My brown baby girl
My brown baby girl
Sitting at a toddler-sized desk in a seat created for a pint-sized human was my usual spot to color with my two-year-old daughter. She was overly happy to paint in her coloring book. I usually engage with her by asking about the colors she’s using. This evening was a little different. I observed her coloring so passionately with intense concentration and vigor. I asked, “Caity, what color is mommy?” She replied, “Brown.” Then I asked her, what color are you? She replied, “Brown…I brown mommy.” I was moved by her innocence and ability to recognize the color of the skin she was born with. Then, it saddened me because this country will soon categorize her as “Black.” And, with that category comes the hard box of stereotypes associated with being “Black.”
She will learn that being Black is viewed as a minority and that word alone says “minor”, or less than, and if you’re minor, then who is the majority? Being labeled as a Black person comes with the uneasiness of others when you’re around. Being labeled as a Black person comes with the perception that you’re distrustful/unintelligent/lazy/up to no good/guilty. Please understand the terms “Black” and “White” were created to divide and separate people. It was a useful social construct to keep the indentured servants and slaves from bonding together to overtake a class-driven society. People were once identified by their nationality and not the color of their skin. This country is continually creating new ways to separate us.
She will have to learn the “Black Rules”. They are a set of unwritten rules that Black people follow in order to govern themselves.
What I say to you, my beautiful brown baby girl, is that you are a Goddess, a divine gift of creation, a rare beauty that can be traced through the lineage of your people. You have the spirit of the Moors, you have the essence of the Pharaohs; your intellect superseded the Greeks, the fire in your eyes would make the sun quiver. You are a warrior that the world will try to hide, and you sit not at the table but are the head of the table. My queen, my goddesses, my daughter!