Strange Fruit

·       Being Black is feeling your heart stop when you drive past a 6:1 ratio of cop cars to Black man traffic stop.

·       Being Black is having to do the Matrix when someone tries to pet your hair like a zoo animal.

·       Being Black is to figure out a way to wear the hair that grows from your scalp so that you don’t offend your non-black superiors.

·       Being Black is learning how to code switch between your true self and your everyone-else self, as to not come off as any less intelligent in professional settings.

·       Being Black is having someone tell you that they have “so much more respect for you” after finding out that you’re a scientist.

·       Being Black is being told that your family “smells like tribes” upon entering a restaurant.

·       Being Black is being drunkenly told by your non-black boyfriend how beautiful he thinks you are because you “have nice, small, attractive features like your nose and lips”.

·       Being Black is watching the look of surprise when his mother (who never truly liked you for some strange reason) found out you had graduated from a university (while her son had not) with a dual degree in Neuroscience and Biology.

·       Being Black is being worried about your sister driving around with a license that expired during a pandemic and had been unable to find appointments in the entire tri-county to renew, or going for a run around the neighborhood by herself.

·       Being Black is being raised to watch your tone or keep your mouth shut altogether so that you don’t come off as angry or aggressive.

·       Being Black is being told to always comply, and know your rights at all times.

·       Being Black is watching your father go above and beyond to  invite a White police officer into our home to look around after claiming to have received a call from our address “with a crying child in the background” at 2am on a Tuesday morning while everyone in the home was asleep.

·       Being Black is having grown up with, fed, clothed, and sometimes housed a White friend while in grade school as her family struggled to keep their heads above water, only to be called a nigger by her mother.

·       Being Black is being the only POC in your white class.

·       Being Black is listening to your parents’ stories about being the first graduating integrated class of their school, people they knew that had been sprayed by hoses or had dogs sicked on them by police, or their friends dying at the hands of White people who skinned them alive with a pair of pliers.

·       Being Black is being told you are pretty “for a Black girl”, or my personal favorite, pretty “for a dark skinned girl”.

·       Being Black is having to convince others not to kill you.