genzthoughts

[genzthoughts]

My Skin Color

For most of my life, I was taught about the color of my skin and how to compare it to the people around me. I grew up questioning why it mattered, what the difference between myself and my closest friend was outside of the shade of our skin, in my youthful mind there wasn't one. My mother spat hatred, my grandparents lifted their chins as if being white was something to be proud of. As if being the majority was something that allowed them to look down at others around them. I was surrounded day to day with this mindset and unexplainable hatred for difference for so long, that the hatred started to seep inward.

Why is being white an accomplishment when you've done nothing to accomplish it?

Though, instead of facing it outward and following in the footsteps of my family, I began hating my own skin color. I began watching, reading, looking around me because every single place you look, you can see culture and history from other places, other shades, other skin colors, and they have connections, sources, histories that have either been washed out or destroyed by the majority.

When the Black Lives Matter movement began to take foot in 2020 after one far too many wrongful deaths of young African Americans, the hatred bloomed, fueling my want to help, my want to make use of the color of my skin in a healthy form, to make space for the voices of those around me who far too often get tuned out.

What have most of us done to show being white should be something to be proud of?

I made space, forced people like me out so someone with the history and experience in what it is like being a person of color in the United States could speak without worry of being deafened, of being drowned out, 'white washed' away like so many others in history had been.

Now it's 2024, the US Election came and went, and we're facing one of the biggest racist, homophobic, reddest tidal wave we have ever had the unfortunate chance to witness, and for the second real time in my life, I find myself wishing my skin color wasn't the same as the paper of the history books full of falsities. I feel shame, despair, there's a pit in my stomach that gets deeper and deeper, knowing the amount of things I can do to help are limited and very few.

Why are our accomplishments tied to the color of our skin?

I am disappointed in the people who are similar to me, those who grew up with simplicity instead of the difficulties one faces as a person of color for just... existing. We, as a majority, failed, and I am so sorry. From now, until 2028, I will do my best to take the shame and distaste for my own skin color, and use to encourage and protect in a way that's healthy, that's helpful, and will maybe... just maybe, change the minds of the hateful white, republican men and women in our country.

As I continue to establish myself as a young adult and grow further into a fully fledged adult life, I want to learn more from the population of POC men and women, listen to their stories and voices, their struggles, and make space. We've spoken enough.