Regular Blacks are something like a lost cause. We go to the West Indian Day Parade and play innie-meenie-minnie-moe to pick a flag to represent. Or we say to ourselves, my boo is Trini, so I guess I’ll rep that. Regular blacks often bare the features of some other ethnicity but hastily deny any affiliated blood line whether it’s Haitian, Spanish or white… and collectively chant, “Regular Black… Regular Black.” It’s like we deny that inclusive pride because we’ve been denied. Regular Blacks hang around the other Blacks, be it Bajans, Nigerians or Jamaicans and feel the desire to sound just like them, so we subconsciously imitate their accent. But truth be told, we can barely understand a thing that’s being said to us. Then we get real ignorant and say things like, “Oh he’s cute for a Haitian” or “She’s pretty to be African.” And that’s only because we’re brainwashed by ideas of beauty. All in all, we are just a lost cause.
Many issues plague Black Americans with Caribbean and African descendants included. We collectively suffer economically, educationally and socially but regular blacks seem to sit uncomfortably at the bottom of those barrels. Nevertheless we’re excessively proud to see black faces in corporate America, in the highly ranked health fields, and any other positions of power… even when those numbers become slim for Regular Blacks. Is it because our minds remain enslaved? Do we have no sense of cultural pride, no sense of where we came from? Or are we still suffering from what Black Panther, Stokely Carmichael, coined as institutionalized racism? **shrugs** (Not shrugging cuz I don’t care… shrugging cuz I don’t know… do you??)
SB: I take pride in being Regular Black because I'm proud being BLACK!!
As a matter of Fact!!
February 2:
1862 - District of Columbia abolishes slavery
1897 - Alfred L. Cralle invented the ice cream scooper
1962 - 11 people arrested after sit-in
2010 - I blogged about being Regular Black
Got this stuff from BlackFacts.com
Black History in the USA: Banned Cartoon
Great Post! I feel you we often refer to ourselves as regular blacks because of ignorance and the fact that we are brainwashed. I didn't find out til I was eighteen that I was asian and black, because of ingorance. Because my skin was black, and i had what people refer to as good hair. The first thing they wanna know is do I have India n my family. I tell them my father drive a cherokee lol. Anyways I have locks now and I had a lady ask me was I rastafarian. Ignorance makes us hide from ourselves so I definetly feel sis.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated this reading. I'm often mistaken for being African American or something from the island decent and found myself being offend. Not because I think those cultures are ugly but the question that I ask persons who assume that I am because I am dark skinned with locked hair. So automactically I look non - Black American. It's crazy how we as black people still find the need to categorize who we are based upon what he look like. If I hear your cute for a dark skinned girl again . . .Please shoot me.
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