Essay On Being Black In America

One night in the pass summer my family and I were eating dinner. While we were eating dinner we were having a discussion about the recent racial events that have occurred. During the discussion my father said something that slipped passed me at the time, but I am now intrigued by. He said, “The idea of being black is something that only exist in America.” At the time I didn't think much about his comment, but looking back on it I can now see what he meant by it. Outside of America there is no such things as being black, instead people are defined by there ethnicity and not the color of there skin. The idea of being “black” came to be during the 1600 in America, when Africans were dehumanized in the slave trade. The American settlers thought of the slaves as animals and in order to separate them from being “human” the slaves could no longer be African. Instead they decided to call the Slaves Black because it dehumanized them. I have spent my entire life living in predominantly white communities where there were few if any other black families. Throughout my adolescence I have been told that I am “not black” or that I am “white” by many of my peers. During my childhood I would just let these comments slip passes me because I didn’t fully understand their meanings and neither did my friends. …show more content…
My peers, both black and white, don't understand the negative undertone of these words. When they say things like “you are not black” shows their ignorance and their inability to comprehend the degradation of the black community. These people don't understand that what they are actually saying is that black people cannot be civilized, intelligent humans because if they are then they are considered “white”. In our culture today we throw around words, without fully understanding there meaning. So now I ask you once more: What does it mean to be