Occasionally, I’d occupy white spaces. My church, for example, had more white people than I was used to. I attended a couple summer camps. My dad refereed basketball games at schools in the suburbs. I never felt more out of place than in these environments. I had the same skin as these girls, but just like I didn’t have the newest Jordans, I didn’t even understand why someone would want Uggs. If I tried to speak to them, they’d find ways to walk away or change the subject. They called me ‘weird’ and wouldn’t talk to me. They thought I was gross for loving McDonalds and not owning an eye-lash curler. Unlike my peers of color, who judged my whiteness, the white girls my age judged me. I resented these white people, who were allowed to live in the privileges of whiteness without abandon. I felt like they didn’t get, and I also didn’t get it, but I was reminded every day that I didn’t get it, and they just got to not get it and also get everything they wanted. These feelings strengthened my solidarity with people of color.
In the same vein, when a friend of color stayed over my house and commented that shit there was crazy, I felt weirdly vindicated. I was definitely embarrassed while the ‘crazy shit’ was going down, but ultimately I liked my friends acknowledging my difficulties. Finally, I felt like I was seen beyond my whiteness. A human-connection. A taste of community.
When I started private high school as a scholarship kid and the only student from Bridgeport, my racial identity was even more muddied. I looked like my peers, but I didn’t dress like them, or talk like them, or know what the fuck they were talking about 95% of the time. Their conversations were boring, about thigh gaps or Ke$ha songs. Where were the spontaneous free style sessions? Fights? Hilarious aunts and the never ending co-ed Wall Ball games?
The school was doubly segregated, by gender and race. Girls didn’t eat the lunch food. They complained about it. They dumped full plates of food and went back for basic cereal. I was in heaven, and didn’t mind asking for or eating their left overs. Girls just sat around trying to be noticed by the guys who were playing lacrosse trying to be noticed by the girls. Boys sat around waiting for someone to do something to make bad jokes about. The students of colors all sat at one table, and I wanted to sit with them so bad. They were talking and laughing and living how I was used to, but they were all from New Haven outreach programs and already knew each other. What’s more, the school was so obliviously white that students of color needed to create their own safe space. Their discomfort amongst our white peers was unfathomable compared to mine.
As I had learned to do, I dove into my education inside and outside of class. I got lost in art and what I loved. I hung out with whoever I ended up around and made the most of it. I struggled to keep up with my peers, since I had an unstable home life, a longer commute, fewer resources, and no money, and also no awareness that this was the case. I didn’t realize how different my peers’ home circumstances were. I understood my struggle to be a fault of my incompetence and not a consequence of class chasms.
Race and class discomforts became less dominant narratives as my identity as a perpetual outsider developed. I felt “other” because I, as an individual, was defective. The world was doing me such a favor letting me stay here, and all I could do to show my gratitude was continue to live with as much earnest love and passion as possible.