Embracing who I am.
“What are you?”
“Huh?” I turned around to look at the girl outside the office at school.
“You look so weird to be fully black and I know for sure you’re not white.”
“What do you mean?” I was confused about what she was asking me.
“You have red hair, it looks good but you don’t look fully like anything.” I
was only fourteen and I didn’t know what to say. Why was she asking my questions
about my race? She confused me when she asked me that question out of thin air. I
was so confused on what exactly had been the point of asking me. I just answered
politely I am not sure. I didn’t know my full family history.
I always had longer hair and smaller features then most African Americans
like my nose is very small and my eyes change color depending on the season, and
when it gets hot my hair lightens up. Yes I have some features that don’t come
to most African Americans. I do have some Trinidadian blood inside of me. I am
reassured that I am in fact African American. When I dyed my hair that also struck
questions.
“I think that hair color looks so good on you.” A woman said to me outside
the supermarket. I had dyed my hair a extremely bright red the week before and I
looked even more less than what I really was. People told me that I never looked
like I was supposed to since I was “Black” I knew what I was so that shouldn’t have
matter I know I am black.
My father’s father is from the Island of Trinidad, which may have something
to do with the fact that I don’t look all-natural. My mother doesn’t know her father
and my grandmother refuses to talk about him so I may get some features from him.
But since I’ve always had lighter skin then I was presumed adopted. My mother
assures me that I am hers.
“The color of your skin and the hair makes you look so different” An old
friend of mine said to me.
I simply replied that I was just looking for something different and it wasn’t a
change to make me look any different.
This hair color change wasn’t the first time I had my hair dyed. I have always
had a sandy brown blonde shade of hair and my mother always hated it even though
it was her hair color when she was my age. My first dye was a very dark brown color
and it made me think that I was grown up and I was a new person but after that dye
was washed out it was a permanent darker to my hair because I have never been the
“Dad who’s in our family tree?”
“Umm well your grand mother is all black and her slave ancestors were
owned by the famous McCormick family.”
“Okay and what about grandpa?”
“Your grandfather is from the Trinidadian Islands, I’m not sure where exactly
but that’s all he told me about himself”
I never asked my father anything else more about the family history and
frankly I didn’t really care anymore about it. But as I got older my curiosity grew
larger for the family I never knew.
So looking not all African American is just a little thing I went through in my
life and I will go trough more I’m sure of it. Dying my hair red wasn’t me trying to
escape exactly what I didn’t want to be but finding an individual in who I already
was. I was just a “Black” girl who has red hair. I thought of my red hair as an old me
with a new thing not a new me trying to forget the old me. I know that I am African
American and I had strands of other blood in me.
I think of my hair color as a bright light or the brightest crayon in the box. I
love my Red hair and I love where I come from. So I wouldn’t dream of trying to hide
where I come from. The way I look is the way I look because that’s the way I was
born and that’s how I appear to the world. I love my heritage on both sides so yeah I
do have some Trinidadian blood but I am an African American girl with red hair.
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