So this post is sort of dedicated to the teacher I have been helping along with Martin at the Art Museum. By the way, this is not a good dedication. Not that I don’t like the teacher in fact I do, let’s call him Mr.Brown cause he is brown (no offense intended). Anyway it was something that he said that caught my attention( and not in a good way). Ok, so i am just setting up the paint station, Martin- who happens to be white- is out of the room at the moment and he says to me “Mercy, how is it dealing with black kids when you are so smart”. So at that moment i’m like wait a second is that what i just heard from this black person. So i know he was referring to African Americans in general when he mentioned black people since we are in America. So my response was that ever since I had been living here, I have gone to school for smart people (i.e. magnet schools -google for reference). So irregardless of race, we were all there to learn. Sure there was the bullies but mainly those bullies bullied out of jealousy of my intelligence like when I would teach the class a shortcut I had discovered for a Math question. So we went on talking where he stated “all these black children here are just lazy, don’t want to use their brains”. What i wanted to say was “that’s a generalization and i think it’s unfair to make that statement considering there are black children who work hard in school”. But what i said was “true. but I usually don’t surround myself with those people. I usually hang out with foreigners or children of foreigners”. But recently, I have started hanging out with the black kids of my IB college program and these are people who are fully committed to success like me. So anyway, back to Mr.Brown. The conversations transitions  to talking about the diversity in our schools. Martin goes to a private school-primarily white- and says that he wishes that even though he is friends with a Nigerian and Korean, he wishes there was more diversity.

Anyway when I went home, I started thinking about this more especially how one of the black ladies in charge of the black kids at the museum had asked me where I was from because I talk different-“like a white person”. And black people always try to mock me for not talking like them- despite the fact that I am black. So this led me to the revelation that race doesn’t define anything except your race. It doesn’t define how you walk, dress, eat, talk, laugh, drive,..anything. But why do people make it that way. Obviously it’s the environment. Look at Eminem for example he’s a white person but raps and talks like a black person from the inner city while in society he’s not supposed to rap or talk like that. But where  Eminem came from people rapped and talked like that and now so does he. So i am sick and tired of these people who look at you and put you in a box. “OH, you’re black- go into the black box where you behave this way”. But many people don’t fit into those boxes. Like me for example. Like, why would someone expect me to speak like an African American when I AM AFRICAN! It annoys me. I spoke British English before I got here, not ebonics English. And when i started to live here, I didn’t move into the inner city and I didn’t go to a inner city school. So why in the hell do people expect me to speak like I am from the inner city. Because of the color of my skin?! Honestly, those stiff necked fools “can have several seats” (slang for sit down and shut up). So my Kenyan people, if you’re planning to come to America at some point you should be ready to face color based discrimination.  In conclusion, America is a complicated place.

NB: If you have any questions or remarks please feel free to comment or use the “contact me” section.