The first time I experienced colorism, it was in relation to the sun. It was almost as if the universe was telling me to be dark, yet the shine was what hurt the most.
 

But how can one possibly hide from the very thing that gives them life?

 

Every year my aunt and uncle throw a huge party for the fourth of July that includes a mechanical bull, video game trucks, slip n’ slides, and a ton of illegal fireworks. I’m not sure how my family knows so many black people, but they always pour through the doors, letting in moths that cling to the lights as the night grows dim and the doors stay open. Everyone looks forward to the evening when the sun disappears, and fireworks take its place. So, when the stars find themselves in the dark after an onslaught of color, their silence is interrupted by a heavy bass and swaying bodies:

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Red light, green light, red light, green light
Red light, green light, they like
We like fast cars, fast money, fast life, fast broads
Egotistic, goin' ballistic, why God?
Born warrior, lookin' for euphoria
But I don't see it, I don't feel it, I'm paraplegic
...
-Kendrick Lamar, King’s Dead

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This specific party on this specific year may seem nonessential, but it is important to know why I loved my cousins' house so much. My cousins' house was a place that I not only felt safe, but a place where I found the joy in my blackness. It was a place where I was unconcerned about the two worlds I lived in, a white and a black one, and could wholly be myself. This house has many memories for me, like when the parents told the kids to go to the basement and play while they did “adult stuff” upstairs, which was code for “go away so that we can drink and swear and do things that become difficult with you always around.” We did so many wild things in that basement.

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And still I wonder, how is one supposed to find solace in a home that begins to feel foreign?

 

I was standing in the center of the field during track practice, laughing with my teammates and doing whatever any group of girls does when a coach isn’t watching. We giggled and laughed and played with the dandelions in the grass, singing “mommy had a baby and its head popped off” as we flicked the base of its head, where it transformed into a root, with our thumbs, snapping the vibrant yellow down into the grass.

Suddenly, one of my friends mentions that she wished we were sitting in the shade because she was “already too dark.” At first, I was genuinely confused- is there really such a thing as too dark? And if so, how could we possibly avoid the sun? It seemed crazy to me, hiding from the very thing that gives us life.

 

How do you teach a child to look to the sun when people are yelling at her from the dirt?

 

So, the day after the fourth of July when I sat on the couch, I was not expecting my safe place to be infiltrated. I was in high school at that time and he was sitting on the couch next to me, with shaded lines on his face from the blinds. I struggle to remember how we got on this topic, most likely due to my uncle teasing us about boyfriends and girlfriends, but I do remember how he made me feel when he said, “all black girls are ugly.”

I was momentarily blinded, as if I had looked straight into the sun and I pushed away from him, disgusted with his touch.

He looked genuinely hurt. But I wonder if he remembers this moment as vividly as I do.

 

Is a cat still a cat when it barks like a dog? Is a home still a home when it’s creaks and leaks wake you up at night?
 

But my teammate really believed it. In future conversations, I would hear her complain about how black she has become in the summer sun, and how she looked better in the winter. And she wasn’t the only one. Over the years I would hear many different people, of various different complexions, complain about how the sun was taking their perceived beauty away. The sun became an enemy, and even I found myself brainstorming ways to fend for myself.

 

What is one to do when ignorance attacks from all sides?