See, for some reason, color has become a touchy subject. Somewhere along the line, us, as African American people have stifled the conversation of our beautiful skin a bit. Somewhere in our effort to assimilate into the Anglo-American culture, we were taught we should shed our “true colors”. Which is such a shame because those “true colors” – they are oh so beautiful. Not only that, those true colors have a story to tell. A story that would get lost in the folds of time, if color didn’t matter.

If color doesn’t matter, the plight of those slaves like Harriet Tubman that were oh so brave to forge a path “literally” to freedom for their fellow slaves…. it wouldn’t matter.

The fact that Frederick Douglas educated himself so eloquently wouldn’t really be as big of a deal… if you didn’t know the color of his skin. You see, without knowing his color, you wouldn’t know the obstacles and adversity he faced in the 1800s to become the man that he was.

And don’t get me started on hair. You see, if color doesn’t matter, then there is no reason for me to teach my girls why their beautiful locks grow up instead of down, and that their kinks don’t make a “birds nest” but instead a glorious crown.

If color doesn’t matter, the blood, sweat and tears of so many (African American and Caucasian alike) who dedicated their lives to equality would just be an insignificant part of a feeble story which history spins into a fairy tale of sorts.

If color doesn’t matter, I can’t teach them to be aware of those in the world whose parents didn’t teach them the same. I can’t prepare them for the racism and hate they, unfortunately, will likely come face to face with at some point in their life.

I can’t teach them to go out and continue on in the battle for equality (and there is still, in fact, a battle for equality if you were unaware).

If color doesn’t matter, I can’t teach my girls that their black is beautiful. Just as beautiful as any other color.

If color doesn’t matter, my family and I no longer have a history before our freedom was stripped from us. I can’t teach them that while some people’s ancestors did arrive on the Mayflower, ours were not included on that.

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The post Why I’m Teaching My Children That Color DOES Matter first appeared on BonBon Break.

Always the optimist, I assumed everyone was as entertained as we were. A couple of days passed before I realized the intense criticism and backlash that Beyoncé’s performance had engendered.

There were rallying cries on Twitter to #BoycottBeyonce, claims that Beyoncé is a racist cop-hater, and criticism of the lack of white performers in her entourage. Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Guiliani called the show “outrageous,” while Fox & Friends Host Brian Kilmeade was in an uproar that Beyoncé “was basically telling cops to stop shooting Blacks.” And let’s not forget the invitations to protest the NFL for having the gall to let Beyoncé perform as she did.

I like to think that most white people, like myself, enjoyed the show and hope the incredible amount of hate levied against Beyoncé following the Super Bowl comes from an exceptional but very vocal few. But the stories popping up in my news feed certainly got me thinking.

Beyoncé is an incredibly savvy woman who used her Super Bowl performance as an opportunity to go beyond entertaining a crowd and say something. Her message was loud and clear and powerful. Was the Super Bowl – with its 115 million viewers – the place for that to happen? Why not? Because her message made some people uncomfortable?

That discomfort is exactly why her performance was so important.

White people have a choice in how to respond to Beyoncé’s message. We can dismiss it as racist and offensive and claim Beyoncé is an opportunistic cop-hater, echoing the knee-jerk reactions of ill-informed talking heads. We can pretend race relations in our country are peachy-keen and if Black people would just “respect the police” everything would be fine, refusing to consider overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We can believe Black people are here to entertain us, just as long as they don’t speak too loudly or publicly about the systematic racism that they experience on a daily basis – as long as their view of the world doesn’t differ from our own.

Or, we can take the extra step to try to understand what Beyoncé is saying and why she feels the way she does. We can try to figure out what it is about Black solidarity and Black pride that feels so threatening. We can take any hurt feelings we have about the lack of non-Black back-up dancers to consider the impact that the overwhelming whiteness of modern television and movies has on people of color, both on and off the screen, and question the double standard. We can consider why Beyoncé is the beloved diva of hip-hop when she sings about putting a ring on it or glams it up in couture, but becomes the target of public vitriol when she reminds us she is a Black woman with Southern roots who fervently believes #BlackLivesMatter.

We can take the extra step and actually read the many amazing posts analyzing Beyoncé’s lyrics, Super Bowl performance, and video to educate ourselves about the history, imagery, and messages they contain. We can listen – really listen – to the reactions of the Black community, with the intention of learning and understanding.

We can also recognize where limitations in our understanding of Black history impede our ability to engage in productive discussion. Many people equated Beyoncé’s nod to the Black Panthers and Malcolm X with an anti-white, pro-violence message. The Panthers are known to many white Americans as “that militant Black group,” the yin to Martin Luther King’s non-violent yang. We know their history as told from the white perspective.

In fact, the Black Panthers were formed in the 1960s for the purpose of defending black communities from police brutality being directed at persons of color as they advocated for their civil rights. They were armed for self-defense (like many Americans today), not to promote violence. They organized free breakfast programs for children and medical clinics for people of all colors, programs that represented a coming together of revolutionaries in service to their community. (Formation, anyone?) And as they rallied communities to take control of their own destinies, they sowed the seeds of the Black Pride movement – something Beyoncé spoke to as she sang, I like my baby hair, with baby hair and afros; I like my Negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.

The parallels between the conditions under which the Black Panthers formed and the civil rights issues of today are uncanny. After four years that have seen the shootings of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown (just to name a few), the Charleston church massacre, and videos of Black teenage girls thrown to the ground by law enforcement at pool parties and in the classroom, Beyoncé put the #BlackLivesMatter front and center. That it made so many people angry and uncomfortable speaks to how far we still have to go.

The post Beyoncé Spoke. Did You Listen? first appeared on BonBon Break.

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This post was written syndicated with permission from Meagan Francis. 

The post Racism Begins – And Ends – In The Home first appeared on BonBon Break.

In the thick of the 1992 presidential election, I was a senior in college. I lived in a three-room suite with Lisa Chung and Tess Miller.*  We were African-American, Taiwanese, and WASP, and did almost everything together.  We were a walking Benetton ad.

Lisa and I were staunch Democrats, who would cast our first votes for Clinton/Gore.  Tess was an ardent Republican, as was her boyfriend, Isaac.  They were fond of bellowing, “Hello, this is the Clinton/Gore Rapid Response Team!” and bursting into hysterics. Tess’s boyfriend Isaac, a star debater, loved to give us shit for supporting Bill and Al.

One day we had had enough. Lisa spat, “We are voting for them because they at least try to understand what it is like to be a minority in this world.  You have no idea what it’s like for us!  You go on and vote Republican and think about why we wouldn’t in a million years.”

Tess sobbed in her room while we, feeling simultaneously emotionally cleansed and monstrous, stomped off to the Wawa, the campus version of 7-11.  We’d eat away our stress and anger about race, class, and senior year in the form of empty calories.

Lisa and I knew that Tess, a wealthy girl from the Chicago suburbs couldn’t be expected to know what it was like to be a middle-class person of color. Tess loved us for being us, and thought little about our minority status, so much so that she forgot about it. She meant well, or at least she meant no harm.

But still.

Sometimes white friends like Tess have been sweetly innocent. In the summer of 1993, I was a 20-year-old college graduate.  Which meant that when ID was required for the bars we were trolling in NYC, I was screwed. My fake ID wouldn’t have fooled a preschooler.  One night a friend, a beautiful olive-skinned woman, tipsily piped up with an idea.

“Hey, Keesha! You can borrow my ID!”

I looked at her like she had three heads. Another friend blurted out, “Um, Kate? Keesha’s black.”

We had a good laugh over that.  How adorable!

In 2005, during an ultra-feminine bonding session, replete with wine, snacks, wicked memories, and belly laughs, another dear friend tearfully declared, “I don’t think of you as black.  You’re just my friend.”

Again, deer in the headlights.  This time there was no one else there to come to my rescue. Seriously? And yet, I knew what she meant.

She couldn’t believe that anyone would refuse to be my friend because of ignorant, racist ideas. Lamenting the horrible world that put so much baggage on our being friends, she sincerely meant no harm.

But still.

Twenty-three years later, in the wake of the virulent racism Barack Obama’s everything has unleashed; the murders of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice,  John Crawford, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, and countless others; and a media where racial issues seem to have replaced sex as a way to inflame people, I’m less likely to tolerate the colorblind friend.

Recently, in speaking about my piece Dear White Mom, I discussed the fear I have for my young son growing up in America.  A close friend informed me that all I had to do is make sure he stayed out of trouble and remained respectful to the police.

Dear God.

I launched into a diatribe about how that was not the case for so many men of color all over the country. My friend honestly didn’t understand.  To him, it was simple, because, colorblindness right?  The rules were applied equitably.  If only (Insert Black Man Shot here) had done the right thing, he’d still be alive.  I was enraged.

A few months later, we found ourselves discussing racism in the ballet world.  Our conversation got heated and ugly.  I mentioned Michaela dePrince, an outstanding dark-skinned ballet dancer who performed at the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix — a dancer offered not a single contract with any major company in the United States, save Dance Theater of Harlem.  I mentioned the fact that there are frighteningly few African-American ballet dancers in the major companies in the United States.  “If the ballet world, if any organization or institution truly values diversity, it must reach out to people of color.” My friend did not agree at all.

Our argument roiled on. “You really don’t think that Michaela dePrince’s lack of being offered a contract had nothing to do with race?” I asked. He couldn’t say that it did, wouldn’t even entertain the idea that at least in some cases it must have, which was all I wanted.

I was furious. “You really don’t get what it’s like to be black in America!” I snapped.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be white!”

That said it all.  Our evening was over.

We saw each other a week later. We revisited the matter in guarded tones. My friend admitted that racism existed but was leery of calling it out until he was absolutely sure.  I, on the other hand, could only be leery of a person who thought racism deserved the benefit of the doubt.  It scares me when colorblindness makes people equate a loss of an opportunity based on race to being short or having acne.  I can’t wholeheartedly trust someone who cannot fully support policies that would prevent little boys and little girls like me from achieving.

The panoramic lenses of race and class and color that filter American life have shaded our experiences in vastly different ways.  Sometimes it’s like we’re looking at separate worlds.  Some people see America as a generally level playing field.

I can’t.

Admittedly, I’m lucky to have friends with whom I can speak about race openly and honestly. But the conversations are still painful.

Sometimes colorblindness is exactly the way it should be. I’m friends with certain people because we share a love of Seinfeld, SNL, slightly offbeat fashion, early 90s hip-hop, non-stop sarcasm, Jon Stewart, and have each others’ backs always. But colorblindness can never mean walking through America’s jagged racial landscape with a thick blindfold and earplugs and meaning well.  Although I’ve been called an Oreo more times than I care to admit — a problem in itself– nothing could be further from the truth.

This skin means something.

Beware the Colorblind Friend. This skin means something.
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*All names have been changed.

READ MORE FROM KEESHA:

• Have Some White Privilege With Your Coffee
• Mixed Blessings: Living in a Biracial Family
• 20 Things An Only Child Will Learn About Siblings

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This post was written by Keesha Beckford exclusively for BonBon Break Media, LLC

The post To My Colorblind Friend first appeared on BonBon Break.