It is, though, isn't it? I mean, why keep trying to be someone I'm not? You know, people told me that there was a difference, but it really doesn't hit you until you see it, until you feel it, for yourself.
You could call me an African American.
You could call me Black.
You could call me mixed, multiracial, biracial, mulatto, mongrel or a motherfucking nigger but you wouldn't be right. You wouldn't.
I wouldn't.
The funny part is, I've been trying to. I read books, I took classes, I talked to people, I thought about it, but it still didn't hit me. I thought, mixed, yeah, mixed would work. Ooo, multiracial, that's cool. Biracial, yeah that works. African American? Well, technically. I guess. Black? Sure, why not.
But it doesn't fit.
I am trying, I am learning, I am pretending, but every time I make a misstep I invalidate myself, my very identity. And every time, I remember:
It doesn't fit.
"Of African descent?" What does that even mean? Who in the hell came up with that? What were they thinking? .... And yet.
Sure, it could be applied to anyone with skin darker than whoever, with hair that did whatever. This is literally the vaguest term any PC freak could ever think of, but the thing is. It's the only one that's true.
But what really gets my goat here is that that's all I have, and I don't even have that. I'm not African American, I'm not a part of their culture, and I won't ever be. All I have is my African heritage. But I don't know a single fucking thing about Africa. I've never been there, I don't know about half of my family, I don't speak the language, and I'm already an adult.
So where do I fit? Hell if I know.
