PoshSpice
Is racism vital for human survival?
For me it was when I was 10 years old and I had just moved to the UK. I was out with my mother one day when a group of white women came to my mum and I and complemented us on our skin and said. They also commented about how young she looked (she was 36 and I guess looked younger than them, even the youngest in their group who was 22) They then turned to me and said: "You are lucky you're black because black people have the best skin! You can never tell how old they are.." something along those lines. When they finally left, i turned to my mother and asked her what they meant when they said: "You are lucky you are black"?. She then told me for the first time, at the age of 10 that i was black. But when i looked at my skin, it was brown. I asked her why i was black and she said some white men came and to Africa and declared everyone as black and it's been that way ever since.
No one on both sides of my family from the lightest to the darkest had never said anything about being black, even family friends or people around me never said it. We were (specific nationality & ethnicity) and African second. Like no one had ever said we were black. I then asked her if my father was black seeing as he has copper coloured skin and hair i guess Indian type hair. She said that was complicated. She then told me about how during apartheid, my white people had tried to reclassify my South African great grandfather, as white because he kinda looked white, even though his hair was curly but he had a narrow nose & was very light skinned (non mixed). Infact, they used to call him an Honorary White Man..
Finally, is it fair to call people "black"? Because "black" puts us all under one category and one umbrella like we are all the same forgetting the differences we have in the "black" race..
No one on both sides of my family from the lightest to the darkest had never said anything about being black, even family friends or people around me never said it. We were (specific nationality & ethnicity) and African second. Like no one had ever said we were black. I then asked her if my father was black seeing as he has copper coloured skin and hair i guess Indian type hair. She said that was complicated. She then told me about how during apartheid, my white people had tried to reclassify my South African great grandfather, as white because he kinda looked white, even though his hair was curly but he had a narrow nose & was very light skinned (non mixed). Infact, they used to call him an Honorary White Man..
Finally, is it fair to call people "black"? Because "black" puts us all under one category and one umbrella like we are all the same forgetting the differences we have in the "black" race..
