“Race Relay” Softens Hard Subjects
I’m what they call a “mixed” kid. My mother has golden hair and fair skin, and my Nigerian father is as dark as can be. As a child, I was a bit too light, my caramel face splattered with freckles, to blend in with the black kids, while my hair was a bit too kinky to be the “right” kind of pretty for the white kids. Growing up with just my mother and grandmother, I had predominantly white friends and did not fully understand what the terms “oreo” and “exotic,” or the question, “What are you?”, meant or implied. I went from wondering why I didn’t get that “mixed hair” to wishing I did, when kids asked me how often I washed my hair. When the transition to high school came, I began to feel my blackness in the form of the pressure to represent. I saw the racial achievement gap in action, as one of two faces of color in an AP course. I didn’t know who I was, who I should be, or what to be proud of....