How I Became a "Woke" Black Girl and the Journey I'm Still On...

Summer 2009, my estranged mother and I began speaking again for the first time in about eight years. That same summer I was whisked away, involuntarily, to Virginia to live with her. Up until this point in my life, I grew up in Louisiana, surrounded by lots of family and even more mosquitoes. Now that all that was gone, it was up to me to adjust to my new surroundings. My new life came with a new White stepfather, two little dogs, and two new White step-siblings. A bit much for a girl who was used to being an only child living with her grandparents. Nonetheless, I made the best of my situation. I kept my head low, never acted out of character, and got decent grades for a someone who had to get over a hell of a learning curve. I finished my first year of middle school relatively okay considering the changes. Then in seventh grade, things began to shift when I developed my first crush and I started to notice some things...

My seventh-grade year of middle school, I developed a crush on a boy in my grade who just so happened to be biracial. Even though I had never been rejected by someone because of the color of my skin, I somehow knew that if I approached him it would be an issue. So, naturally, I asked my predominately White friends from my predominately White school what they thought I should do. They suggested that I shift my focus to one of the one Black boys in our school because they thought he was more likely to want to go out with me. Just a hunch that they had. So I started paying extra attention to him and turns out, he only liked White girls. Now, this was extremely foreign to me. I had never experienced a Black person who didn't like other Black people romantically. Where I grew up, Black men dated Black woman and there was never any worry that someone of your own race wouldn't be attracted to you. By the end of the year, I realized that maybe I wasn't going to have the best of luck when it came to dating while I was up there.

I finished my eighth-grade year with no crushes and devastated about the loss of one of my only Black friends to another school. So I went into freshman year of high school not only nervous about what lay ahead over the next four years but also with no one who could uniquely understand what I was going through. My mother and I weren't very close, of course, and my stepfather spent most of his time making jokes about me. Most of which were about the color of my skin and my body. Freshman year was also the year I decided I wanted to change my hair. I had relaxed hair for as long as I could remember and I wasn't quite ready to give it up, BUT I was willing to shave the sides. I came to school in the middle of the year with buzzed sides and a long straight quiff on top. This was the first time I got a glimpse of myself with semi-natural hair. This would also become my signature look until my sophomore year of high school when things really started taking off for me.

With some convincing from my friends, I joined the color guard and was thrust into the world of privileged White kids. I'm not talking about regular White privilege. I'm talking about the kind of privilege that's annoying for anyone, especially so on White people. That summer, at band camp, was the first time anyone had asked me if they could touch my hair. My hair had begun to grow out on the sides so my natural kinky hair was now on full display. Nervous about what would happen if I said no, I would lean over and let them pet me like a dog. It makes me cringe to think about it now. By the end of the season, I was ready to make another change to my hair. At the time, my mother had locs and that inspired me to be just as bold with my natural hair. Summer before junior year I did my big chop and I dyed my hair bleach blonde. That was also around the time I discovered my first feminist pages on Instagram. I would stay up for hours reading blogs and posts about equality. I walked into my junior year of high school with a blonde afro and ready to tear down the patriarchy.

In the midst of my mini-revolution, I found the time to develop another crush. This time the boy was fully White. We had been cool since middle school but for whatever reason that year I decided that I liked him in a different way. Instead of going to my friends, this time I decided to confront him about my feelings myself. Now, he was never the type to be mean, and he was a good friend of mine, so I guess he thought the best way to let me down was to not say anything at all. The next day we swept it under the rug as if nothing had happened. He did, however, try to push me off on his friend. That's another story. Crushed by the rejection, I threw myself into feminist pages about how trash the opposite sex is and Ed Sheeran's first album to help me feel better. My friends once again tried to make it all better by suggesting another non-White guy for me to be interested in. They even double checked this time and were more than thrilled to tell me "I think he even likes Black girls." And while before in seventh grade I would have seen that as a good thing, I remember pausing and feeling incredibly hurt and insecure.

The summer before my senior year came around and I was in a transitional point in my journey. I could either continue on being blind to issues that were right in front on me, or I could start being more aware. The decision was made for me when there was another shooting of an unarmed Black man. I was watching the news with my mother and stepfather when they started live coverage of a Black Lives Matter march that was taking place. My White stepfather, naturally, was very offended by the chants and started going on and on about how it wasn't fair. How he would catch hell for saying white lives matter and chanting it in the streets. My mother agreed with him and went on the say that it was only fair that they say all lives matter. I had heard of the Black Lives Matter movement before but I never paid too much attention to what was going on. I was asked what I thought, and looking at their faces I could see that the opposition I was feeling wasn't going to fly. So I said I wasn't too sure what was going on, but all lives do matter. Later that night, I went to my room and read some of the posts about it on Instagram but most of the posts were on Twitter. So I secretly made an account so I could see more about the topic. This was my eureka moment.

Reading all those posts online formed several questions in my mind. The main one being: If all lives truly mattered, why did black people have to keep going out into the streets to protest? As I read more and more posts, it became very obvious that there was a huge problem with how Black people are viewed in the United States. I had been vaguely aware of the inequality between races since I was a small child living in the rural south; but it had never been more clear to me than when I joined Twitter. The app really helped open my eyes to things that I never even knew other people were going through. I didn't know that other Black people felt uncomfortable when White folks asked to touch their hair. Or that it wasn't okay how much my stepfather made fun of my skin and my heritage. I didn't know Black men wanting every race other than there was such a problem in the Black community. I certainly didn't know we still had so far to go as a race. I finished senior year ready to go out into the world with my new knowledge, hoping to make a change any way I could.

My first real test of my wokeness came when I encountered a White guy that wanted to date me because he thought I was 'pretty for a black girl.' I dated him even after he said this to me so it's safe to say I failed. Old habits die hard I guess. I paid for it with sexual assault and lingering scars from a guy I should've avoided in the first place. This was when I swore off White men. But in dealing with that I gained more sympathy towards rape victims and a greater understanding of why women truly say "Men are trash." Twitter also introduced me to the LGBT community and made me realize that their issues are mine and that until we all have rights none of us do. This post isn't sponsored by Twitter or anything LOL, it just played a big part in opening my eyes to the world around me.

Flash forward to now and I'm back in Louisiana living my best life, with the man I love, and figuring things out one day at a time. I don't talk to my mother or stepfather because there are still traumas that I have to work through. That being said, they played a part in me becoming who I am today. If I wouldn't have gone up there then I wouldn't have gone through all the experiences: dealt with the depression, dealt with the constant teasing from my stepfather and dealt with being one of a few Black girls in a sea of White people. So while I mourn for the life I could've had, I'm in a way glad for the one I did have. Now I'm not perfect, and I'm still learning new things all the time. I just know I'm not where I used to be and for that I'm thankful.