Beautifully Accepted

Non-fiction by Ashley Damm, 17

Beauty: a combination of qualities that delights the aesthetic senses.

Acceptance: adequate, though not outstanding or perfect.

All my life I’ve been the colored girl in the all white class, and until around the age of 11 I hated it. I was different. Different from the kids at school, different from my friends, and different from my family.

When my mom was pregnant with my first sister Erica, I was ecstatic. Even as a 5-year-old I saw my "difference" and I was excited to have someone in my family who looked like me. I was heart broken as my mom tried to explain to me why my sister was going to be white. I didn’t care that her daddy was white; I wanted a brown sister, dang it. I wanted someone to share my color with, so when we were in a public place and people gave us weird looks, the looks could be directed at "us" and not just "me." I don’t think my sister ever noticed that I was different. Not the way I did. I didn’t know how many people knew about my difference, my abnormality as I thought of it, but I wanted to hide it. It was like a big secret I was trying to hide, not realizing that it was un-disguise able.

As I grew older I learned the words "black" and "white" with new meanings. I never knew that they were people. My mom wasn’t the color of paper and my biological father was only black in a dark alley way, but that is what they were called. Where did that leave me? Grey. I knew my colors well enough to know that black and white made grey. Only there was no such thing as grey people. If I wanted to call myself grey then I would definitely be alone. When trying to talk to a friend about it , she informed me that I wasn’t grey, but a "mutt". I had only ever heard that term used for a dog. Then I was really lost; I wasn’t black, or white, or grey, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be a dog.

I decided that the only way to avoid being a mutt, or in a shmucky grey class all alone, was to be either black or white. I had to pick. It wasn’t hard. I wanted to be white with straight blonde hair and big blue eyes. The more I fixed the "perfect me" image in my head, the more different I became. I felt like a big lump of coal in a sea of diamonds. I noticed the small things that other people had that I didn’t. Like how thick their eyelashes were or what size feet they had. My eyes were like touchy radars that noticed every tiny detail. I felt like a bad copy machine. When the cool girls got new clothes, I got the closest thing I could find in my budget. Then I felt more different when they all looked better. After the cool girl wore their hair down, I wore mine down and I gained the nickname, ‘mop-head.’ I wanted so badly to be accepted. To just be one of the many white roses. Instead I was the tall, deep red rose.

In school we started learning about slavery, and since I was one of two black children in the school and one of one in my class, I became again what I thought was the star of a freak show. But the more I learned about black history, the more I wanted to know. I started feeling a minuscule size sense of pride, knowing that my ancestors were so strong; overcoming great trials and dealing with racist, ignorant people.

It was then, when I first learned the word nigger. We were taught that it was a mean word to use for a black person, that was used a lot in slave days. The word nigger inspired feelings in me that the others didn’t have. The word gave me feelings of disgust, anger, hatred, sorrow, and shame all mixed together. It was a big, unhappy feeling that I had never had before and no one else in the class had that feeling; you could tell by the bored looks on their faces. I was alone again. I was in a crowded classroom full of people and I was alone.

At the end of my 5^th grade year, my family and I moved to Beaverton, and for the first time in my life there were black people in my neighborhood, in my school, in my class, and in my life. My time spent there was time spent un-brainwashing myself. It didn’t matter that I was mixed; I was called black and black was beautiful. "Nigger," when used by black people, was a cool word to say. I heard my first blonde jokes. In the summer time I didn’t get mad that I became a deep chocolate brown color, I laughed at the poor white folk getting sunburned. There were three cool girls and they weren’t all white. My friend Erin who was black, my friend Jessica who was white, and me; both. We set the cool clothes standard and the cool hair standard and since all of our hair was very different, there was a hair style for everyone. No mop-heads.

The thing I liked most about that school was the diversity. Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, and Arabs. Even though I was called black, I was allowed to be white. I wasn’t grey unless I wanted to be. I had found my circle to be a part of; my pearl of confidence that in turn made my inner beauty shine through to the outside. My inner beauty was always there, I just never let it illuminate my life.

Now I am back to being the black girl in the all white class. I no longer wish I was one the pretty white faces, but I still have the "different" feeling every now and again. I have to decide when to be black and when to be white. I have to stay in "white character" when I’m with the white kids, because otherwise I get made fun of for sounding "black," I have to stay in "black character" when I’m with the black kids or I get made fun of for sounding "white." Sometimes I wish I could just be grey all time but alas, I can only be grey around the grey people. Grey can be dark or light but it is always grey. Simple and beautiful. Race is your chosen color identity; I choose to be grey.

Acceptance: knowing who you are and becoming part of a circle of people who know who they are.

Beauty: loving yourself on the inside and letting it shine through to the outside.

Posted 06/30/06