It’s a weird phenomenon to feel like all eyes are on you, yet at the same time feel like people who don’t look like you, don’t see you. I’ve made myself okay with the knowledge that certain people just can’t see me. Sometimes I hate to bring up race and my identity as a Black woman because I understand just wanting to be seen as an individual person. As our ex-biracial of the month, Zoe Kravitz, stated in her Sagittarius sarcasm about not being a “Black” artist, I might just go take a Black walk. (I do not agree with her, but I see her intended point) Sometimes I shy away from talking about that here because a lot of my experiences aren’t directly correlated to me being a Black woman, but at the same time aren’t they? Because I’m a Black woman experiencing these things? Slight tangent.
My whole life has been surrounded by Black people, so being Black was just normal, lol. I didn’t think too heavily about it all of the time because everyone around me was Black so the gloom and doom of what that comes with was just obvious? I’ve never thought about my race as much as I have throughout these last two years. Stepping on to a predominately white campus has me thinking and conscious about every step I take, everything I say, every move I make, everything I wear, just everything.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched LMAO, but maybe I’m just being dramatic. I feel hyper visible because many of these people have probably never been around a Black person before (outside of their token Black) and I feel like they are navigating their way through it? I don’t know. This is all just tension I feel in my head, nothing has actually happened.
I don’t think there’s a day that goes by here where I don’t think about being Black. It wasn’t like this before. Is it the PWI? Or Is it just because I’m growing up and that’s what life is like?
I feel like everything I do is a statement of some kind.
But then on the other hand, I feel invisible. Sometimes it feels like I’m a ghost nobody can see. Like I’m ignored because it’s assumed I wouldn’t want to strike up a conversation. I feel like there’s this chance that some people aren’t giving me. I don’t know.
When I’m the only Black person in a classroom is when I really feel this tug-of-war between hypervisibility and invisibility. In one sense, I’m visibly the only Black person, if not the only Black woman in the room. However, that very fact makes me want to shrivel up and not say anything, so I become invisible in the conversation. This is nobody’s fault (except maybe admissions, and deeper structural flaws), but that’s what happens. I watch as conversations happen around me and I stay silent about points in the readings--one, because I hate to be the one to point out the race factor, or intersectionalities; and two, because it seems fucking obvious. However, it turns out not to be so obvious when a white student points it out and a sea of “mhmms” flood the classroom.
I feel insane sometimes. Like I’m making this all up because I’m just assuming the worst, but then I hear horror stories from my friends and I’m like, how could I not also be experiencing this? Are my eyes closed?
Feeling ignored and not being able to explain how or why is the most confusing thing ever. You don’t trust your intuition and you question everything and you question yourself.
And it’s not an insecurity thing either. I am a very confident person, even when I’m feeling insecure, because I have been raised to be so. It’s not a feeling of lack of self-worth and what’s wrong with me, but rather a feeling of what the fuck is wrong with everyone else?
Well, that’s my bit. I can’t talk about everything because I still go here, but just know that being a Black woman on this/any/my/the/every campus is…a lot. But, we move.
Happy April.
(reiterating that I do not agree with this picture I am LOL'ing at her)
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