On the afternoon of February 27th, I went into the bottom cafe at my HBCU – "hangry" from breakfast deprivation and glad to see that there was no line at the surprisingly delicious, knock-off, oven-baked pizza joint. I walk up and the cashier looks at me like he wants to say something fresh, but I'm not inclined to encourage a flirtatious conversation for various reasons. He bags my order then offers me a free slice of their new "Sana Fe" pizza so that I can taste it and give him my opinion. Rarely declining good free food, I take a bite and as I'm letting the taste of warm, fresh bell peppers and onions titillate my taste buds (that pizza was bussin'!), the cashier says to me…"You have a unique face….Have you ever heard that before?" 

I take a break from chewing my pizza, cover my mouth, and say "I mean I've heard it once or twice." Then he asks the golden question…well actually, he asked what my nationality was, but he meant "ethnicity".

I firmly say "I'm black." And with a surprised face, complete with raised eyebrows and a gaping pie hole, this man replies with "Oh, word?!"

I grab my pizza to leave and he says, flirtatiously, that I should come back to see them (the good folks at the pizza joint) again. 

I was so taken aback by his reaction that I neglected to rip him to shreds and literally teach him his lesson. Ironically, I was actually dismayed that this clearly black man could not believe that I was just… black. I say "ironically" because although I've experienced various renditions of that scenario, I still managed to find myself surprised. I almost let the euphoria of black pride that's recently swept the nation, make me forget the reality of the world I live in. Quite frankly, it's disheartening and at times infuriating that even at an HBCU, real-life Wakanda of today (only by the number of black people at any given time in one localized area), it's apparently still not okay just to be a black woman.

I am of a lighter complexion, my features look more Asian (maybe I have stronger Khoisan genes), one of my paternal great grandmothers was Portuguese, and one of my maternal great grandmothers is Native American. My paternal grandfather and his part of the family actually live on the island of St. Kitts. Yet, I dare say… all of that has little to nothing to do with my immediate family's culture or our observed traditions, and thus, are simply fun facts about my family tree.

Growing up, I'd hear my mother tell me and other adults that she was happy that I "came out [of the womb] with a lighter complexion" than herself (a beautiful, ageless, chocolate goddess) because society would treat me better. While she was not wrong, and certainly did not mean any harm, she instilled the foundation of colorism into me at a young age. Up to my freshman year of college, I found validation in other people assuming that I was "black and something else" because I knew black people associated those things with beauty. I saw more beauty in girls who looked like me than in the darker black women around me. It wasn't until people started speaking Patios and French Creole at me out of nowhere because they assumed I could do the same, that I saw it as a problem. I had/have no understanding of their language or culture and I didn't like that I was expected to be more than who I was just because I looked like people whose ancestors were probably dropped of at a different port than mine. I began to feel alienated and thought that maybe I should try to claim the other parts of my heritage too. But I didn't and admittedly still don't know much about it, and mama ain't raise no poser. So in turn, I became that much more proud of who I was and what my family was about. More importantly, I realized that a black woman should not be expected to be mixed-race or identify as some other kind of black besides black American, just because she looks like people from another ethnicity. The contrary is a literal logical fallacy. "Cute. Thus, less black" is a hurtful and downright stupid notion that should not be imposed on b lack women, ever.

I consider the term "black" as nothing more than a cover-all identifier that describes brown people of any kind of African heritage. Because it's a cover-all term, "black" spans our people from the dazzling Amara La Negras, who can proudly celebrate Latin heritage, the beautifully blasian Chanel Imans, all the way to the oh-so-handsome Chadwick Boseman's, who, like me, may honor soul food, family reunions, and HBCU homecomings as tradition. I look at it this way: due to migration, immigration, European colonization, and slavery, black American people automatically come from all over and have genetic makeups and physical traits that show it, despite the direct racial identity of their parents. Whether we know it or not, we are tied to various countries and ethnicity. And still, we are all worth celebrating, just because.

"Black. Thus, amazing. Period."