I am much more than ‘a disgrace to black people’ |
I am much more than ‘a disgrace to black people’
The Charlotte Observer
Charlotte, North Carolina
2017-02-09
Nicolas Coleman, Special to the Observer
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Duke freshman Nicolas Coleman understands why others have questioned his blackness
In seventh grade I was labeled “a disgrace to black people.” I was made of aware of this second-hand from a white kid in my class whose black friend had branded me as such. I remember this striking me particularly hard. It was a catalyst in my developing understanding of race and my own place in the various communities I inhabited.
I was one of very few black students in my class at Durham Academy, a fact that defined much of my time there. Being mixed-race with a light complexion and born of affluent well-educated parents, I did not fit the idea of blackness that many of my classmates seemed to expect me to personify. At the end of summer it became a game for my more tanned white classmates to see if their skin was darker than mine and to declare with gratification, “I’m blacker than Nico!” That became a phrase and notion that they would employ for things other than just skin tone. Students more skilled at basketball or better able to recite rap lyrics would momentarily become “blacker than me.”…
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