« Dreams of my mother…
Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions »

I Claim Black Because My Light Skin Doesn’t Protect Me from Misogynoir

I Claim Black Because My Light Skin Doesn’t Protect Me from Misogynoir

For Harriet
2015-01-03

Kesiena Boom
Brighton, England

I am a mixed race woman. One of my parents is Black and the other is white. I identify as both mixed race and as Black. I do so because of the legacy of the one drop rule and because I cannot access whiteness as it is associated with being ‘pure’ and I am clearly ‘tainted’ with my racially ambiguous looks. My afro, my golden skin, my thick figure and my full lips combine to give me an appearance that is notably not white. I feel connected to Blackness in a way I cannot feel towards whiteness. Despite being mainly raised by my white parent, it is not in whiteness that I find my home…

Read the entire article here.

Tags: ,

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2015 at 20:16Z and is filed under Articles, Autobiography, Media Archive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.