October 11, 2016 - 14:19
my whole life i have existed in majority white spaces. i went to a white school in a white town where i lived with my white family. i spent my summers at a white summer camp run by a white religious organization. i'm used to these kinds of spaces, and feel pretty comfortable in them. i know the right things to say at the right times. i know so well how to opperate in these spaces that i am so frequently told that i'm not really black, that i'm different than other black people. even though i know these messages are bullshit, they're hard not to internalize.
in the eighth grade my mom and i rode the train up to washington dc for obama's inauguration. i remember remarking to my mom that i'd never seen so many black people gathered in the same place. i'd been to the national mall tens of times and never seen it so full of non white bodies. she asked how it made me feel. i remember that space feeling magical, expansive, and exciting in a way i was entirely unfamiliar with. i felt included in a way i never had before and i didn't know how to put a name to it. visiting the nmaahc felt very much like the innauguration in that way. i found it so moving to be in a space dedicated to african american history and full of black bodies. a space where blackness, and my relationship with it, wasn't up for debate.
the releif and wonder i felt in response to these two public spaces full of black bodies made me realize that i've been tense all my life. maybe i'm good at navigating white spaces full of white bodies, but that doesn't mean it doesn't weigh on me. i've been in majority white spaces all my life and they are tiring me out. experiencing majority black spaces makes me want to find ways to structure my life so that i can feel that way i felt at the inauguration more often. i wanna give my children the gift of being comfortable in the spaces they occupy, of having their blackness unquestioned in their day to day life.