Following the grand jury’s decision to not indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown, experts and amateurs alike have analyzed the issue from countless perspectives.
Although I also possess an opinion about the legality surrounding the grand jury proceedings, I will not delve into the mechanics of the death of Michael Brown, as others with more expertise and sophisticated prose have done so.
All I have to offer is my experience with the ?concept of race.
I have never fully understood race. As a first-generation American born to what the United States would call a “white” mother and a “black” father, I grew up in a family composed of a kaleidoscope of hues.
My parents sought to instill in me a pride for the Dominican culture that defined their identity. They raised me with a mentality that despite being born an American citizen, I would root my identity in the nationality of my family, not my skin tone. They hoped I would not lose my ability to speak Spanish.
They prayed that I would say I am not black, but ?Dominican.
Thus, when I moved to Indiana at age 4, I didn’t understand that my cinnamon skin and tight curls had a different connotation in this new land. In my young mind, “black” and “white” were colors, not people.
In the late 1990s, my ability to speak Spanish captivated most people in the Midwest, protecting me from the majority of the discrimination I could have faced. However, due to my unique heritage, I never properly fit into any group.
Black girls perceived me as pretentious. White girls shied away from my mother’s home cooking. While some Hispanics were easier to relate to, the majority banded together in their shared Mexican heritage.
It was not until middle school that I began to understand the relevance of race in my life.
People began asking me what I was, and I would ?answer Dominican.
More frequently, they would assume that I am “black.” I, now knowing that the word “black” is heavily correlated with African-American, would correct them and state my ?ethnicity.
Their rebuttal usually used the color of my skin and the curl of my hair as evidence to support their theory about my identity.
I am not black, and I refuse to be categorized by a society too ignorant to realize the lunacy of grouping humans into groups based on skin color.
As I watched hundreds protest in the streets of Ferguson following the grand jury’s announcement, I realized race, while not real to me, defines most people in my surroundings.
Black and white are no longer colors, or even labels for different groups, but words laden with ideas of historical, socioeconomic and social significance. I, by proximity, am associated with the trials and achievements experienced by ?African-Americans.
Although I do not fully understand or prescribe to the color codes of American society, as a dark-skinned American, race is my ?reality.
caheredi@indiana.edu
