My disconnect from Black culture -- and how I reclaimed it
I'm black.
This is pretty damn obvious if you did a cursory look at any of my social media, this website, whatever. But yeah, I'm black. And I'm slowly coming around to accepting that.
You see, as a kid, I was raised in pretty white areas at school that weren't overtly and obviously racist, but more subtly and uncomfortably bigoted at points. The occasional comment about how my nose is too big, my skin is too dark to look nice, how "people like me don't speak English", it goes on and on. Whatever. My point is, not the best kind of environment for a black boy in America.
I was homeschooled for a year in my life and became incredibly unashamed at expressing my thoughts and being generally friendly to the people around me. When I got looked at like I was crazy after re-entering real school (because homeschooled kids lack social cues most of the time), I quickly wanted nothing more than to fit in with the other kids.
Things got so bad when I was really young that my self-image was that of a white kid. Tried to get my name legally changed to whatever corny ass white names I could think of at the time, and grew angry at my hair not following the same pattern as the kids around me. I wanted to fit in, but obviously that didn't really work out.
Now, I've lived a pretty comfortable lower-middle class life. Parents are together and have a healthy relationship, sisters both have their quirks but enjoy my presence, and I've got about 6 certificates, a nice-looking resumé, and a couple credits working towards my bachelor's. But I think this was my downfall, at the same time. You see, I lacked the upbringing of even a lot of my Black peers in high school. They had to worry about whether or not the water would be running at home, I was concerned with dumb shit like my Gentoo installation at home breaking. And this kinda pulled me into the alt-right later on in life.
...More on that later.
Anyway, something clicked towards the end of high school, going into college, where I realized that a lot of my dysphoric feelings were because of: A. the fact that the gender binary didn't really work for me. B. I'm black, and not white.
So my twenties are gonna be a needed reclaiming of my own culture. That's probably the reason behind my excessive use of nigga :)
M.