In order to truly understand the impact of this moment on my life, you will have to make an attempt at putting yourself in my shoes. In the case of this narrative, the shoes you will be squeezing into will be a size 8.5, and those of a racially ambiguous pseudo-adult with relatively large hair.
Throughout the span of my eighteen years of life, I have viewed the quandary that is my mixed race ethnicity with a fair amount of acceptance, but also with an underlying feeling of insecurity. Although I embrace the varied, yet relatively balanced features that I have inherited from my Italian mother and African American father, genetics definitely left me with a skin tone that is a bit more on the yellow side of the skin color spectrum than I would …show more content…
nizant of my identity and that should be all that truly matters, I find myself constantly feeling the need to defend my deep interest in concepts such as race relations and Black Feminism, as well as my desire to join minority …show more content…
On Saturday, February 4th, 2006, I invited my closest friends over to watch movies, eat too much cake, and force them to listen as I relentlessly bragged about my newest Bratz or Barbie dolls. In order to cope with the herd of pre-teens rampaging throughout their home, my father and step-mother invited some of their friends over, as well.
The party officially started when I ecstatically tore the wrapping off of my brand-new Kidz Bop 8 CD. Fueled by at least five slices of cake each, my friends and I stampeded into the living room where my parents and their companions watched in reverence as we bounced around to “Since U Been Gone” on repeat, each of us working to claim the unspoken title of Best Dancer.
However, it was when a Gwen Stefani impersonator’s “Rich Girl” came on that everything changed for me. As I danced along, a slightly inebriated family friend made the decision to pull me aside and (loudly) warn me that I had “no rhythm,” I “dance like a white girl,” and I should not make any further attempt at dancing due to these
Throughout the span of my eighteen years of life, I have viewed the quandary that is my mixed race ethnicity with a fair amount of acceptance, but also with an underlying feeling of insecurity. Although I embrace the varied, yet relatively balanced features that I have inherited from my Italian mother and African American father, genetics definitely left me with a skin tone that is a bit more on the yellow side of the skin color spectrum than I would …show more content…
nizant of my identity and that should be all that truly matters, I find myself constantly feeling the need to defend my deep interest in concepts such as race relations and Black Feminism, as well as my desire to join minority …show more content…
On Saturday, February 4th, 2006, I invited my closest friends over to watch movies, eat too much cake, and force them to listen as I relentlessly bragged about my newest Bratz or Barbie dolls. In order to cope with the herd of pre-teens rampaging throughout their home, my father and step-mother invited some of their friends over, as well.
The party officially started when I ecstatically tore the wrapping off of my brand-new Kidz Bop 8 CD. Fueled by at least five slices of cake each, my friends and I stampeded into the living room where my parents and their companions watched in reverence as we bounced around to “Since U Been Gone” on repeat, each of us working to claim the unspoken title of Best Dancer.
However, it was when a Gwen Stefani impersonator’s “Rich Girl” came on that everything changed for me. As I danced along, a slightly inebriated family friend made the decision to pull me aside and (loudly) warn me that I had “no rhythm,” I “dance like a white girl,” and I should not make any further attempt at dancing due to these