I’m sorry you experienced that. I can relate. Hopefully, this will be a safe place to share our thoughts and feelings. No one deserves to be treated that way. I see where you are coming from when you talk about feeling isolated and disempowered.

Miss King…I appreciate your advice. I was moved by your beautiful words about trust and love. However, I’m not sure what you mean when you say that I “worry too much about the wrong thing”. Racism is very relevant in my world. There is nothing I can do about it. People tend to be openly racist toward people like myself. I’m not white, but not black. I constantly have to monitor my actions and physical appearance around other people to make it through the day without being discriminated against. My husband cannot relate to this. He will never have to worry about being judged based on superficial matters and having to suffer possible consequences. No one will ever tell him, as a white male, that his racial characteristics are “unacceptable”. He will never feel pressured to be something he is not in order to fit into society. His skin color is fine. His hair texture is fine. He does not look “ethnic” in any way. No one will ever dismiss his cultural background as being “weird” or “Other”. He measures up to the standards put forth by society. As a WOC, I do not. This is reality.

It is my perspective. I’m sorry if this sounded rude. That wasn’t my intention at all. *smiles*

Last night I was taking a stroll with my girlfriend and was abused by a trio of young anglo teens as being aboriginal. They did it in the most demeaning way.

I have been a target of this racism for most of my life in Australia. It has ruined my life. I have felt uncomfortable with myself, isolated and disempowered and unable to speak. I could never speak of it directly with my parents or other Greeks. I am angry, offended, hurt, and bitter about it. I have never offended anyone and have been the recipient of much offence randomly in the street and in the workplace.

I am a living testament to the fact that “race” is a social construct. If it weren’t then I wouldn’t have been abused like I have been and undoubtedly will continue to be.

In 35yr Marriage of neighbor Folks=ALL THEY HAVE. Each other. Family, friends, acquaintances R on the side. You worry 2 much about the wrong thing. Concentrate on ImmediateFamilyTypes. adios!

Thank you for posting this. I can’t imagine the many nuanced and insidious ways internalized racism affects folks of colour.

The only thing I can offer as someone with white privilege (and slightly mixed heritage) is that I’m doing as much damned work as possible to undue all the racist teachings that I grew up with and make sure I am not that person that makes assumptions based on race, treats poc differently, or is otherwise ignorant or perpetuating dominant power relations.

Just know some of us are trying real hard to unlearn that shit and stopping the cycle that contributes to internalized self hatred.

~X.

thank you so much. I’m literally holding back tears while I type this. No offense to white people or anybody else, but I’m a young multiracial woman who has internalized so much pain and self-hatred since childhood.

I’ve lived all my life wanting to be white just so I could be considered beautiful, just so I could be loved. I’m very light-skinned with long hair but it is still the “wrong” kind of hair according to racist beauty ideals. It isn’t straight. I don’t have soft, flowing curls. I’m not blonde with blue eyes. People love to constantly remind me that I have the “worst” hair because it is African in texture. Most black people have hurt me in unspeakable ways because of my color. Most white people have never really seen me. My white husband loves me to death, but he is uncomfortable when I try to share my pain. I need him to understand who I am and how racism affects my life.

He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. He is a wonderful person but tends to deny the harsh reality of racism. He says I’m “liberal”. I remind him that despite my overwhelmingly white heritage, I’m still viewed by most as a Black woman living in a society that destroys people psychologically if they don’t meet some fucked-up standard of how one “should” be. My light skin keeps other sistas at bay, when all I want to do is open up to them and let them know that I’ve been there too. My hair texture keeps people from seeing my humanity.

I live in South Florida. This part of the state is home to a sizable Black and Hispanic population. I have been the victim of racism my whole life by other minorities and by a few whites. I have never come to terms with this.

My black ex-boyfriend verbally and emotionally abused me. He allowed his friends and family to do the same. I’m unable to fully trust anyone because of the experiences I’ve had. As a kid, I WAS the little girl in front of the mirror hating my hair. At 26 years old, I’m still that little girl inside. I never learned to love myself. I never learned to appreciate anything about myself because people were constantly telling me that I needed to “fix” my appearance.

My skin was too light, hair too nappy, and I was “nothing special”. Simply ugly in the eyes of most people because I happened to be black and female. I know this sounds pathetic, but I’m sharing this with you because you KNOW where I’m coming from. You’ve been there. You know what it’s like.

I’ve been that girl, sitting silently while her so-called white “friends” mocked black people. I’ve been that girl who recoiled after being told that she had “nigger hair” by racist white and Hispanic people. I’ve been that girl who lost her innocence when she finally realized that race DOES matter and that NO ONE is “colorblind”. My husband is in denial. He believes that simply attending school and getting good grades will help me land a decent job. We’ll live happily ever after. But as I’ve tried to tell him, it doesn’t work that way. People are still obsessed with race. He is an older white male who is completely unaware of his privilege. He strikes up conversations with people freely without having to worry that he will be judged based on race. People constantly ask me, “What are you?” They do not attempt to know me better as a person…my race seems to be of utmost importance before they will consider talking to me.

He will never understand. He doesn’t understand why I’m so proud of President Obama. He doesn’t understand that our children will not be considered white in America, but biracial or Black. He doesn’t understand why it hurts me that my mother has literally killed herself in this country to survive and has been married to an abusive man (my stepfather) for years. My stepfather, a Black man, worships white women. He told me throughout my teen years that I was ugly and worthless and promiscuous. When a white woman with big boobs comes on TV, he admires her in my mother’s presence. My mother is biracial (her father was white), but it still hurts her when he is disrespectful. He hates “nappy” hair. I feel like a grown-up version of Pecola from The Bluest Eye.

Anyway, I’m sorry that my post is like a book. It’s just that you really hit a nerve with me. Once again, thank you!!!

I guess that saves me some time on google – I was going to go look to see if the “more in jail than in college” thing applied to all in races – I wasn’t sure what the percentages would be on Americans in college/jail generally.