to the woman who asked my mother so when
did you get your daughter because my
caramel colored complexion all of a
sudden makes me unable to be born from a
white woman to the middle school girls
who asked to straighten my hair as if my
curls don’t compare to the strangers who
call me everything from Indian to Cuban
and Arabian to Colombian they try to
detect me as if I am a mysterious case
not that there is anything wrong with
those ethnicities but they are not me
they don’t define anyone identify with
the truth to the beings out there who
call me Oreo caramel latte coffee with
extra cream I play long just to please
you laugh and agree with you when in
reality I hate being compared to food
and beverages are the mixed girls and
boys out there nothing more than a three
layer cookie in an overpriced drink at
Starbucks this world needs to get over
using labels and racial slurs they are
thrown around like a careless baby
throwing toys his mother just gathered
to the little girl who says to her mom
why she dark as I cling to my warm
Caucasian mother no one sees the other
half consumed by his colour I am his
features don’t appear though surely not
my dad and surely not my mom you say to
my acquaintances who say that I act
pretty white for a half-black girl
so let me get this straight I’m supposed
to act a certain way because of my race
I’ll make sure to use slang and wear
weave I don’t feel I need is that what
black is to you click newsflash people
come in all forms different styles
different opinions different
personalities and us Oreos
so do we hi guys my name is Makayla
Whitman and I was first introduced to
slam poetry at my senior year of high
school and I was fascinated by this art
form because I saw poets being able to
express their thoughts with such vivid
language and essentially be able to
break any rules in the English language
to share such deep thoughts and for me
as a bi-racial person I felt some sort
of obligation to share about my race and
ethnicity so today I want to share a
little bit about my the background of my
poem and how it’s changed over time and
second some of my thoughts as a
Christian and where I find my true
identity and lastly I want to share
about how we can move past this and
develop a strong future just like
anything this was not the first draft of
my poem it has made some changes and at
first I started with the concept of race
and I allowed Society to shape my view
of race and ethnicity based on labels
and categories that people would put me
in but I realized that I didn’t actually
have the accurate view of what race
really is and as embarrassing as it
sounds I was often confused between the
depth of between the difference of race
and ethnicity and being a student
I looked to crash course to help explain
this to me
and she explained it really well she
said that race is something that is a
social construct based on biological
traits that society thinks are important
and that last part is so significant it
about what society says is important and
so that is oftentimes our skin color
whereas we can all agree that a person
can be white and with brown hair and
white with red hair and neither is more
white than the other on the flip side
ethnicity is something where people are
able to embrace their culture race was
something that made me feel like I had
to measure up to a certain standard and
fit into a specific mold and I was
raised by a white woman and I didn’t
really feel like I could identify at all
with them because I was brown and I
didn’t know my father so I didn’t know
that background at all and so I had this
dilemma I didn’t know where my true
identity was so that leads me into my
next point of where I found my true
identity as a Christian I realized that
my identity is something so much greater
than the labels and the categories that
people would place me in and I watched a
sermon on racism and the pastor who
grabbed Rick Warren who graduated from
three different Theological Seminary
colleges enlightened me with the concept
that we are not we should not be
boastful in our origin because we
essentially had nothing to do with that
and so to say that one people group is
superior to the other is not even
accurate what’s interesting is that the
Bible and science and that the American
Anthropological Association can all
agree that we come from one common
ancestry and the Bible talks about this
that we are essentially a part of one
race and that is the human race and
although this sounds may be super cheesy
and super cliche it completely
alleviated the standards that I felt I
had to measure up to so where do we go
from here
how do we move past this based on some
of the thoughts that I expressed well I
think realizing where our true identity
is and realizing that we are common
people and that we should not be putting
people in different categories but
realizing that we can all embrace our
cultural differences and I want to
emphasize that my thoughts do not
promote the concept of colorblindness
which essentially is disregarding any
type of physical differences that we may
have but realizing that we can celebrate
those differences because they were
never meant to divide us and that we
should be people who delight in those
differences just as God delights in us
his creation thank you
[Applause] [Music]
did you get your daughter because my
caramel colored complexion all of a
sudden makes me unable to be born from a
white woman to the middle school girls
who asked to straighten my hair as if my
curls don’t compare to the strangers who
call me everything from Indian to Cuban
and Arabian to Colombian they try to
detect me as if I am a mysterious case
not that there is anything wrong with
those ethnicities but they are not me
they don’t define anyone identify with
the truth to the beings out there who
call me Oreo caramel latte coffee with
extra cream I play long just to please
you laugh and agree with you when in
reality I hate being compared to food
and beverages are the mixed girls and
boys out there nothing more than a three
layer cookie in an overpriced drink at
Starbucks this world needs to get over
using labels and racial slurs they are
thrown around like a careless baby
throwing toys his mother just gathered
to the little girl who says to her mom
why she dark as I cling to my warm
Caucasian mother no one sees the other
half consumed by his colour I am his
features don’t appear though surely not
my dad and surely not my mom you say to
my acquaintances who say that I act
pretty white for a half-black girl
so let me get this straight I’m supposed
to act a certain way because of my race
I’ll make sure to use slang and wear
weave I don’t feel I need is that what
black is to you click newsflash people
come in all forms different styles
different opinions different
personalities and us Oreos
so do we hi guys my name is Makayla
Whitman and I was first introduced to
slam poetry at my senior year of high
school and I was fascinated by this art
form because I saw poets being able to
express their thoughts with such vivid
language and essentially be able to
break any rules in the English language
to share such deep thoughts and for me
as a bi-racial person I felt some sort
of obligation to share about my race and
ethnicity so today I want to share a
little bit about my the background of my
poem and how it’s changed over time and
second some of my thoughts as a
Christian and where I find my true
identity and lastly I want to share
about how we can move past this and
develop a strong future just like
anything this was not the first draft of
my poem it has made some changes and at
first I started with the concept of race
and I allowed Society to shape my view
of race and ethnicity based on labels
and categories that people would put me
in but I realized that I didn’t actually
have the accurate view of what race
really is and as embarrassing as it
sounds I was often confused between the
depth of between the difference of race
and ethnicity and being a student
I looked to crash course to help explain
this to me
and she explained it really well she
said that race is something that is a
social construct based on biological
traits that society thinks are important
and that last part is so significant it
about what society says is important and
so that is oftentimes our skin color
whereas we can all agree that a person
can be white and with brown hair and
white with red hair and neither is more
white than the other on the flip side
ethnicity is something where people are
able to embrace their culture race was
something that made me feel like I had
to measure up to a certain standard and
fit into a specific mold and I was
raised by a white woman and I didn’t
really feel like I could identify at all
with them because I was brown and I
didn’t know my father so I didn’t know
that background at all and so I had this
dilemma I didn’t know where my true
identity was so that leads me into my
next point of where I found my true
identity as a Christian I realized that
my identity is something so much greater
than the labels and the categories that
people would place me in and I watched a
sermon on racism and the pastor who
grabbed Rick Warren who graduated from
three different Theological Seminary
colleges enlightened me with the concept
that we are not we should not be
boastful in our origin because we
essentially had nothing to do with that
and so to say that one people group is
superior to the other is not even
accurate what’s interesting is that the
Bible and science and that the American
Anthropological Association can all
agree that we come from one common
ancestry and the Bible talks about this
that we are essentially a part of one
race and that is the human race and
although this sounds may be super cheesy
and super cliche it completely
alleviated the standards that I felt I
had to measure up to so where do we go
from here
how do we move past this based on some
of the thoughts that I expressed well I
think realizing where our true identity
is and realizing that we are common
people and that we should not be putting
people in different categories but
realizing that we can all embrace our
cultural differences and I want to
emphasize that my thoughts do not
promote the concept of colorblindness
which essentially is disregarding any
type of physical differences that we may
have but realizing that we can celebrate
those differences because they were
never meant to divide us and that we
should be people who delight in those
differences just as God delights in us
his creation thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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