The Incorrect Black Person
My skin colour is not my destiny
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I am sick of being made to feel like I am an incorrect “black” person. I am tired of people telling me what my narrative and life story should be. I am done with people telling me that, when I say I did not grow up experiencing racism, it must be a trauma response—that I have somehow forgotten being called a nigger every day, being pulled over unfairly, and being denied jobs. I am sick of people ascribing the experiences of some African Americans to me as though that is the black experience.
What does “black” even mean? What is the black community? Who is the black community?
There is no such thing. There is simply a demographic of people who share one immutable characteristic: higher levels of melanin. Even that is a shaky and somewhat inaccurate description. I am half black, so my skin is not remotely black, it is light brown. My father, who is “fully black”, is not literally black either. Even the darkest-skinned people I have seen are not black. But fine, let us go with “black”. That is the only “black community” that objectively exists.
There is nothing inherent to that demographic other than our skin pigmentation. Some of us are fully black, half black, some quarter black. Some are Caribbean, East African, West African, African American, and so on. Some live in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, or Oceania. Some have multiple nationalities or mixed ethnic backgrounds.
In my case, I am Australian, French, and Italian—born in Australia to an Italian-Australian mother and a French father who migrated here. I grew up speaking French and Italian before later learning English. My “black” ancestry is Haitian.
One of my friends is Nigerian. She was born in Australia to Nigerian parents. She has darker skin than I do. We have almost nothing in common when it comes to our ethnic backgrounds, cultures, family histories, or experiences with race—whatever that means. Yet people lump us together as “black” and insist we belong to the same community. She is in my community because she is my friend, not because she is black. The only thing we share is that we both have darker skin pigmentation. People also assume we also share the same socioeconomic status, educational background, and “oppression status”. Apparently, to be black is to be oppressed. The black condition is assumed to be one of misery, exclusion, and constant abuse.
That may be true for some people. I do not doubt it. But it is not my story.
Why can people not speak about racism using language that reflects their own experiences instead of universalising them? Why create a single narrative for an enormously diverse group of people?
Say, “I experienced this.” Say, “This happened to me.” Stop saying “we”, “us black people”, or speaking with certainty about how black people think or feel. You have ascribed me a story that is not mine.
I do not descend from people who were sold to the British and enslaved in the Americas. My Haitian ancestors were sold by the French and some other African countries. That is part of Haitian history. It has not defined my life.
I grew up in a diverse, relaxed country and suburb. I did not grow up in the Bronx, in a Botswanan village, or in a favela. I know others did, but that is not me. That is their story, not mine. I am tired of being placed under their umbrella and made into a character in their story, and I am sure they do not want to be placed in mine either.
Stop mixing us together!
Stop calling us “people of colour”—unless someone has specifically asked you to. If you know a person’s nationality or ethnicity, and it is relevant, then simply say it. Say, “My friend Jessica is Kenyan.” You do not need to say she is “a person of colour”. You do not need to say “people of colour”, or “racialised people”. Where appropriate, refer to people by their nationality or ethnicity rather than their skin colour. It is both more accurate and more meaningful.
The same goes for the word “white”. What does it even mean? People with lighter skin? Less melanin? At what point is someone white? Brown? Olive? Are olive-skinned Italians white? Or simply tanned? Are Native Americans white? It is all so incredibly arbitrary. Say, “my Scottish friend”, “my Anglo-Saxon friend”, or “my Italian friend”. “White” tells me almost nothing.
And stop treating my so-called “white” half as though it is something to discard or apologise for. Being Italian and French—yes, black French and Italian people exist—is a huge part of who I am. I speak the languages. I studied them. I have lived in France. I have family in both France and Italy. None of that conflicts with my Haitian ancestry or my dark skin.
Stop acting as though it is some sort of racial betrayal. Stop implying that this is why I am “not in touch with my blackness” or why I supposedly have not experienced racism.
Just take me as I am.
When I tell you who I am, believe me.
Do not look disappointed when I tell you my life has been good and privileged.
Do not glance at me whenever racism in America comes up.
Do not reach out to me every time a black person is killed by police in America.
Do not even think of me.
Do not even think of “black people” in America. Think about the actual people affected. If you know their ethnicity or community, think about them. There is no need to say, “Love to the black community.” Be specific.
And for goodness’ sake, stop making me think about my skin colour so much. It rarely enters my mind unless someone else brings it up. You think you are being inclusive by deferring to me whenever race is discussed or by treating me as though I should represent all black people. You are not being inclusive. You are othering me.
You are making race the most important thing about me. You are reducing my life to an immutable characteristic determined by genetics. That is prejudice.
Being black or mixed, or whatever label is one of the least interesting things about me. What shaped me are genetic luck, my family, my upbringing, my education, my values, where I have lived, and how I have been treated, not simply my skin colour.
Of course skin colour can shape people’s lives. I am not denying that. But you, the well-meaning “white” activist trying so hard to be anti-racist, are doing exactly what you claim to oppose.
Do not assume I have trauma.
Do not assume I am a victim.
Meet me first. Listen to me. Believe me when I tell you who I am!
Stop writing essays about how “black people” have “black fatigue” and speaking for all of us. I do have black fatigue—but in the opposite direction. I am exhausted by other black (and white) people constantly forcing me to think about being black. I even resent that this has pushed me into using language that I find confusing, imprecise, and antithetical to how I naturally think.
And please stop saying things like “black joy”, as though the phrase has any coherent meaning. The moment a black person tells you they have had a happy, privileged life, many people simply refuse to believe them.
Stop telling people to “read more black authors.” What does that actually mean? Authors with darker skin? Somali authors? Kenyan authors? Ghanaian authors? African American authors? Be specific.
If you are going to recommend “black authors”, do not recommend only left-wing writers who share the same oppressor-versus-oppressed worldview. Recommend black authors who disagree with one another. Recommend conservatives, liberals, socialists, libertarians, feminists, anti-feminists—people with different perspectives who might challenge your assumptions about black people and the so-called black experience.
Folks, I am tired of being made to feel as though I am the first black person on earth whose life has not been defined by racism, slavery, or oppression. That assumption reflects a particularly American and remarkably narrow conception of what it means to be black.
Let me be black, let me experience my life as it is. I will not force my story onto yours. Please do not force yours onto mine.
Just let me be “black” in peace.
For more essays on race, my views on it, and my “relationship” to it, read:
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Absolutely agree. Also the term community is so wooly as to be almost meaningless. I am on my local community council, what we share is a geographical space. That is the only feature relevant. We may tend to have some socio economic similarities but there’s a huge variety of different people here, from those very engaged with keeping the area a good place to live, to others who are only concerned with their own lives and could not care less about others.
Funnily the thing you have with people going "us blacks", happens to me online with American white supremacists they will go "us whites", and are confused when I go "What do you mean us whites?", I do not care about race, my enemy are people of different ethnicity across the border as white as me. But this is a very American white supremacist thing in my experience, they solely look at the world through race.
I have a question, has the treatment of blacks in Australia always been like this or is this a more recent (last few decades?) cultural import from US?