People Like Me

I wish I grew up in a time when someone like Lupita Nyong’o could speak to and for me.  This woman, black like the beginning of time, is absolutely one of the most stunning women to have ever walked the face of this planet.  And she, like me, knows what it is to feel shame over the color that God made us.

I’m perfect.  I mean, my hips are a little too big.  I do this weird ‘gasping for air’ thing, which is really quite conspicuous and embarrassing.  I have a big mouth that gets me in trouble (like, a lot; and not just with my mama).  I haven’t started planning for retirement.  I run the dishwasher when there’s still space on top because the bottom is full of my wine glasses (I’m not sure what this says about me, but I’m pretty sure it says something).  Other than that, I mean, I’m the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made reference to the fact that growing up in Louisville in the late 80's and early 90's as a person of color was challenging.  While no one escapes grade school unscathed, my wounds creep over my shoulders, whispering doubts and insecurities into my ears as an adult.  The racial slurs thrown at me as a child have since transformed themselves in my mind.  You’re not smart enough.  You’re not pretty enough.  You’re not good enough.  Abby, the most courageous of my middle school classmates, was the only one to have ever stuck up for me:

“Leave her alone, guys!  She can’t help it that she’s black.  It’s her parents’ fault.” 

I was relieved.  Finally, someone understood that I didn’t want to be black anymore than they wanted me to be black.  I wished I looked like them; I wished I were white.  I was nine years old.

Fast-forward four years.  I’m a freshman in high school having a conversation with one of my best friends.   I tell her homosexuality is an abomination.  She tells me that someday I’ll have a friend who is gay and I’ll feel differently.  I reply:

That’s such a horrible thing to say.  Why would you ever wish that for me?

Years later, I realized she was gay.  She needed encouragement, I told her she was flawed.  She needed acceptance, I shut her out.  She needed love, I responded with hatred.  How had those words affected that young girl, my friend.  How have those words transformed in her mind.

Someone recently shared with me a comparison that was made between his sexuality and something else that was both offensive and cruel.  It broke my heart.  I was reminded of all the words that cut me deep enough to scar.  More than that, I thought about all the words from my mouth that had no doubt caused others similar pain.  My only consolation to this man was that she would one day wake up and realize she was on the wrong side of history.  Someday, this woman would be accountable for her actions, even if only to herself.  I did not share that she, like me, would need to atone for her cruelness.

We’ve been told it’s okay to shoot and kill unarmed children because the color of their skin scares us.  Beautiful Lupita is in the race of her young life for best supporting actress and the color of her skin matters to people like me.  People hide behind their religion to discriminate; it should matter to everyone but especially to people like me, Christians. 

I have forgiven Abby and I have forgiven myself.  Even though I cringe when I think about those callous words to my friend, they were said from a place of ignorance and I’ve become a better person.  Most of all, I’ve forgiven myself for self-hatred.  I’m quite sure that I’ve made up for it with years of conceit and self-aggrandizement.  

We’re all broken and we’re all breakers, each with varying intensities.  I often wonder what it would have been like to grow up without ever having felt inferior because of my race.  That period in my life fueled me to become better than them; to strive, every day to be the very best version of myself; the version that God intended.  Fortunately, that version comes in a beautiful shade of brown.  If you ask me, it should be genetically reproduced.  I am, after all, perfect; the world could use more people like me.