P.G. County

“Stop talking white!”

“Whatever, Kunta Kinte…”

“You British or something?”

Ghana

“Ay, where are you from?”

“No, you are saying it wrong; your name is ‘Nah-sah-clay’”

“It is awful how your generation does not know our languages. You are too American.”

I grew up in '90s era Hyattsville, when Jordans, Timbs and North Face jackets might get you shot, and being good at school meant you were trying to be white. I grew up as the third child and first daughter (literally, Naa-Sakle is a family name representing the first girl in a lineage) of a traditional Ghanaian family that valued “the Queen’s English” and Ivy League schools. My purple jeans and nappy hair didn’t quite fit in amongst people who looked like me…anywhere. And so, feeling shunted by my peers, I spent time with those who understood my perspective, knew the words to the musical numbers in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and at the very least, didn’t make fun of me. Unsurprisingly, this crowd was overwhelmingly white. When I went to boarding school (blanket statement: African immigrants LOVE boarding school), my previous exposure to eggshell whiteness only half-prepared me for what I’ve come to know as blinding bleached whiteness.

Amongst the sea of milk, I found a fellow Oreo (how could I have forgotten to list this—“your corns are triflin, oreo”.[2]) Her name was Ashley. She was tall and light-skinned, whereas I was short and real dark, like, "African black.” She knew how to hot comb her hair, her nails were always manicured, her outfits were always on point, and in short, she was most things I was not—except, she sounded like me. She was my first real black friend and I love(d) her. There were other black people at this school, but by this time, I had learned to stay away from other black girls. These were mostly older and seemed nice enough, but they were real New Yorkers, the type of girls who grow up to be women deemed angry by society. At the time, I didn’t realize that my past experiences were unjustly forcing a narrative onto them, borne of the dominant culture. All I knew was that one once approached me, laughing, saying, “I think this track is yours.” I was mortified.

Around this time, my mother returned to our native Ghana. During the summers, I endured daily the type of comments I had previously only been exposed to at holidays. In short, I wasn’t Ghanaian enough. The way I carried myself (apparently) screamed, “not from here.” Sometimes it was just my looks. At other times, my sins were subtler, for example, not pouring a guest a drink within their eyesight. (“What are you doing here?” a local chief recently asked me, in my home, at my grandmother’s wake…) And so in Ghana too, I would walk around the Accra Mall or Papaye (delicious offbrand Popeye’s) with a Harry Potter book in one hand and my mom’s hand in the other. Seeing foreigners (i.e. white people), I’d think, "we have a connection, will you be my best friend?"

And then came college, the apex of my black fervency. Ashley and I both went to Wellesley, where she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha. This aligned with the intersectionality of a black woman completely at ease in Lily Pulitzer. I, on the other hand, having never heard of the Alphas in particular, or national black sororities in general, contented myself with plunging headfirst into black society on campus. Harambee House? Check! Chocolate City Parties at MIT? Check! But amongst boys, I felt like I could only not be the object of attraction for so long before I gave up. And amongst women, it was easy to let my own doubts get the best of me. This time, instead of retreating into the familiar (familiar at least in terms of the dominantly "white" culture—homogenous in thought, if not in look), I gravitated towards other "others." All my POC queer trans men, if you going to school and y'all need nobody to help you handle your business, make some nooooiiiise! And oh haaaay people from every different nation, Spanish, Haitian, Indian, Jamaican, Black, White, Cuban and Asian.”

In a thoroughly adult Sesame Street way, I began to value not only the differences that made everyone else special, but those that differentiated me as well. Along the way, I realized that I wasn't important enough for anyone to judge. Most people will give you a chance, if you genuinely care, and that's as much as you can ask for. Looking back, the times I've felt judged, insecure or inadequate usually have more to do with me projecting onto someone else (besides all the times someone shouted, "I'm about to catch me a sweet tooth, black chocolate" which happens more often than I'd like).

And so, after graduating, finding finance, and moving on. Then after finding grad school, finance, and moving on, I founded a company with my mom. It's not African; it's not American—it's both African and American. We help US and global consumers not be ashy, by sharing a secret my grandma was placenta deep in. As a midwife, Grandma Sunshine used shea butter for moms and children throughout the birthing process and beyond. Now, the western world has caught on. We bridge the gap between rural shea nut pickers and global shea butter demand. Along with boosting economic development in these rural areas. We donate 15 percent of our profits to an education fund benefiting our workers' children.

Now, it's 2017 and I'm running a company that harmonizes both parts of myself. To anyone who has seen the commercial (you know the one), it's pretty clear someone made a mistake. But I'm a Ghanaian woman married to a white man (who has made me happier than I've ever been), and I'm in a position where most Shea Moisture backlash should only benefit me, but all I'm thinking is, am I black enough to be your brand?

[1] Maybe the fact that I'm basing the title of this article on a Sheryl Crow song answers my question, but…

[2] How could I have forgotten the classic oreo insult?! Here used in combination with my favorite diss of all time (trifflin), not because anyone ever actually used them together to make fun of me, but because I thought it should be known that I spent a decade of my life trying to hide my baby toe and there’s nowhere else in this essay for that disclosure.

nakuete

Writing since January 2017 · 1 story contributed