Draw Topic & Writing Ideas From This Essay On Black Is Beautiful

This essay looks at my heritage and how I define myself by race through skin colour, family history, the advantages of privilege and the disadvantages of race. Finally, I look at what life or historical events have influenced my identity and what written works I have read in order to learn more about where I come from.
When I was a child I did not know that my skin was the wrong colour. Being loved and sheltered as a child hides you from the nastiness of the world until you have to go out into it. My parents were not rich but they had enough money so my mother could stay home with me and my sister. And until I was about 4 years old, I had no idea that people weren’t all the same. It wasn’t until I was in the market with my mother one day that this woman who had very pale skin came up to my mother and said, “Isn’t that a cute little monkey.” I had no I idea that meant something bad. I just knew my mother yelled at the woman and said something about “racist.”
Years later I thought of how hard that must have been on my mother because she always wanted us to know we were just perfect in our skin, no different from any other little girls or boys our age. Yet, as I started school and hung out with other kids I noticed sometimes they would say hurtful things to me about my hair being so dark and curly or that the inside of my hands were a different colour than the back of my hands. There were things I knew, but never thought they were worth discussing. They were just me.
As a young adult off to university, I was active in groups that had to do with what I now know is my race. I also started writing and talking to tell people in everyday words that racism and sexism are not okay. I began to think about my mother in the market that day and wondered if it was then I got the idea to talk to people and to tell them what I think. I wondered if my mother was an activist like me. To me she was just a stay-at-home mom, but maybe she was doing her own activism in her own way. My grandparents, I never knew them, but heard they worked hard for a family down south. That was a nice way to say they were slaves.
When I look back at where my family came from, I recognize I am privileged to be living at this time. I have it easier than my mother and she had it easier than my grandmother. And yet, while they fought racism every day of their lives, they still learned to have the strength to move forward to better themselves and our family. And in that I have privilege. Primarily because now I have access to an international media outlet, the Internet, and can get out and voice my thoughts and opinions across the world. And because of this I have a considerable following. Then again, I realize how really disadvantaged I am because of the colour of my skin. I recognize that my fight is no different than my mother’s, my grandmother’s and the mothers before her. You see, as long as our world believes that white is best, then any colour other than white will never be fully advantaged.
Finally, in considering what events have influenced my understanding of who I am are extensive. The race wars in the U.S. are a big one. Listening to old tapes of Martin Luther King and Malcom X are others. Reading first-hand accounts from slaves in the south helps me understand where my grandmother came from and the residual affects her treatment has on the family. And finally, I am inspired by poets such as bell hooks, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou. In these women I hear the voices of my ancestors and the cries of so many who never had a voice. And, I too hear my voice in this new generation speaking out about my skin colour – black is indeed beautiful.