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Personal Narrative: Race And Skin Color

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Until about age fifteen race and skin color was not evident to me. I wasn’t black and my friends weren’t white because we were all people. I think growing up in a white school and town caused me to forget who I am, what my heritage was, and that I’m not white. At a young age, my father passed away so the “black” part of me didn’t matter. Growing up with white friends, teachers, cousins, and schools made me believe I was white like them. Even though I learned about weaves, weed, parties, poverty, and ashy knees, when I visited my father’s side of the family in New York, being black didn’t mean anything to my naive brain. I wasn’t white or black but a person. Something that bothered me as a kid was why I looked different. I didn’t have blonde straight hair, pale skin, blues eyes, and I didn’t resemble my idol, Britney Spears. So I straightened my hair, I would put lotion on my skin hoping I would magically change skin colors, I begged my mom for contacts, and in seventh grade I got a blonde ombre. Today, I realize I’m not white, I’m not the average webb citian and I’ve learned to accept that even though…show more content…
He didn’t understand why he was label as a “colored boy” or forced to go to a black school or sit in the “colored” section of the train. He didn’t understand why innocent black people were being killed at night. He didn’t understand the stories and events that happened in front of him but developed a fear of white people. Reading this real-life experience caused me to really think about the crap people had to go through: the constant fear of their lives, poverty, hunger, getting a lower pay or black tax, and the struggles of life in general. How black people couldn’t stay in a hospital post surgery but had to be taken to a colored hospital that is unsanitary and usually overpopulated with ill
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