Dear White People

*This post was written in May 2017 but still very much feels relevant in my life today*

Where do I even begin? Oh yes. Dear White people. The TV show, not an intro to a letter.

I just finished watching this tv show on Netflix and I’m angry. Seething mad, actually. But anger is not the only emotion invading my mind at the moment. I am also sad with a touch of enlightenment. You see- this show opened my eyes far more to who I am.

I am Sam and I am Coco. I am found and I am lost.

Let me tell you a bit about myself.

I’m Jennifer Jean-Pierre. A 35-year-old woman born in Port au Prince, Haiti but raised in the Midwest. Being Haitian comes with a lot. To me, it’s the most beautiful culture in the world but of course I am biased.  Manners count for everything and gender roles are at the forefront of it all. I am not looking to go in-depth about Haitian culture instead, give you some context. Being Haitian means more than likely if finances allow, you attend private school. And let’s be real honest- most private schools’ hallways are lined with White people.  I guess that’s a privilege.

I grew up around White people. I could count on one hand the number of Black people in my class.  My first-ever best friend in the USA was a girl named Gwendolyn. She was the first person to be patient enough to try to decipher my oh-so-broken English in the 1st grade. Oh, that’s the other thing- I’m an ESL kid. I didn’t know this language until I was about 7 years old. It took about 6 months to reach fluency and yet 28 years later, I still find myself putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong sy-llable.  I mean- it just happens. But it also plays a role in who I am.

Watching Dear White People was so hard. I see the internal struggles that face two of the main female characters, Sam and Coco. Sam, a biracial college student with the most radical of thoughts and actions, screams black power in every word she utters.  She does this so much that she created a radio show titled, “Dear White People” and Coco is a Black woman from the south side of Chicago who knows being Black is hard as shit in America but believes that assimilation paves the road to success. I fully see myself in both.

For most of my life, I was Coco. Not because I was trying to succeed but because I wanted to stay under the radar. I never wanted to be seen as the Black girl in my White school. I just wanted to blend in. I was shy until I wanted to be outspoken. It was in 8th grade when I transferred to an even more privileged private school that my confidence grew a bit. It grew in the form of a boycott. A boycott against my basketball coach who I felt was being unfair. About what? I honestly cannot remember but I convinced fellow teammates to skip practice until he changed his ways. And his ways did change. Go me!

From that, you would think I would continue to fight whatever good fight came my way but instead, I became a slight bully in high school. I went from shy to unreasonably ego-centric. My words were venom and I directed them at others. But then I started dating the wrong guy and I became the “victim” of bullying. Karma, right?

Throughout this whole journey, almost all of my friends were White. I did not feel comfortable with my fellow Black people because I didn’t get it. Black pop culture was as foreign to me as my first time hearing the English language. I was just a Valley Girl. So I avoided anything Black because I did not want to feel less-than and I didn’t want to be called an Oreo. You know- “black on the outside but white on the inside”. Ohhhhhh that would kill me to hear. That was the time in my life when it was far more comfortable to blend in with white people rather than be teased by those who looked like me.

So……. college came and I joined a white sorority. Not because it was white but because it was all we had at the time at Michigan State. I had intentions of Skee Wee’ing my way through but their probation occurred during my time on campus. So my pink and green aspirations went out the door.

I loved my sorority sisters. I still love my sorority sisters. But it was not until recently that I was faced with the fact that some of them saw me as the Black girl they let in. Even worse, a lot of my “sisters” ended up being closet bigots. As in, we can date Black guys but can’t marry them cause “what would people think”.  We can be friends with you and that means we aren’t racist. But I digress. This is not about them. This is about me.

College was when I made my first close Black friend. She was a “Valley girl” like me. It was easy. I could hang with someone who looked like me and acted like me. I felt like I had found my safe space. Until she left school….

Prior to my senior year in college, I only dated white men. Not because I didn’t find Black men attractive, but because I never felt “Black” enough. It was not until my senior year that I dated a man who forever changed my views. While he teased me incessantly about my “Blackness”, he also allowed me to be me. Thanks C-Diddy.

My time out of college has been an interesting one. I still have issues trying to fit in. They may be real or perceived. The last 2 years I really have gotten to a point of giving no F’s. That was prompted by an eye-opening breakup. I’m so thankful for that breakup. But I left that breakup and all my thoughts about it in my old blog, Comme Coco.

This is about Dear White People and how it affected me. This is about the systemic racism that we face every single day. This is about the fear we feel when around police officers. This is about the pain and anger that we, Black people feel about the gunning down of our Black men day in and day out and the murderers being set free. This is about the quickness of gun reform debates occurring after White children are gunned down at school yet the guns who are killing the Black youth are blamed solely on the “hood” mentalities. Cause hey- black lives don’t matter in America.

Am I woke?

I don’t know. But I do know that I am hella mad. I know that it’s hard for me at times to feel comfortable with my non-Black friends. Nothing against them. They did not do anything. I love them to death. It’s just- they can’t understand the pain, anger, or culture. The same way that my fellow Black people could not relate to my Valley girl-ness is how my White friends, although they try, cannot relate to what it feels like to be Black in America. It’s hard. Really hard.

But I guess it’s just the way the Oreo cookie crumbles.

No matter how I speak, what slang I use, what school I went to, and how I may carry myself, I am never ever fooled into thinking I’m not black. I know who I am. Society knows I am black. And my Black life along with all my brothers and sisters’ lives matter. But America feels differently.

In May 2017, I spent 5 days surrounded by fellow sisters (other black girls if you didn’t know). I have never felt so free, open, and unrestricted in my life. I know that a big part of it was my own self journey of love that afforded me certain confidence boosting but it’s also being around other beautiful black women. It truly is a sisterhood. While I still may sound more Valley girl than anything- I am 100 percent Black- mind, body, and soul.

A very, very proud Black woman.

A black woman who truly needs to catch up on the culture but nonetheless I don’t have the same hang-ups.

I’m currently typing this in the Notes app on my phone while sitting in the aisle seat of my Southwest flight back home. Watching Dear White People compelled me to write. It inspired me to speak about my journey.

Bravo to the creators of this amazing show. Not only do you have people thinking but also speaking.

Dear White people,

Please tune into Netflix ASAP and watch all 10 episodes of Dear White People.

It’s time for y’all to get woke in your own way.

*This post was written in May 2017 but still very much feels relevant in my life today*