so my first kiss was with a racist now
at the time of the kiss I didn’t know he
was racist and he didn’t know doesn’t
know he was black mixed race of a white
mother and an absent black father and we
kissed in the back of an empty high
school parking lots in the middle of
winter this should have been my first
clue but this was bad news I’ve been
told to never fall in love a boy in a
winter time but this wasn’t love it was
less than it wasn’t really lest it was
practicality because fish was the first
time this black woman had ever had the
chance to court a black man and I mean
black baggy jeans extra Becky ball
shirts big brown eyes I could see myself
reflected in as something other than a
shadow blocking the light he the only
thing he was missing was a sean jean
jacket i was thrilled he let’s call him
Chris Chris walked me home our hands
knocking each other sartatia sleeves we
traversed the snow we jumped from topic
to topic and Sylvie’s ever fade to the
words left his mouth Janelle is blacker
than you the world crashed around me but
snow crunching beneath my feet became
the breaking backs of my ancestors
before me screaming what does that mean
you know you’re you’re an Oreo your your
black on the outside but your whites on
the inside you know you’re not ghetto
you’re educated educated and bernice
thomas educated oreo i should have my
own circus show maybe i do in five years
later I can’t get this conversation out
of my head because of a tender age of 15
he made me realize two things 1i was
black
and two I had no idea what that meant I
never had to think about it before I
mean I knew that he was wrong I mean
just look at Michelle Obama but he cast
his self doubted me some unlike anything
I had ever known so to start my journey
of self-discovery I asked a group of
women of color in a Vancouver in
vancouver island area if they had ever
been called anything similar to an oreo
the responses were creative to say the
least there was banana coconut Twinkie
Apple chocolate Miller swirl it’s not
interesting how easily women of color
can be compared to food marble cake
honey cappuccino bounties if we are
something to be eaten to be consumed to
take away our darker outside you will
find the glistening whites worth beneath
it wow you’re so articulate you’re not
like other black girls you were so
pretty for an insert race here girl I
never really think of you as black and
my personal favorite I’m black given you
because I know all of the words to Kanye
West gold digger Wow who knew that race
was as easy to become as memorizing the
words of a song and it’s easy to erase a
misplaced comma with s80 vernacular
these phrases are like scalp holes
tearing away my black body peeling apart
the skin because i am worth something in
spite of it but all of a sudden I felt
alone because this oil categorization
was happening to people of all races not
just black people this mindset of
Education meaning whiteness of being
able to get a job get paid well settle
down and live comfortably meaning
whiteness of being able meaning
so I decided to look inside at my own
family the only black people who I
really knew my mom is from Jamaica my
dad is from Sierra Leone may Mets in
London England they had three children
and we moved to ontario when i was seven
so this is a beautiful example of a
multicultural displaced black family my
brother and I we were really close and
when I was 11 he went he started high
school and he went to school up the road
has a good school rich white kids is a
really really good school and he was
charismatic energetic a sports guy
really nice meaning the way older
brothers are but never cruel and this
all changed as soon as you started high
school all of a sudden he was in and out
of the principal’s office he was acting
out talking back and just overall being
really really mean a couple years later
a sports school opened up a few few
miles out of town at verse school it was
almost a cultural lots of people of
color and I brother mood fermo change in
him was instantaneous the anger sizzled
out the young thug disappeared and just
like that I had my brother back when I
asked him about it he said that that was
the behavior they were expecting out of
him they were treating him terribly
because he was black and so black was
what he became a young thug a menace
angry hurt black this ain’t this
stereotypical black and when he stopped
being these things if you stop being
black not at all but he was spoon-fed
this idea this stereotype of the
aggressive black male and he ate it up
and they created exactly what they
wanted and that is how simple and how
easily a systematic cycle or racism
begins with education with Miss
educating
and finally I looked at myself and
I fought em I black so once again I post
a question what is blackness I read this
book by Tommy he see coats and he
discusses what life is like living
inside a black body in America and I
thought exactly blackness is the state
of being it is existing in a black body
so the real question is what qualifies
and quantifies blackness this is a bit
harder to decide because blackness is a
broad scale and it’s multicultural near
people from all over the world who exist
inside black bodies and so I decided to
go with this blackness is a state of
being is existing your life everything
in your black body it is your history it
is your future you’re creating for
yourself it’s the present right now and
however you choose to live it but as you
are living it it is loving yourself
every single step of the way as students
from all over the world there are people
who do not understand your greatness and
they will try to bring it down to
something that they can fit in the size
of their hand do not select them the
strongest thing you’ll ever have for
yourself is knowing yourself every inch
every corner every dark spot and loving
it anyway Chris did not know himself he
was given the stereotype of the ghetto
black man and so in his journey of his
own self belief he took down mine now
that is not a very black thing to do but
I thank him for it because about him
opening up his mouth and saying these
words I would not have begun my journey
of self-discovery that’s a poet I lived
the importance of words every single day
because they mean something
everything you utter has an impact if
you wanted to or not and so today I will
leave you with these words but I want
you to repeat after me because the the
impact of saying something out loud is
truly unquantifiable so I would like you
am a whirlwind a thunderstorm of
creation I am more than capable I am walking education and I am me thank you