Column: Lightskin privilege and its place in activismPosted in Articles, Campus Life, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Justice, United States on 2019-10-23 01:00Z by Steven |
Column: Lightskin privilege and its place in activism
The Daily Tar Heel
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2019-04-14
Devon Johnson, Chief Opinion Editor
After reading a letter to the editor this week questioning the place of biracial students in campus activism, I thought it was an important question that deserved to be expanded upon and hopefully answered to some degree. So I’ve reflected on my race, specifically how my race is perceived by others and how, if at all, it impacts the ways in which I form my racial identity.
The first time I distinctly remember my biracial identity being affirmed was, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Drake’s “You & The 6.” “I used to get teased for being Black, and now I’m here and I’m not Black enough.” This line summed up the in-betweenness I had felt for most of my life; the tugging from either side of the aisle by those trying to have me racialize and categorize myself…
Read the entire article here.