"I’m (not Black) and Female!"

 This pretty sums up how I feel about the event I just returned from. 

The event was titled Black and Female, and it was for "ALL self-identified women and girls of African descent - GLBTQI, straight, gender queer, etc - who share in the experience of being black and female."

 Which I had a problem with right there, as i most definitely do NOT share in the experience of being black and female, but my very good sister-friend had invited me to the event, and I have been super-eager to find community, especially community with women of color, so I really wanted to go!  

If you read one of my earlier blog posts (and please go back and do that now), you may have picked up on the interesting relationship dynamic I have with black women – a dynamic that was established between black/white/mixed women waaaaaaaaay before my time (or your time).  It’s a competition of sorts, a competition that I have always been unaware I was competing in because I have never bought into my own attractiveness – it’s ALL wrapped up in the shade of my skin.  That’s it.  By the sheer fact that I can pass the paper-bag test, I have felt like the bane of black woman's existence since I can remember!  

Anywhoo, tonight, I suspend judgment as best I can and march my half-breed a$$ into that group of Black women just as sure as I belonged there!  Until I didn’t.

There were two girls in the center of this wonderfully inviting circle of black women…a younger one with lighter skin, I would say around 7 years old, and a darker beauty, very outgoing, probably 12 or 13. 

I see the younger one give me a thorough once-over and then turn and whisper to the older one: “She is not supposed to be here – she is not Black.”

The older one responds in turn “She is half black, so it’s OK.”  The younger one seems happy with this explanation and goes back to ignoring the group.

And it really is ok.  Because I don’t identify as Black.  And I never will identify as Black.  Which seems to make some people uncomfortable because they don’t know where to put me. 

Well, welcome to my world, mother-truckers and deal with it. 

Life is not Black or White.   

And neither am I. 

carry on.