a cafe a yesterday, when I overheard a group of elderly Black women telling stories of how they referred to themselves racially. One woman who was obviously from another country (her accent) was laughing and saying she didn't know she was "Black" until she came to America. The DMV helped her realize that when she went to get a driver's license. As this lady was filling out the paperwork, she got to race and she didn't see African. When she told them this, they told her to mark Black. The confused lady looked at the White man behind the counter and said, "Black? But I am not black. Can you not see? I am brown." The man told her again to mark Black. Confused and thinking the man could not decipher colour differences, so said, "Sir, I cannot mark black, because I am not black. This, this is black," - referring to the black file tray on his counter. The man looked at her for a moment then said, "You're in America now, and in America, you are Black. So mark Black." On that day, years ago in the DMV office, this woman learned for the first time that she was Black.
For some reason when I heard that story, my mind flashed to Kunta Kinte from "Roots". He may have been Kunta Kinte in Africa, but in America, whether he liked it or not, his name was now Toby. Now I want to make clear that I am not comparing the atrocities of slavery to a DMV experience. Rather, it is interesting that how one sees and knows themselves is often not in line with the labels those in power force upon us.
I can't help but wonder if the labeling, the categorizing of a group of people based on assigned color as a clarification of who we are, who we must be, has united or stripped a people of their identity?
Race:
American Indian or Alaskan Native
Asian
Black or African American
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
White
Ethnicity:
Hispanic or Latino
Not Hispanic or Latino
For some reason, I still don't know why to this day, but I hesitated. I didn't want to check anything. I, like most Black people I know, grew up knowing we were "Black," no question about it. As a people, we've been referred to as Colored, Afro-American, Negro, Black, African American (with or without a hyphen), Black-American, to name a few. It's interesting to see in this present day how many people throughout the world, Africans included, who also refer to themselves as Black.
I was sitting at a cafe a yesterday, when I overheard a group of elderly Black women telling stories of how they referred to themselves racially. One woman who was obviously from another country (her accent) was laughing and saying she didn't know she was "Black" until she came to America. The DMV helped her realize that when she went to get a driver's license. As this lady was filling out the paperwork, she got to race and she didn't see African. When she told them this, they told her to mark Black. The confused lady looked at the White man behind the counter and said, "Black? But I am not black. Can you not see? I am brown." The man told her again to mark Black. Confused and thinking the man could not decipher colour differences, so said, "Sir, I cannot mark black, because I am not black. This, this is black," - referring to the black file tray on his counter. The man looked at her for a moment then said, "You're in America now, and in America, you are Black. So mark Black." On that day, years ago in the DMV office, this woman learned for the first time that she was Black.
For some reason when I heard that story, my mind flashed to Kunta Kinte from "Roots". He may have been Kunta Kinte in Africa, but in America, whether he liked it or not, his name was now Toby. Now I want to make clear that I am not comparing the atrocities of slavery to a DMV experience. Rather, it is interesting that how one sees and knows themselves is often not in line with the labels those in power force upon us.
I can't help but wonder if the labeling, the categorizing of a group of people based on assigned color as a clarification of who we are, who we must be, has united or stripped a people of their identity?
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