Bloom: A Generational Perspective on Racial Identity in Youth

All throughout my childhood I was told I was white or weird.

I collected rocks, stamps and coins. Went on treasure hunts in my back yard. I loved insects, I adopted every animal my mom would allow me to keep. I loved the environment so I would ride around on my bike collecting bottles and cans to recycle in the neighborhood. I listened to classical music on the AM station and drew out the steps to ballet choreography. I had a myriad of interests.

To my family this was “white” behavior, and having interests and inclinations that vary from what is normal popular for people of color wasn’t positive.

At what point do children either take ownership over or try and separate themselves from what comes natural to them to be accepted? And to what degree is forcing a child in one direction or another generational?

I felt I had two choices: abandon the things I loved to keep from being picked on, or dive headlong into what I loved and separate myself from black culture.

I did the latter, and in that, became racist against my own out of non-acceptance. I didn’t apply to a single HBCU as I believed I would fare better at a “more organized” institution. I didn’t let go of my black friends, but I had a tendency to shy away from events involving large crowds of black people. I used to feel that I needed to be the better example of blackness in the face of white people.

To a child, there is no such thing as “white behavior”—only what interests you.

Parents can build limitations around what is acceptable black behavior which can cripple a child's ability to expand themselves. When I was growing up, a mother was usually the first person to tell you that your natural hair was “nappy” or that sitting in the sun or going swimming in the summer makes you too black (unattractive).

The Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation three years before my mother was born, so I know why my grandmother perpetuated certain limitations in my mother. Their limitations were legal. Our generation’s limitations are perpetuated through deeply embedded phobias.

This is one* reason why we fear police even when we've done nothing wrong (making it easy for wayward officers to capitalize on our fear), don't ask certain questions, don't go in certain neighborhoods or aspire to certain goals; Why you don’t often find us skiing, swimming, climbing mountains, jumping out of planes, camping, flying or playing alternative sports etc.—“white behavior” is dangerous.

This is also something to bear in mind when you see the argument made by politicians (and other ignorant people) that it is the black person's fault that they remain oppressed. Oppression can also be self-afflicted.

Today, we are less likely to redistribute those limitations to our children, but we do it, often in jest, but at the root we've said these things to our children to both align and protect them—to help them “fit.”

The children featured in Bloom all come from my neighborhood. They fight all day, tell on each other, and run back and play together again.

They also express an unwavering love for each other, regardless of background, through quick-healing forgiveness—something I believe we can learn from them.

Watch what you say to your children as they bloom because self-hatred can be generational.

Before I took her photo, I asked my niece, who is the darkest of all the children in this series, “Did you know you were gorgeous?” Her response: “No.”

Origins: Intraracial Racism and the Default Aggressions

I believe that rap music is the bullhorn for "cool."

You want to know what drugs are cool, turn on your radio. Want to know what’s cool to drink, wear on your wrist/around your neck/on your body or on your feet, turn on your radio.

You want to know what women are preferable, turn on your radio, or better yet, look at recent music videos.

You don't see chocolate girls in music videos much anymore.

As a dark-skinned girl, the default aggression for dark-skinned men erasing you is: hate the fair-skinned woman. I have despised black women for their skin before, and I have despised white women for her presence among black men. I still wrestle with the latter.

I'm being transparent with my work to create a safe space for you to relate.

This chapter, titled Origins, exists because I believe that intentionally erasing dark skin from the preference pool among black men speaks directly to his own issues as a black man—specifically if those preferences exist with conscious intent. Keep conscious intent in mind as you continue reading.

As women, sometimes our response is to try and adapt to a popular preference (waist cinchers, butt shots etc).

Instead of course-correcting and teaching young black men the value of the black woman and her beauty across the ENTIRE color spectrum of blackness, when they are influenced by "cool" into the more popular direction, and we as women we can't adapt to the standard, we pass our anger onto other women.

As a black woman, redirecting the black man's misunderstanding of himself into a hatred against other black women is why we compete against each other for no reason today.

Why do we say things like "there's Indian in my family,” with no evidential proof, to cleanse ourselves of pure blackness? (This is not to discredit those who actually have true Native American lineages). Why do we neglect to own African origins? Why do we not include African countries on our list of dream vacations? Why do some of us remove ourselves from the slave narrative of our history? The part where we were separated from our home and then from ourselves, and again from ourselves and again from ourselves, through great-grand after great-grand until we land where we are now: fantasizing about making "pretty babies"—fair skinned, curly-haired, light-eyed, hybrid black babies as a goal?

You cannot live a better existence through the fairer skin of your children.

This year at a party a beautiful dark-skinned woman walked in the room, (the one actually pictured below), and the dark-skinned man next to me praised her for her beauty and in the same breath said, "I could never date a dark-skinned girl, cause I don't want my kids to be dark. I already have enough problems being black." Direct quote.

Another dark skinned man told me this year that he preferred light-skinned women because "her market value was higher." Direct quote.

I have heard with my own ears a black man say that his next girlfriend will be white because she would be, "easier to deal with."

I overheard a light-skinned woman once say, with pure disgust, that she would never have a dark-skinned child—all of her children would look like her.

It is a sinking feeling to be openly un-preferred even by your own.

What is the process by which a black man separates himself from the love of his dark-skinned mother and hate himself into a new, fairer-skinned existence to prove his viability—to intentionally increase his "market value?"

Dear black woman: a man is not the last say on what is considered beautiful.

Uproot that lie and love your sister, pour loveand understanding into a black man as he develops. That's how you reclaim yourself—that's how you uproot the light-skinned/dark-skinned war that runs strong among us and within us as sisters and brothers EVERY DAY, ALL DAY.

There is little we can do about what people rap about, but we can control our ability to digest it.

As you look at Origins, which is about the root of INTRAracial racism (black on black racism) ask yourself about the origins of your own preferences—if you have them—and how they came about.

Thank you to this chapter's models: Jamara Merrill, Jay Scott and Darrel Hancock

Sestina: Sisterhood, Hair and Self-Acceptance

I lived my life as a combination of so many things that fought against blackness until a little over three years ago when I decided to cut my hair off.

I thought I was going to have these gorgeous pillowy curls.

When I saw my wild coils flying back at me I called myself ugly. Standing right there in a mirror, I'll never forget it, I told myself I was ugly out loud and walked out of my bathroom.

I got braids down to my waist the very next day so I wouldn't have to REALLY see myself again. Thankfully, that self-hate lasted all of 2 days.

To assist in the disassociation from braided slave styles, black people were using everything from bacon grease to goose fat to straighten their hair. Sometime in the 1890s, a black woman named Annie Malone was the first person to patent a hot comb. Madame CJ Walker would later improve this comb.

Simultaneously, in the late 1800s, a man named Garret A. Morgan invented the first relaxer: the first chemical hair straightening agent for black people.

Generation upon generation straightening out the natural state of black hair, what you end up with is an entire black identity that doesn’t know how to manage their own hair. Women take their hair seriously. Black women take their hair personally. 

The intent is to ease manageability. What results is a permanently altered notion that you cannot be beautiful within your natural state. You are criticized HEAVILY if you change it. My mama said to me, when I cut my hair at the age of 24: don't expect your hair to be as curly as your cousins.

And what resulted, with me at least, was a long history of—every 6 weeks, from elementary school until post grad—chemically altering the natural structure of my hair. Chemically altering the natural structure of my existence. Burning my scalp into submission, picking scabs out of my hair that refused to grow past my ears.

Is someone going to comment about my hair today? A style, texture that I’m just starting to get used to? Am I going to have to explain myself today? Is someone going to touch me without asking today? Is my hair that much of an anomaly?

To manage it we braid, …

Do you know what it's like to be in your mid-20s and never know what your real hair looks like?

To stare at Youtube and learn about hair patterns, styles that suit your texture and natural hair maintenance with a notepad writing a product list of things to try? To truly learn yourself from scratch? To reimagine yourself as beautiful? Do you know what it's like to know that there are rules made that deem your hair wild, unkempt, threatening--unlawful in certain spaces? To worry about whether or not your hair will keep you from simple things like jobs, romance or going out with your friends?

My story is not my own.

I'm sharing Sestina, the final chapter in Magnolias, because I want to remind black women that we are all in the same story no matter what we look like--and that this story, the "bad hair" story, is one that is handed down to us and can be rewritten.

All throughout Magnolias, models are masked in braids because who I am as a black woman began when I grew my REAL hair out.

Sestina is about acceptance of oneself as a natural woman and others no matter where they are in their own narrative. It explores the heartache of preference and relationships among women and how hair, texture and skin could hurt and reduce us.

These images are intentionally simple and stoic, and brilliantly accompanied with rich poetry by Nina Foster. The whole of Magnolias is now on my site, but I'm sharing Sestina because it felt right tonight.

Models in this chapter: Asia Leach, Hali Shepard, Lailah Chism, Sonya Alexis, Sarah Elizabeth, Aria Johnson, Shadai Ashley and Khadijah Peay