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Growing up in America, I would always hear that the hardest thing to be is Black and that I would have to work 2x as hard if not harder, just to be on the same level as my white counterparts.…

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“Finding myself” in relation to my travels make it sound as if I actually left my right leg in Medellin, or something. But “finding myself” is exactly what I’m trying to do.

Because after 23 years of thinking that I knew my ethnic background — of thinking that I knew who I was — I have found out news that changes everything, but at the same time, nothing:

I am (probably) black.

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So I’m not here to write another think piece on the recent events affecting the black community in America, because I’ve already said all I needed to say here, which by the 1K+ likes and 500+ shares, I’ll take it…

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Growing up a black woman has taught me a lot about the world.

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“I’ve experienced fear while witnessing and recording two officers beat and throw around another relative of mine (male) while they were already in handcuffs. Yet, I’ve also experienced an officer giving my friend and I a ride home because we were stranded in the middle of the night.”

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The Bachelor had a conversation on race, but not the one it should have had.

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But we have not escaped this myth that we are neither less than or superhuman.

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“Slow down, mister, I don’t really understand.
Are you black or what? Cause my pops says being black
Is bad, but you don’t sound that messed up
So I’m just wondering, are you really black or
Are you something else?”

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By now we should all be decently aware that being black in America has its fair share of societal difficulties. What’s sometimes left out are the little things that we experience — especially if we just so happen to be the only one around.

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Appropriators are doing themselves such a great disservice if they think the black experience is just limited to hairstyles and hip-hop.