I have never hated my blackness.

In my youth, I felt shame about my African-ness - the stares and sniffs from others my mother and father would attract as they loudly spoke into their cellphones in a language not readily accessible or identifiable to the Western world I was born into. The bright colors of their clothes and the incessant jangling of their jewelry which - though beautiful - when posited next to the muted colors and tame silence worn by the parents of my friends, made me feel like there was a spotlight constantly trailing my every move. I felt shame at the way my food, so foreign and unheard of to my peers, would garner comments and widespread attention - a scrutiny so intense, it made me feel like an animal in the zoo. I felt shame at my gnawing need to over explain the normalcy of the country my parents came from because, no, they didn't live nor grow up anything like those poor people in National Geographic.

As if there was an inherent shame that came with being born a first generation African-American.
As if that identity was meant to be viewed only with the far-removed mortification as performed by every person who has ever breezed past the homeless person begging for paltry change on the sidewalk, but then went home and gasped, "could you even imagine?! I'm so blessed!" at a Christian Children's Fund commercial (taking it way back to the 90s).

I felt shame because, in my youth, I believed the only tolerable version of foreign was the one that contained little deviation from the norms of the West.

I suppose such is a phase many ethnic kids separated from their interior identity go through - feelings of embarrassment at the very 'Otherness' of you in comparison to the external performance you put on for fear of rejection. As if denying the most intimate side of you will make your life amongst those you perceived as being unwilling to recognize the splendor in difference, easier. A defense mechanism done by removing yourself from close proximity to an ethnic identity not easily swallowed by the prying, intrusive eyes of the - then - thought to be constantly watching, constantly judging public.

But I was never ashamed of being Black.

Even growing up in a majority-white suburb, attending majority-white educational institutions, being surrounded by majority-white people, there was nothing about mine own blackness or that of others which could be harnessed and used as a weapon to make me feel less than.

Not color, not hair, not behavior - nothing.

And in surprisingly quick time, I grew out of feeling shame at the brash, unapologetically loud Cameroonian other-ness of my parents. I didn't care that I came to school with lunch packed in plastic containers so stained with oil that no dish soap can ever remove. I didn't care about the beautifully gaudy prints, the loud conversations, the stereotypes, the jokes from the African kids, the jokes from the American kids, the stares from the White kids and all the other damn kids - I didn't care because I learned and grew to be comfortable in myself.

I had realized that the eyes I could have sworn were watching my every 'ethnic' move were merely manifestations of my own anxieties - insecurities I had projected onto all who did not share my similar backstory.

I grew up and found my tribe. I grew up and actually started listening to my mother. Appreciating her for what she was: a link to an identity many didn't have the fortune of knowing. A link to a history and culture which would, one day, be my responsibility to share with my own offspring.

Her messages commanding I take pride in my heritage may have embedded themselves into my psyche late, but they came before any insecurity could cement itself.

She was proud of who she was, why shouldn't her offspring be, too?

I also learned to put myself first and not to give a single f*ck about what anyone thought.

There was nothing inherently traumatic about being a Black, Cameroonian-American girl, so why would I allow any identity crisis to bleed into my psyche and have me thinking otherwise?


As I always say, insecurity is a big, ugly stain. No matter how much you may try to hide it, wipe it out of your being, it shines like a beacon to all who recognize how to identify it.

So why wallow?

If I do not love me, who will?

Today I witnessed an explosion. An internal eruption of just what happens when you let the anxieties fester and breed an identity crisis borne of the late-in-life resurfacing of residual insecurity. Of course, I witnessed it with thanks to Twitter because it is my Medium Place, but I would like to make it a point to say:


I have never hated being Black. I have never hated being a Woman. I have never hated being Cameroonian.

I have endured struggle as a response, but that is not all my identity encompasses. Stating and capitalizing of of this mentality is a dishonest and an ill response and portrayal of 'otherness'.

There are some who will paint all of these identities with a wide brush, standing upon a soapbox proclaiming that their own experiences are a testament to the experiences of all who fall into those squares.

Generalizations meant to dehumanize.

Generalizations made to affirm stereotypical perceptions.

Generalizations meant to frame mundane behavior as inherently revolutionary because you feel your existence (as observed through any lens other than your own) should never be seen as weak.

Stop it.

Humans are not one-dimensional and, for the millionth time, we do not share the same experience.

To quote the great Naomi Campbell, "do not compare yourself to me, ever."

We may share culture, but there is no one, universal life story which we all share.

Expand past that mentality.
Expand past craving the praise of those who will applaud you in one breath, and just as quickly hang you out to dry, so badly you sacrifice yourself and any credibility you may have ever had.

My being black is not automatic proof of an existence steeped in misery.

Digging the knife deep into the back of your 'otherness' does not eliminate it - just opens the gash of insecurities and anxieties wider to be probed by those who will - for lack of better phrasing - merely use it as a receptacle for which they may circle jerk into until they are spent and bored.

Otherness is not a scourge, despite what is thought, despite what is told.

It is nothing to feel shame over.