Black History Month celebrates both race and ethnicityPosted in Articles, Autobiography, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States on 2014-02-11 04:45Z by Steven |
Black History Month celebrates both race and ethnicity
The Red & Black
University Georgia Student Newspaper
Athens, Georgia
2014-07-02
Mariya Lewter, Sphomore
Decatur, Georgia
As a person of “mixed” race, I’ve always found it difficult to truly racially identify myself. Not because I don’t know who I am, but because others refused to accept my definition of who I am.
Growing up, I attended predominantly black schools. There were few kids who looked like me, and I can probably count on one hand how many students were not African-American.
My peers had a hard time guessing my race because I have a light skin complexion, but black facial features and curly hair. So I often got asked the question, “What are you?”…
…I know how I look, but I also know how I feel and how I was raised. I was raised with black culture in a black community with a black family. My blood is only one-fourth Caucasian, but according to everyone around me, because I’m fair-skinned, there was no way I could be black.
This mindset needs to change…
Read the entire article here.