Personal Narrative: My Experience Of Being Black

All throughout time people have been “the other.” Pratt refers to the other as being “Someone who is perceived by the dominant culture as not belonging, as they have been

Too black for the White kids, yet somehow too white for the Black kids, oh the perils of a cappuccino mixed race kid. But it’s true. My life since I was young, at least younger than my eighteen year old self, has been about which group do I most fit in with. Between the four school changes over the course of twelve years, all in white suburban towns I’ve molded myself into an array of characters.

These moments didn’t just remind me what checking off the Caucasian box for all these years meant, but they also made me wonder why progress has not been made in a country that promises greatness.

Hello I'm Hannah Williams. I am half Pilipino and half Black. I am very shy at first when it comes to meeting new people. I am very sociable with my friends and family. Since my parents are divorced I live in two houses. My dad lives in Torrance California and my mom lives in Northridge California. I've moved schools about four times. The first two schools I went to were catholic schools and the third school i went to was a public school and the last school I went to was a charter school. This is my second year at SOCES and I am planning on staying until my senior year. During my free time I like to hang out with my friends. I like going to the beach and go on road trips. My favorite sport is volleyball because I've been playing for four years

I am thankful to say that I hopefully will have the opportunity to birth and rear you into a mature young man who will then flourish into a powerful, strong willed, black male. Your mother and I will chaperone you through your days of being an adolescent. Even so, the time will come when you will be forced to learn to accept yourself as a guide and move forward from that point into making your own decisions. Then from this point on, you will be in the pursuit of harnessing your manhood into what you find to believe it is meant to be. Challenges will seem to become your reality and they will have to be accepted, battled, and mastered.

Mendoza was not the safest place for 3 young white girls to be though. Never have I received so many cautionary tips and advice to be aware and protect my belongings in my life. On our last night as we are walking to the bus station a 30-something year old Korean woman was wailing in the streets. She was screaming and crying and trying to find someone who could help her. I stopped and she cried as she was asking me if I spoke English and Spanish. I did and was doing all I could to translate between her, the Argentineans who were so kind to help her, and the police. This young women had a bus to catch in 20 minutes and was freaking out about if she would be able to file a police report in time. A group of strangers spat on her and as another group was trying to clean her up,

When I started this assignment, I was puzzled; Am I Chinese or am I Australian. I asked my Asian friends about their racial identity in hopes they could help me, but they didn’t know. It’s almost crazy to say that I didn’t know my own identity. I was born in Australia and both of my parents are of Chinese heritage. And after some intense and informative Google searches, I can now tell you that I am Chinese-Australian. My first language spoken was Cantonese and later I learnt English. But despite the fact that I was born and have lived in Australia my whole life; I have felt the immense pressure of just being a ‘nobody’ in society.

All people recognize race due the distinctive differences of their skin colors. Africans, Europeans, and Asians can be distinguished at a glance since the races differ is obviously from each other. If a person stated they cannot recognize race, that would not be true. Personally, is how a person’s treat the race that matters. Anyhow, I was born in a war-torn country, thus, my family and I moved from one refugee camp to the next one in search for a safe and a better place to resettle. To make a long story short, I first recognized racial differences in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa. I had rocks thrown at me and was called names such as coffee pot, monkey etc., due to the color of my skin. In addition, when my family arrived in the U.S in 1994,

I’m coffee bean skin, I’m brown sugar bones, I’m lion made hair. I’m African. I’m Ethiopian. But I’m not Drakes “East African girl,” or Trey Songz’s “Ethiopian Eritrean chicken,”

My interpretation to racism is different from most looking at me I am white however, I have a mixed mother, and my mother side is mixed. Being with my family and, listening to their story’s. I have noticed racism is ignorance on both sides with closed hearts and, minds however, for me I see the potential for good making me the perfect emissary for bother worlds.

Eight pairs of angry legs storm forward in my direction; anxiety overwhelms me. On either side of me, I see seven individuals, each wielding a distinct look of anticipation. With each second, the distance between me and the advancing figures diminishes; still, I am motionless. One by one, the figures beside me jolt forward, carrying in their hands a baton. Milliseconds pass, and I too thrust out; my teammate hands me a baton; my portion of the race begins. As I pick up speed, I sense adrenaline invading every inch of my body. The only message that my brain transmits to my legs is “Run!” Fourth. Third. Second. First. I am in first. Never have I experienced such exhilaration. All is going well until I near the 300-meter mark; with 100 meters

I was suddenly aware of my surroundings, the pitch black color of the back of my eyelids. I was beginning to recover slight memories from the terrifyingly realistic I had just pulled myself out of. I opened my eyelids, but quickly shutting them to protect my eyes from the blinding sunlight seeping in through my window. I could feel the hot sunlight on my face, afraid to open my eyes. I opened them slightly, adjusting them to the bright sun that was attempting to blind me. I shifted from my right side to my left arm, and used my free hand to rub the sleep out of my eyes. As I was finally beginning to wake up, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around the thin, rectangular object on my nightstand. I brought it closer to my face and clicked

It wasn’t a big moment, in fact nobody else on the course probably noticed it, but it’s a moment that I’ll never forget. I had raced the girl a few weeks ago, and had ended up beating her. At first, I didn’t even know her team was at the meet, and only realized she was there during the race. It was a hot meet, close to 100 degrees and I was probably a little dehydrated. In the middle of the course is a pretty steep hill and it was there that I began to have trouble breathing. By the middle of the hill I was almost hyperventilating, and it was then that this girl caught up to me. She could have easily passed me, and kept on running her race, but instead she slowed down and helped me fix my breathing. We ran the hill together, and soon I was breathing normally again. It was only then that we stopped running together. I beat her again that race, but it didn’t seem quite as important as before. This girl, who I had never really talked to, had stopped her race to help me, even though she could have ran a better time and placed better if she had just kept running.

My huge failure was like the recapitulation of the experience of the race: I had to grow foul with knowledge, realize the futility of everything, smash everything, grow desperate, then humble, then sponge myself off the slate, as it were, in order to recover my authenticity. I had to arrive at the brink and then take a leap in the

Ever since an early age, I was always told that I do not look like the typical Hispanic nor act like the typical White girl. It made it even worst that I do not speak fluently in Spanish and on many occasions people have come up to me asking for directions to somewhere, but I had to say, “Lo siento, no hablas mucho Español.” Growing up in a Mexican/Cuban household, I was raised to respect everyone for how you would like someone to treat you and not the color of their skin. I do not look quite look alike to my parents by having green eyes, sandy blonde-brown hair, and quite fair complexion. My mother has tan skin, caramel eyes, and black hair. Well, my father has blonde hair, blue eyes, and a darker skin color than my mother’s skin.