THe Fieldtrip

I didn't realize how pissed I was until I really thought about this moment again. After waking up late, being unsure of the what time I needed to be at the train station, riding the train to the last stop in SF, nearly falling to my death while getting on a bus because the bus driver was "in transition," if you know what I mean, and decided to take it out on her unsuspecting passengers, and trekking uphill in 4 inch heel boots, I was bombarded with ignorance. Before we were allowed into the theater, other schools started to arrive. There was a group of "urban youth," my peers if you may, that looked at me with complete disdain. Here I was: the only black kid in a group of interesting looking white kids with our preppy-looking white teacher. It didn't help that I was wearing a leopard print blouse. Now, this is a look I've grown all too familiar with. I will admit that I'm different from the stereotypical black youth. But, so what?

At first I thought that I was overreacting, simply projecting my paranoia on this group of students that embodied everything that most people accept as black. After years of having my blackness questioned, you can understand my suspicion.
But I wasn’t wrong. While I was talking with Madelyn, I could hear this black girl talking to her Latina friends about me. Words like “whitewashed” and “sellout” came up. They would look at me and sneer. And I was pissed. Who the hell were they to judge the extent of my blackness? Who crowned them rulers of all things black? So what if I don’t like every single rap and R&B song? So what if I don’t rock the new Jordans and Girbaud everyday? So what if I’d rather code-switch than explain the phonetics of Ebonics to the white people I associate with everyday? That doesn’t make me any less black than them. Let me say that they are extremely fortunate that I was on a school fieldtrip because I would have shown them just how “black” I can be. And what really pushed my buttons was the fact the little Latina girls thought that they could educate me on the art of being black. I wanted to say, “Look here, chicas. The last time I checked ustedes son Mexicanas, not black.

Still stuck on this concept of “what is black,” I couldn’t enjoy the student film that came before “When the Levies Broke.” I just couldn’t get pass the names: Quaneecha, Ramisi, and others of the sort. During the short film, I kept thinking to myself, “ God, what the hell is wrong with black people? Why can’t they name their children something that the kids can spell? Why do they have to be so damn ignorant? And why does everybody think that wearing baggy jeans, being able to quote to newest rap song, and saying ‘yo’ a whole bunch of times makes you black? News flash people: it doesn’t!” I was still caught up in this train of thought when the movie started.